1 Kings 14: 1 – 31
Don’t try to be someone you’re not
14 At that time Abijah the son of Jeroboam became sick. 2 And Jeroboam said to his wife, “Please arise, and disguise yourself, that they may not recognize you as the wife of Jeroboam and go to Shiloh. Indeed, Ahijah the prophet is there, who told me that I would be king over this people. 3 Also take with you ten loaves, some cakes, and a jar of honey, and go to him; he will tell you what will become of the child.” 4 And Jeroboam’s wife did so; she arose and went to Shiloh and came to the house of Ahijah. But Ahijah could not see, for his eyes were glazed by reason of his age. 5 Now the LORD had said to Ahijah, “Here is the wife of Jeroboam, coming to ask you something about her son, for he is sick. Thus, and thus you shall say to her; for it will be, when she comes in, that she will pretend to be another woman.” 6 And so it was, when Ahijah heard the sound of her footsteps as she came through the door, he said, “Come in, wife of Jeroboam. Why do you pretend to be another person? For I have been sent to you with bad news. 7 Go, tell Jeroboam, ‘Thus says the LORD God of Israel: “Because I exalted you from among the people, and made you ruler over My people Israel, 8 and tore the kingdom away from the house of David, and gave it to you; and yet you have not been as My servant David, who kept My commandments and who followed Me with all his heart, to do only what was right in My eyes; 9 but you have done more evil than all who were before you, for you have gone and made for yourself other gods and molded images to provoke Me to anger, and have cast Me behind your back— 10 therefore behold! I will bring disaster on the house of Jeroboam and will cut off from Jeroboam every male in Israel, bond and free; I will take away the remnant of the house of Jeroboam, as one takes away refuse until it is all gone. 11 The dogs shall eat whoever belongs to Jeroboam and dies in the city, and the birds of the air shall eat whoever dies in the field; for the LORD has spoken!”’ 12 Arise therefore, go to your own house. When your feet enter the city, the child shall die. 13 And all Israel shall mourn for him and bury him, for he is the only one of Jeroboam who shall come to the grave, because in him there is found something good toward the LORD God of Israel in the house of Jeroboam. 14 “Moreover the LORD will raise up for Himself a king over Israel who shall cut off the house of Jeroboam; this is the day. What? Even now! 15 For the LORD will strike Israel, as a reed is shaken in the water. He will uproot Israel from this good land which He gave to their fathers, and will scatter them beyond the River, because they have made their wooden images, provoking the LORD to anger. 16 And He will give Israel up because of the sins of Jeroboam, who sinned and who made Israel sin.” 17 Then Jeroboam’s wife arose and departed and came to Tirzah. When she came to the threshold of the house, the child died. 18 And they buried him; and all Israel mourned for him, according to the word of the LORD which He spoke through His servant Ahijah the prophet. 19 Now the rest of the acts of Jeroboam, how he made war and how he reigned, indeed they are written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel. 20 The period that Jeroboam reigned was twenty-two years. So, he rested with his fathers. Then Nadab his son reigned in his place. 21 And Rehoboam the son of Solomon reigned in Judah. Rehoboam was forty-one years old when he became king. He reigned seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city which the LORD had chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, to put His name there. His mother’s name was Naamah, an Ammonitess. 22 Now Judah did evil in the sight of the LORD, and they provoked Him to jealousy with their sins which they committed, more than all that their fathers had done. 23 For they also built for themselves high places, sacred pillars, and wooden images on every high hill and under every green tree. 24 And there were also perverted persons in the land. They did according to all the abominations of the nations which the LORD had cast out before the children of Israel. 25 It happened in the fifth year of King Rehoboam that Shishak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem. 26 And he took away the treasures of the house of the LORD and the treasures of the king’s house; he took away everything. He also took away all the gold shields which Solomon had made. 27 Then King Rehoboam made bronze shields in their place, and committed them to the hands of the captains of the guard, who guarded the doorway of the king’s house. 28 And whenever the king entered the house of the LORD, the guards carried them, then brought them back into the guardroom. 29 Now the rest of the acts of Rehoboam, and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah? 30 And there was war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam all their days. 31 So Rehoboam rested with his fathers and was buried with his fathers in the City of David. His mother’s name was Naamah, an Ammonitess. Then Abijam his son reigned in his place.
