1 Kings 12:25 sets before us a couple of measures of the new king of Israel, Jeroboam, put into effect. The first is the establishment of a new capital city, Shechem. The text asserts that he built it,
and that of course is something that could not be done instantly. The other thing to consider is that this is not the first time we meet a place called Shechem in the Bible. The name goes back to patriarchal times. It is the place in which Dinah, Jacob’s daughter, was raped and where the sons of Jacob took their revenge upon the rapist and all the men of the town. So, perhaps, between patriarchal times and Jeroboam’s era, the town had been erased in some manner and needed to be rebuilt.
The second thing that was mentioned is that Jeroboam went to build another city, Penuel.
This action was probably designed to erect a bulwark against the incursion of the Syrian and the Amorites. Both of these actions were understandable for the new king of Israel, and could have been done if Jeroboam had been faithful to the Lord’s calling.
25 Then Jeroboam built Shechem in the hill country of Ephraim and lived there. And he went out from there and built Penuel.