Part 2
Rehoboam
Outline:
- A Legacy of Sin
- Rehoboam’s Counsel
- Rehoboam’s Losses
- Book Tie-in
1. A Legacy of Sin (Continued):
As human beings made in God’s image, our will is our single most defining trait. In a world of scientific forces, and complex creatures governed by carefully designed programming, human beings are unique because we alone possess will. It is a concept that we take for granted, because we are so accustomed to it. But your dog does not have a will. A tree does not have a will. Even the most complex organisms do not have a will. They function like extremely advanced AIs, far beyond any AI that man can make. They can even have the appearance of a will: a cat may want to be petted, or a dog may want you to be happy, but a dog and a cat does not have a will because a dog or cat will never intentionally break from their programming. This is why some animals cannot be tamed permanently, because when you train an animal you are simply attempting to rewrite its programming, the programming that God gave it. Humans are the only creatures that have some form of preprogramming, but can actively change it, on their own. Our will is our defining feature because the only other entities that have will are those that operate outside our universe: God, and the angels.
And this dove-tails off into the primary question that you get when people say that they don’t believe in God: the question of evil. “Why did God create evil” is how it is often expressed, or “how can a good God allow such evil to come into being,” may be another. And it all boils down to our will. God made a universe full of animals, but without will, without His own defining feature, they were simply machines, just extremely complex biological AIs. They were alive, yes, but within a narrowly defined path. But God said, “I want to make a being, not a spirit being like the angels, but a physical being that still has a will, that still has the ability to choose their own path.” And when God did this, being good, goodness itself being the only thing, and gave a physical being freewill, He did not create evil… He gave humans the capacity to discover evil, to discover what the creation is like with less God in it. To find out what happens when you take light away. Evil is an unfortunate side-effect of free-will, not a direct creation of God.
And I discovered in college that being willing to do what God wants, bending my will to His, of my own choice and volition, is what He wants most of all. He didn’t want me to be a pastor, or a missionary, or a church planter, but he wanted me to be WILLING to do any of it. And we find this to be a theme of the book of Kings. What do all of the good Kings have in common? They all chose humility, to bury their pride and bend their will to God’s will. Which is what we do, when we surrender to God. The Kings who chose their own way, like Jeroboam, Rehoboam, and so many of their descendants, found evil and were judged by God. Those who surrendered their will to God found the blessings of goodness.
What are some practical ways that adult Christians like us tend seek our own will without realizing it? Are there any aspects of your life which you consider untouchable? Are there things about yourself that you say, “That’s just how I was born,” or “I’m not changing that.” Or are there subtle things we tell ourselves, like “there’s no way I could have another child, there’s no way God would want that,” or “I can’t do that, I’m too old for it, God wouldn’t ask me to do that.” How about, “God wouldn’t ever ask me to sing, or teach, or do kids, or do teens, because He knows I just couldn’t do it.”
Rehoboam, before ever he heard the advice of the young men, had already decided there was one way he wasn’t going. He already had bent his will away from the wisdom of age. Instead, he invited the young men in, and the text doesn’t say if they were all yes-men, or if they were all likeminded, but I tend to think there was a bit of both. They of course counsel him to play the tyrant. Don’t listen to them, Rehoboam! You’re the king of all Israel! Would they have dared bring such a request to your father? No, you have to put these people in their place. Crush their spirit. What are they going to do?
So Jeroboam and all the people came to Rehoboam the third day, as the king had appointed, saying, Come to me again the third day. And the king answered the people roughly, and forsook the old men’s council that they gave him; And spake to them after the counsel of the young men, saying, My father made your yoke heavy, and I will add to your yoke: my father also chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions. Wherefore the king harkened not unto the people; for the cause was from the LORD, that he might perform his saying, which the LORD spake by Ahijah the Shilonite unto Jeroboam the son of Nebat.