We can be anything we want to be, but we can’t be anyone we want to be. You can be a scientist, a chef, a dancer, an entrepreneur, a writer, an artist, an astronaut, a president, but you have no choice but to be yourself.
Rather, you have no other wise choice than to be yourself. You can try to be someone you’re not – plenty of people try – but they all ultimately fail.
We all have a multitude of character and personality traits. Each trait we possess is possessed in a certain amount; the prominence of each trait varies from the next, just as the prominence of each trait varies from individual to individual.
The Big Five personality traits in psychology are openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism. Of course, these are the most basic – each trait correlates to a cluster of related and more specific traits.
Every person possesses these traits to some degree and the traits fluctuate in intensity throughout our lifetimes. In other words, we do have some control over how intensely each trait manifests itself.
However, as just about everything in relation to psychology and consciousness, it’s much more complicated than that. To keep things simple, each trait has a natural or comfortable resting state.
The traits do have some elasticity, but as with all things, there are limits.
Pushing certain traits further than they are naturally inclined to be affects all the other traits – supplementing some and decreasing the prominence of others.
Pushing some traits too far, literally trying to be someone you’re not meant to be, is one of the worst things you could possibly do.
You will almost certainly fail.
Pushing yourself to be someone you’re not set up to be is not easy. Sometimes in life, we find ourselves in situations that require us to adapt, to be someone we aren’t.
At times of crises, we find enough reason and motivation to turn ourselves into the people necessary to get the job done. But this sort of transformation is usually unsustainable. Being someone, you aren’t meant to be may be possible, but opportunities for failure are endless.
If you do succeed, you certainly won’t be happy.
Because we have somewhat natural levels of each individual personality trait, pushing any one trait outside of its limits is uncomfortable.
We are creating tension by pushing ourselves to think in ways we don’t usually think, to act in ways we don’t usually act, and to do things we don’t usually do.
This may all be fine, if you stay active and too busy to slow down… but as soon as you do, your world can come crashing down on top of you.
Continuing to pretend you are someone you’re not will eventually make you crash and burn.
You may be able to push yourself to the limits and do so for years, decades even. Nevertheless, one day – even if it’s your last day – you will come to realize that you have wasted too much time being a person you simply aren’t.
Experiencing such a huge loss of time can push you over the edge.
To make things worse, before you crash and burn, you will likely push yourself further and further in the wrong direction – guaranteeing maximum misery before you fall apart.
It’s sort of like drinking or doing drugs – the more you consume, the worse you feel... the worse you feel, the more you consume. And then one day you look at yourself and feel sick to the stomach.
The longer and further you managed to push yourself, the more painful the fall back onto reality.
By the time you accept defeat, you would have caused immense damage – to your mind, your body, your relationships and your whole life.
Such immense changes in personality traits usually occur in a person’s 20s or 30s, when the mind is most prone to change. This means that the life we created before this changing point is one that we weren’t happy with or couldn’t appreciate. When we change our traits, we do so because we want to change our lives. Sometimes by wanting to create change so badly, we end up losing all the great things about the life we once had.
You are you and only you; you may wish you were someone else, but you aren’t and will never be.
The person you are at this very moment has been built over years and years of learning and interpretation. Your experiences have hardcoded you with certain behavioral traits as well as a line of thinking.
All of this is arguably mutable, but whether people alone are capable of entirely rewriting their personalities themselves is almost certainly impossible. You are you. Accept it.
Pretending to be someone you’re not for long enough will cause you to lose the person you really are, or that you once were.
