Rehoboam walked with the Lord for three years after becoming king (2 Chron. 11:17), but in the fourth year of his reign, when his throne was secure, he and all Judah turned away from Jehovah to worship idols (2 Chron. 12:1–2). “And he did evil, because he did not prepare his heart to seek the Lord” (2 Chron. 12: nkjv). The phrase “forsaken [abandoned] the commandment of the Lord” occurs frequently in the record of the reigns of the kings of Judah and Israel (1 Kings 18:18; 19:10, 14; 2 Kings 17:16; 21:22; 22:17; 2 Chron. 12:1, 5; 13:10–11; 15:2; 21:10; 24:18, 20, 24; 26:6; 29:6; 34:25). David had warned Solomon about this sin (1 Chron. 28:9, 20) and so had the Lord Himself (1 Kings 3:14; 9:4–9; 11:9–13), but Solomon in his latter years worshipped both the Lord and the abominable idols of the heathen. Solomon was influenced by his pagan wives to worship idols; perhaps Rehoboam was influenced by his Ammonite mother. Whatever the influence, the king knew that he was breaking the covenant and sinning against the Lord.
God’s holy jealousy (vv. 21–24). When the Bible speaks of the Lord being “a jealous God” (14:22), it refers to His jealous love over His people, a love that will not tolerate rivals. Israel was “married” to the Lord at Mount Sinai when they entered into the covenant, and the worship of idols was a terrible breach of that covenant, like a wife committing adultery. Surely Rehoboam knew what God said to the nation at Mount Sinai: “For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God” (Ex. 20: nkjv). This same truth is included in the Song of Moses as well: “They have provoked Me to jealousy by what is not God; they have moved Me to anger by their foolish idols” (Deut. 32: nkjv; see also Ps. 78:58; Jer. 44:3). Paul used the marriage picture when he warned the church to avoid pagan idolatry (1 Cor. 10:22), and James called worldly believers “adulterers and adulteresses” (James 4:4).
The king allowed and encouraged the building of idolatrous shrines in the land (“high places”), the erecting of sacred stones (“images”) and phallic images and Asherah poles (“groves”). He also permitted the shrine prostitutes, male (“sodomites”) and female, to serve the people at these shrines, a detestable practice expressly forbidden by the law of Moses (Deut. 23:17–18). Idolatry and immorality go together (Rom. 1:21–27), and it wasn’t long before the pagan sins condemned by the law became commonly accepted practices in Judah (Lev. 18, 20; Deut. 18:9–12). The Jewish people were no longer a light to the Gentiles; instead, the darkness of the Gentiles had invaded the land and was putting out the light.
Before we pass judgment on the king and people of Judah, perhaps we had better examine our own lives and churches. Surveys indicate that, when it comes to sexual morality, the “born-again” people in the churches don’t live much differently than the unsaved people outside the church. The materialistic and humanistic idols of the unsaved world have made their way into the church and are both tolerated and promoted. The Lord punished Rehoboam for his sins. How long will it be before the Lord punishes His church?
God’s loving discipline (vv. 25–31; 2 Chron. 12:1–16). For a year, the Lord was patient with Rehoboam and the people of Judah, but by the fifth year of Rehoboam’s reign, the longsuffering of the Lord had come to an end. God directed Shishak, king of Egypt, to invade Judah with a huge army and, in spite of Rehoboam’s new defenses, he defeated town after town. (One Egyptian inscription states that Shishak took 156 cities in Israel and Judah.) When the Egyptians got as far as Jerusalem, the prophet Shemaiah once again appeared on the scene with a message from God, short and to the point: “This is what the Lord says, ‘You have abandoned me; therefore, I now abandon you to Shishak’” (12:5).
Whenever God’s people experience discipline because of their sins, they can make a new beginning by hearing the Word of God and humbling themselves before the God of the Word. This was the promise God gave His people when Solomon dedicated the temple (2 Chron. 7:13–14). Rehoboam and his officers humbled themselves before the Lord and He stopped Shishak from attacking Jerusalem. However, Judah was now subject to Shishak and had to pay him tribute. God’s people discovered that their “freedom to sin” brought them into painful and costly bondage to Egypt, for the consequences of sin are always costly.
To satisfy Shishak’s demands, Rehoboam gave him gold from the temple and from the king’s palace. This included the five hundred gold shields that Solomon had made for the palace (1 Kings 10:16–17). Rehoboam was too poor to make duplicate shields, so he replaced them with shields made of bronze, and the royal ceremonies went on as if nothing had happened. How often the precious treasures of former generations are lost because of sin and then replaced by cheap substitutes. Life goes on and nobody seems to know the difference. That’s what happened to the church at Laodicea (Rev. 3:17–19).
After the invasion of Shishak in 925 BC, Rehoboam reigned for twelve more years and died in 913 BC. Had he continued to walk with the Lord and to lead his people to be faithful to God’s covenant, the Lord would have done great things for him. As it was, his sins and the sins of the people who followed him left the nation weaker, poorer, and in bondage. As Charles Spurgeon said, “God does not allow His people to sin successfully.”
Rehoboam went the way of all flesh and died at the age of fifty-eight. We trust that the humbling that he and his leaders experienced lasted for the rest of their lives and that they walked with the Lord.