I Kings 12:12-15
In verse 13 it says that he answered the people “roughly.” That Hebrew word dense or hard. The idea is that he was hardhearted, stiff, stubborn, or perhaps proud. He thought the humble path, the path of the servant, was beneath him, and that all of the people were there to serve his own whims. And this is the natural state of man. Humanity was designed to be the ultimate physical creation, a being with the capacity to know the one who created it, but not as the angels, who were created with a knowledge of heaven and who do not reproduce or experience the physical world God created. We were created for greatness, but we have been humbled by our failure, our sin, and we must adopt a humble attitude, for we are fallen, and it is only by the grace of God that we continue at all. In this, too, we mimic our creator, for He too humbled itself, as Philippians 2 says, and so ought we to do. As Malachai says:
He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?
Malachai 6:8
Rehoboam, like so many, was unwilling to give up his pride. He took counsel, but not to bring his mind and heart to what is right. Instead, he sought affirmation. And I can’t help but touch on the fact that as we come to the end of June, we have seen that pride is all over the place in our country. And instead of a vice that brings shame, it is the very virtue that strikes down shame. And of course “pride” is taken by the homosexuals and other purveyors of sexual degeneracy because they despise the idea of shame. Indeed, pride is the opposite of shame. It is their way of saying: “We used to have to be ashamed of this behavior, but now we’re proud of it, we’re in your face about it, we’re foisting it upon you and upon your children and everything you hold dear.” But “pride month” isn’t an isolated event, people all over this country and this world are taking the banner of pride and running with it. Don’t be ashamed that you’re committing fornication, be proud of it. Don’t be ashamed that you’re killing your unborn baby, be proud of it. Don’t be ashamed of your gluttony and obesity, be proud of it. And you can insert whatever you want into the blank, but the common thread is that whatever sin you ascribe to, you ought to lean into it, be proud of it, show it openly. You do you, say the people. And while we here might never be proud of our sin openly, as an unbeliever might, we might behave that way, sometimes without even realizing it. Remember, pride takes many forms. It can appear when you’re instructing your children, or when you’re in an argument with your spouse, or when the pastor steps on your toes, or even when someone does actually mistreat you. Pride doesn’t just happen in June, it’s always at the door waiting.
Rehoboam’s Losses:
So when all Israel saw that the king hearkened not unto them, the people answered the king, saying, What portion have we in David? Neither have we inheritance in the son of Jesse: to your tents, O Israel: now see to thine own house, David. So Israel departed unto their tents. But as for the children of Israel which dwelt in the cities of Judah, Rehoboam reigned over them. Then king Rehoboam sent Adoram, who was over the tribute: and all Israel stoned him with stones, that he died. Therefore king Rehoboam made speed to get him up to his chariot, to flee to Jerusalem.18 So Israel rebelled against the house of David unto this day.
I Kings 12:16-19
Rehoboam’s pride was so great that even after the people renounced David, he still sent Adoram to collect the tax money from the people, while he was still camped at Shechem. The people had departed, and poor Adoram didn’t stand a chance. He was supposed to go to the people that Rehoboam had insulted, and exact the money for the taxes from them. Rehoboam had already said he would make their burden heavier, so it is also likely he was demanding even more taxes than normal. And Rehoboam was so proud that he apparently didn’t even send with him an army or any protection. So, to let Rehoboam know how serious they were, Jeroboam and the Israelites killed Rehoboam’s tax collector, a move that had the desired effect. Rehoboam, realizing only now that the people mean business and that his rule is gravely threatened, along with potentially his own person, flees to Jerusalem where he still has support from Judah.
This is the first of Rehoboam’s losses, but it was not his last. Nor, indeed, is it the end of the story. Go back to verse 15, which we read before:
Wherefore the king harkened not unto the people; for the cause was from the LORD, that he might perform his saying, which the LORD spake by Ahijah the Shilonite unto Jeroboam the son of Nebat.
