Study Desk

Blessed be the LORD your God, who has delighted in you to set you on His throne to be king for the LORD your God. Because your God loved Israel enough to establish them forever, He has made you king over them to carry out justice and righteousness."

All the kings of the earth sought an audience with Solomon to hear the wisdom that God had put in his heart.

Year after year, each visitor would bring his tribute: articles of silver and gold, clothing, weapons, spices, horses, and mules.

And Solomon rested with his fathers and was buried in the city of his father David. And his son Rehoboam became king in his place.

Then King Rehoboam consulted with the elders who had served his father Solomon during his lifetime. "How do you advise me to respond to these people?" he asked.

Then King Rehoboam sent out Hadoram, who was in charge of the labor force, but the Israelites stoned him to death. And King Rehoboam mounted his chariot in haste and escaped to Jerusalem.

For the Levites left their pasturelands and their possessions and went to Judah and Jerusalem, because Jeroboam and his sons had rejected them as priests of the LORD.

And Jeroboam appointed his own priests for the high places and for the goat-demons and calf idols he had made.

Rehoboam loved Maacah daughter of Absalom more than all his wives and concubines. In all, he had eighteen wives and sixty concubines, and he was the father of twenty-eight sons and sixty daughters.

Rehoboam appointed Abijah son of Maacah as chief prince among his brothers, intending to make him king.

Rehoboam also acted wisely by dispersing some of his sons throughout the districts of Judah and Benjamin, and to all the fortified cities. He gave them abundant provisions and sought many wives for them.

After Rehoboam had established his sovereignty and royal power, he and all Israel with him forsook the law of the LORD.

Nevertheless, they will become his servants, so that they may learn the difference between serving Me and serving the kings of other lands."

Thus King Rehoboam established himself in Jerusalem. He was forty-one years old when he became king, and he reigned seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city the LORD had chosen from all the tribes of Israel in which to put His Name. His mother's name was Naamah the Ammonite.

And Rehoboam did evil because he did not set his heart to seek the LORD.

And Rehoboam rested with his fathers and was buried in the City of David. And his son Abijah became king in his place.

and he reigned in Jerusalem three years. His mother's name was Micaiah daughter of Uriel; she was from Gibeah. And there was war between Abijah and Jeroboam.

Abijah went into battle with an army of 400,000 choice men, while Jeroboam drew up in formation against him with his army of 800,000 choice men.

Do you not know that the LORD, the God of Israel, has given the kingship of Israel to David and his descendants forever by a covenant of salt?

Yet Jeroboam son of Nebat, a servant of Solomon son of David, rose up and rebelled against his master.