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Rehoboam’s Arrogance: The Kingdom Torn Apart
47
Rehoboam Fails
But Solomon’s successor failed to exert a strong influence for
loyalty to Jehovah. He was naturally headstrong, confident, self-
willed, and inclined to idol worship. Nevertheless, if he had placed
his trust wholly in God, he would have developed firm faith and
submission to the divine requirements. But as time passed, the king
put his trust in the power of his position and in the strongholds he
had fortified. Little by little he gave way to inherited weaknesses
until he threw his influence entirely on the side of idol worship.
“When Rehoboam had established the kingdom and had strengthened
himself, ... he forsook the law of the Lord, and all Israel along with
him.”
2 Chronicles 12:1
.
The people whom God had chosen to stand as a light to the
surrounding nations were seeking to become like the nations about
them. As with Solomon, so with Rehoboam—the influence of his
wrong example led many astray.
God did not allow the apostasy of Judah’s ruler to remain un-
punished. “And it happened in the fifth year of King Rehoboam that
Shishak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem, because they had
transgressed against the Lord, with twelve hundred chariots, sixty
thousand horsemen, and people without number who came with him
out of Egypt. ... And he took the fortified cities of Judah and came
to Jerusalem.
“Then Shemaiah the prophet came to Rehoboam and the lead-
ers of Judah, who were gathered together in Jerusalem because of
Shishak, and said to them, ‘Thus says the Lord: “You have forsaken
Me, and therefore I also have left you in the hand of Shishak.”’”
Verses 2-5
. In the losses they suffered by Shishak’s invasion, the
people recognized the hand of God and for a time humbled them-
[35]
selves. “So Shishak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem, and
took away the treasures of the house of the Lord and the treasures
of the king’s house; he took everything. He also carried away the
gold shields which Solomon had made. Then King Rehoboam made
bronze shields in their place. ... When he humbled himself, the wrath
of the Lord turned from him, so as not to destroy him completely;
and things also went well in Judah.”
Verses 9-12
.