And Rehoboam the son of Solomon reigned in Judah. Rehoboam was forty-one years old when he began to reign, and he reigned seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city that Jehovah had chosen out of all the tribes of Israel to put his name there; and his mother's name was Naamah, an Ammonitess.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
And Judah did evil in the sight of Jehovah, and they provoked him to jealousy with their sins which they committed more than all that their fathers had done.
The kingdom has split, and the story turns from Jeroboam in the north to Rehoboam in Jerusalem. The verdict falls on "Judah" — the people who still held the temple and the chosen city, yet outdid their fathers in evil.
The verse calls Judah's sin "evil in the sight of the LORD." That phrase does not measure a king's public standing.
Notice that this word "evil" is always given to us in reference to the Lord. Forsaking God does at times hand the guilty one over to all sorts of moral evil, to crime and impurity. But it is not always so. Jeroboam I, Joash of Israel, and Jeroboam II were remarkable monarchs in the eyes of men. Two of them were "saviours" of their nation... But for God the question is a different one. It is a matter of what relationship these kings had with Him.
Judah still kept the true worship at Jerusalem. That privilege is what makes the charge so serious.
Judah did not follow Jeroboam in his idol worship. Judah kept the temple worship at Jerusalem. Judah had the wonderful privilege of the true worship of God at the centre God had appointed. Even so, Judah took the lead in serving and worshipping idols (v.22), adding them to the true worship of God. They had seen Solomon's example. He worshipped the idol Milcom, and he built high places for his many idolatrous wives, favouring all their evil religions. This is the "tolerance" our own day boasts about. It tolerates anything except the exclusive worship of the living God revealed in the Lord Jesus Christ. But Judah became worse than their fathers, provoking the Lord to jealousy by their gross evil (v.22). This Scripture does not speak of their shocking crimes against other people. It speaks of the bold insult they offered God by their false worship.
The collapse did not come at once. Judah's first years were better ones.
For three years all went well, and they walked "in the way of David and Solomon." But their goodness passed quickly away, like the early dew and the morning cloud. So it is with everything that is merely human. Most people soon forget even serious lessons. Before five years had passed, both king and people had sunk so far into idolatry that they stood at the very edge of turning away from the Lord altogether.
Rehoboam's kingdom had just grown strong and secure. Watch what he does next.
The flesh uses even God's favours as an occasion to depart from Him. "When the rule of Rehoboam was established and he was strong, he abandoned the law of the LORD, and all Israel with him" (2 Chron. 12:1). One man whom the Lord put in charge of shepherding His people only has to turn aside. All the rest will follow his example. What a responsibility that is! Judah did not fall prey to their brother Israel, whose religion they were right to defend themselves against. They fell much lower. They fell into the hands of a world from which God had once redeemed them by a strong hand and an outstretched arm. As in the old days, they were brought under the king of Egypt.
Judah's sin went beyond anything their fathers had done. Yet God still looked for whatever little good was there.
It is marvellous grace indeed. God tolerates no evil at all, yet He is pleased to acknowledge what is good. He sees that good when a man's own eye cannot, whether it lies inside him or outside him. Read these words, and we marvel all the more at God's infinite goodness. Because of a few righteous persons, He was not willing to destroy this people entirely, as He had once destroyed Sodom.
Rehoboam's reign ends with a comment on the man himself.
The Spirit's last comment on his character is significant: "And he did what was evil, for he did not set his heart to seek the LORD." That one sentence holds the whole secret of his failure. He failed as king of Judah, and he failed as servant of the Lord who gave him this high position. He did not apply his heart to seek the Lord. May God in His grace help us to apply our hearts to seek His kingdom and righteousness, first and always.
- Privilege. Judah kept the temple and the chosen city, then added idols to the true worship. The place of greatest advantage became the place of greatest guilt.
- Provocation. The sin named here is not crime against people. It is worship offered elsewhere. "Evil in the sight of the LORD" weighs a man by his relationship with God, not his record before men.
- Plunge. Three good years, then a five-year slide to the edge of turning away. Human goodness fades like morning dew, and the flesh uses new strength to leave God.
- Punishment. Judah did not fall to rival Israel. They fell back under Egypt — the world God had once redeemed them from.
- Preserved. God still noticed the little good, and for the sake of a few He would not destroy the nation as He destroyed Sodom. The cure was never strength. It was a heart set to seek the Lord.
And they also built for themselves high places, and columns, and Asherahs on every high hill and under every green tree;
Under Rehoboam, Judah still had the temple at Jerusalem. Yet the people filled the countryside with shrines of their own, and commentators ask what "for themselves" means and why hilltops and shady trees drew them.
