By Siegfried Johnson
I am a Hebrew scholar and pastor, not a political pundit. I find fascinating, however, the similarities between the ceaselessly vilified President Donald Trump and the most maligned of all the ancient kings of Israel, Jeroboam I.
Jeroboam’s Hebrew name may mean, “May the People Increase,” eerily reminiscent of Trump’s MAGA. Imagine Jeroboam entering a packed arena wearing a sky-blue cap, the blue of Israel’s flag, stirring the crowd to a frenzy with his MIGA rally cry: “Make Israel Great Again!”
Making Israel great again is what Jeroboam ben Nebat felt destined to accomplish, coming to power after Solomon’s death in reaction to the intensely detested Big Government taxation policies of Solomon’s son, King Rehoboam.
The Jerusalem Establishment’s reaction to Jeroboam’s unexpected rise to power was fierce, the royal loyalists infected with Stage 5 Jeroboam Derangement Syndrome.
Like Trump, Jeroboam was a non-politician/non-royal raised to power in a populist movement at a time when his political opponent was deeply unpopular and inexplicably unwise. Rejecting the sage advice of his father’s older counselors to ease the taxation burden, Rehoboam dismissed the people as Deplorables.
In similar fashion, a widely unpopular Hillary Clinton neglected the Rustbelt, paving the way for the Trump I administration.
No biblical king was as maliciously smeared as Jeroboam I, in whom the Temple elite detected a core corruption overshadowing his successful policies that established and ruled the northern kingdom of Israel for 40 prosperous years.
The pre-political lives of Trump and Jeroboam were uncannily parallel. Both were hailed as successful builders. Trump’s first Time magazine cover (Jan. 16, 1989) introduced a New York real estate phenomenon, a young Trump flashing the ace of diamonds to show off his wild success.
Jeroboam could have flaunted his own ace, rewarded by Solomon for his building skills after refortifying the gap in Jerusalem’s walls. So impressive was Jeroboam that Solomon made him his secretary of labor (1 Kings 11:26-28).
Jeroboam’s meteoric rise in popularity deeply panicked Solomon. Perceived now as a threat that he had himself created, Solomon sent an assassin to eliminate Jeroboam (1 Kings 11:40), a fate avoided by his fleeing to Egypt.
Similarly, America’s legacy media institutions in 2016 were at first thrilled at Trump’s presidential run, mocking mercilessly while unwittingly providing thousands of hours of free publicity. Deep alarm only set in when the Deep State recognized the threat they themselves had helped create.
Today, threatened by Trump’s resurgence toward a potential Trump II administration, Establishment elites rabidly seek to rid themselves of Trump through the political assassination of lawfare.
Americans aren’t fooled. Reacting to the perceived weaponization of Biden’s Department of Justice, Trump’s poll numbers have risen consistently, leaving leftist pundits incredulous that such third-world tactics are coming up short, each indictment sending Trump’s poll numbers higher.
The most entertaining parallel, for me, is how Jeroboam Derangement Syndrome in the Deuteronomistic narrative was fueled by Jeroboam’s Trump-like actions of “Building the Wall” and “Draining the Swamp.”
Jeroboam’s altars, erected in Dan and Bethel (1 Kings 12:29-30), functioned as a wall-in-reverse, holding people in rather than keeping them out, de-incentivizing people from crossing back to Jerusalem’s Temple, removing the temptation to revert allegiance to Rehoboam.
In short, those altars became Jeroboam’s January 6, his unforgivable insurrection.
For Jeroboam, though, to Build the Wall was common sense, as was Draining the Swamp, which Jeroboam speedily accomplished by removing Establishment Levites from positions of power, installing his own people instead (1 Kings 12:31).
Building the Wall and Draining the Swamp, however necessary for the new kingdom to survive its infancy and then thrive for 200-plus years, earned Jeroboam I the unrelenting hatred of the Temple-based elite.
JDS would not prove easy to cure. Future kings of Israel smartly continued those policies, each earning the formulaic condemnation from Judah’s pundit class: “He did evil, not departing from the sins of Jeroboam.”
Easing the symptoms of JDS did eventually occur, though, during the administration of Jeroboam II, 150 years later. Jeroboam II’s reign was so successful that the Establishment narrative radically shifted, expressing glowing admiration of Jeroboam II for “saving” Israel.
Why abandon the narrative of hate?
Simple. Jeroboam II “restored the border.”
The official assessment reads: “He restored the border of Israel … according to the word of the LORD … for the LORD saw that the distress of Israel was very bitter; there was no one . . . to help Israel. But the LORD had not said that he would blot out the name of Israel from under heaven, so he saved them by the hand of Jeroboam son of Joash” (2 Kings 14:25-27).
Might a similar shift in the official narrative occur in the coming Trump II administration, without waiting 150 years?
It could. Illegal immigration ranks high among issues on the minds of voters. The open border has resulted in a kind of invasion-by-invitation, contributing to a higher percentage of young people and minorities leaning Trump in 2024 than could have been imagined a year ago.
That the current border fiasco is exposing the virtue-signaling hypocrisy of so-called “sanctuary” cities, while entertaining to watch, is little comfort to Americans whose fears are elevated, suspecting that among the unvetted are terrorists intent on carrying out a massive assault on America.
If the symptoms of TDS are to be eased, the prescription must include Trump II’s ability to restore the borders, implementing a sane and safe immigration policy. If addressing any single issue can begin to heal the bitterly partisan political divide, it is the border.
Jeroboam II’s success, according to the biblical narrative, happened because “the LORD had not said that he would blot out the name of Israel from under heaven, so he saved them by the hand of Jeroboam son of Joash.”
Let us pray God has not yet given up on America.
Siegfried Johnson, pastor of Christ of the Hills UMC in Hot Springs Village, Arkansas, holds a graduate degree in Hebrew from the University of Michigan. A research editor and contributor to The Anchor Bible Dictionary (1992), he has authored two novels, “Jeroboam Derangement Syndrome” (2019) and “Dancing with David” (2022).
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