God’s Word for You
2 Chronicles 12:13-16 A legacy
by Pastor Timothy Smith on Tuesday, November 19, 2024
13 King Rehoboam established himself firmly in Jerusalem and reigned as king. He was forty-one years old when he became king, and he reigned seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city the LORD had chosen out of all the tribes of Israel to put his Name there. His mother’s name was Naamah; she was an Ammonite. 14 He did evil because he had not set his heart on seeking the LORD. 15 As for the acts of Rehoboam, from beginning to end, are they not written in the records of Shemaiah the prophet and of Iddo the seer that deal with genealogies? Rehoboam and Jeroboam were at war throughout their reigns. 16 Rehoboam rested with his fathers and was buried in the City of David. And Abijah his son was king after him.
Since we are fairly certain that Solomon died in 930 BC, we can confidently date Rehoboam’s reign from that year, 930, to 913 BC, which is seventeen years. The tools for calculating the reigns of the Hebrew kings are not always this simple, and many attempts have been made to try to come up with an interpretation of the dates given in the Bible that makes sense. Most conservative Lutheran pastors are impressed with the work of Edwin Thiele, whose “Mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew Kings” (1983) makes the simple assumption that the text of the Bible is always correct, but that the ways that the Israelites calculated their reigns, and which Hebrew calendar they used (spiritual or secular), made an impact on the way they express their dates. Another issue that has long been recognized is when a son reigns alongside his father and both men count those years in their length of service.
We are reminded of Rehoboam’s sin, which is summarized as “not setting his heart on seeking the Lord.” But after Shishak’s invasion, we’ve been told that Rehoboam started once again to go to the temple to worship the Lord (this was included in the business about the bronze shields in verses 10-11). And on top of that repentance and Rehoboam’s fruits of repentance, there was “some good in Judah” (verse 12).
People sometimes wonder about where the Bible writers got their information, since some of them wrote many years, sometimes several centuries, after the events. In addition to the inspiration of the Holy Spirit (2 Peter 1:21), we see here that Shemaiah the prophet and another man, Iddo the seer, kept records that had to do with the king’s acts and the genealogies of the kings. This is the last reference to Shemaiah the prophet in the Bible, but Iddo’s name will appear again.
For Judah, the war with Jeroboam was the thing that dominated those years. Perhaps we should say, “the war-footing.” Rehoboam made fortifications, had them wrecked by Pharaoh Shishak, and probably built or partially built them up again. He kept his troops armed and provisioned (11:11-12). But then at about 58 years old, with just 17 years on the throne, Rehoboam died. Among ancient causes of death apart from old age and war, tuberculosis and stroke were pretty common. It is believed that cancer is a relatively modern condition. Since no particular disease is mentioned for Rehoboam (as it is for King Asa, 2 Chronicles 16:12; or Jehoram, 21:15-19; or Uzziah, 26:21), some sudden malady like a stroke seems likely. Certainly fifty-eight does not seem very old at all to us, but then as we already saw, his father Solomon may only have lived to about sixty.
Jeroboam’s burial was within the city. We hear about a place known as Qibroth Hamalakim, “the tombs of the kings” (2 Chronicles 21:20, 24:25) or Qibroth Avothav, “the tombs of (his) fathers” (2 Chronicles 35:24). This was a tomb or vault in the southern part of the old City of David, where David and Solomon were buried (Acts 2:29), and most of the Kings of Judah were buried there, too. A French archaeologist (Louis Félicien de Saulcy) excavated what he thought was the site in 1863 and found several buried sarcophagi there, but he may only have found later burials from the time of the New Testament, such as that of Helena of Adiabene (Edessa), a Jewish convert. We will see later in Chronicles that several kings were not buried there, sometimes “to no one’s regret” (2 Chronicles 21:20).
The legacy that most of us leave behind in the world is the impact we have had on other lives. Our family, our friends, our children, and perhaps a larger group. Will something you have done last into the future, or not? With a king, there is a lot to consider. There is the general welfare of his people; did he leave the kingdom in better shape than he received it? Did he harm the name of the kingship? Did he reclaim something that was lost? What could Rehoboam say? He had been unfaithful, but he repented, and there was some good in Judah. But he lost the northern tribes. No other king lost so much apart from the last northern king, Hoshea, who lost everything to the Assyrians (2 Kings 17:6). Yet Rehoboam had repented of his sin and returned to worshiping God. We can guess and even trust that his soul was saved, although he was not a great king. His evil was atoned for by the blood of Jesus, just as all of the sins and wickedness that lay on our account have been atoned for by Jesus. “Forgiven by Jesus”—that’s the legacy we have by the grace of God.
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.