How are you advised. This means: [When deliberating] among yourselves, what advice occurs to you to relay to me?

**Le-ha-‘am ha-zeh (=to this nation)—**with a definite hei, as is warranted, even though it is usually omitted to ease [pronunciation].

And said: Akhbid et ‘ullekhem. [Rehoboam] should have said: “My father hikhbid et ‘ullekhem (=made your yoke heavy), and I will add to what he did”! To explain [the verse], therefore, [we must assign to it] some elided material, as follows: Akhbid ‘ullekhem (=I will make your yoke heavy) just as my father did, only I will add to what he did. Alternatively, the alef in akhbid (אכביד) is in place of a hei, and this is an infinitive—similar to avrekh (אברך; =to kneel; Gen 41:43) and ashkem (אשכם; =persisting; Jer 25:3)—so that the meaning is: My father decided le-hakhbid ‘ullekhem (=to make your yoke heavy), and I will add to what he did.

For it was nesibbah from God. In the book of Kings [it says], “For it was sibbah (=an orchestrated occurrence)” (1 Kgs 12:15), which is a noun. But nesibbah is a Niphal that does not denote an action, which is akin to an adjective: the text means to say that there was a gezerah nesibbah (=preordained decree) on the part of God that [Rehoboam] would listen to the advice of the young ones.