1 KINGS 12:10 — KING JAMES VERSION 0 0
“And the young men that were grown up with him spake unto him, saying, Thus shalt thou speak unto this people that spake unto thee, saying, Thy father made our yoke heavy, but make thou it lighter unto us; thus shalt thou say unto them, My little finger shall be thicker than my father’s loins.”
And the young men who had grown up with him said to him, 'Thus shall you speak to this people who said to you, "Your father made our yoke heavy, but you lighten it for us"; thus shall you say to them, "My little finger is thicker than my father's loins." — The young men's counsel is breathtakingly arrogant: they recast the king's restraint as weakness and counsel him toward an ostentatious display of power. "My little finger is thicker" employs hyperbolic anatomical language to suggest that Rehoboam's smallest power exceeds Solomon's greatest strength. This counsel invokes an ancient Near Eastern idiom of overwhelming force, but in the context of an oppressed people, it is catastrophically misjudged.
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