Charles Ellicott Commentary 1 Kings 11:26

"And Jeroboam the son of Nebat, an Ephraimite of Zeredah, a servant of Solomon, whose mother`s name was Zeruah, a widow, he also lifted up his hand against the king." — 1 Kings 11:26 (ASV)

Jeroboam the son of Nebat. The life and character of Jeroboam are given in considerable detail in the history. It is also remarkable that in some of the manuscripts of the Septuagint, we find an independent account of his early history inserted after 1 Kings 12:24 (see Note at the end of the chapter). This account is generally of inferior authority and has several suspicious features, but it perhaps preserves some genuine details. As the great rebel against the House of David, the leader of the revolution that 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 until 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 1 Kings 7:46 and 2 Chronicles 4:17), a town of Ephraim in the Jordan valley. The Vatican manuscript of the Septuagint, 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.