Jeroboam the son of Nebat. — The life and character of Jeroboam are given in considerable detail in the history; and it is also remarkable that in some of the MSS. of the LXX. we find inserted after 1 Kings 12:24 an independent account of his early history (see Note at the end of the chapter), generally of inferior authority, and having several suspicious features, but perhaps preserving some genuine details. As the great rebel against the House of David, the leader of the revolution which divided Israel and destroyed its greatness, the introducer of the idolatry of the temples of Dan and Bethel, and the corrupter of the worship of Jehovah in deference to an astute worldly policy, he stands out in a vividness of portraiture unapproached, till we come to the history of Ahab at the close of the book.
An Ephrathite of Zereda. — The word “Ephrathite,” which mostly means an inhabitant of Ephrata or Bethlehem, is here (as in 1 Samuel 1:1) simply another form of the name Ephraimite. Zereda is mostly supposed to be Zarthan (see 7:46 and 2 Chronicles 4:17), a town of Ephraim in the Jordan valley. The Vatican MS. of the LXX., by a slight change in the Hebrew, reads Sarira, which is probably a rendering of Zererah or Zererath (Judges 7:22), and, in the additional record noticed above, makes it a strong fortified place in Mount Ephraim.
The son of a widow woman. — This phrase, added to the phrase “Solomon’s servant,” is evidently designed to mark the utterly dependent condition from which Solomon’s favour raised the future rebel.