13–16 (compare 1 Kings xiv. 21, 29–31).
Summary of Rehoboam’s Reign.
¹³So king Rehoboam strengthened himself in Jerusalem, and reigned: for Rehoboam was forty and one years old when he began to reign, and 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: and his mother’s name was Naamah the Ammonitess.
13. strengthened himself] See note on i. 1. The immediate reference is to a recovery of strength after the departure of Shishak; the further reference is to xi. 5.
forty and one years old ... and he reigned seventeen years] So read both the Hebrew and LXX. here and in 1 Kings xiv. 21, but in the additional passage which follows 1 Kings xii. 24 in LXX. (B, not A) we read, sixteen years old ... and twelve years he reigned. No importance however can be attached to this variation, for the passage which contains it is plainly midrashic in character.
the city which the Lord had chosen] Though the Ten Tribes were lost to the house of David, the Lord kept his oath to David by securing to his seed the possession of the one holy city of Israel.
¹⁴And he did that which was evil, because he set not his heart to seek the Lord.
14. he set not his heart] The phrase implies steady purpose. The Chronicler concludes that Rehoboam must be classed as a king who was good but not entirely so. The considerations which chiefly influenced him in determining the character of this reign were perhaps two: on the one hand the invasion of Shishak was felt to be a fixed point, a disaster only to be accounted for in the Chronicler’s view by some falling away from assiduous worship of Jehovah; and on the other hand it seemed incredible that the second direct descendant of David on the throne of Israel should have been seriously corrupt. The situation was met by representing Rehoboam as having been three years faithful (and therefore prosperous), and one year faithless (and therefore assailed by Shishak in the fifth year). The favourable aspect of his reign was further emphasised by the statement of verse 16, and by the suppression of the three damaging passages in Kings, referred to in the head-note to xi. 5–23. It is very obvious that the resultant picture of the king is much less true to historical reality than the account in Kings; but it serves excellently to illustrate the Chronicler’s contention that virtue prospers and vice is punished. And once more we may insist that the value of this writer for us lies supremely in the energy and the conviction with which he seeks to drive home this great moral and spiritual belief.
¹⁵Now the acts of Rehoboam, first and last, are they not written in the histories[¹] of Shemaiah the prophet and of Iddo the seer, after the manner of genealogies[²]? And there were wars between Rehoboam and Jeroboam continually. ¹⁶And Rehoboam slept with his fathers, and was buried in the city of David: and Abijah his son reigned in his stead.
[¹] Hebrew words.
[²] Or, in reckoning the genealogies.