Liberator, or enlarger, of the people
1 Kings 12:1-24; 14:21-311And Rehoboam went to Shechem: for all Israel were come to Shechem to make him king. 2And it came to pass, when Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who was yet in Egypt, heard of it, (for he was fled from the presence of king Solomon, and Jeroboam dwelt in Egypt;) 3That they sent and called him. And Jeroboam and all the congregation of Israel came, and spake unto Rehoboam, saying, 4Thy father made our yoke grievous: now therefore make thou the grievous service of thy father, and his heavy yoke which he put upon us, lighter, and we will serve thee. 5And he said unto them, Depart yet for three days, then come again to me. And the people departed. 6And king Rehoboam consulted with the old men, that stood before Solomon his father while he yet lived, and said, How do ye advise that I may answer this people? 7And they spake unto him, saying, If thou wilt be a servant unto this people this day, and wilt serve them, and answer them, and speak good words to them, then they will be thy servants for ever. 8But he forsook the counsel of the old men, which they had given him, and consulted with the young men that were grown up with him, and which stood before him: 9And he said unto them, What counsel give ye that we may answer this people, who have spoken to me, saying, Make the yoke which thy father did put upon us lighter? 10And 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. 11And now whereas my father did lade you with a heavy yoke, I will add to your yoke: my father hath chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions. 12So Jeroboam and all the people came to Rehoboam the third day, as the king had appointed, saying, Come to me again the third day. 13And the king answered the people roughly, and forsook the old men's counsel that they gave him; 14And spake to them after the counsel of the young men, saying, My father made your yoke heavy, and I will add to your yoke: my father also chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions. 15Wherefore the king hearkened not unto the people; for the cause was from the Lord, that he might perform his saying, which the Lord spake by Ahijah the Shilonite unto Jeroboam the son of Nebat. 16So when all Israel saw that the king hearkened not unto them, the people answered the king, saying, What portion have we in David? neither have we inheritance in the son of Jesse: to your tents, O Israel: now see to thine own house, David. So Israel departed unto their tents. 17But as for the children of Israel which dwelt in the cities of Judah, Rehoboam reigned over them. 18Then king Rehoboam sent Adoram, who was over the tribute; and all Israel stoned him with stones, that he died. Therefore king Rehoboam made speed to get him up to his chariot, to flee to Jerusalem. 19So Israel rebelled against the house of David unto this day. 20And it came to pass, when all Israel heard that Jeroboam was come again, that they sent and called him unto the congregation, and made him king over all Israel: there was none that followed the house of David, but the tribe of Judah only. 21And when Rehoboam was come to Jerusalem, he assembled all the house of Judah, with the tribe of Benjamin, an hundred and fourscore thousand chosen men, which were warriors, to fight against the house of Israel, to bring the kingdom again to Rehoboam the son of Solomon. 22But the word of God came unto Shemaiah the man of God, saying, 23Speak unto Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, king of Judah, and unto all the house of Judah and Benjamin, and to the remnant of the people, saying, 24Thus saith the Lord, Ye shall not go up, nor fight against your brethren the children of Israel: return every man to his house; for this thing is from me. They hearkened therefore to the word of the Lord, and returned to depart, according to the word of the Lord. (1 Kings 12:1‑24)
21And Rehoboam the son of Solomon reigned in Judah. Rehoboam was forty and one years old when he began to reign, and he reigned seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city which the Lord did choose out of all the tribes of Israel, to put his name there. And his mother's name was Naamah an Ammonitess. 22And Judah did evil in the sight of the Lord, and they provoked him to jealousy with their sins which they had committed, above all that their fathers had done. 23For they also built them high places, and images, and groves, on every high hill, and under every green tree. 24And there were also sodomites in the land: and they did according to all the abominations of the nations which the Lord cast out before the children of Israel. 25And it came to pass in the fifth year of king Rehoboam, that Shishak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem: 26And he took away the treasures of the house of the Lord, and the treasures of the king's house; he even took away all: and he took away all the shields of gold which Solomon had made. 27And king Rehoboam made in their stead brazen shields, and committed them unto the hands of the chief of the guard, which kept the door of the king's house. 28And it was so, when the king went into the house of the Lord, that the guard bare them, and brought them back into the guard chamber. 29Now the rest of the acts of Rehoboam, and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah? 30And there was war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam all their days. 31And Rehoboam slept with his fathers, and was buried with his fathers in the city of David. And his mother's name was Naamah an Ammonitess. And Abijam his son reigned in his stead. (1 Kings 14:21‑31); 2 Chron. 10-12
Contemporary Prophet: Shemaiah
In the multitude of people is the king’s honor: but in the want of people is the destruction of the prince. Proverbs. 14:28
