1 Kings 11:30

And Ahijah caught the new garment that was on him, and rent it in twelve pieces:

And Ahijah caught the new garment that was on him, and rent it in twelve pieces. This is the first symbolical action recorded of a prophet. From the rude and imperfect state of language in early times, men would insensibly acquire the habit of communicating ideas by an intermixture of gestures and words; and this practice, called 'the voice of the sign' (Exodus 4:8) was continued in a more advanced condition of social life, when any new or important intelligence was to be communicated, as well fitted to strike the attention, to engage the imagination, and to impress the memory. Hence, it was resorted to by Ahijah on his interview with Jeroboam, (cf. Jeremiah 27:2, etc.) Notwithstanding this privacy, the story, and the prediction connected with it, probably reached the king's ear, and Jeroboam became a marked man. His aspiring ambition, impatient for the death of Solomon, led him to form plots and conspiracies, in consequence of which he was compelled to flee to Egypt. Though chosen of God, he could not wait the course of Gods providence, and therefore incurred the penalty of death by his criminal rebellion. The heavy exactions and compulsory labour (1 Kings 11:28) which Solomon latterly imposed upon his subjects, when his foreign resources began to fail, had prepared the greater part of the kingdom for a revolt under so popular a demagogue as Jeroboam.

But there were other causes which combined to disturb the close of Solomon's reign, and to unsettle his throne. Everything human and earthly, governments as well as humbler associations, has a destined course to run. The kingdom of Israel reached its culminating point under David and Solomon-of vigour and conquest under the former, and of wealth and splendour under the latter. But the fabric of Solomon's grandeur had not the elements of stability; and being corrupt in its internal state, as well as wholly factitious in its external relations with the world, it was dismembered before long, broken into fragments, and like a splendid vision, passed away. The severity of his despotic rule, rivaling the magnificence of the ancient Oriental autocrats, and oppressing his people by grinding exactions to maintain his numerous harem, as well as outraging the feelings of the better classes by his woeful idolatries, trampling upon the national constitution, and altering the character and destiny of Israel by his commercial and unrestricted contact with other nations; above all, having failed to consolidate his widespread empire by the bond of the true religion his government neither enjoyed the blessing of God, nor secured the attachment of the people, and so it declined. Solomon's great sagacity, enlarged by the experience of a long reign, enabled him to foresee the outburst of impending calamities; and the close of his life was embittered by anxious forebodings. His reign realized the prophetic description by Samuel of what the future king in Israel would be and do.