Rehoboam, son of Solomon, was 41 years old when he became king of the still united nation of Israel. Knowing that Solomon ruled for 40 years, that means Rehoboam was alive for the entire duration of Solomon’s reign. Rehoboam was most infamous for being the king whose decisions caused the kingdom to be split into the Northern Kingdom of Israel, which Jeroboam formed, and the Southern Kingdom of Judah, remaining under David’s line. After this happened, Egypt attacked and took much of the wealth that Solomon had stored up. In just one generation, what David and Solomon built was wiped out. How did this happen? What set Rehoboam up for this failure?
Rehoboam’s age is important here. He was born before Solomon’s ascension to the throne. He was 41 years old when he became king, and thus he lived through all of Solomon’s rule. Rehoboam’s mother was Namaah who was an Ammonite. Solomon, as we know, had 700 wives and 300 concubines. Namaah was one of them, though the one that Solomon gave the most attention to was the daughter of Pharoah of Egypt who got her own palace. Namaah is the same name given to the sister of Tubal-Cain, whose father was Lamech in Cain’s line in Genesis 4. This Lamech boasted about killing a young man who injured him and was the first known polygamist. There may or may not be a correlation here. There is a train of though that suggests that Namaah from Genesis 4 may have been either Noah’s wife or Ham’s wife and survived the Flood. But it is interesting to note this name from the pre-Flood world that was carried on through a pagan nation.
Solomon must have married Namaah prior to his own ascension by at least two years. This makes it likely that David not only set up the marriage (as marriages were arranged back then), but he also approved of Solomon marrying a foreigner. David himself did not marry a foreigner, but he still had nine wives. Many of Solomon’s wives were foreign due to political alliances. And it was Namaah from Ammon, one of Lot’s sons from the incestuous relationship with his daughters, who would carry the line. Rehoboam was likely Solomon’s first son too. Even though the daughter of Pharaoh of Egypt was his favorite, she came along after he ascended to the throne. Namaah was there before. One of Ammon’s idols was Molech. Molech worship involved newborn babies literally being burned to death on a metal plate in worship to an idol while loud drums drowned out the baby’s screams. One of the idols that Solomon built for his wives was to Molech. He also built the idols for Asherah and Chemosh. Rehoboam’s mother worshiped Molech, among other idols.
Rehoboam married a woman named Macaah, the daughter of Absalom, and she too was an idolater. She built an image to Asherah that Rehoboam’s grandson, Asa, found so repulsive that he removed her from her position as queen mother. Both grew up in Solomon’s court, being of the royal family. And one thing was clear: Solomon did not deal with the idolatry of his wives nor was he concerned about the idols of those his sons married. Even though he built the Temple and was given wisdom beyond man’s comprehension, he did not draw the line with the women’s idols. Rehoboam learned of this and engaged in the idolatrous practices himself. High places built by Solomon were not taken down, and Rehoboam saw them go up. He may have even overseen their construction. Scripture says that he did evil in the sight of God more than all his predecessors. It is unclear whether that means only Saul, David, and Solomon or if it means during the times of the Judges further back, but he set the standard for darkness on the throne to a level Saul never did. It wasn’t just the idols given specific attention, but also male cult prostitutes were in the land. During Rehoboam’s time, ritualistic homosexuality was a thing.
Some scholars believe that Rehoboam is the son receiving the instructions of Proverbs 1-9. It depends on when those Proverbs were written. As we do not know the ages of Abijah or Asa when they came to the throne, if they both fathered their sons at age 20, Asa would still be an infant when Solomon died, leaving Asa to be 20 when he became king for his 41-year reign. One can speculate that Asa would be the son receiving the instructions from a repentant Solomon, but it would not make sense to warn Asa as a prepubescent youth about the details of sexual immorality. Likewise, it does not make sense to tell a 40-year-old Rehoboam of the dangers of the adulteress and of a murderous gang, because he was already 40 years old. I’m also struggling to understand how Solomon would give such instructions prior to falling to idolatry and not following them himself. All this leads to speculation that Solomon himself may have been the son of these Proverbs given by David. There I no proof of this, but if Rehoboam was indeed the recipient of Proverbs 1-9, he didn’t listen to it at all.
Besides his idolatry, Rehoboam’s most infamous decision was to reject the wisdom of his father’s advisors. Instead, he listened to his peers who group up with him in luxury completely oblivious to the normal people’s lives. Solomon’s advisors knew that if you treated the people well, they would follow you for life. But Rehoboam’s peers wanted to use this as an opportunity for a power trip, and we do not know if Rehoboam even had an idea of how he was going to go about that. We just know he wanted to prove he was the big dude, that he was “the guy,” and he proved to be an idiot in doing so. Jeroboam, one of Solomon’s valiant men, led the rebellion against Rehoboam and was made the first king of the northern kingdom of Israel.
What can we learn from Rehoboam? Living a life of luxury and having no grasp of the reality of the everyday person does no one any good. There is nothing wrong with being wealthy. Solomon’s wealth never got him in trouble, other than showing him via Ecclesiastes that it was all vanity. But it made Rehoboam utterly clueless about life outside the palace. Rehoboam lived an entitled life under the wealthiest and wisest man ever to live on earth. And when it came his time to carry the title, he never learned that Solomon’s strength, wisdom, and wealth all came from God. In just five years, Shishak from Egypt came and basically stripped away all the gold Solomon had left his son, and Judah would never return to the state that Solomon had started with. Rehoboam believed everyone owed him something, and simply because he was royalty, he could do whatever he wanted. He never met David (other than as an infant) and never learned the heart of a servant-leader. It cost him the kingdom and countless civil wars between Israel and Judah for the next three hundred years. Don’t let God’s blessings make us think we deserve anything, but instead be thankful to God for them. In humility, understand that God could take away that wealth and blessing in an instant.
Next week, we will look at Jeroboam of Israel who became king just shortly after Rehoboam did and set up the rebellion against him. Jeroboam had even bigger issues than Rehoboam, and we’ll examine those next week.
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