Read 2 Chronicles 12 and 1 Kings 14 at Bible Gateway.
Hebrew paragraph divisions:
2 Chr 11:13-12:1 {p} Priests, Levities + children of Israel came to dwell in Judah/ Rehoboam’s family
2 Chr 12:2-4 {s} Shishak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem because they had transgressed
2 Chr 12:5-8 {s} The word of the Lord/ the king + the leaders humbled themselves/ God granted them reprieve
2 Chr 12:9-12 {s} Shishak took all the Lord’s + king’s treasures, but as Rehoboam humbled himself, he was not destroyed completely
2 Chr 12:13-14 {s} Rehoboam strengthened himself + reigned 17 years, doing evil in the Lord’s sight
2 Chr 12:15-16 {p} The acts of Rehoboam/ his death + burial/ Abijah his son reigned in his place
1 Kin 14:1-4 {p} Jeroboam sent his wife to inquire of Abijah the prophet concerning his son, who was sick
1 Kin 14:5-20 {p} The Lord will cut off the house of Jeroboam / uproot the house of Israel because they forsook Him
1 Kin 14:21-24 {p} Rehoboam reigned in Judah / Judah did more evil than all their fathers before them
1 Kin 14:25-31 {p} Shishak king of Egypt took away the treasures/ Rehoboam died, his son reigned
The strong themes:
2 Chr 11:5-12:1 {s+p} Rehoboam fortified Judah/defection of Levites + people/ royal family/ he forsook the Lord
2 Chr 12:2-16 {sx4+p} Shishak king of Egypt made Judah tributary because they did evil/ Rehoboam’s reign
According to Ussher, Jeroboam became king in 975 BC, and Josiah became king in 641 BC. YHVH sent a prophet to prophesy against Jeroboam’s altars, something that would not occur for another 350 years, more or less (for Josiah did not do this act in the first year of his reign, but the book of the Law was not discovered until he had already been king 17 years). He is the God who knows the end from the beginning, and proclaims it!
I have been meditating on why the central axis of the entire record of the reigns of Rehoboam and Jeroboam, would be Jeroboam sending his wife to inquire of Abijah the prophet when his son became sick. To human logic it does not make sense. But then I asked myself, Jeroboam had forsaken the LORD, and His commandments, and was acting as high priest to the idols he had made (1 Kin 13:33), as well as king, as the nations had done since the Tower of Babel rebellion. So why did he not inquire, concerning his son, of the idols he had made? Why did he send to a prophet of Yehovah, the God of Israel, whom he had forsaken? Precisely because he knew that the idols he had made were false and could not answer him, while Yehovah, the God of Israel, was the true God who knows the end from the beginning. When the rubber meets the road, deep down men know who is God and who is not, and they contradict all their protestations to the contrary when their back is against the wall.
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