1 Kings 12:21

When Rehoboam returned to Jerusalem, he thought he could force Israel into submission. He gathered 180,000 chosen warriors to attack Israel. But the Lord stepped in. He sent the prophet Shemaiah to forbid Rehoboam to carry out this attack. Shemaiah told him and the people of Judah and Benjamin not to go and fight their brothers.

Shemaiah must have been a very brave man. He stood in front of a gathered army of 180,000 men, an angry king and an angry people, and delivered a message that must have been very unwelcome. And you cannot help admiring how graciously the king and the people submitted.

Rehoboam sets to work at once to bring the people of God together again. Using the methods that suited his day, he gathers an army for this purpose. There is no question that it was in accord with God's thoughts that the people should be one. They had been one at the beginning of God's ways with them. In the day to come they will be one again, as the prophet said... So it might look as if Rehoboam was right to work at ending the division and uniting the people of God.

Shemaiah, the man of God, tells Rehoboam why they must stop. It is because God says, "This thing is from Me." God had rebuked Solomon for his worldliness and for disobeying the Word of God, and said to him, "I will surely tear the kingdom from you." Now that the blow has fallen, God can say to Rehoboam, "This thing is from Me." To seek to undo the evil of Solomon may be right; to ignore the governmental acts of God is certainly wrong. Rehoboam and those with him have to learn what we all have to learn in the divisions our own folly has caused. No one can brush aside the government of God.

God did not forbid His people to seek a righteous way of reconciliation. He did not forbid them to find out why the break had happened, or to confess their failure together. What He did forbid was fighting with their brothers... Where there has been failure on all sides, it is best to drop the sword and for everyone to go to their knees.

The break came through the folly of Rehoboam. Yet God was behind it, to expose the disunity that already existed in Israel. God often exposes the same kind of evil in the Church of God — evil that people try to cover up, but that in the end causes public divisions. This is to our shame, but God is perfectly righteous to show any condition for what it really is.

When the kingdom divided, Benjamin stayed with Judah, though Israel seized a large part of their land. At times they seem to drop out of sight. Ahijah said that God had kept one tribe for the house of David, as if Benjamin counted as cut off in judgement. People regularly spoke of the two tribes as "Judah," and of the ten tribes as "Israel."

From now on Rehoboam stays inside the narrow sphere the division has made, for we read that "he lived in Jerusalem." Does that mean he settles down to a life of quiet ease and does nothing?... Far from it. At once we read that he becomes a builder... As we might say today, he "strengthened what remained." And he provided food for the people of God.