Rehoboam was not what we call a strong character. He was, in the beginning of his reign at least, as his own son Abijah said to Jeroboam, “young [inexperienced] and tenderhearted, and could not withstand [the troublers of his kingdom]” (2 Chron. 13:77And there are gathered unto him vain men, the children of Belial, and have strengthened themselves against Rehoboam the son of Solomon, when Rehoboam was young and tenderhearted, and could not withstand them. (2 Chronicles 13:7)). Why Solomon should have chosen him as his successor is not clear. It is difficult to believe that he had no other sons; yet it is a fact that Rehoboam is the only one mentioned (1 Chron. 3:1010And Solomon's son was Rehoboam, Abia his son, Asa his son, Jehoshaphat his son, (1 Chronicles 3:10)). His father seems to have had misgivings concerning his ability to rule the kingdom (see Eccl. 2:18-19; 4:13-1618Yea, I hated all my labor which I had taken under the sun: because I should leave it unto the man that shall be after me. 19And who knoweth whether he shall be a wise man or a fool? yet shall he have rule over all my labor wherein I have labored, and wherein I have showed myself wise under the sun. This is also vanity. (Ecclesiastes 2:18‑19)
13Better is a poor and a wise child than an old and foolish king, who will no more be admonished. 14For out of prison he cometh to reign; whereas also he that is born in his kingdom becometh poor. 15I considered all the living which walk under the sun, with the second child that shall stand up in his stead. 16There is no end of all the people, even of all that have been before them: they also that come after shall not rejoice in him. Surely this also is vanity and vexation of spirit. (Ecclesiastes 4:13‑16)). And it was probably not a question of favoritism; for Pharaoh’s daughter, and not Naamah the Ammonitess (Rehoboam’s mother), appears to have been Solomon’s preferred wife. But if Rehoboam was his only son, he had no choice; so we read “Rehoboam his son reigned in his stead” (1 Kings 11:4343And Solomon slept with his fathers, and was buried in the city of David his father: and Rehoboam his son reigned in his stead. (1 Kings 11:43)).
Weakness and vacillation marked his reign from the beginning. His going to Shechem to be crowned was evidently a concession to conciliate the already disaffected tribes to the north. He might have succeeded in his efforts to allay the dissatisfaction caused by the enforced levy of labor by his father (see 1 Kings 11:2828And the man Jeroboam was a mighty man of valor: and Solomon seeing the young man that he was industrious, he made him ruler over all the charge of the house of Joseph. (1 Kings 11:28)), had he wisely and humbly heeded the advice of the aged men who had been his father’s honored counselors. They, from long experience, knew the temper of the people well. In petitioning for the lightening of their burdens, they were only doing what any people not reduced to the condition of slavery, or serfdom, might have asked. Had the newly crowned king granted them their reasonable demands and been kind to them and spoken pleasantly to them, they would, as the old cabinet ministers said, have been his loyal subjects forever. But he forsook their wise counsels. He was influenced by a handful of callow novices and young court favorites, who, like himself, thought more of the rights of the king than of his responsibility to govern righteously. So he replied with as rash and insolent a speech as was ever uttered from the throne to a civilized nation. The outraged people answered in the same spirit as the king; and we have the sad, ominous cry, “What portion have we in David? neither have we inheritance in the son of Jesse: to your tents, O Israel: now see to thine own house, David” (1 Kings 12:1616So when all Israel saw that the king hearkened not unto them, the people answered the king, saying, What portion have we in David? neither have we inheritance in the son of Jesse: to your tents, O Israel: now see to thine own house, David. So Israel departed unto their tents. (1 Kings 12:16); see also 2 Sam. 20:11And there happened to be there a man of Belial, whose name was Sheba, the son of Bichri, a Benjamite: and he blew a trumpet, and said, We have no part in David, neither have we inheritance in the son of Jesse: every man to his tents, O Israel. (2 Samuel 20:1)).
Though truly thankful to God that we are privileged to live under a form of government that gives us fullest freedom, we have no quarrel with absolute monarchy. But while God enjoins subjection to the powers that be, tyranny over the souls and bodies of men is nowhere countenanced in His word and rulers who attempt it must suffer the results. There are many proofs of this in Scripture, as in history. Government is of God and therefore of divine appointment; but God frowns on all abuse of power.
Rehoboam found it hard to believe that the ten tribes had really refused his yoke. He flattered himself, no doubt, that they would not dare to rebel against his authority. It could not be possible, he might have thought, that these provincials should not readily and meekly submit to his chastening with scorpions. So he confidently sent to them Hadoram to collect the imposed assessment. This ill-advised act brings matters to a crisis, and the old collector general, who had served in this office under Rehoboam’s father Solomon and his grandfather David, is stoned by the exasperated people. So the king, who had boasted so haughtily that his “little finger” should be “thicker than his father’s loins,” ingloriously “made speed to get him up to his chariot, to flee to Jerusalem” (1 Kings 12:1818Then king Rehoboam sent Adoram, who was over the tribute; and all Israel stoned him with stones, that he died. Therefore king Rehoboam made speed to get him up to his chariot, to flee to Jerusalem. (1 Kings 12:18)).
