Deeper Commentary
2Ch 10:1 Rehoboam went to Shechem; for all Israel had come to
Shechem to make him king-
The LXX addition adds: "And Jeroboam went to Shechem in mount
Ephraim, and assembled there the tribes of Israel; and Roboam the son of
Solomon went up thither".
This would explain why this gathering to instate Rehoboam as king was
held in Shechem and not in Jerusalem. And yet although Jeroboam was present
with supporters, it appears that "all Israel" favoured the idea of Rehoboam
as king. The old men truly advised him that if he would only ease the
taxation, all Israel would remain loyal to him. It could even be that
the ten tribes had invited Rehoboam from Jerusalem to their great meeting
place in Shechem specifically because they wanted him to be king. But this
had to change, according to God's judgment upon Solomon- the ten tribes had
to be removed from the control of his dynasty.
2Ch 10:2 When Jeroboam the son of Nebat heard of it (for he was in Egypt,
where he had fled from the presence of king Solomon), then Jeroboam
returned out of Egypt-
It seems this verse and :3 should follow 2 Chron. 9:31 as in LXX and
some Hebrew manuscripts.
2Ch 10:3 They sent and called him; and Jeroboam and all Israel came, and
they spoke to Rehoboam saying-
See on 2 Chron. 24:2. We note that Jeroboam didn't immediately begin by demanding the
throne, but rather led the people in asking Rehoboam to reduce his
father's excessive taxation system. But his return from Egypt, and his
awareness of the prophecy about him ruling over Israel, surely meant he
had in view the possibility of Rehoboam rejecting the request.
In a distorted way, Jeroboam was almost a type of Christ; for as made
clear at the end of 1 Kings 11, he could have been the Messianic ruler
over Israel had he chosen Yahweh's way. I'd suggest
that many wicked Old Testament characters could have been types
of Christ if they had lived righteously, and the record indirectly
indicates this. Jeroboam fled to Egypt because of the persecution of Solomon,
as did the Lord. When
Solomon died, "they sent and called him", connecting with the record of
the Lord Jesus going to Egypt and coming back after Herod's death.
Jeroboam came back on the third day (:12) and offered freedom from
bondage to Israel, as did Christ on his resurrection. In 1 Kings 13:10 we
read of the prophet who came to prophesy about Jeroboam; we are told that
he didn't return the way he came, but went back another way. That's an
echo of the wise men, who came to see Jesus, and returned another way.
2Ch 10:4 Your father made our yoke grievous. Now therefore make lighter
the grievous service of your father, and his heavy yoke which he put on
us, and we will serve you-
Ephraim had been specifically targetted as a provider of labour and tax
revenues (1 Kings 11:28). The influence of Egypt upon Solomon is reflected by the way in which he
is described as making the people serve him with "hard bondage" (2 Chron.
10:4; 1 Kings 12:4). This is the very Hebrew phrase used to describe what
the Egyptians did to Israel (Ex. 1:14; 6:9; Dt. 26:6). Solomon put his
people under a yoke (2 Chron. 10:4), just as Egypt did to them (Lev.
26:13). And so we see the progression. Solomon loved an Egyptian woman,
came to serve her gods, traded with Egypt... and the attitude of Egypt to
God's people became Solomon's attitude to them. There is something unique
about God's people; and yet the closer we come to the world, the more we
come to see our own community, God's special family, just as this world
sees us. The world's attitude to us can so easily become our attitude to
our brethren- no longer seeing them as the specially chosen little
children of God, sensitive to them as our very own brothers and sisters.
The very possession of wisdom and teaching of it to others can of
itself make a man or woman demotivated to personally apply it. He foretold
that the people would sign when a wicked man ruled them (Prov. 29:2 RV)-
and they did "sigh" because of the heavy burdens he placed upon them (1
Kings 12:4). He imposed the "yoke" of tribute upon the people (2 Chron.
10:4), whereas he himself had warned that a king that imposes tribute on
his people "overthrows" a country (Prov. 29:4 RV mg.). He saw it all as
true- and yet it was far from him personally.
The influence of Egypt upon Solomon is reflected by the way in which he
is described as making the people serve him with "hard bondage" (2 Chron.
