[443] "Rehoboam" means "enlarger of the people" (comp. Eurudemos); Jeroboam, "whose people is many" (Poludemos; comp. Thiodric, Thierry). But Cheyne makes it mean "the kingdom contendeth" (Kleinert, _Volkstreiter_).
[444] So we read in the LXX. Cod. Vat., and (partly) in the Vulgate (see Robertson Smith, _The Old Testament_, p. 117). Unless Jeroboam had spontaneously returned from Egypt on hearing of the death of Solomon, there would hardly have been time to summon him thence. 2 Chron. x. 2 represents the matter thus. Possibly his name has crept by error into 1 Kings xii. 3. See Wellhausen-Bleek's _Einleitung_, p. 243.
[445] In the LXX. the Ephraimites complain of the expensive provision for Solomon's table. "Thy father made his yoke grievous upon us, and made grievous to us the meats of his table." LXX. (Cod. Vat.), καὶ ἐβάρυνε τὰ βρώματα τῆς τραπέζης αὐτοῦ.
[446] Dante, _Inferno_, Cant. xxvii.
[447] They are called _yeladim_, which surely cannot apply to men of forty, so that Rehoboam was probably little more than a youth, _na'ar_ (2 Chron. xiii. 7; comp. Gen. xxxiii. 13).
[448] Herod., ii. 124-28.
[449] "My little finger." Heb., "my littleness"; LXX., ἡ μικρότης μου. But the paraphrase is perfectly correct (Vulg., Pesh., Josephus, and the Rabbis).
[450] "Virga si est nodosa et aculeata scorpios vocatur, quia arcuato vulnere in corpus infigitur" (Isodore., _Orig._, i. 175).
[451] 2 Sam. xx. 1.
[452] Or, "Now feed thine own house" (LXX., βόσκε, reading רעה for ראה); and the LXX. adds, "For this man is not (fit) to be a ruler, nor to be a prince." Evidently the revolt was the culmination of those jealousies which the haughty tribe of Ephraim had already manifested in the lives of Gideon, Abimelech, and David.
[453] Heb., "strengthened himself."
[454] In fact, the δωδεκάφυλον became more of a reminiscence than anything else. Simeon, for instance, practically disappeared (1 Chron. iv. 24-43).
[455] 1 Kings xii. 17.