It must have been evident to him now that the rebellion was a very real and formidable one, and not a mere passing wave of discontent that would quickly die away of itself and be forgotten. But such an immense loss, such terrible results occurring so unexpectedly, were not so easily submitted to. Force may yet avail. There is the army, one hundred and eighty thousand strong. These malcontents would soon be made to feel the effect of its invincible power. Might must make right, if right cannot be demonstrated in any other way. But the God of peace, who loves His people even when misguided and in error, warned the king of Judah (note the intentional limit of his title, 2 Chron. 11:33Speak unto Rehoboam the son of Solomon, king of Judah, and to all Israel in Judah and Benjamin, saying, (2 Chronicles 11:3)) by the word of the man of God, Shemaiah, saying, “Ye shall not go up, nor fight against your brethren the children of Israel: return every man to his house; for this thing is from me” (1 Kings 12:2424Thus saith the Lord, Ye shall not go up, nor fight against your brethren the children of Israel: return every man to his house; for this thing is from me. They hearkened therefore to the word of the Lord, and returned to depart, according to the word of the Lord. (1 Kings 12:24)).
Under the government of God this division of the kingdom was the punishment for the sins of Solomon (1 Kings 11:29-3329And it came to pass at that time when Jeroboam went out of Jerusalem, that the prophet Ahijah the Shilonite found him in the way; and he had clad himself with a new garment; and they two were alone in the field: 30And Ahijah caught the new garment that was on him, and rent it in twelve pieces: 31And he said to Jeroboam, Take thee ten pieces: for thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel, Behold, I will rend the kingdom out of the hand of Solomon, and will give ten tribes to thee: 32(But he shall have one tribe for my servant David's sake, and for Jerusalem's sake, the city which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel:) 33Because that they have forsaken me, and have worshipped Ashtoreth the goddess of the Zidonians, Chemosh the god of the Moabites, and Milcom the god of the children of Ammon, and have not walked in my ways, to do that which is right in mine eyes, and to keep my statutes and my judgments, as did David his father. (1 Kings 11:29‑33)), occasioned by the folly of Rehoboam; it must therefore stand. To fight to bring back the unity of the nation, good as the purpose might seem, was to fight against God. Rehoboam ought to have been thankful that God’s love to David had left him even two tribes. And he appears to have been, for the two tribes “hearkened therefore to the word of the LORD,” He proceeded to secure what had been left him. He built, or garrisoned, fifteen cities within his decreased territory, “and he fortified the strong holds, and put captains in them, and store of victuals, and of oil and wine. And in every several city he put shields and spears, and made them exceeding strong” (2 Chron. 11:11-1211And he fortified the strong holds, and put captains in them, and store of victual, and of oil and wine. 12And in every several city he put shields and spears, and made them exceeding strong, having Judah and Benjamin on his side. (2 Chronicles 11:11‑12)). The successful rebel may sometimes turn invader, and Rehoboam (wiser now) guarded against this. There was war between him and the insurrectionist leader Jeroboam all their days, and the son of Solomon had to vigilantly guard what remained to him.
The priests and Levites remained faithful to Jehovah, to His house and worship at Jerusalem, and to the house of David, which was by the election of God the royal one. They left the land of Israel to dwell in Judah and Jerusalem. Others too, who had set their hearts to seek the God of Israel, deserted the cause of the secessionists, and flocked to Rehoboam’s standard. For three years all went well, and they walked “in the way of David and Solomon.” But their goodness (like all that is of the creature merely) was as the early dew and like the morning cloud, and passed quickly away. Subdued, no doubt, and humbled by the loss of the greater portion of his kingdom, Rehoboam walked for a time in fear and dependence. But even serious lessons like this are soon forgotten by most, and before five years had passed both king and people had lapsed so far into idolatry as to be brought to the very verge of apostasy from Jehovah.
And Judah did evil in the sight of the LORD, and they provoked him to jealousy with their sins which they had committed, above all that their fathers had done. For they also built them high places, and images, and groves, on every high hill, and under every green tree. And there were also sodomites [men consecrated to impurity] in the land: and they did according to all the abominations of the nations which the LORD cast out before the children of Israel (1 Kings 14:22-2422And Judah did evil in the sight of the Lord, and they provoked him to jealousy with their sins which they had committed, above all that their fathers had done. 23For they also built them high places, and images, and groves, on every high hill, and under every green tree. 24And there were also sodomites in the land: and they did according to all the abominations of the nations which the Lord cast out before the children of Israel. (1 Kings 14:22‑24)).