The sin was not swapping God for idols. Judah kept the temple and built alongside it.
Judah of course did not follow Jeroboam in his idol worship. Judah kept up the temple worship at Jerusalem. Yet Judah had the wonderful privilege of true worship at the centre God had appointed, and still took the lead in serving and worshipping idols (v.22), adding this to the true worship of God. They had seen Solomon's example. He worshipped the god Milcom, and he built high places for his many idol-worshipping wives, favouring all their evil religions. This is the boasted "tolerance" of our own day. It tolerates anything except the exclusive worship of the living God revealed in the Lord Jesus Christ.
A "high place" was not simply a hill. It was a chosen spot for worship, and the offence lay in the choosing.
These high places were very offensive to the LORD. They showed the people's neglect and even contempt for His chosen centre. He had commanded the people to destroy all the images of the Canaanites and to demolish their high places (Num. 33:52)... In Deuteronomy 12, Moses told the people before he died that they would find the land full of idols. Its places of worship stood "on the high mountains and on the hills and under every green tree." All this expressed the self-will of people who knew nothing of God and who were blinded by Satan. But the people of God must not be like them... He would choose His own centre, and He told the tribes of Israel to bring their sacrifices and offerings there.
That is the rule this verse breaks. People may bring worship willingly, but they may not design it.
Man is not to decide his own ways as a worshipper. Willingness in worship is right; wilfulness destroys it all... Keeping up groves and high places in Israel was always proof that the people had not truly prepared their hearts to seek the LORD God of Israel. He is the only true God, and He had set His name at Jerusalem.
Older translations read "groves" where the ESV has "Asherim." The word does not mean a clump of trees. The verse sets them up under trees.
On the whole it seems most likely that they were wooden symbols of a goddess. They took the form of images or pillars, or bare tree trunks set into the ground. In 2 Kings 23:7 we read that women wove "hangings" for the groves. But these were actually "houses" or "tents." That implies they enclosed the groves, probably for impure purposes, since immorality went with idolatry almost every time.
The appeal of the setting is itself part of the explanation.
In Israel, turning away from God showed itself outwardly in making "high places" for themselves. It was only a heathen habit. It played on the imagination with a worship that had no heart in it. Men still try to satisfy themselves the same way — with music, architecture, curtains, and that most typical "dim religious light," in which to worship a God who is Light itself, and in whom there is no darkness. Such things work on nature. They produce a feeling that is so often taken for the reality it lacks. So on the mountain tops a man could imagine himself nearer to God than in the valleys. The depths of groves and forests helped too, and so did the beauty of nature, making him think he was nearer to the God of nature than he really was.
People could always defend such objects as reminders. One writer shows where that defence ends.
No doubt they would say that these things were there to remind them of God. But God had forbidden such things. Using them always lowered God in their eyes, until the things themselves became the objects of their worship.
Verse 22 puts the initiative with the people, not the king. Commentators still hold Rehoboam answerable.
It does not appear to be he himself who introduced idolatry into his land. It was the act of the people (v. 22). But Rehoboam let the evil take root in his kingdom. He is just as guilty as Judah, because he was responsible for Judah's conduct.
- Addition, not exchange — Judah kept the temple and built shrines besides. The sin starts by adding to God's worship, not by dropping it.
- Self-will — the high place showed contempt for the centre God chose. Willing worship is right; wilful worship ruins it.
- Sentiment — hilltop and grove worked on the imagination, producing feeling mistaken for reality.
- Reversal — objects meant to remind people of God lowered Him instead, until people worshipped the objects themselves.
- Responsibility — the people started it, but the king who tolerated it shares the guilt.
and there were also sodomites in the land. They did according to all the abominations of the nations that Jehovah had dispossessed before the children of Israel.
Rehoboam, king of Judah, is remembered less for what he built than for what he let stand. His people took up the very evil that had emptied Canaan of its earlier peoples — so what would God do with a land like that?
Older translations say "sodomites." The ESV says "male cult prostitutes." The Hebrew word comes from a root meaning "consecrated," and some have taken it to name a holy office.
Far more probable is the usual view, which takes it as a "consecration" to the corrupt Astarte, or Venus, of early and later idolatry. ... The masculine form of the word occurs in Deuteronomy 23:17; 1 Kings 14:24; 15:12; 22:46; 2 Kings 23:7; Job 36:14. Can it be argued that holy men, or seers, are meant there? If, on the contrary, it is plain that a class of extreme moral vileness is meant, the argument falls to the ground. These are forms of the same word, and the idea of holiness, or consecration, of course runs through both. Terrible to say, prostitution was an almost universal element of what the nations counted as holy!
after
Verse 23 listed the high places and the pillars. Verse 24 tells what grew out of them.