I Kings 12:12-15
So God had already prophesied that Solomon’s line would lose most of their power, but even though God influenced this situation, Rehoboam still made these choices on his own. We have talked a lot about will in these passages about Rehoboam, but what about Rehoboam’s will. Wasn’t it violated by God in this case? Didn’t God already essentially doom Rehoboam to this choice? Not actually. This was predetermined, but the sovereignty of God still allows for human beings to be the instrument of His will in situations like this, without violating their own will. This can be seen all of the Bible, not just with the “famous” cases of Rehoboam, and the Pharaoh of Moses time. The idea of some divine being influencing the flow of events is found throughout history among pagan cultures, with the idea of “fate” or “destiny.” And in all of those stories it is used as a way to remove agency, where destiny means that we are nothing but robots, slaves to the will of some heartless divine being or construct. How God is able to direct certain events without violating human free will is one of the great mysteries of His power. Some people look at the story of the Pharaoh of Moses’ time, read where it says that God hardened Pharoah’s heart, and interpret that as a violation of man’s will, which is so critical to all of Christian thought. And since we don’t shy away from the hard passages, we can take this one head-on:
And the LORD said unto Moses, When thou goest to return into Egypt, see that thou do all those wonders before Pharaoh, which I have put in thine hand: but I will harden his heart, that he shall not let the people go.
Exodus 4:21
So there you have it: God is using His sovereignty to influence events, and in doing so he is removing Pharaoh’s will. Interestingly, though, we miss something when we read that into the passage. Note the verb in that last sentence. It says, “I will harden,” doesn’t it? The Hebrew word there is very broad in meaning, but it can mean, in context, to make stronger, to fortify, to fasten, or even, possibly to maintain. The Hebrew is revealing, for it implies that Pharaoh’s heart was already hard, not that God made it hard. Rather, it says that God hardened it. Pharaoh had already given himself over to evil, we see that with the murder of the boys in Israel, and his own veneration of himself as a god, and God looked down and said, I will judge this man and his wicked people, and at the same time save my people, and glorify my power over him, but increasing his own bent. God simply reinforced Pharaoh’s natural bent, because the man himself had already made up his mind. This “hardness” concept is found when God speaks to Israel as well, calling them “stiffnecked,” and the opposite also appears in Scripture, such as in II Kings 22:19 when Josiah hears the law of Moses and reforms Israel, with God postponing the judgment of Judah because Josiah’s heart was “tender.” So you see there are men and women like Pharaoh, who have exercised their will against God (the hardhearted), and there are those are responsive to God (the tenderhearted). Without violating an individual’s will, God is able to increase the bent of their heart in the direction they will.
This has precedent in the New Testament as well. In Romans 9 (yes, we’re going there too), we learn more of the sovereignty of God, something that many believers and unbelievers struggle with, not just the Calvinists. In the first part of Romans 9, Paul talks about Esau and Jacob, and states that he chose Jacob, not Esau, even before the children were born, clarifying that the choice was made before either could do any good or evil. Now I’m not going to stand here and claim to k now the answers to all the hardest mysteries of the Bible or of the mind and nature of God, but the passage seems clear. God also has a will, indeed the first will, and when He in his foreknowledge reaches down to affect the engine of time and intersecting wills that is the world, He can do so in any way He chooses. He has will, agency, sovereignty. Just as you do, to a much smaller scale but fundamentally equal way. When you go to the supermarket and choose a package of chicken, you stand in front of the display and see a dozen packages of chicken. You then exercise your will to make a selection. Effectively, you “love” of the twelve and “hate” the others. One is chosen, 11 are rejected. Sometimes you make your choice based on how the meat looks, or how its packaged, or perhaps slight differences in price or size, but they are all the same fundamentally. None of those packages of chicken is any different from the other. And you do that without the benefit of foresight. You don’t know how exactly one pack of chicken will cook up as opposed to another. You simply make a choice based on whatever criteria you desire. It boils down to will, choice of one over the others due to some process you create and act upon.
