Rehoboam

Biblical Record

Rehoboam was the son of Solomon and Naamah, an Ammonite woman (1 Kings 14:21). He is recorded as having come to the throne at the age of forty-one and reigning for seventeen years in Jerusalem.

According to 1 Kings 12 and 2 Chronicles 10, around the time of his accession the people assembled at Shechem and asked him to lighten the heavy forced labor that Solomon had imposed on them. Rehoboam first consulted the elders who had served his father, and they advised him to grant the people's request. Instead, he followed the counsel of the young men who had grown up with him and answered, "My father also chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions" (1 Kings 12:14). In response, the ten northern tribes rebelled and made Jeroboam their king. This event is known as the division of the kingdom, and only Judah and Benjamin remained with Rehoboam. He mustered an army to attack the north but abandoned the plan after heeding the word of Shemaiah, the man of God (1 Kings 12:21–24).

Second Chronicles 11 reports that he fortified a number of cities and that priests and Levites from the north came down to Judah. Yet it also records that once the kingdom had become strong, he forsook the law (2 Chronicles 12:1). In the fifth year of his reign, Shishak king of Egypt attacked Jerusalem and carried off the treasures of the temple and the royal palace, along with the gold shields Solomon had made. Rehoboam replaced them with shields of bronze (1 Kings 14:25–28). After his death he was succeeded by his son Abijah (called Abijam in 1 Kings).

Significance Within Scripture

First Kings presents the division of the kingdom as judgment on Solomon's idolatry, an event foretold by the prophet Ahijah (1 Kings 11:29–39). For this reason it describes the king's refusal of the people's request with the words "for the cause was from the LORD" (1 Kings 12:15). The Books of Kings assess Judah in Rehoboam's day as having built high places and Asherah poles and done evil. Second Chronicles additionally records that when Shishak invaded, the king and the leaders humbled themselves and were thus spared complete destruction (2 Chronicles 12:6–12).

In the New Testament, Rehoboam appears in the genealogy of Jesus Christ in Matthew 1:7: "And Solomon begat Roboam."

Interpretation and Issues

• Divine sovereignty and human responsibility: The text sets the statement that the division was God's will alongside the account of Rehoboam's foolish decision. For this reason the passage is often read as an example of how providence and human responsibility intersect.
• Differing emphases of the two histories: Kings chiefly highlights the sin of Judah. Second Chronicles adds the themes of humility and partial deliverance, as well as an assessment of the king's inner life: "he prepared not his heart to seek the LORD" (2 Chronicles 12:14).
• Chronology and Shishak: Scholars date his accession variously, for example to about 931 BC or 922 BC. Shishak is widely identified with the Egyptian pharaoh Shoshenq I.
• Distinguishing common embellishments: Sermons sometimes generalize the young advisers into a symbol of an entire rash younger generation. Some, however, point out that what the text faults is not age as such but the unwillingness to ease the people's burden.

In Korean Churches

In Korean Protestant churches, the story of Rehoboam is taught in Sunday school lesson materials in a unit on "the kingdom divided in two," where he is introduced alongside Jeroboam, whose name is similar. In preaching, the story is reportedly used to address themes such as discerning counsel, servant leadership, and "lost glory and a faith reduced to outward appearance," symbolized by the replacement of the gold shields with bronze ones.