10:4; 1 Kings 12:4). This is the very Hebrew phrase used to describe what
the Egyptians did to Israel (Ex. 1:14; 6:9; Dt. 26:6). Solomon put his
people under a yoke (2 Chron. 10:4), just as Egypt did to them (Lev.
26:13). And so we see the progression. Solomon loved an Egyptian woman,
came to serve her gods, traded with Egypt... and the attitude of Egypt to
God's people became Solomon's attitude to them. There is something unique
about God's people; and yet the closer we come to the world, the more we
come to see our own community, God's special family, just as this world
sees us. The world's attitude to us can so easily become our attitude to
our brethren- no longer seeing them as the specially chosen little
children of God, sensitive to them as our very own brothers and sisters.
The very possession of wisdom and teaching of it to others can of
itself make a man or woman demotivated to personally apply it. He foretold
that the people would sign when a wicked man ruled them (Prov. 29:2 RV)-
and they did "sigh" because of the heavy burdens he placed upon them (1
Kings 12:4). He imposed the "yoke" of tribute upon the people (2 Chron.
10:4), whereas he himself had warned that a king that imposes tribute on
his people "overthrows" a country (Prov. 29:4 RV mg.). He saw it all as
true- and yet it was far from him personally.
2Ch 10:5 He said to them, Come again to me after three days. The
people departed-
The three days may have been in order to allow the advisers to be
summoned from Jerusalem.
2Ch 10:6 King Rehoboam took counsel with the old men who had stood before
Solomon his father while he yet lived, saying, What advice do you give me
to return answer to this people?-
If Solomon was 41 at this time and the "young men" were those who had
grown up with him, these men would have been really quite "old", old
enough to have lived through much of David's reign and to have been
influenced by his spirituality. Or the word may be used here to simply
refer to the elders, whereas Rehoboam had also surrounded himself with his
own peer group as advisers.
In this context, we may consider Solomon's frequent proverbs about the wisdom of having advisors, and his words in Prov. 20:18: "Plans are established by advice". Solomon's advice to his son sounds all well and good; but Rehoboam was given two different paths of advice by his advisors. Again, Solomon's words are true, but simplistic. Because as Rehoboam's case shows, the issue is not so much having advisors per se, but deciding which advisors to listen to. Solomon too had advisors, but did what he wanted, making this Proverb somewhat hollow when applied to himself.
2Ch 10:7 They spoke to him saying, ‘If you are kind to this people, and
please them, and speak good words to them, then they will be your servants
forever’-
See on :1. The general will of Israel was for Rehoboam and not
Jeroboam, but the taxation issue was crucial.
The paradox of servant leadership is found here- if Rehoboam had been a servant of his people, then he would have ruled over them. In all ways, the Lord is our pattern. He was a servant of all, and so should we be. His servanthood dominated His consciousness. He said that He came not [so much as] to be ministered unto, but so as to minister, with the end that He gave His life for others (Mk. 10:45).
2Ch 10:8 But he forsook the counsel of the old men which they had given
him, and took counsel with the young men who had grown up with him, who
stood before him-
It is true that as we go through life, we ought to realize that harsh
responses and demands upon others are not really the way to go. These
"young men" were perhaps the boys he had grown up with in Solomon's harem,
his half brothers. They, like him, would not have been pure Israelites as
their mothers were Gentiles, and they didn't have the long term well being
of the nation at heart. Rehoboam was 41 at this stage. Perhaps then we can
understand this as meaning that he had appointed young men as his
advisers, who had been raised near him (the Hebrew eth translated
"with" is a very wide word). They were young, but the Hebrew
doesn't have to mean he had grown up with them. Rather they were young men
who had been raised as he had been, in the same harem, which would hardly
have been much of a place of wisdom.
