Egypt invades Judah
12
📚And it so happened, when Rehoboam had established the kingdom, and had strengthened himself, he forsook 📖 the law of the LORD, and all Israel 📖 with him. 2 📚And it came about in the fifth year of King Rehoboam, because they had sinned against the LORD, that Shishak, king of Egypt, came up against Jerusalem,12:2 1 Kings does not give the reason for this attack by Shishak. More than once God sent enemy armies against His people to punish them for their sins (Lev 26:25; Deut 28:49; Jud 2:11-15; 1 Kings 11:14; 2 Kings 17:5-7; Isa 10:5-6; Jer 1:14-16). See also 2 Chron 14:6.⚜
3 📚with twelve hundred chariots, and sixty thousand horsemen; and the people who came with him from Egypt were innumerable: the Lubim, the Sukkiim, and the Ethiopians. 4 📚And he took the fortified cities 📖 which belonged to Judah, and came to Jerusalem.
5 📚Then Shemaiah 📖 the prophet came to Rehoboam and to the leaders of Judah, who were gathered together at Jerusalem because of Shishak, and said to them, “Thus says the LORD, ‘You have forsaken me, and therefore 📖 I have also left you in the hands of Shishak.’ ”
6 📚So the leaders of Israel and the king humbled themselves, and said, “The LORD is righteous”.
7 📚And when the LORD saw that they had humbled themselves, the word of the LORD came to Shemaiah, saying, “They have humbled themselves, therefore I will not destroy them, but will grant them some deliverance. And my wrath will not be poured out on Jerusalem through Shishak.
12:6-7 God loves to see a proud man humbling himself and the arrogance of sinful man vanishing away – 1 Kings 21:29; Isa 2:11-18; 66:2; Jam 4:6.⚜
8 📚Nevertheless they shall become his servants, so that they may know 📖 my service, and the service of the kingdoms of other lands”.
9 📚So Shishak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem, and took away the treasures of the house of the LORD and the treasures of the king’s house. He took everything, and also carried away the gold shields which Solomon had made. 10 📚In their place King Rehoboam made bronze shields, and entrusted them into the hands of the chief of the guard, who guarded the entrance of the king’s house. 11 And whenever the king entered the house of the LORD, the guard came and carried them, and then brought them back to the guardroom.
12 📚And when he humbled himself 📖, the wrath of the LORD turned from him, so that he did not completely destroy him; and also in Judah things went well 📖.
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 the LORD had chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, to put his name 📖 there. And his mother’s name was Naamah; she was an Ammonite 📖. 14 📚And he did evil, because he did not prepare his heart to seek the LORD.
12:14 Here is given one of the principal reasons for the evil in the world. Compare Ps 14:2-3.⚜
15 📚Now the acts of Rehoboam, first and last, are they not written in the book of Shemaiah the prophet, and the book of Iddo the seer concerning genealogies? And there were continual wars between Rehoboam and Jeroboam. 16 📚And Rehoboam slept 📖 with his ancestors, and was buried in the city of David; and his son Abijah reigned in his place.