Deeper Commentary
2Ch 12:1 When the kingdom of Rehoboam was established and he had made
himself strong, he forsook the law of Yahweh, and all Israel with him-
Yahweh was no longer apparently needed by them, and so they turned to
other gods. Maachah his beloved second wife (2 Chron. 11:20-22) was an
idolater (2 Chron. 15:16). The simple truth is that those who perceive how
powerless they are... turn to God for strength. And those who refuse to are
those who turn away from Him to idols.
2Ch 12:2 It happened in the fifth year of king Rehoboam, that Shishak king
of Egypt came up against Jerusalem, because they had trespassed against
Yahweh-
Shishak had given refuge to Jeroboam (1 Kings 11:40), so it could be
that he urged Shishak to attack Judah once Rehoboam became established as
king of Judah. "A monument of this king, the first of the 22nd dynasty,
has been discovered at Karnak in Upper Egypt, recording his conquests and
the names of certain towns which he had taken in Palestine". Inscriptions
on the wall of the temple at Karnak list many conquered cities, including
three of the "cities for defence" which Rehoboam had built, Shoco, Adoraim
and Aijalon (2 Chron. 11:7-10). The list also includes many cities within
the ten tribes, suggesting that if Jeroboam got Shishak to invade Judah,
Shishak then turned against his one time protégé Jeroboam and invaded the
ten tribes also.
2Ch 12:3 with twelve hundred chariots and sixty thousand horsemen. The
people were without number who came with him out of Egypt: the Lubim, the
Sukkiim and the Ethiopians-
Rehoboam's father Solomon had sold his soul to the Egyptians, and
married the daughter of Pharaoh. But now Egypt turned against his son,
just as the world does. We note that "hundred" and "thousand" are often
used to denote military divisions, rather than literally 100 or 1000.
2Ch 12:4 He took the fortified cities which pertained to Judah and came to
Jerusalem-
I noted on 2 Chron. 11:6,7 that Rehoboam's carefully fortified cities
were all strategically positioned to defend the approaches to Jerusalem.
But this was all human strength, and without God on his side it all came
to nothing.
2Ch 12:5 Now Shemaiah the prophet came to Rehoboam and to the princes of
Judah, who were gathered together to Jerusalem because of Shishak, and
said to them, Thus says Yahweh, You have forsaken Me, therefore have I
also left you in the hand of Shishak-
This may be now a quotation from the history written by Shemaiah
about Rehoboam (2 Chron. 12:15). "Forsaken" is the same word as "left
you". But 'You forsake Me, I'll forsake you' is not the conclusion we
should take too easily. For God only forsook sinners after years of
patience with them. And it is doubtful whether Rehoboam ever had much
spirituality, as his father was Solomon and his mother an Ammonitess
pagan. Yet he was generously counted as 'with Yahweh'.
2Ch 12:6 Then the princes of Israel and the king humbled themselves; and
they said, Yahweh is righteous-
Who God is, as expressed in His Name, is an imperative to prepare
ourselves to meet Him in judgment. The confession of the Name is
paralleled with repentance in 2 Chron. 6:24. There we read that if Israel
sin and repent ''and confess Your name" they will be forgiven. But instead
of ''confess Your name'' we expect ''confess their sins": the point being
that to confess the name is effectively to confess sins. The name is the
characteristics of Yahweh. The more we meditate upon them, the more we
will naturally be lead to a confession of our sins, the deeper we will
sense the gap between those principles and our own character. Likewise
here, the statement that ''the Lord is righteous'' is effectively
a confession of sin. And thus we are not to bear or take the Name of
Yahweh called upon us at baptism in vain- the realty of the implications
of the name are not to be lost upon us.
2Ch 12:7 When Yahweh saw that they humbled themselves, the word of Yahweh
came to Shemaiah, saying, They have humbled themselves. I will not destroy
them; but I will grant them some deliverance. My wrath shall not be poured
out on Jerusalem by the hand of Shishak-
The theme of humbling themselves alludes to God's words in 2
Chron. 7:14, which is His reply to Solomon's claim that if Israel prayed
to the temple, then God would save them in battle. He says simply that if
Israel humble themselves in battle [He makes no mention of the temple],
then He will save them. And the situation with Shishak was an example of
that. We note that even at that stage, God had in mind to destroy the
temple and Zion / Jerusalem. Solomon and David's dogmatism that it would
last eternally are thus shown to be misplaced right from the start of the
temple's 430 year history.
"Shemaiah", 'Yah has heard', gave them the message that He had heard
their humility, as if that itself was reckoned as prayer. And indeed,
character and situation are often effectively reckoned as prayer. We have
the impression that God had intended the destruction of Jerusalem at this
point; but He relented, in response to their repentance. Just as He did
with Nineveh. There is a gap between His statement of judgment, and its
fulfilment. During that gap, we can change the outcome by prayer and
repentance.
"They have humbled themselves" could be an expression of pleasant
surprise.
2Ch 12:8 Nevertheless they shall be his servants, that they may know My
service, and the service of the kingdoms of the countries-
They were to perceive in their servitude to this man what servitude to
Yahweh ought to be like. They were therefore to serve him "as unto the
Lord", and Col. 3:23 taught Christian slaves to serve their masters as if
they were serving the Lord Jesus. This, therefore, is an abiding theme in
God's dealings with His people, and has enabled so many in positions of
awful subservience to be able to live out their lives with the dignity of
knowing that their lives are counted as serving God.