You may have never been entirely certain of who that person was or is, but now you have pushed yourself so far in the wrong direction that the person may be lost forever.
Not everything is undoable. Not everything can be fixed or mended. Some things, once broken, will remain broken forever.
Today we are going to witness a woman who is going to try to change her identity. She is the wife of Jeroboam. Our Holy God Is Omnipresent which means He Is everywhere. So, her attempt to change her identity will not succeed. The bottom line is that you can’t fool God.
The life story of Jeroboam concludes with a quite remarkable story. There was one member of the house of Jeroboam who was still seeking to be faithful to YHWH, and that was Abijah, the son of Jeroboam. And because YHWH intended to bring shame and disgrace on the whole house of Jeroboam He chose to save Abijah from this disgrace by bringing him to a premature, but honorable, death, followed by full mourning and a respectable burial.
In the story Jeroboam sends his wife in disguise to discover from Ahijah the prophet what will happen to his ailing son. But forewarned by YHWH Ahijah takes the opportunity to denounce Jeroboam for his failure to live by the covenant that YHWH had made with him and declares that the child, the only member of the house of Jeroboam who is pleasing to YHWH, will die. It should be noted that this demonstrates that despite his apostasy, Jeroboam recognized that truth could only be found with the true prophets of YHWH. He had also demonstrated that when he had called on the man of God to heal him. In other words, in his heart he really knew where the truth lay, but he saw it as too costly to accept.
14 At that time Abijah the son of Jeroboam became sick.
Abijah the son of Jeroboam had become very ill. We know neither the nature of the sickness nor the age of Jeroboam’s son, although the assumption from verse 13 must be that he had reached the age of accountability. We can recognize, however, that the sickness was a very serious one, leaving open the possibility of his death. That was why Jeroboam was so concerned.
2 And Jeroboam said to his wife, “Please arise, and disguise yourself, that they may not recognize you as the wife of Jeroboam and go to Shiloh. Indeed, Ahijah the prophet is there, who told me that I would be king over this people.
Jeroboam, aware that he was not looked on by the true prophets of YHWH as acceptable, but equally aware that they alone had the true ability to look behind events, urged his wife to go in disguise to Ahijah the prophet in Shiloh. Ahijah was the prophet who had initially declared that he would become king over Israel (which we read about back in chapter 11.37-38), which gave him a certain status in Jeroboam’s eyes.
3 Also take with you ten loaves, some cakes, and a jar of honey, and go to him; he will tell you what will become of the child.”
He also told his wife to take with her a good supply of provisions for the prophet. This was not a bribe, but normal practice. The size of the gift was limited lest Ahijah guess who it was from. We should note in this regard that prophets were regularly consulted on health matters, and other matters of local concern, and it was seemingly considered right to take them food. Worldly people, however, probably thought that the more generous the gift that they sent, the more generous would be the reply, for that was how they behaved in their own lives. And his hope was that the prophet would give him good news about his young son and might even heal him.
4 And Jeroboam’s wife did so; she arose and went to Shiloh, and came to the house of Ahijah. But Ahijah could not see, for his eyes were glazed by reason of his age.
Jeroboam’s wife obediently did what she was told, and rose up and went to Shiloh, to the house of Ahijah the prophet. Ahijah was blind through old age and could not see clearly.
5 Now the LORD had said to Ahijah, “Here is the wife of Jeroboam, coming to ask you something about her son, for he is sick. Thus, and thus you shall say to her; for it will be, when she comes in, that she will pretend to be another woman.”
Our Holy God YHWH spoke to Ahijah. YHWH forewarned him who was coming to see him, and the reason for her visit, and that she would be in disguise. And He also told Ahijah what he was to say to her from YHWH, once she had arrived.
6 And so it was, when Ahijah heard the sound of her footsteps as she came through the door, he said, “Come in, wife of Jeroboam. Why do you pretend to be another person? For I have been sent to you with bad news.