A painter exercises his or her will to paint a mountain instead of a flower, and which colors to use. The choices may seem arbitrary, but ultimately each choice is rooted in your will as the creator. Similarly, God choses Moses to lead his people, and not some other Israelite. He chooses that particular Pharaoh to show his power against. He chose Gideon, Sampson, Samuel, David, and so many others. The New Testament records Jesus choosing the Twelve Disciples. But unlike us, God has foreknowledge, so when He chooses, He never regrets making that decision. He foreknew the bent in Esau’s heart, and it could be argued that He reinforced it, by permitting Jacob to steal the blessing. Our choices are arbitrary, in other words, but God’s are good. His will is for the best.
This is why Paul can say in Roman’s 9:
What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid.14 For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.15 So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.16
Romans 9:14-16
Note the language: “it is not of him that willeth.” Who is this “him that willeth?” It isn’t God, He is mentioned at the end of the verse. No, him that willeth is the person got has his own will. Pharaoh was “he that willeth.” Who is he that runneth? The person who is acting out their will, like Pharaoh, and also God’s. The word “runneth” in the Greek speaks of someone on a path or track. God, however, is the one at the end, the one whose ultimate will shall be accomplished, not just in spite of the wills of evil men, but because of them. And Paul describes God as the one that “sheweth mercy.” In other words, as I see it, we are all willful and bent against God, but there are some who are tender, upon who God is willing to show mercy, to guide them, to change their “track” so that they will not simply run in their own will to its end, as Pharaoh, who drowned in the sea. Paul goes on:
For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might shew my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth.14 Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will, he hardeneth.15
Romans 9:14-15
So God wasn’t just pulling the strings in the background and manipulating Pharaoh. We miss this too, sometimes, but the verse says that God told Pharaoh that He was using Pharaoh’s wickedness to his own purpose, and Pharaoh either did not believe it, or thought his will was stronger than God’s. We are not puppets, but willful beings, hard beings, stubborn beings, but on some, on those who show some degree of softness, God is able to show mercy. These are the ones He chooses to show mercy on, to use for His will. Remember, even Moses was hard to a degree, as he also rebelled against God at least once recorded in Scripture. But even though God knew Moses’ failure, he was tender enough that God chose him for a purpose: to accomplish His will in saving Israel out of Egypt.
Romans 9 goes on to warn against shaking our fists against God, against questioning the being that made us, which would be like the paints of the artist complaining about how they are being used. Then Paul shifts the analogy and talks about vessels, and famously states that God is able to make of the same lump of clay vessels of honor and dishonor. He is able to use even those who will themselves against Him for his purpose, and even gives those dishonorable vessels patience, that some of them might be made into vessels of honor that He might use for His perfect will. This is proved when you look at the context for Romans 9, which is the nation of Israel, and how they have rejected God, and how the Gentiles have become, as it were, the new Israel. This is not replacement, but rather addition, just as when Paul talks about the Gentiles being grafted in. This is what we find in Romans 9:5, where it says that they are not all Israel, which are of Israel. There is an adoption that takes place, where those who are not Jews by blood are showed mercy, which is the whole point of Paul’s talk on sovereignty and human will. Most of the Jews exercised their will against God, and so God calls them vessels of dishonor, fitted for destruction, whereas many Gentiles, having more tender hearts, God has had mercy upon, and calls them Israelites, granting them the same promises He gives his people. In what ways have you at times exercised your will, and found that God’s will was still able to be accomplished, and how would you have done things differently knowing how it turned out?
