11
📚And when Rehoboam came to Jerusalem, he gathered a hundred and eighty thousand chosen warriors who were from the house of Judah and Benjamin to fight against Israel, so that he might bring the kingdom back to Rehoboam.2 📚But the word of the LORD came to Shemaiah 📖, the man of God, saying, 3 📚“Speak to Rehoboam the son of Solomon, king of Judah, and to all Israel in Judah and Benjamin, saying, 4 📚‘Thus says the LORD, You must not go up, or fight against your brethren. Each man must return to his house, for this thing is done by me.’ ” And they obeyed the words of the LORD, and turned back from going against Jeroboam.
11:1-4 1 Kings 12:21-24. Rehoboam’s folly was responsible for the division of the kingdom. Israel, the northern kingdom, was governed by a succession of evil monarchs. The nation did not have one good king. There is considerable material about them in 1 and 2 Kings, but very little in the books of Chronicles. The author of these books concentrated on a history of the kings of Judah. After about two hundred years Israel was destroyed by Assyria and the people taken into captivity. Judah, the southern kingdom, lasted for another 130 years when destruction and captivity came at the hand of Babylon. Of Judah’s kings, several were godly men.⚜
5 📚And Rehoboam lived in Jerusalem, and built cities for defense in Judah. 6 📚He built up Bethlehem and Etam and Tekoa 7 📚and Beth Zur and Shoco and Adullam 8 📚and Gath and Mareshah and Ziph 9 📚and Adoraim and Lachish and Azekah 10 📚and Zorah and Aijalon and Hebron, which are in Judah and in Benjamin, fortified cities. 11 📚And he fortified the strongholds, and put captains in them, and stores of food, oil and wine. 12 📚And he put shields and spears in every city, and greatly strengthened them, having Judah and Benjamin on his side.
13 And the priests and the Levites who were in all Israel from all their territories stood with him. 14 📚For the Levites left their pasture lands and their possessions 📖, and came to Judah and Jerusalem; for Jeroboam and his sons had removed them from acting as priests for the LORD,
11:13-14 Probably there were priests who put their material welfare first and stayed as ministers of Jeroboam’s idolatrous system of worship (1 Kings 12:28-33). Most of them, however, left their possessions and came to Judah rather than be unfaithful to the Lord. They considered God a greater inheritance than land and property (Num 18:20; Deut 10:9). Compare Luke 14:33; Heb 10:34; 1 Pet 1:4-5.⚜
15 📚and he had ordained priests for himself for the high places, and for the demons 📖, and for the calves which he had made. 16 📚And those out of all the tribes of Israel who had set their hearts to seek the LORD God of Israel came to Jerusalem, following the Levites, to sacrifice to the LORD God of their fathers.
11:16 God had a remnant of people in the northern kingdom who rejected Jeroboam’s apostate religious system, and came to God’s appointed place of worship.⚜
17 📚So they strengthened the kingdom of Judah, and made Rehoboam the son of Solomon strong three years; for three years they walked in the way of David and Solomon.
11:17 After 3 years they could see that spiritual conditions in the southern kingdom were deteriorating as they had in the northern kingdom (2 Chron 12:1-2; 1 Kings 14:22-24).⚜
18 📚And Rehoboam took for himself Mahalath, the daughter of Jerimoth, the son of David, as his wife, and Abihail, the daughter of Eliab, the son of Jesse. 19 These bore him children: Jeush and Shamariah and Zaham. 20 📚And after her he took Maachah, the daughter of Absalom, who bore him Abijah and Attai and Ziza and Shelomith. 21 📚And Rehoboam loved Maachah, the daughter of Absalom, above all his wives and his concubines (for he took eighteen wives and sixty concubines, and begot twenty-eight sons and sixty daughters).
22 📚And Rehoboam made Abijah the son of Maachah the chief and leader among his brethren, to make him king. 23 📚And he acted wisely, and dispersed all his children throughout all the regions of Judah and Benjamin, to every fortified city; and he gave them food in abundance. And he sought many wives for them.
11:5-23 Most of this material is not found anywhere else in the Bible.⚜
11:23 He sent them away and gave them opportunities to enjoy themselves. He thus avoided a struggle for succession to the throne.⚜