When the woman entered, no doubt hoping that her disguise would not be penetrated by the blind old prophet, she must have been greatly disconcerted when he welcomed her as the wife of Jeroboam and asked her why she was pretending to be someone else. The point behind his question was that she should have known that nothing was hidden from YHWH, the all-seeing. He then informed her that he had heavy tidings for her.
7 Go, tell Jeroboam, ‘Thus says the LORD God of Israel: “Because I exalted you from among the people, and made you ruler over My people Israel, 8 and tore the kingdom away from the house of David, and gave it to you; and yet you have not been as My servant David, who kept My commandments and who followed Me with all his heart, to do only what was right in My eyes; 9 but you have done more evil than all who were before you, for you have gone and made for yourself other gods and molded images to provoke Me to anger, and have cast Me behind your back—
The heavy tidings concerned the covenant that YHWH had made with Jeroboam through Ahijah. As the God of Israel YHWH had exalted Jeroboam over Israel, and had made him prince over them, and had torn a large proportion of David’s kingdom from his house and had given it to Jeroboam. But Jeroboam had not responded in kind. He had not behaved like David, who had kept His commandments and followed Him with all his heart, doing only what was right in His eyes, but had rather done evil more than all who had come before him. He had made for himself ‘other gods’ and molten images which provoked YHWH to anger. The molten images were, of course, the golden calves. The ‘other gods’ were the result of the syncretism that his actions had brought into Israel’s worship with the result that they were worshipping Baal and Asherah as well, at the same time as they worshipped YHWH, and even probably sometimes worshipped Baal under the name of YHWH. (It was easy to mix up YHWH with Baal nominally, because Baal meant ‘lord’ and YHWH could be addressed as ‘baali’ - ‘my Lord’ - Hosea 3.16-17). But the underlying attributes of the god that they were worshipping were those of Baal, with plenty of ritual sex and no morals. They had cast YHWH and His pure covenant behind their backs.
10 therefore behold! I will bring disaster on the house of Jeroboam and will cut off from Jeroboam every male in Israel, bond and free; I will take away the remnant of the house of Jeroboam, as one takes away refuse until it is all gone.
YHWH had pronounced and now intended to bring evil on the house of Jeroboam. He would cut off from the house of Jeroboam every male child. He would sweep away the house of Jeroboam like a person who sweeps the garbage into a pile.
11 The dogs shall eat whoever belongs to Jeroboam and dies in the city, and the birds of the air shall eat whoever dies in the field; for the LORD has spoken!”’
Furthermore, the deaths of all his household would be violent. If they died in the city their bodies would be left for the scavenger dogs which infested every city to eat. And if they died in the open countryside they would be left to the scavenging birds, for there would be no one to bury them. The picture was a dismal one, but it was the consequence of disobedience, and failing to walk in YHWH’s ways.
12 Arise therefore, go to your own house. When your feet enter the city, the child shall die. 13 And all Israel shall mourn for him and bury him, for he is the only one of Jeroboam who shall come to the grave, because in him there is found something good toward the LORD God of Israel in the house of Jeroboam.
The prophet had no good news for them even as regards their ailing son. For as soon as she returned home her son would die. But he pointed out that he would be the fortunate one, for he alone of Jeroboam’s sons would be properly mourned and buried. He alone would come to a respectable grave. And that was because there was that in him, alone of all the house of Jeroboam, which pleased YHWH.
14 “Moreover the LORD will raise up for Himself a king over Israel who shall cut off the house of Jeroboam; this is the day. What? Even now!
It was YHWH’s intention to raise up a king over Israel who would cut off the house of Jeroboam ‘in that day’. For in the end all history is in His hands.
15 For the LORD will strike Israel, as a reed is shaken in the water. He will uproot Israel from this good land which He gave to their fathers, and will scatter them beyond the River, because they have made their wooden images, provoking the LORD to anger.