Rehoboam exercised his will, and yet God was able through his sovereignty to bend that will to His purpose. But there does come a time when Rehoboam is told that his ability to exercise his will against the will of God will end badly for him. We continue, as we see Rehoboam, afraid for his life, returning to Jerusalem, and preparing his response to Jeroboam and the people’s rebellion:
And when Rehoboam was come to Jerusalem, he assembled all the house of Judah, with the tribe of Benjamin, an hundred and fourscore thousand chosen men, which were warriors, to fight against the house of Israel, to bring the kingdom again to Rehoboam the son of Solomon. But the word of God came unto Shemaiah the man of God, saying, Speak unto Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, king of Judah, and unto all the house of Judah and Benjamin, and to the remnant of the people, saying, Thus saith the LORD, Ye shall not go up, nor fight against your brethren the children of Israel: return every man to his house; for this thing is from me. They hearkened therefore to the word of the LORD, and returned to depart, according to the word of the LORD.
I Kings 12:22-24
Again Rehoboam has the chance to exercise his will. He calls for the armies of Judah, and is prepared to start a civil war to bring the kingdom back to his control. But before he can launch an invasion that would almost certainly tear all of Israel apart, he receives word from a prophet called Shemaiah. The prophet warns him that he should not go to war against his brethren, and flatly tells him “this thing is from me.” I can imagine Rehoboam, who may be an idolator, but knows of the history of Israel, and now begins to realize why everything seems to be going against him. “This thing is from me,” says the prophet. How often does the holy spirit speak to you in the midst of a terrible series of events (the loss of a loved one, a sudden sickness, misfortune in finances or possessions, loss of a job, or so many things that we call circumstances) and tell you “this thing is from me.” The apostle Paul had a similar revelation, didn’t he?
And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure. For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me. And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong.
Colossians 12:7-20
Paul faced a circumstance that was completely our of his control, and for all we know undeserved, and yet God told him, “This this is from me.” Sometimes in life, the consequences are our own fault, and certainly Rehoboam’s actions were to blame for the division of the kingdom. But there was another layer of will above his own, and if he made the decision to challenge God’s will, God would have had to intervene. But we see our idolatrous king does decide that perhaps it is best not to fight against the one true God. And so, the kingdom divides and he experiences his first loss.
His second loss is found at the end of I Kings 14. Here we read:
And it came to pass in the fifth year of king Rehoboam, that Shishak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem: And he took away the treasures of the house of the LORD, and the treasures of the king’s house; he even took away all: and he took away all the shields of gold which Solomon had made. And king Rehoboam made in their stead brasen shields, and committed them unto the hands of the chief of the guard, which kept the door of the king’s house. And it was so, when the king went into the house of the LORD, that the guard bare them, and brought them back into the guard chamber.
I Kings 14:25-28
Rehoboam has already lost 90% of the kingdom due to his pride and foolishness, but during his reign, as we’ve seen just before this passage, he has also led the people into the same idolatry as Jeroboam and his “counselors.” God punishes Judah for its idolatry by removing the glory that Solomon had built. God shows Rehoboam and Judah that as easily as God gave Solomon glory, he could take it away, and their own might could not resist God’s judgment. Remember, Shishak is the king of Egypt that arose after Solomon came to power. Unlike the previous Pharaoh, who gave his daughter to Solomon and was an ally of Israel, Shishak was not related to that Pharoah and wanted to distance himself and make his rule his own. He viewed Solomon as a rival and accepted renegades from Israel, like Jeroboam, as we’ve discussed. So when the “chance” came to put Judah in its place, he took it, invading Jerusalem and plundering the temple. God used this to humble Rehoboam. The shields originally belonged to Hadadezer, as found in II Samuel 8:3. Hadadezer was the king of Zobah, which we have mentioned before. It was a faction of the Serians, and a wealthy and powerful nation. Hadadezer was an enemy of King David, and these shields, made of gold, were a symbol of his opulence and might. Gold, after all, is a soft metal and unsuitable for making weapons or armor, so the fact that he had these shields