God’s Word for You
2 Chronicles 11:18-21 Mahalath and Maacah
by Pastor Timothy Smith on Wednesday, November 13, 2024
18 Rehoboam married Mahalath, who was the daughter of David’s son Jerimoth and of Abihail (she was the granddaughter of Jesse’s son Eliab). 19 She bore him these sons: Jeush, Shemariah and Zaham. 20 He also married Maacah the granddaughter of Absalom, who bore him Abijah, Attai, Ziza and Shelomith. 21 Rehoboam loved Maacah, granddaughter of Absalom, more than any of his other wives and concubines. In all, he had eighteen wives and sixty concubines, twenty-eight sons and sixty daughters.
Rehoboam married seventy-eight women, sixty of which were concubines. Two of these women are named, to show an issue within Rehoboam’s family. His first wife, Mahalath, was also his relative, but they were able to be married. The laws about relatives one could and could not marry first entered into the lives of the people of Israel with Moses at Mount Sinai. Before then, it was common and even desirable to marry a close relative on account of their shared faith. Sarah was Abraham’s wife and also his half-sister (Genesis 20:12). Isaac’s wife Rebekah was also the daughter of Bethuel, Isaac’s first cousin. Therefore Isaac and Rebekah were first cousins once removed.
What was Rehoboam’s relationship with these two wives? First, I have used the word “granddaughter” and not “daughter” both for Mahalath and for Maacah. If Mahalath was the daughter of David’s oldest brother, Eliab (1 Samuel 16:6), then she would have been something like sixty years old or more when Rehoboam took the throne; she would have been his first cousin once removed. But if she were the granddaughter, their ages would be much closer, and they would be second cousins. Their three sons (verses 19) were passed over for the throne, on account of their father’s love for the other named wife, Maacah. This violated Deuteronomy 21:15-17. While it didn’t seem to be contested in Rehoboam’s lifetime, the prophet who wrote this book noticed, and left just the right hints for us to notice it, too.
Rehoboam loved Maacah, either Absalom’s daughter or granddaughter (like many translators, I prefer the latter). If she was the granddaughter of Absalom (Solomon’s brother) then she would also have been Rehoboam’s first cousin once removed.
Rehoboam’s many children shows God’s blessing. “Sons are a heritage from the Lord, children a reward from him” (Psalm 127:3). Whether you have thirteen or fourteen children, or three or four, or one, or a child you know and love, you are blessed. A couple with no children has the ability to bless many children over the course of their life and marriage together. One of my dear uncles is married, but they have no physical children. Yet their wall is packed full of more pictures of young people than any of the rest of my parents’ brothers and sisters because they received child after child into their home as exchange students in their local high school. Many of those have grown up and have families of their own now and stay in touch with my uncle and aunt, and know how much they were blessed. And there is a man back in my hometown of Poynette who I knew as a boy—we lived only a few houses from each other. He had special needs, and never married, but he loves everyone around him, and is now a kindly man slipping past middle age, with a fine reputation and a good godly heart. Tommy is a blessing to many, just as there were many in his younger years who were a blessing to him. I think of him and pray for him even today.
Rehoboam broke God’s commandment about marriage just as his father had broken it. One wife, one flesh, is God’s plan for marriage (Genesis 2:24), and of course God specifically warned that the king should not take for himself too many horses, or multiple wives, or too much gold (Deuteronomy 17:16-17). The king was also commanded to write or to have written for him a copy of the law of Moses for himself (Deuteronomy 17:18). The Levites were the librarians of the word of God, and by this time the Law of Moses had been expanded by Joshua, Samuel, and by David and Solomon. Rehoboam had access to the text of the Holy Scriptures, and unlike any of us, a great deal of it was written in the handwriting of his very own father and grandfather. But there is no evidence that suggests that Rehoboam did any of this or that he even availed himself of the text of the Holy Scriptures that was being preserved by the Levites.
I have begun to wander away from Rehoboam’s family and sins, but more should be said about the use of education and the books we preserve for those who will follow after us in the world. Luther has some excellent things to say here in his work (either a long treatise or a short book) “To the Councilmen of All Cities in Germany That They Establish and Maintain Christian Schools” (1524, LW 45, especially pages 373-377). Our Wisconsin Synod has a pair of priceless gemstones to produce our pastors: Martin Luther College (which I can see from my kitchen window as I wash the dishes every day) and Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary near the western shore of Lake Michigan. The church offerings that we give to these schools will bless our people and our own dear families for decades and, God willing, centuries to come. Pray for our schools. Pray for our professors and the other members of the staff at these schools. And pray for the young men and their young wives as they prepare to offer themselves as candidates for the holy ministry. In this way, too, we can bless the children of our church, whether they are our children by blood, or our fellow children through a shared faith.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in New Ulm, Minnesota. To receive God’s Word for You via e-mail, please visit the St. Paul’s Lutheran Church website.