2Ch 10:9 He said to them, What advice do you give, that we may return
answer to this people who have spoken to me saying, ‘Make the yoke that
your father put on us lighter?’-
He had written in his Proverbs that the ruler who lacks wisdom will
oppress his people (Prov. 28:16); and although his wisdom remained with
him right to the end, in terms of knowledge (Ecc. 2:9; 12:10), yet at the
end of his reign Solomon was the ruler who did oppress his people. And he had gone on in Prov. 28:16 to warn against
covetousness in a ruler, even though he went ahead with practicing every
conceivable form of it in Ecc. 2. “Therefore remove sorrow from thy heart,
and put away evil from thy flesh” (Ecc. 11:10) Solomon taught- and yet
Solomon in Ecclesiastes is the very picture of such a person. Like
the experienced pilot who takes off
with frozen wings and then crashes, so Solomon’s very wisdom somehow
disinclined him to living it out in practice. This is the perversity of
our nature- the higher we may rise, the deeper we are inclined to fall.
2Ch 10:10 The young men who had grown up with him spoke to him saying,
Thus you shall tell the people who spoke to you saying, Your father made
our yoke heavy, but make it lighter on us; thus you shall say to them, My
little finger is thicker than my father’s waist-
The Lord appears to allude to this when He invites all those
burdened and heavy laden to come to Him because His yoke is easy and the
burden light (Mt. 11:28). It could be argued that He is thereby
acknowledging that Jeroboam, who offered the easier burden, could have
been as Him, a fulfilment of the promise of the Messianic king (1 Kings
11:38). He saw in those people abused by Solomon the religiously abused
people who were suffering under the burdens placed upon them by their
religious leaders; and He saw those Jews as represented by Solomon, whom
He continually reads in a bad light.
2Ch 10:11 Now whereas my father burdened you with a heavy yoke, I will add
to your yoke. My father chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you
with scorpions-
The contrast is not between whips and scorpions, but the idea is
rather than he would use a far heavier whip known as a scorpion. The
Romans had a whip called a "scorpio", used for punishment.
Despite having such knowledge and wisdom with which to rule Israel (for this was the primary purpose of the gift of wisdom to him), Solomon oppressed his people. With evident reference to himself, he commented: “Because the king’s word has power, who may say unto him, What doest thou?” (Ecc. 8:4 RV). It is only God who cannot be questioned in this way. But Solomon felt that because he possessed God’s wisdom, he could therefore act as God: “I counsel you, Keep the King’s command, and that in regard of the oath of God” (Ecc. 8:2) could suggest that he thought that his commandments were in fact God’s. So the possession of Truth, which we too have, can lead to an incredible arrogance, a lack of openness to others’ comments upon us, and a certainty that we are right in all that we do and are beyond criticism. The hardness of a man is changed by true wisdom (Ecc. 8:1 RV), but knowing this, Solomon became hard hearted. He had the wisdom- but as he said, it was far from him personally.
“Surely oppression maketh a wise man foolish” (Ecc. 7:7 RV), he commented at the end of his life- even though right then he was chastising the people with whips, oppressing them (1 Kings 12:11). He knew the true wisdom, he saw his reflection so accurately in the mirror, but resigned from its personal implications. He could even write that “I returned and considered all the oppression that are done under the sun [by himself!]: and behold the tears of such as were oppressed, and they had no comforter; and on the side of their oppressors there was power [Solomon was king and had set up the tax system in a clever and biased way]; but they had no comforter” (Ecc. 4:1; 5:8). It was a real case of spiritual schizophrenia- he sorrowed for the people he oppressed.
2Ch 10:12 So Jeroboam and all the people came to Rehoboam the third
day, as the king asked, saying, Come to me again the third day-
We the readers are drawn into a sense of expectation; we ourselves
know what Rehoboam is going to say, but we are placed in the position of
the suffering people, who didn't yet know what Rehoboam was going to
answer.
2Ch 10:13 The king answered them roughly; and king Rehoboam forsook the
advice of the old men-
"Roughly" is the word used of how the Egyptians treated the
Israelites in whipping them and giving them heavy burdens to carry (Ex.
1:14). This was how he was behaving. It is the word the people have just
used when they complained that Solomon had treated them 'grievously' (:4);
and Rehoboam confirms that he is going to do the same. Solomon had
frequently warned against forsaking the advice of elders (s.w. Prov. 2:17;
4:2 and especially the warning of Prov. 27:10 not to forsake the advice of
your father's friend). But Rehoboam had probably not even read or heard
all these Proverbs, as Solomon himself had ignored his own Proverbs and
lived quite opposite to them. And so did his son.
