Study Desk

"Your father made our yoke heavy. Now, therefore, lighten the hard service of your father and his heavy yoke which he put upon us, and we will serve you."

Then King Rehoboam took counsel with the elders who had been serving before Solomon his father when he was alive, saying, "What word do you advise to answer this people?"

So the king did not listen to the people, for it was a turning of events from God, so that Yahweh might fulfill his word that he had spoken by the hand of Ahijah the Shilonite to Jeroboam son of Nebat.

‘Thus says Yahweh: "Do not go up, and do not fight against your brothers. Return, each man to his house, for this matter has come from me."'" So they obeyed the words of Yahweh and turned back from going against Jeroboam.

For the Levites left their pasturelands and their property and came to Judah and to Jerusalem, for Jeroboam and his sons had rejected them from serving as priests to Yahweh.

And he appointed his own priests for the high places and for the goat idols and for the bull calves that he had made.

And Rehoboam loved Maacah the daughter of Absalom more than all his wives and concubines (for he took eighteen wives and sixty concubines, and he fathered twenty-eight sons and sixty daughters).

And Rehoboam appointed Abijah the son of Maacah as chief and crown prince over his brothers, in order to make him king.

And he dealt wisely and distributed some of his sons throughout all the land of Judah and Benjamin, through all the fortified cities, and gave abundant provisions to them and obtained many wives for them.

However, they shall be his servants, that they might know my service and the service of the kingdoms of other countries."

So King Rehoboam was strengthened in Jerusalem, and he reigned there. Now, Rehoboam was forty-one years old when he became king, and he reigned seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city where Yahweh had chosen to put his name out of all the tribes of Israel. And the name of his mother was Naamah the Ammonite.

And he did evil, for he did not set his heart to seek Yahweh.

And Rehoboam slept with his ancestors, and he was buried in the city of David, and Abijah his son reigned in his place.

He reigned for three years in Jerusalem. And the name of his mother was Micaiah the daughter of Uriel from Gibeah. Now there was war between Abijah and between Jeroboam.

Do you not all know that Yahweh the God of Israel gave the kingdom to David over Israel forever, to him and to his sons by a covenant of salt?

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

And look, God is with us at the head, and his priests have the trumpets for sounding blasts against you, O sons of Israel. Do not fight against Yahweh, the God of your ancestors, for you will not succeed."

And Abijah and his people struck a great blow against them, and the dead from Israel that fell were five hundred thousand chosen men.

Now the rest of the words of Abijah and his ways and his words are written in the story of the prophet Iddo.

And Abijah slept with his ancestors, and they buried him in the city of David. And Asa his son became king in his place. In his days the land was at rest ten years.