2Ch 12:9 So Shishak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem, and took away
the treasures of the house of Yahweh, and the treasures of the king’s
house. He took it all away. He also took away the shields of gold which
Solomon had made-
LXX mentions that David took golden spears from Hadadezer: “And the
golden spears which David took from the hand of the servants of Adraazar
king of Soba and carried to Jerusalem, he took them all”. These
would not have been used as real spears, but were part of the worship of
the golden sun which was the main religion in Syria at the time. David
would have been better destroying them, rather than bringing idol
paraphernalia into Jerusalem. For it later contributed towards the freedom
Judah felt to worship sun gods. These spears would have been taken at the
time of 2 Sam. 8:7: "David took the shields of gold that were on the
servants of Hadadezer, and brought them to Jerusalem".
"Hadad" was the god of the sun, "Hadadezer" had not been 'helped by Hadad'
as his name means, and so David brought these golden imitations of the sun
to Yahweh's temple. It is perhaps questionable whether David should have
brought idols into Jerusalem; we note that later Judah worshipped sun
gods. David's actions here were not blessed, for the LXX adds “And Susakim
[i.e. Shishak] king of Egypt took them, when he went up to Jerusalem in
the days of Roboam the son of Solomon”.
Shishak is usually identified as Shoshenq I. But as always with Egyptology, there are other claims. Immanuel Velikovsky in Ages in Chaos has him as Thutmose III of the 18th dynasty; David Rohl as Ramesses II of the 19th dynasty, and Peter James as Ramesses III of the 20th dynasty.
2Ch 12:10 King Rehoboam made in their place shields of brass, and
committed them to the hands of the captains of the guard who kept the door
of the king’s house-
Gold being downgraded to brass reflects the decline of faith in
Rehoboam, for gold is a symbol of faith (1 Pet. 1:7).
2Ch 12:11 It was so, that as often as the king entered into the house of
Yahweh, the guard came and carried them back into the guard room-
This indicates that there was a very low level of security even in
the Jerusalem temple. Rehoboam wished by all means to imitate the worship
of his father Solomon, but it was on a pathetically lower level. Despite
all his idolatry, he still entered the temple for public worship of
Yahweh. This was Israel's recurrent problem, to worship both Yahweh and
the idols.
2Ch 12:12 When he humbled himself-
"Humbled himself" is the word also used for being "subdued under"
military powers. When Israel didn't subdue themselves under God, they were
subdued beneath their enemies. So it was a case of humility one way or the
other. And the same logic applies to us. Flesh must be humbled, either by
our willing choice in this life, or in the condemnation of the last day.
The wrath of Yahweh turned from him, so
as not to destroy him altogether. Moreover, in Judah there were good things
found-
Ps. 78:38; 85:3 seem to suggest God Himself controlled His anger,
Himself turning that anger away, rather than being like a pagan deity whose
anger was appeased by blood sacrifice. God turned from His anger due to
Moses' intercession (Ex. 32:12 s.w.), but this is not to say that He cannot
in any case turn away His anger, simply by His grace. Just as we may control
our anger from within ourselves, or at other times we may do this because of
the appeal of another to us, or because there is repentance from the one who
provoked us. And there were times when this was the case with God (s.w. Num.
25:4; Josh. 7:26; 2 Chron. 12:12; 29:10; 30:8).
2Ch 12:13 So king Rehoboam strengthened himself in Jerusalem, and reigned.
Rehoboam was forty-one years old when he began to reign, and he reigned
seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city which Yahweh had chosen out of all
the tribes of Israel, to put His name there. His mother’s name was Naamah
the Ammonitess-
1 Kings 14:21; 2 Chron. 12:13 says Rehoboam was 41 when he became
king. But he was "young and tender hearted" (2 Chron. 13:7). The LXX
addition at 1 Kings 12:24 says he was 16 when he began to reign. He was
surrounded by young men who had grown up with him. I suggest on balance
that he was indeed 41 and the "young men" were "young" in comparison to
the older men present. The description "young and tender hearted" could
simply be a purposeful repetition of the description of his father Solomon
when he ascended the throne; or it could mean that he was a rather weak
and child like man.
2Ch 12:14 He did that which was evil, because he didn’t set his heart to
seek Yahweh-
Constantly, the Bible stresses the importance of the heart, and of
conscious 'setting' of the heart, of directing the thoughts toward God.
And doing evil is the result of failing to do this.
2Ch 12:15 Now the acts of Rehoboam, first and last, aren’t they written in
the histories of Shemaiah the prophet and of Iddo the seer, after the way
of genealogies?-
The priests who wrote those records in Chronicles were writing down the
result of their national self-examination. This was the record of their
lessons from Chronicles. Each of the genealogies say something about the
people they are concerned with; and thus 2 Chron. 12:15 RVmg. speaks of
how the acts of Rehoboam are reflected in the reckoning of the
genealogies.
There were wars between Rehoboam and Jeroboam continually-
This would indicate disobedience to the command to Rehoboam not to
fight the ten tribes (1 Kings 12:24).
2Ch 12:16 Rehoboam slept with his fathers, and was buried in the city of
David; and Abijah his son reigned in his place-
The description of death as sleeping with fathers is clear evidence that
death is seen as a sleep, unconsciousness, and not as the start of an
immortal soul going to heaven or 'hell'. Good and bad, David and Solomon,
are gathered together in death. The division between them will only
therefore come at the resurrection of the dead, and the granting of
immortality at the judgment seat of the Lord Jesus.
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