2Ch 10:14 and spoke to them after the advice of the young men saying, My
father made your yoke heavy, but I will add to it. My father chastised you
with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions-
Solomon has so much to say about 'chastisement' / "correction" / "instruction" coming
from the possession of wisdom (Prov. 8:10,33; 10:17; 12:1; 13:1,24;
15:5,10,32; 16:22; 19:20,27; 22:15; 23:12,13). But in the end he chastised
or corrected his people by whipping them (s.w. 1 Kings 12:11,14). Solomon
initially asked for wisdom in order to guide his people, but he ended up
whipping / physically chastising them into conformity with his wishes
rather than allowing wisdom to correct. Again, he was playing God; for it
is God through His wisdom who chastises, and not man. But Solomon thought
he was effectively God to his people. This is why Solomon argues that
servants cannot be corrected by words (Prov. 29:19 s.w.), and a child must
be physically chastised (s.w. Prov. 19:18; 29:17 cp. Prov. 13:24; 23:13),
regardless of his screams of pain. This kind of thing is a denial of his
claims elsewhere that it is Divine wisdom which chastises / corrects, and
such correction is from God and not man. Solomon's final description of
himself as an old and foolish king who refuses to be admonished says it
all (Ecc. 4:13); he admonishes others (s.w. Ecc. 12:12), but refuses to be
admonished or corrected by his own wisdom. He failed to personalize it.
2Ch 10:15 So the king didn’t listen to the people; for it was brought
about of God, that Yahweh might establish His word, which He spoke by
Ahijah the Shilonite to Jeroboam the son of Nebat-
There are times when God has influenced men not to respond to the evidently wise words of other men, in order to fulfill His purpose (e.g. 1 Kings 12:15; 2 Chron. 25:20). There are a number of other passages which mention how "it was of the Lord" that certain attitudes were adopted by men, resulting in the sequence of events which He desired (Dt. 2:39; Josh. 11:20; 1 Sam. 2:25; 1 Kings 12:15; 2 Chron. 10:15; 22:7; 25:20). It is tempting to read Jud. 14:4 in this context, meaning that God somehow made Samson desire that woman in order to bring about His purpose of freeing Israel from Philistine domination. God through His Spirit works to confirm men in the path they wish to go. And this is the huge significance of the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives today.
2Ch 10:16 When all Israel saw that the king didn’t listen to them,
the people answered the king saying, What portion have we in David?
Neither have we inheritance in the son of Jesse! Every man to your tents,
Israel! Now see to your own house, David. So all Israel departed to their
tents-
This was the cry of Sheba in 2 Sam. 20:1. But the promises of 2 Sam.
7 were to David and his seed / house. By resigning from any association
with that house, they were walking out of the hope of Israel which was in
those promises. This has been done so many times by those who
[understandably] become disillusioned with the family of believers, but
their break with them develops into a break with the things of God's
Kingdom.
2Ch 10:17 But as for the children of Israel who lived in the cities of
Judah, Rehoboam reigned over them-
This means that there were people from the ten tribes living in
Judah, particularly those who had been transported there by Solomon to
live in the various defensive outpost towns he had built in southern
Judah. And they remained under Rehoboam.
2Ch 10:18 Then king Rehoboam sent Hadoram, who was over the men subject to
forced labour; and the children of Israel stoned him to death with stones.
King Rehoboam made speed to get himself up to his chariot, to flee to
Jerusalem-
If the forced labour quotas of Solomon were to now be multiplied,
life would literally be impossible for the ten tribes. It is no surprise
therefore that Adoram was stoned and Rehoboam had to flee for his life
back to Jerusalem- reflecting on the folly of his young advisors.
2Ch 10:19 So Israel rebelled against the house of David to this day-
The same phrase used of Edom in 2 Kings 8:22. The word for "rebelled"
is also translated "transgressed". Their division from the house of David
was a division away from the promises about the eternal establishment of
that house, as noted on :16. In this sense it was therefore sinful.
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