2 Chronicles 10-13

Common English Bible

How Rehoboam lost the kingdom

10 Rehoboam went to Shechem, where all Israel had come to make him king. ² When Jeroboam, Nebat’s son, heard the news, he returned from Egypt where he had fled from King Solomon. ³ The people sent and called for Jeroboam, who along with all Israel came and said to Rehoboam, ⁴ “Your father made our workload^[a] very heavy; if you will lessen the demands your father made of us and lighten the heavy workload he demanded from us, then we will serve you.”

⁵ He answered them, “Come back in three days.” So the people left.

⁶ King Rehoboam consulted the elders who had served his father Solomon when he was alive. “What do you advise?” Rehoboam asked. “How should I respond to these people?”

⁷ “If you are kind to these people and try to please them by speaking gently with them,” they replied, “they will be your servants forever.”

⁸ But Rehoboam ignored the advice the elders gave him and instead sought the counsel of the young advisors who had grown up with him and now served him. ⁹ “What do you advise?” he asked them. “How should we respond to these people who said to me, ‘Lighten the workload your father demanded from us’?”

¹⁰ The young people who had grown up with Rehoboam said to him, “This people said to you, ‘Your father made our workload heavy. Lighten it for us!’ Now this is what you should say to them, ‘My baby^[b] finger is thicker than my father’s waist! ¹¹ So if my father made your workload heavy, I’ll make it even heavier! If my father disciplined you with whips, I’ll do it with scorpions!’”

¹² Jeroboam and all the people returned to Rehoboam on the third day, just as the king had specified when he said, “Come back in three days.” ¹³ The king then answered the people harshly. He ignored the elders’ advice, ¹⁴ and instead followed the young people’s advice. He said, “My father made your workload heavy, but I’ll make it even heavier; my father disciplined you with whips, but I’ll do it with scorpions!”

¹⁵ The king didn’t listen to the people because this turn of events came from God so that the Lord might keep his promise concerning Jeroboam, Nebat’s son, which God delivered through Ahijah from Shiloh. ¹⁶ When all Israel saw^[c] that the king wouldn’t listen to them, the people answered the king,

Then all Israel went back to their homes, ¹⁷ and Rehoboam ruled over only the Israelites who lived in the cities of Judah.

¹⁸ When King Rehoboam sent Hadoram to them (he was the leader of the work gang), the Israelites stoned him to death. King Rehoboam quickly got into his chariot and fled to Jerusalem. ¹⁹ And so Israel has been in rebellion against David’s dynasty to this day.

11 When Rehoboam arrived at Jerusalem, he assembled the house of Judah and Benjamin, one hundred eighty thousand select warriors, to fight against Israel and to restore the kingdom to Rehoboam. ² But the Lord’s word came to Shemaiah the man of God: ³ Tell Judah’s King Rehoboam, Solomon’s son, and all Israel in Judah and Benjamin, ⁴ This is what the Lord says: Don’t make war against your relatives. Go home, every one of you, because this is my plan. When they heard the Lord’s words, they abandoned their attack against Jeroboam.

⁵ Rehoboam lived in Jerusalem, but he built cities for Judah’s defense ⁶ in Bethlehem, Etam, Tekoa, ⁷ Beth-zur, Soco, Adullam, ⁸ Gath, Mareshah, Ziph, ⁹ Adoraim, Lachish, Azekah, ¹⁰ Zorah, Aijalon, and Hebron. These were the fortified cities in Judah and Benjamin. ¹¹ He made the fortifications stronger, placed commanders in them, and supplied them with food, oil, and wine. ¹² He also stored shields and spears in each of the cities, making them very strong. This is how Judah and Benjamin remained under his control.

¹³ The priests and the Levites from every region throughout all Israel sided with Rehoboam. ¹⁴ The Levites left their pastures and property to come to Judah and Jerusalem because Jeroboam and his sons had refused to let them serve as the Lord’s priests, ¹⁵ having appointed his own priests for the shrines and the goat and calf idols he had made. ¹⁶ People from every tribe of Israel who had made up their minds to seek the Lord, Israel’s God, came to Jerusalem to sacrifice to the Lord, the God of their ancestors. ¹⁷ They strengthened the kingdom of Judah and supported Rehoboam, Solomon’s son, for three years by following the way of David and Solomon those three years.