And for this reason God sent Shishak king of Egypt against them. Solomon had joined affinity with Pharaoh by marrying his daughter. Whether Solomon did this merely to please himself, or with the expectation of strengthening his kingdom by an alliance with so powerful a country, it all came to nothing, as do all such ways where God’s word is disobeyed or ignored.
Shishak overthrew Pharaoh, the father-in-law of Solomon, thus ending that dynasty. He became the new king who did not know Solomon nor his successor. Influenced probably by Jeroboam, he marched against Jerusalem with a vast army of twelve hundred chariots and sixty thousand horsemen, besides an innumerable host of footmen (2 Chron. 12:33With twelve hundred chariots, and threescore thousand horsemen: and the people were without number that came with him out of Egypt; the Lubims, the Sukkiims, and the Ethiopians. (2 Chronicles 12:3)). Realizing the utter hopelessness of his position, and not having faith in God, Rehoboam offered no resistance to the advance of Shishak. In fear for his life, he huddled with the princes of Judah at Jerusalem and awaited the coming of the Egyptian army.
It is now God’s time to speak to their consciences, and Shemaiah the prophet appeared before them with this message of conviction: “Thus saith the LORD, Ye have forsaken me, and therefore have I also left you in the hand of Shishak.” (12:5). They humbled themselves then and said, “The LORD is righteous,” and a partial deliverance was promised them. God said, “I will not destroy them.” “The princes of Israel and the king humbled themselves,” says the Word. It would seem the princes took the lead (from their being mentioned first) in this humiliating, yet becoming, confession. The king was slower, the roots of his former arrogance still lingering unjudged within his heart.
Note what God says: “I will not destroy them” (12:7). Shishak was only His whip, like the Assyrian at a later date, whom God, by His prophet Isaiah, called “the rod of mine anger” and “a razor that is hired.” In calamities like these, it is necessary to see beyond the instrument, and know the hand that uses it for blessing. But though their lives were spared, they must become servants (tributary) to Shishak, “That they may know,” God says, “my service, and the service of the kingdoms of the countries.” When one is truly submissive, he will find the Lord’s yoke is easy; if His saint refuses to wear it, he must learn by humiliating and painful experience what the yoke of the enemy is like. So Shishak took away all the temple treasures, and those of the royal palace. He also took with him the five hundred shields of gold that Solomon had made. Rehoboam made in their stead shields of bronze, and with these he pathetically tried to keep up former appearances. It is like souls who, when despoiled of their freshness and power by the enemy, laboriously endeavor to keep up an outward appearance of spiritual prosperity. Or like a fallen church, stripped of its strength and robbed of its purity, it seeks to hide its helplessness and cover its nakedness with the tinsel of ritualism and spurious revivalism. It looks for anything that promises to give it some appearance of justification for saying, “I am rich, and increased with goods.”
There is little more to say of Rehoboam. Whatever was in his father’s mind when naming him “Liberator” or “Enlarger of the People,” he failed utterly to become either. He enslaved the nation to Shishak by his sins, and decreased the numerical strength of his kingdom by more than three million through his folly at the very outset of his reign. He followed his father’s shameful example in taking many wives. He displayed wisdom however in distributing his sons over the countries of Judah and Benjamin, placing them in the garrison towns, and providing them food in abundance (2 Chron. 11:2323And he dealt wisely, and dispersed of all his children throughout all the countries of Judah and Benjamin, unto every fenced city: and he gave them victual in abundance. And he desired many wives. (2 Chronicles 11:23)). He probably remembered and was desirous to avoid such scenes as had occurred at the close of his grandfather David’s life in connection with his sons (see 1 Kings 2).Would God that Christians had always as much spiritual wisdom as Rehoboam manifested natural wisdom in this. Were God’s people well fed with truth, and consecrated to Christ through the various services of His kingdom, there would be less strife among us. But sadly, it is still too often true that “the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light” (Luke 16:88And the lord commended the unjust steward, because he had done wisely: for the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light. (Luke 16:8)). Rehoboam’s wisdom was rewarded when, at the end of his seventeen years’ reign, his son Abijah quietly assumed the crown without opposition from his many brothers.
Rehoboam died at the age of fifty-eight. The Spirit’s last comment on his character is significant: “And he did evil because he prepared not his heart to seek the LORD” (2 Chron. 12:1414And he did evil, because he prepared not his heart to seek the Lord. (2 Chronicles 12:14)). There we are told in a single sentence the whole secret of his failure, both as king of Judah, and servant of Jehovah, who gave him this exalted position—“He [applied] not his heart to seek [Jehovah].” May God in His grace, help us to apply our hearts to seek first and always His kingdom and righteousness. Only so shall we be kept from evil, and preserved from making the record of our lives read anything like Rehoboam’s—one sad succession of decline and failure.