Yet wickedness between people is bound to follow when they despise their Creator, as verse 24 shows. There were perverted people in the land. They practiced sodomy and prostitution in their religious ceremonies, just as the nations did whom God had driven out before Israel when they came to Canaan.
The text blames Judah, not Rehoboam, for starting the idolatry. That does not clear the king.
It does not appear to be he himself who introduced idolatry into his land. It was rather the act of the people (v. 22), but Rehoboam, in allowing the evil to become established in his kingdom, is just as guilty as Judah, because he was responsible for Judah's conduct. ... Idolatry goes hand in hand with the most horrible corruption (v. 24; Romans 1) — and such things took place among the people of God!
Judah did begin well. It did not last.
For three years all went well, and they walked "in the way of David and Solomon." But their goodness was like the early dew and like the morning cloud, and it soon passed away — as everything that is only human does. ... But alas, most people soon forget even serious lessons like this. Before five years had passed, both king and people had sunk so far into idolatry that they stood at the very edge of abandoning the LORD.
Outward correctness continued long after the inward reality was gone. In the next generation Abijah could still claim that Judah had not forsaken the Lord, that the priests served and the lamps were lit — and the historian has already told us otherwise.
However true this might be outwardly, we have already seen the Spirit's testimony as to the inward or real condition in Judah, as declared in 1 Kings 14:22-25.
The last clause is the sting. Judah was doing the very thing that had got the earlier peoples thrown out of the land. God had already shown twice what He does with it.
God had destroyed the cities of the plain and had cast out before His people the nations whose iniquity had become full. What would He do to Judah?
The answer was not immediate destruction. Reading these same verses, the same writer is struck less by the sin than by God's restraint.
Reading these words, we marvel all the more at God's infinite goodness. For the sake of a few righteous people, He was not willing to destroy this people completely, as He had once destroyed Sodom.
What Rehoboam tolerated, his grandson Asa cleared out. It cost him, because the idols were family property.
He did what was right, and he acted firmly against the perverted worship of idols. He banished those who practiced sodomy and prostitution in their religious ceremonies, and he removed all the idols his father had made. This was no light matter. The idol worshippers would resist him hard, claiming that he was dishonouring his father. But he meant to honour the Lord, and he would not let family ties get in the way of obeying God's Word.
- Consecrated. The word comes from a root meaning "consecrated," yet it names a class of extreme moral vileness. Among the nations, prostitution counted as holy.
- Root. The corruption of verse 24 grows out of the idolatry of verse 23. Despise the Creator, and wickedness between people follows.
- Tolerated. The people brought the evil in; Rehoboam let it settle, and allowing it made him as guilty as those who started it.
- Reversal. Judah was doing what had filled up the guilt of the nations God drove out. He had already destroyed the cities of the plain for the same sin.
- Spared, then cleansed. God did not destroy Judah as He destroyed Sodom, for the sake of a few righteous people. Later Asa drove these very men out, at real cost to himself.
And it came to pass in the fifth year of king Rehoboam, [that] Shishak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem.
Five years into Rehoboam's reign, the king of Egypt marched on Jerusalem and looted it. Why did the fall come so fast, who stood behind it, and what did Judah lose?
The shock of this invasion is its speed.
Shishak, the king of Egypt, comes up against Jerusalem (vv. 25-28). All Solomon's prosperity, the treasures of the temple, the riches of the king's house, the golden shields of his guard, all is gone, and so quickly! In less than seventeen years the kingdom of David's son collapses — all its glory thrown down and trampled! The gold is gone, and only bronze takes its place (v. 27).
This was only the first of many such strippings.
Only five years after Solomon's death, Shishak, King of Egypt, plundered the Temple... There were probably some replacements. But unfaithful kings stripped the Temple more than once to pay tribute to foreign powers. In time came the terrible day when the LORD could no longer tolerate the evil nation, and He gave everything up to destruction.
The record ties Shishak's invasion to something Judah had done first.
He was the king of Egypt who sheltered Jeroboam when he fled from Solomon. Later he invaded Judah in the reign of Rehoboam, "because they had transgressed against the LORD." He came with a huge army, took the fortified cities, and looted Jerusalem and the temple.
What turned Rehoboam aside was not hardship but success.
This short-lived blessing strengthened the kingdom of Judah and let Israel establish itself. But it became a snare for Rehoboam. The flesh uses even God's favors as an occasion to depart from Him... Only one man needs to turn aside — a man the Lord commissioned to shepherd His people — and all the rest will follow his example. What a responsibility for him!
Of all the powers that could have humbled Judah, this one carried a special sting.