made out of gold was basically just a flex. II Samuel tells us David destroyed Hadadezer’s army and claimed the shields that had been an icon of his power. The story goes on to say that the Syrians of Damascus came to aid Hadadezer and David killed 22,000 of them, not only ruining Zobah itself permanently as a kingdom, but also causing the Syrians at large to refuse to challenge Israel again until the end of Solomon’s reign. Solomon himself also added his own shields to those David had captured. I Kings 10:16 says that he made 200 targets of gold, and 300 shields of gold. The passage says that the “targets” were made with 600 shekels of gold each, whereas the King James Bible, and some other English translations, say the shields were 3 pounds each. This was an attempt by the translators to give some idea of the weight, but the original Hebrew of course does not use pounds because pounds is an English measure. The original measure was 3 minas. Now, ancient Hebrew measurements are notoriously difficult to accurately represent with the information we have, which is why the translators just simplified this detail, but 3 minas is believed to be about 300 sheckels, so the targets were roughly 3 times the amount of gold used in the shields. Now, the “targets,” being large shields, were probably more like the full-height phalanx shields used by ancient people like the Greeks and Romans, covering the whole body, whereas the “shields” mentioned are likely bucklers such as those held in the hand or affixed to the upper arm in the case of archers, or smaller round shields carried by infantry. A fairly reasonable guess for the weight of a Biblical shekel is about .4 ounces. This meant that the targets and shields together represented 180,000 shekels of gold, with a total weight of 72,000 oz. Now, the price of gold varies greatly, but by today’s reckoning, this would put the total value of these shields around $300 million, not counting the shields claimed by David from Hadadezer, the weight of which and number we are not told.
So, because of his failure to lead the people in God’s law, Rehoboam loses the golden shields not only represented a vast wealth, but represented the greatness of Israel and God’s favor upon the nation. Kings tells us that Rehoboam replaces them with brass shields. As you know, brass looks like gold but is far less valuable, symbolizing the end of the glory of the united kingdom and a continual age of decline that will, due to idolatry and faithlessness, lead to the ultimate ruin of Israel as a nation. As we see, Rehoboam suffers some great losses for his pride, arrogance, and idolatry. And yet, there is one thing to mention more before we leave Rehoboam. There is a mention of him in Chronicles that is worth talking about. Remember, the writer(s) of Kings did their writing during the exile, and so much of their telling of the history is dark and gloomy, for they were trying to bring the people back to God, and instill in them a desire to return and serve God again in their own land. But the writer(s) of Chronicles were trying to remind their readers of the greatness and glory of their nation and inspire them to obey God once more. So in II Chronicles 12:5 God gives us another telling of this same story with an interesting detail not found in Kings:
Then came Shemaiah the prophet to Rehoboam, and to the princes of Judah, that were gathered together to Jerusalem because of Shishak, and said unto them, Thus saith the LORD, ye have forsaken me, and therefore have I also left you in the hand of Shishak. Whereupon the princess of Israel and the king humbled themselves; and they said, The LORD is righteous. And when the LORD saw that they humbled themselves, the word of the LORD came to Shemaiah, saying, They have humbled themselves; therefore I will not destroy them, but I will grant them some deliverance; and my wrath shall not be poured out upon Jerusalem by the hand of Shishak. … And when he humbled himself, the wrath of the LORD turned from him, that he would not destroy him altogether: and also in Jerusalem things went well.
II Chronicles 12:5-7, 12
So we see that to some extent at least, Rehoboam did humble himself toward the end. II Chronicles 12 does go on to say that Rehoboam is still counted among the kings of Israel and Judah who did evil, so this does not absolve him of his idolatry, but it is an indication that he did change, and it is also a reminder that God is ready and willing to forgive those who are truly repentant, even after they have done terrible deeds, and that is a comfort for us, as it was for him. Keep in mind, that Shishak did humble him greatly, taking much territory from Judah, and ransacking Jerusalem as well, but his story does still end on this note: that in the end, to whatever degree, he did respond to the correction of God upon his life, and we should be encouraged as well as admonished by his life.
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