¹⁸ Rehoboam married Mahalath daughter of Jerimoth, David’s son, and Abihail daughter of Eliab, Jesse’s son. ¹⁹ The sons she bore him were Jeush, Shemariah, and Zaham. ²⁰ Later he married Maacah, Absalom’s daughter, who bore him Abijah, Attai, Ziza, and Shelomith. ²¹ Rehoboam loved Absalom’s daughter Maacah more than all his wives and secondary wives. In all, he had eighteen wives and sixty secondary wives, twenty-eight sons, and sixty daughters. ²² Rehoboam named Abijah, Maacah’s son, as his successor in order to make him king. ²³ He wisely placed some of his sons in every region of Judah and Benjamin, in every fortified city, and gave them plenty of food and sought many wives for them.

12 But as soon as Rehoboam had secured his royal power, he, along with all Israel, abandoned the Lord’s Instruction.

Rehoboam rules

² Egypt’s King Shishak attacked Jerusalem in the fifth year of King Rehoboam because Israel had been unfaithful to the Lord. ³ Accompanying Shishak from Egypt were twelve hundred chariots, sixty thousand horses, and countless Libyan, Sukkite, and Cushite warriors. ⁴ He captured the fortified cities of Judah and came toward Jerusalem. ⁵ Then the prophet Shemaiah went to Rehoboam and the leaders of Judah who had gathered at Jerusalem because of Shishak, and told them, This is what the Lord says: Since you have abandoned me, now I am abandoning you to Shishak’s power.

⁶ Then the leaders of Israel and the king submitted. “The Lord is right,” they said.

⁷ When the Lord saw that they had submitted, the Lord’s word came to Shemaiah: Since they have submitted, I won’t destroy them. I will deliver them in a little while, and I won’t use Shishak to pour out my anger against Jerusalem. ⁸ Nevertheless, they will be subject to him so that they learn the difference between serving me and serving other nations.

⁹ Egypt’s King Shishak attacked Jerusalem and seized the treasures of the Lord’s temple and the royal palace. He took everything, even the gold shields Solomon had made. ¹⁰ King Rehoboam replaced them with bronze shields and assigned them to the officers of the guard who protected the entrance to the royal palace. (¹¹ Whenever the king entered the Lord’s temple, the guards would carry the shields and then return them to the guardroom.) ¹² When Rehoboam submitted, the Lord was no longer angry with him, and total destruction was avoided. There were, after all, some good things still in Judah.

¹³ So King Rehoboam was securely established in Jerusalem. Rehoboam was 41 years old when he became king, and he ruled seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city the Lord had chosen from all the tribes of Israel to put his name. His mother’s name was Naamah from Ammon. ¹⁴ But Rehoboam did what was evil because he didn’t set his heart on seeking the Lord. ¹⁵ The deeds of Rehoboam, from beginning to end, aren’t they written in the records of the prophet Shemaiah and the seer Iddo, including the genealogical records? There was continual warfare between Rehoboam and Jeroboam. ¹⁶ Rehoboam lay down with his ancestors and was buried in David’s City. His son Abijah^[d] succeeded him as king.

Abijah rules Judah

13 Abijah^[e] became king over Judah in the eighteenth year of King Jeroboam. ² He ruled for three years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Micaiah; she was Uriel’s daughter from Gibeah. When war broke out between Abijah and Jeroboam, ³ Abijah went to fight with an army of four hundred thousand select troops against Jeroboam’s select forces numbering eight hundred thousand, who were arrayed in battle formation.

⁴ Abijah stood on the heights of Mount Zemaraim in Ephraim’s highlands and said:

¹³ Meanwhile, Jeroboam had sent troops around behind them for an ambush so that the main force was in front of Judah while the ambush was behind. ¹⁴ When Judah looked around and suddenly realized that they were surrounded, they cried out to the Lord while the priests sounded the trumpets ¹⁵ and raised the battle cry. When they raised the battle cry, God defeated Jeroboam and all Israel before Abijah and Judah. ¹⁶ So the Israelites fled before Judah, and God gave Judah the victory. ¹⁷ Abijah and his people struck them severely: five hundred thousand select warriors were killed. ¹⁸ Israel was subdued on that occasion, and Judah succeeded because they relied on the Lord, the God of their ancestors. ¹⁹ Abijah pursued Jeroboam and took these cities away from him: Bethel, Jeshanah, and Ephron,^[g] along with their villages. ²⁰ Jeroboam failed to regain power during the time of Abijah. The Lord finally struck him down, and he died. ²¹ Abijah, however, grew strong. He married fourteen wives; he had twenty-two sons and sixteen daughters. ²² The rest of Abijah’s deeds, what he did and what he said, are written in the account of the prophet Iddo.