Judah did not fall to their brother Israel, whose religion they were right to defend themselves against. They fell lower than that. They fell into the hands of a world that God had once redeemed them from with a strong hand and an outstretched arm. As before, the king of Egypt made them his subjects.
One writer reads Egypt as a picture with a lesson for today.
Egypt pictures the world in its independence of God. The gold pictures the glory of God. Rehoboam had no regard for God's glory, so his gold shields only showed his hypocrisy. In the same way, disobedience to God will rob us of all that is precious in the blessings of the Word of God. Our worldliness all but invites the world to take what ought to be ours.
Egypt's king took the plunder. The question is who sent him.
Note what God says: "I will not destroy them." Shishak was only His whip. The Assyrian was the same at a later date. Through His prophet Isaiah, God calls him "the rod of my anger" and "a razor that is hired." In disasters like these, blessing comes only when we see past the instrument and know the hand that uses it. Their lives were spared, but they had to become servants to Shishak, "that they may know," God says, "my service, and the service of the kingdoms of the countries." Where there is true submission, the Lord's yoke is easy. If His saints refuse to wear it, they must learn by humiliating and painful experience what the enemy's yoke is like.
This chapter records the loss and stops there. Another account of the same reign tells what the king and his princes did next.
Shemaiah the prophet said: "You abandoned me, so I have abandoned you to the hand of Shishak." These words did a real work of conscience in the heart of the king and his princes. They "humbled themselves; and they said, 'The LORD is righteous.'" This humbling of themselves saved Judah from complete destruction... All this work of repentance, the fruit of grace, is missing from 1 Kings 14 — and with good reason.
Something survived that Shishak could not carry off.
Shishak, we are told, took everything. Everything! And yet one thing still remains: the altar is there, God is there. For faith, in the middle of ruin and humiliation, this was far more than all the gold the king of Egypt carried away.
- Cause — Judah's own sin opened the gate. Success, not hardship, turned Rehoboam aside, and the nation followed his lead.
- Speed — Within five years of Solomon's death the gold was gone. One campaign swept away what a lifetime had gathered.
- Instrument — Shishak was a whip in God's hand, not a power acting on his own. Faith looks past the invader to the hand that uses him.
- Picture — Egypt stands for the world. Judah went back under the very power God had redeemed them from. Worldliness invites the world to take what ought to be ours.
- What remains — Kings records the stripping without the repentance, yet the altar still stood. God Himself was the one treasure Egypt could not carry away.
And he took away the treasures of the house of Jehovah, and the treasures of the king's house; he even took away all; and he took away all the shields of gold that Solomon had made.
Within a few years of Solomon's death the wealth of his reign was gone, carried south into Egypt by an invading king. Two questions follow: why did God allow it, and what did Rehoboam put in the gold's place?
The loss came fast. One commentator counts the years:
Shishak, the king of Egypt, comes up against Jerusalem (vv. 25-28). All Solomon's prosperity, the treasures of the temple, the riches of the king's house, the golden shields of his guard — all of it is gone, and so quickly! In less than seventeen years the kingdom of David's son collapses. All its glory falls and is trampled underfoot!
Scripture does not treat this as bad luck. It ties the invasion to a turn in Rehoboam's reign:
We read that Solomon loved many foreign women, and then how idolatry was set up. In the same way, here is the turning point in Rehoboam's prosperity: "he desired many wives." Then, once he was strong in his kingdom, he forsook the law of the Lord. The next event on record is the invasion by Shishak king of Egypt. The Holy Spirit adds the reason: "because they had transgressed against the Lord" (2 Chron. 12).
One writer looks past the army to the hand using it, and shows why God made His people pay tribute:
Notice what God says: "I will not destroy them." Shishak was only His whip. God said the same of the Assyrian later on, calling him, through His prophet Isaiah, "the rod of my anger" and "a razor that is hired." In troubles like these, if there is to be blessing, we must see beyond the instrument and know the hand that uses it. But though God spared their lives, they had to become servants, paying tribute to Shishak, so that, God says, "they may know my service, and the service of the kingdoms of the countries." Where there is true submission, the Lord's yoke is easy. If His saints refuse to wear it, they must learn by humiliating and painful experience what the yoke of the enemy is like.
One commentator reads the plundering as a picture with a warning inside it:
Egypt pictures the world in its independence of God. The gold is a picture of the glory of God. But Rehoboam had no regard for God's glory, so the gold shields only testified to his hypocrisy. So disobedience to God will rob from us all that is precious in the blessings of the Word of God. Our worldliness all but invites the world to take what ought to be ours.
