JEROBOAM is the name, in the Bible, of two kings of north ern Israel.
I. Son of Nebat (loth century B.c.). A corvee overseer under Solomon, who incurred the suspicion of the king as an instrument of the popular democratic and prophetic parties. He fled to Egypt, but was recalled by the northern tribes on the refusal of Rehoboam, son of Solomon, to accept the constitutional terms offered to him at his accession. To counteract the political in fluence of the sanctuary of the house of David at Jerusalem, he established (or perhaps, rather, especially favoured) the bull cults of Bethel and Dan, a step which the later historian re garded as responsible for all the religious failings and political dis asters of the north. The inevitable war between Jeroboam and Rehoboam seems to have gone at first in favour of the South, but the power of Judah was permanently checked by an Egyptian invasion under Sheshonk, who captured a number of cities in Palestine (not including Jerusalem) and exacted an enormous tribute from Rehoboam.
2. Son of Joash (8th century B.c.). The last of the great kings of Israel, after whose death the country fell into confusion and ultimate servitude. Aided, perhaps, by Assyrian pressure from the east, he brought to an end the long struggle between Syria and Israel, and definitely established the superiority of the latter over Damascus. The record in I Kings xiv. 23 states that his kingdom extended from the borders of Hamath on the Orontes to the Dead Sea, and it seems clear that he recovered territory in Transjordania, which had long been in the hands of Damascus. Two cities in that district are apparently mentioned in Am. vi. 13—Ashtoreth–Karnaim and Lodebar—as having been recently captured in 76o. The reign of Jeroboam II. saw the greatest success and outward prosperity which Israel had known since the days of Solomon, though the social conditions depicted by Amos meant a national rottenness that could only end in disaster. (T. H. R.)