What was more, in coming days YHWH would smite Israel in the same way as a reed bends before the wind in the water and would root them out of their good land and scatter them Beyond The River (in Mesopotamia). And He would do this because they had made their Asherah-images, thus provoking YHWH to anger. To be scattered ‘beyond the River’ was to be cast out of the land which YHWH had given to His people.
The idea of being scattered in Mesopotamia also presented the horrifying picture of being taken so far away from their land that they would never return. Local prisoners of war, or those taken captives as slaves by neighboring countries, always had a hope of restoration in one way or another, especially as it was part of YHWH’s future inheritance, but at this stage of history being taken Beyond the River meant going somewhere where there was no hope of release at the hands of an unknown people. They would be away from God’s inheritance. It was the worst fate imaginable. The point behind this was that because they themselves had involved themselves in the Canaanite religion, they would be treated like the Canaanites should have been and driven from the land into a place from which they would not return.
16 And He will give Israel up because of the sins of Jeroboam, who sinned and who made Israel sin.”
All this would happen because YHWH had ‘given up Israel’. And it would be because of the sins of Jeroboam in which both he and Israel had partaken. There was to be no doubt of its root cause.
17 Then Jeroboam’s wife arose and departed and came to Tirzah. When she came to the threshold of the house, the child died.
No doubt shaken by what she had been told Jeroboam’s wife arose and returned home to Tirzah, mentioned here for the first time, but which had clearly become Jeroboam’s place of residence. And as soon as she arrived there and was approaching her house the child died. It was a seal on the doom of the house of Jeroboam.
18 And they buried him; and all Israel mourned for him, according to the word of the LORD which He spoke through His servant Ahijah the prophet.
But this son at least died in honor. All Israel buried him and mourned him, just as YHWH had said through His prophet Ahijah. He would be the last member of the house of Jeroboam to be respectfully honored and mourned.
19 Now the rest of the acts of Jeroboam, how he made war and how he reigned, indeed they are written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel.
Jeroboam’s reign was taken up with ‘warring and reigning’, typical of a petty king of the day. The warring would appear to have been mainly against Judah, a situation which continued both throughout the reign of Rehoboam (14.30; 15.6), and that of Abiyah and Asa. The only hope of peace between them had ceased with Jeroboam’s apostasy. There was now no covenant tie which might have united them, and YHWH was for the present at odds with Israel. Thus YHWH had no more interest in Jeroboam. He had written him off. The recording of the details of his life was left in the hands of secular historians, in a history that is unknown to us.
20 The period that Jeroboam reigned was twenty-two years. So, he rested with his fathers. Then Nadab his son reigned in his place.
His reign lasted twenty- two years, after which he died and ‘slept with his fathers’. No information is given about his burial, something normally mentioned. It may indicate that he was in disgrace. And he was followed by his son Nadab whose reign would soon come abruptly to an end.
At the commencement of his reign Jeroboam had been presented with a huge opportunity. God had been willing to make with him a covenant like His covenant with David. Had he walked rightly with the Lord his future, and that of Israel, would have been bright. But instead he replaced God in his life with a religion of his own inventing. He ignored the Scriptures. That is why both he and his kingdom were lost.
21 And Rehoboam the son of Solomon reigned in Judah. Rehoboam was forty-one years old when he became king. He reigned seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city which the LORD had chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, to put His name there. His mother’s name was Naamah, an Ammonitess.
The sad thing about Rehoboam’s reign would be its extreme bankruptcy. He reigned over a country which went to the excess in religious apostasy and sin, he saw all his treasures which had been built up by David and Solomon stripped away, and he spent much of his time fighting with Jeroboam and thus weakening Judah. And he did it while ruling in the city which YHWH had chosen out of all the tribes of Israel to put His Name there, chosen because it had been the city chosen by His grandfather David.