Rehoboam's response is as telling as the loss. He put up no fight; he covered the gap:
Rehoboam, that weak and foolish son of a great father, does not appear to have put up any resistance. He let the glory of the city go without protest. What did it matter? He could substitute brass for gold, and brass looks almost like gold; peace seemed cheap at the price. So when he went up to the house of the Lord, brass shields went up before him instead of shields of fine gold. When his religious duties were over, the guard took them away for safe keeping, as though they were the real thing (1 Kings 14).
The fuller account in 2 Chronicles records a prophet's message and the king's reply:
What is remarkable is that Rehoboam did not harden himself. He did not silence the prophet, as many others would have done. Instead, "the princes of Israel and the king humbled themselves and said, 'The LORD is righteous'" (2 Chron. 12:6). It is not easy to say "The LORD is righteous" when one is under the judgment of God. We are more likely to try to justify ourselves.
Gold for brass is not God's last word. One writer sets a promise from Isaiah beside it:
How short-lived is the glory that depends upon the faithfulness of man! The temple that Solomon built is spoiled and robbed in the days of his son. For gold there is brass. When He comes and brings back glory to Israel, this will be reversed: "Instead of bronze I will bring gold" (Isa. 60:17). God takes pleasure in undoing the work of sin. The prophet puts it as a symbol, but no doubt it is true in a literal way as well, for the gold and the silver are His.
(Older translations render Isaiah's word as "brass," matching the metal in 1 Kings.)
- Cause — Rehoboam forsook the law of the Lord, and the invasion followed. Scripture gives the reason: it came "because they had transgressed against the Lord."
- Instrument — Shishak was only God's whip. Faith looks past the invader to the hand using him. Refuse God's easy yoke, and you will wear the enemy's.
- Loss — All Solomon gathered went in less than seventeen years. Glory that rests on man's faithfulness cannot last.
- Substitute — Rehoboam put brass where gold had been and carried on the ceremony as though nothing had changed. That is the danger: a copy in the place of the real thing.
- Reversal — Rehoboam did not harden himself; he said, "The LORD is righteous." And the promise "instead of bronze I will bring gold" shows that God means to undo the exchange sin made.
And king Rehoboam made in their stead brazen shields, and committed them to the hands of the chief of the couriers who kept the entrance of the king's house.
Egypt has carried off Solomon's golden shields, and Rehoboam replaces them with copies in bronze for the palace guard to keep. The commentators ask what it means to keep the ceremony going after the real treasure is gone. (Older translations call the metal "brass," so some quotes below use that word.)
The plunder was not bad luck. One writer traces it to Rehoboam's own turning away.
"And when Rehoboam had established the kingdom and had strengthened himself, he forsook the law of Jehovah, and all Israel with him" (2 Chronicles 12). Such is the way of people: not so quick to follow good, but so ready in evil. So God sent an unexpected enemy against him. The king of Egypt came and took away the treasures that Solomon had collected. This was the righteous government of God. Poor king Rehoboam was driven to make shields of brass instead of shields of gold. The gold shields were now going down into Egypt. "And when he humbled himself, the wrath of Jehovah turned from him, so that He would not destroy him altogether. And in Judah things went well." How gracious of the Lord! Every little act of repentance brought its blessing.
One writer reads Egypt here as more than a foreign army:
Egypt pictures the world in its independence of God. The gold is typical of the glory of God. Rehoboam had no regard for God's glory, so his gold shields only testified to his hypocrisy. So disobedience to God will rob us of all that is precious in the blessings of the Word of God. Our worldliness all but invites the world to take what ought to be ours.
Solomon's temple had been overlaid with gold and admired by foreign royalty. The speed of the collapse is part of the lesson.
Though the temple of Solomon, with its porches, and beams, and posts, and walls, was overlaid with pure gold; and though the house was garnished with precious stones for beauty, and the gold was the gold of Parvaim; yet decline began with its own king, and the glory which overcame the spirit of the Queen of Sheba was soon tarnished.
Notice what is missing from the record: no protest, no move to win the gold back. Rehoboam settles for a lookalike.
Rehoboam, that weak and foolish son of a great father, does not appear to have put up any resistance. He let the glory of the city go without protest. What did it matter? He could substitute brass for gold, and brass looks like gold, almost; peace seemed cheap at the price. So when he went up to the house of the Lord, shields of brass went up before him instead of shields of fine gold. When his religious duties were done, he handed them to the guard to keep safe, as though they were the real thing.
