1 Kings 12:4

12:4 “Your father made us work too hard. ¹  Now if you lighten the demands he made and don’t make us work as hard, we will serve you.” ² 

1 Kings 12:11

12:11 My father imposed heavy demands on you; I will make them even heavier. ³  My father punished you with ordinary whips; I will punish you with whips that really sting your flesh.’” ⁴ 

1 Kings 14:31

14:31 Rehoboam passed away ⁵  and was buried with his ancestors in the city of David. His mother was an Ammonite named Naamah. His son Abijah ⁶  replaced him as king.

1 Kings 15:3

15:3 He followed all the sinful practices of his father before him. He was not wholeheartedly devoted to the Lord his God, as his ancestor David had been. ⁷ 

¹ tn Heb “made our yoke burdensome.”

² tn Heb “but you, now, lighten the burdensome work of your father and the heavy yoke which he placed on us, and we will serve you.” In the Hebrew text the prefixed verbal form with vav (וְנַעַבְדֶךָ, [vÿna’avdekha] “and we will serve you”) following the imperative (הָקֵל [haqel], “lighten”) indicates purpose (or result). The conditional sentence used in the translation above is an attempt to bring out the logical relationship between these forms.

³ tn Heb “and now my father placed upon you a heavy yoke, but I will add to your yoke.”

⁴ tn Heb “My father punished you with whips, but I will punish you with scorpions.” “Scorpions” might allude to some type of torture using poisonous insects, but more likely it refers to a type of whip that inflicts an especially biting, painful wound. Cf. CEV “whips with pieces of sharp metal.”

⁵ tn Heb “lay down with his fathers.”

⁶ tn In the Hebrew text the name is spelled “Abijam” here and in 1 Kgs 15:1-8.

⁷ tn Heb “his heart was not complete with the Lord his God, like the heart of David his father.”