The one thing that appears to have saved Rehoboam’s reign from being as catastrophic as Jeroboam’s was the true worship maintained in the Temple, which would partly explain the comment about him reigning in the city where YHWH had set His Name. It would appear from this that initially the future of Yahwism in Judah was being secured by the true worship of the Temple, the place where YHWH had set His Name, and in both Judah and Israel by the activities of the prophets, who certainly in Israel must have arranged sanctuaries at which those who were faithful to YHWH could truly worship. Problems would therefore begin to arise in Judah when the Temple itself went astray. But that would not be for some time.
From this point on each reign will begin with an opening formula similar in general to that which introduces Rehoboam’s reign, and the order in which kings are dealt with from now on will be based on whether they commence reigning during the reign of their counterpart in the other country who has already been introduced. Thus, Rehoboam’s son Abiyam will follow Rehoboam, because Jeroboam was still reigning in Israel when he began to reign, and Abiyam’s son (Rehoboam’s grandson), Asa will then follow, for the same reason. Jeroboam will then die during Asa’s reign and so Jeroboam’s son will be dealt with next because he came to the throne while Asa was reigning, followed by Baasha, Zimri, Omri and Ahab, all kings of Israel, because all began reigning during the reign of Asa. Asa then died during the reign of Ahab so that Jehoshaphat of Judah will be dealt with after Ahab, because he began reigning during the reign of Ahab. And so, it will go on. The result is that we have a continual, if imperfect, co-relation between what is happening in the two countries around the same time.
22 Now Judah did evil in the sight of the LORD, and they provoked Him to jealousy with their sins which they committed, more than all that their fathers had done.
Regularly in the books of Kings the king’s reign is introduced with the words ‘he did evil (good) in the sight of YHWH’, thus we must see a deliberate distinction here between Rehoboam and Judah. It was Judah as a whole, but not Rehoboam, who are doing evil in the sight of YHWH. Rehoboam lost control over the country’s religious behavior, but at least he retained his own loyalty to YHWH, at least superficially. It was the one bright spot in his reign. The Chronicler, however, states that ‘he did evil because he did not prepare his heart to seek YHWH’ (2 Chronicles 12.14). While at the beginning of his reign he warmed towards YHWH, when the priests and Levites who were in Israel made their way to Jerusalem, but in a while his love again began to grow cold. It was revived again for a short while because of the invasion by Shishak, but then it again grew nominal so that he no longer prepared his heart to seek YHWH. But it is never suggested, even by the Chronicler, that he worshipped at the high places (2 Chronicles 11.13-12.14).
On the other hand, the country began to apostasies. Solomon’s behavior (not Rehoboam’s) was coming home to roost. So, Judah did what was evil in the sight of YHWH, and they provoked Him to jealousy with their sins and idolatry to a far greater extent than their fathers. From now on the worship of the Only True and Living God Yahweh would struggle to maintain its purity in a land which had succumbed to blending in with the Canaanite religion. This did not mean that they had ceased to worship in YHWH’s name. It meant that they were using a combination of Yahwism and Baalism to the detriment of Yahwism. They hoped to retain YHWH’s favor while at the same time enjoying what Baalism offered, a religion free of moral demands and offering sexual license. We can see now why YHWH had wanted the Canaanites either to be driven out, or to be slaughtered. Judah was now experiencing the consequences of compromise.
23 For they also built for themselves high places, sacred pillars, and wooden images on every high hill and under every green tree.
We are given full details of how far they went. They filled the land with adulterated sanctuaries, which included all the Canaanite paraphernalia. The ‘high places’ were raised altars (Leviticus 26.30), which were forbidden in Israel (Exodus 20.26). And these were set up in places seen as sacred, on high hills and under green trees (Deuteronomy 12.2). Religion abounded but it was no longer pleasing to YHWH. The essentials of the covenant had been stripped way, and the true sanctuaries were being sidelined. Every man did what was right in his own eyes and YHWH was diminished.
24 And there were also perverted persons in the land. They did according to all the abominations of the nations which the LORD had cast out before the children of Israel.