The bronze shields still came out in procession. One writer sees the same habit in believers and in churches:
The king of Egypt also took the five hundred shields of gold that Solomon had made. Rehoboam made shields of bronze to replace them. With these he pitifully tried to keep up former appearances. It is like souls who have been robbed of their freshness and power by the enemy. They work hard to keep up an outward appearance of spiritual prosperity. It is like a fallen church, stripped of its strength and robbed of its purity. Such a church tries to hide its helplessness and cover its nakedness with the tinsel of ritualism, false revivalism, union, and anything that seems to give it some right to say, "I am rich, I have prospered."
Commentators differ on how far to read the metals. One draws a sharp picture from the bronze, and asks what a shield is for:
Rehoboam replaced the gold shields with bronze (or copper) ones. How far below the gold they were! Gold speaks of God's glory, but copper speaks of holiness. The Christian world today has sadly copied Rehoboam's example. They have lost sight of God's glory. Instead they have taken up the principle of holiness. They speak convincingly about living a holy life, but they leave Christ out of the picture altogether. Shields are for protection. Is there any real protection in our boasted claims of holiness as compared to a living faith in the Son of God?
The verse ends with a downgrade. One writer looks ahead to the trade running the other way:
Solomon's shields of beaten gold were surely not for use in war; they were just ornaments. But Rehoboam lost these costly ornaments in war. In his vanity he made shields of brass to replace them, and had them brought out in display when he went into the house of Jehovah. Oh, the pitiful vanity of poor flesh! It must keep up appearances even after the reality has gone. What a blessed contrast when God restores His people in grace! "Instead of bronze I will bring gold, and instead of iron I will bring silver; instead of wood, bronze, instead of stones, iron. I will make your overseers peace, your taskmasters righteousness" (Isa. 60:17). All sham will be banished.
- Cause. Rehoboam forsook God's law first. The invasion that stripped the gold was God's righteous government, not accident.
- Cost. Gold speaks of God's glory. Worldliness hands it back to the world and all but invites Egypt to take what should be ours.
- Substitute. Rehoboam put up no fight: brass almost looks like gold, and cheap peace seemed worth the swap.
- Sham. The shields still paraded to the house of the Lord. Souls and churches do the same when the power and purity are gone.
- Reversal. Humbling turned God's anger away even then. Grace promises gold in place of bronze, with every pretence gone.
And it was so, that as often as the king entered into the house of Jehovah, the couriers bore them, and brought them again into the chamber of the couriers.
Shishak, the king of Egypt, had carried off the gold shields Solomon made, and Rehoboam replaced them with bronze copies. This verse shows what happened next: the same ceremony went on with the copies, as though nothing had changed.
One writer measures how fast Jerusalem lost everything Solomon had gathered.
Shishak, the king of Egypt, comes up against Jerusalem (vv. 25-28). All Solomon's prosperity, the treasures of the temple, the riches of the king's house, the golden shields of his guard — all is gone, and so quickly! In less than seventeen years the kingdom of David's son collapses; all its glory is cast down and trodden underfoot! The gold is gone, and only brass is left in its place (v. 27).
Egypt looks like the main actor here. One writer points past Shishak to the hand that was using him.
Note what God says: "I will not destroy them." Shishak was only His whip, like the Assyrian at a later date, whom God, through His prophet Isaiah, calls "the rod of My anger," and "a razor that is hired." In troubles like these, blessing comes only by looking past the instrument to the hand that uses it. Their lives were spared, but they had to become servants to Shishak and pay him tribute. God said why: "That they may know My service, and the service of the kingdoms of the countries." Where there is true submission, the Lord's yoke is easy. If His saints refuse to wear it, they must learn by humiliating and painful experience what the yoke of the enemy is like.
The verse describes a habit, not a single event, and the cheapness of the replacement is the point.
Then Rehoboam, that feeble and foolish son of a great father, does not appear to have put up any resistance; he let the glory of the city go without protest. What did it matter? He could substitute brass for gold, and brass looks like gold, almost; peace seemed cheap at the price. And so, when he went up to the house of the Lord, bronze shields went up before him instead of shields of fine gold. When his religious duties were done, the guard took them back for safe keeping as though they were the real thing (1 Kings 14).
The same writer applies this to worship that keeps up the same pretence.
The pretence of approach to God is kept up, but the bronze shields go before them instead of shields of gold, and God will not have their counterfeits. "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me," are our Lord's own words. The bronze imitation may suit and fascinate men, but it is detestable to God; He can accept nothing but the pure gold.
Knapp reads the copies as a picture of what people do after being robbed of their power.
Shishak took with him the five hundred shields of gold that Solomon had made, and Rehoboam made shields of bronze in their place. With these he pathetically tried to keep up former appearances. It is like souls who, robbed of their freshness and power by the enemy, work hard to keep up an outward appearance of spiritual prosperity.