When you start going downhill you know that the situation had deteriorated even further, for religious prostitutes of both sexes were introduced. It was all part of the fertility rites. It was the popular method of obtaining good harvests without having to resort to good living. Thus, they brought in ‘all the abominations’ of the Canaanites, the abominations because of which YHWH had insisted on the Canaanites being driven out of the land. And Rehoboam seemingly let it happen without making any effort to interfere. Perhaps his confidence had gone because of the past situation with Israel, so that he no longer dared to try to lay down the Law, preferring rather to enjoy himself in Jerusalem.
25 It happened in the fifth year of King Rehoboam that Shishak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem. 26 And he took away the treasures of the house of the LORD and the treasures of the king’s house; he took away everything. He also took away all the gold shields which Solomon had made.
In view of what is written above the invasion by Shishak of Egypt in 925 BC was clearly intended to be God’s judgment coming on the land of Judah. It was also revealing the folly of Solomon for putting such effort into amassing gold. His efforts would have been far better spent in training up his son to walk rightly in the sight of YHWH. Solomon cannot escape blame for what Rehoboam had become. So, it was both a judgment and a retribution on Solomon and his son.
Shishak must have chuckled with delight when he saw his protégé Jeroboam made king of Israel, and then the two countries battling with each other. He had bided his time, waiting for them to weaken each other, and now he was ready to strike. He came with massive forces and his aim was twofold, firstly to secure the trade routes for Egypt, and secondly to obtain valuables of great worth.
27 Then King Rehoboam made bronze shields in their place and committed them to the hands of the captains of the guard, who guarded the doorway of the king’s house.
The result of Egypt’s invasion was that, having lost his ceremonial shields of gold, a humiliated Rehoboam had to make shields of bronze to retain his fading glory. The ‘glory’ of Judah had been lost because of the behavior of the people at the high places, and the consequence was that YHWH took away its shields of gold, replacing them with shields of bronze which by the way speaks of judgment. Its glory was thus twice adulterated. The result was that the shields no longer needed the security of the House of the Forest of Lebanon but were kept in the guard house.
29 Now the rest of the acts of Rehoboam, and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah? 30 And there was war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam all their days.
One thing, however, he does stress and that is that there was a continual state of warfare between Rehoboam and Jeroboam. We must see the sad goings on here. Don’t forget the Israelites and the citizens of Judah were all family. How sad that in their ways of sin they never cried out to the Holy Lord God Yahweh for forgiveness and restitution.
31 So Rehoboam rested with his fathers and was buried with his fathers in the City of David. His mother’s name was Naamah, an Ammonitess. Then Abijam his son reigned in his place.
Eventually Rehoboam died peacefully, and ‘slept with his fathers’, and he was buried with his fathers in the city of David. Note the emphasis on Jerusalem as ‘the city of David’. It was because of that that it had been chosen by YHWH.
The repetition of his mother’s name, which is unusual in Kings, was probably an indication of the fact that Solomon had married an Ammonitess. The Ammonites were one of the peoples excluded from becoming true worshipping Israelites (Deuteronomy 23.3), and his Ammonite wives had led him astray. The name Abiyam means ‘my father is Yam’ (see also 15.1, 7). Yam was a Canaanite god of widespread influence, which goes with Abiyam’s mother being an Ammonitess. Elsewhere his name is said to have been Abi-yah, ‘my father is YHWH (e.g. 2 Chronicles 13.1). This is a conversion of the previous name in order to remove its disgrace. It may have taken place when he came to the throne.
Rehoboam’s life is a warning for us to be considerate of other people’s needs. If only Rehoboam had ‘loved his neighbor as himself’ what a difference it would have made to Israel’s history. We need to recognize that unwise words and attitudes can rebound on us both in the present, and in our future lives. Better not to speak than to speak foolishly. It is also a warning to us to ensure that when we seek advice we do it in the right quarters. Rehoboam had had the good advice, he just did not listen to it.