One writer asks what the bronze itself stands for, and what a shield is for.
How far inferior the bronze (or copper) shields were! While gold speaks of God's glory, copper speaks of holiness. Christendom today has sadly copied Rehoboam's example. They have lost sight of God's glory and taken up the principle of holiness instead. They talk convincingly about living a holy life, but they leave Christ out of the picture altogether. Shields are for protection. Is there any real protection in our boasted claims of holiness compared with a living faith in the Son of God?
Another account of this reign adds that Rehoboam humbled himself.
"And when he humbled himself, the wrath of the LORD turned from him, so He would not destroy him altogether. And in Judah things went well." How gracious of the Lord! Every little act of repentance brought its blessing.
The exchange of metals is not God's last word on Jerusalem.
How short-lived is the glory that depends on the faithfulness of man! The temple that Solomon built is spoiled and robbed in the days of his son. For gold there is brass. When He comes and brings back glory to Israel, this will be reversed: "For brass I will bring gold" (Isaiah 60:17). God takes pleasure in undoing the work of sin.
(Older translations say brass where the ESV says bronze. The ESV renders that promise "instead of bronze I will bring gold.")
- Gold lost. Solomon's gold shields were gone within seventeen years. Glory that rests on man's faithfulness does not last.
- Gold taken. Shishak was only the whip in God's hand. Judah had to serve him and pay tribute, so they would learn what serving God is worth.
- Gold replaced. Rehoboam offered no resistance. He hung bronze in place of gold, because bronze almost looks like gold and peace seemed cheap at that price.
- Gold imitated. The ceremony carried on as though the copies were real. God will not accept that pretence, and a copied shield shields nobody.
- Gold promised. Every small act of repentance brought blessing, even to Rehoboam. And God's promise still stands: instead of bronze, gold.
And 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?
Rehoboam's reign ends the way almost every reign in this book ends: with a footnote pointing to another set of records. Why does God's account stop where it does, and what did He choose to keep?
This is not the only place where Kings points the reader to other records. One commentator explains how its writer used them:
In various places Kings refers to books which contain more about the life of the king in question, and the writer may have based his accounts on them. He refers, for example, to the book of the Acts of Solomon (1 Kings 11:41), and several times to the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel (1 Kings 14:19) and to the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah (1 Kings 14:29)... The Holy Spirit guided the author of Kings as he used these "references" in writing his God-inspired work.
Those records are not in our Bible. That is not an accident:
It is a mistake to suppose that every inspired communication of the Spirit of God to man is contained in the Bible. All that was needful for us to know and have, we possess; but not all that others, at different times, had communicated to them by the prophets.
So why did God leave the rest of Rehoboam's story out? One commentator answers in one sentence:
An omission in the Word of God always has its reason.
Rehoboam's story appears again in 2 Chronicles. The two accounts are not rivals. They answer different questions.
Kings is the book of responsibility, Chronicles of God's providence... The great point of Chronicles is no longer to show how God governs morally, and how kings as well as people truly reap what they sow. It is to show that God's plan, God's intention, God's mind alone stands. So Chronicles leaves out all the changing circumstances of the house of David, and gives only the final thought of God.
Kings spells out Rehoboam's failures. Chronicles looks for what grace produced:
This book shows grace as the only way the royal line was kept going. At a time when the kingdom was in complete decline, it always highlights the good that grace has produced, even if only for a moment. It shows that grace covers a multitude of sins. It is different when it is a matter of responsibility, as in the book of Kings. Then God reveals the evil in its full extent and shows us why judgment had to fall.
One writer read that fuller account. It holds little to Rehoboam's credit:
There is more of the history of Rehoboam in 2 Chronicles, but with little to be commended. He strengthened himself for war, but his wars were more against Israel than against the nations. Sadly, the same thing has happened in the history of the professing church! Christians should be fighting the attacks of Satan and his hosts. Instead they have too often fought one another, with disastrous results.
Men's records note what a king built. God's record weighs the man. One writer draws the contrast from the same closing words used of Ahab:
God weighs actions. Men might make much of "the rest of the acts of Ahab and all that he did, and the ivory house that he built and all the cities that he built." But God shows us this wicked man as He saw him.
The same closing words were used of a later king, Jotham. One commentator turns them on the reader:
"All his wars" implies that he spent his sixteen-year reign in conflict with enemies. His "ways" too were written. God's saints are called to walk, as well as to war. "I have fought the good fight," said one; "I have finished the race," he also adds. This last was his "ways." Ours, like King Jotham's, "are written in the book." May we then say, like another Hebrew king, "I will guard my ways"!
And the book God keeps is not the one the world would compile:
It was "before Him" the book was written, not before the world. A God-fearing walk, godly dealings with others, godly jealousy for the Lord's name — these traits will not put a man's name on the roll of this world's notable people. The world has only a short memory for them. It is to the heart of the Lord that they are dear. He treasures their memory, and writes their names in His book of remembrance.
- Sources. The writer drew on real royal records under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. God did not keep every inspired message, but He kept everything we need.
- Selection. What is left out was left out on purpose — an omission in God's Word always has its reason.
- Two books. Kings sets out responsibility and shows why judgment fell. Chronicles traces God's purpose and highlights what grace produced.
- Weighing. Men's records praise what a king built. God's record shows the man as He saw him.
- Remembrance. Your ways are written in a book too — written before Him, not before the world, so guard your ways.
And there was war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam all [their] days.
The record of Rehoboam's reign closes with one running note: the fighting with Jeroboam never stopped. One people had split in two, and the two halves stayed at war for a lifetime. Commentators ask what caused that, and what it says about God's people whenever they divide.
One commentator treats this endless war as a diagnosis, not just a record. He also explains why the northern kings kept it alive.
This whole account, filled with wars and cruelty, follows Solomon's reign of peace, which ended so quickly because of the unfaithfulness of the king and his people... This is one of the principal symptoms of decline. War is declared, relentless war between people of the same race. Rehoboam had been about to attempt war, but the Lord warned him and he stopped. Next the kings of Israel are the authors of the warfare, for they feel their position threatened by the keeping up of God's testimony in Judah. A nation which has turned to idols after knowing the true God cannot bear God's testimony so close by. It hates it and wages desperate war against it.
Rehoboam's strength went in the wrong direction. One writer sees the same pattern among Christians.
He strengthened himself for war, but his wars were more against Israel than against the nations (v.30). How sadly this has been the case in the history of the professing church also! Christians have too often fought against one another instead of fighting the attacks of Satan and his hosts. The results have been disastrous!
The division did not start with Rehoboam's bad decisions alone. One writer traces it back a generation, and then turns it into a question for the reader.
The folly of king Rehoboam brought about the division of the kingdom of Israel, but the cause was the idolatry of his father Solomon (1 Kings 11:9–12). The results of the division were very sad. Brothers should have lived together in unity, as Israel will under the new covenant. Instead, "there were wars between Rehoboam and Jeroboam continually" (2 Chron. 12:15). Do we not find the same thing among God's people today? Because of our unfaithfulness, there has been division among God's people. Instead of standing together against the common enemy, they are so often busy opposing each other.
A prophet named Shemaiah told Rehoboam's side to put the sword away. One writer draws out what that message asked of them.
The Lord sent prophet after prophet during these dark reigns. Then came Shemaiah, the prophet to Rehoboam. He urged the king and his people not to fight against their brothers, the children of Israel (1 Kings 12:22; 2 Chron. 11:2). That was the only thing fitting for those who still kept up the lamp of David. They were the Lord's witnesses. They ought to accept the division as the result of their sin. They ought to commit themselves to God, who would know how to put things right once His judgment had run its course and borne its fruit. And that is why Ahijah had said to Jeroboam: "And I will for this afflict the seed of David, but not for ever" (1 Kings 11:39).
The writer who asked whether we repeat Rehoboam's error also says what to do instead of fighting.
God has allowed the divisions among His people because of our sin and folly. It is for us to bow our heads and hearts before Him in shame, and to go on quietly before Him seeking His will in the middle of the sad and solemn results of our failure.
The verse limits the war to the lifetime of two kings. One writer looks further, to the day when division among God's people ends for good.
Yet sadly we are told that wars continued between Rehoboam and Jeroboam all their days (2 Chron. 12:15). The same strife between brothers continued afterwards as well. In the same way, strife has run through the condition of the professing church since its early years. What wonderful relief it will be for Israel to be brought together at the end of the Great Tribulation! What relief also for believers of the Church of God to be united in the Lord's presence when He comes!
- Cause — Rehoboam's folly opened the split, but the root was his father Solomon's idolatry. This war is fruit from an older seed.
- Symptom — Constant war between people of one race is a leading mark of decline. Israel's kings kept it going, because a nation that has turned to idols cannot bear God's testimony next door.
- Misdirection — Rehoboam built up strength, then spent it on his brothers instead of the nations. The same mistake marks the history of professing Christians.
- Alternative — Shemaiah's word was to stop fighting. Judah was to own the division as the fruit of sin and leave the remedy with God, who had said He would afflict David's line "but not for ever."
- End — The strife outlived both kings, and it has run through church history too. Its cure is not victory over brothers but the Lord's own coming.
And 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.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.