Chapter Ten

The secession of the ten tribes of Israel from the house of David

(See 1 Kgs 12:1-19)

1–14. The behavior of the newly enthroned Rehoboam increases the long-standing discontent of the ten tribes of Israel toward the house of David. 15–19. The actual secession of the 10 tribes from the house of David and the failure of Rehoboam’s attempt to recover them.

2 Chronicles 10:1. And Rehoboam went to Shechem, for all Israel had come to Shechem to make him king. 2 Chronicles 10:2. And when Jeroboam the son of Nebat heard of it (for he was in Egypt, where he had fled from King Solomon), Jeroboam returned from Egypt. 2 Chronicles 10:3. And they sent and called him; and Jeroboam and all Israel came and spoke to Rehoboam, saying, 2 Chronicles 10:4. “Your father made our yoke heavy; now therefore lighten the hard service of your father and his heavy yoke that he put on us, and we will serve you. 2 Chronicles 10:5. And he said to them: “Come back to me after three days.” And the people went away. 2 Chronicles 10:6. And King Rehoboam took counsel with the elders who had stood before Solomon his father during his lifetime, saying, “How do you advise me to answer this people? 2 Chronicles 10:7. They said to him, “If you will be kind to this people and please them and speak good words to them, then they will be your servants forever. 2 Chronicles 10:8. But he abandoned the counsel of the elders which they had given him, and took counsel with the young men who had grown up with him, who attended him; 2 Chronicles 10:9. and he said to them, “What do you advise me that we answer this people who have spoken to me, saying, ‘Lighten the yoke that your father put on us’? 2 Chronicles 10:10. And the young men who had grown up with him said to him, “Thus shall you speak to the people who spoke to you, saying, ‘Your father made our yoke heavy, and you make it lighter for us’: thus shall you say to them, ‘My little finger is thicker than my father’s loins. 2 Chronicles 10:11. And now, whereas my father burdened you with a heavy yoke, I will add to your yoke; my father chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions. 2 Chronicles 10:12. And Jeroboam and all the people came to Rehoboam on the third day, as the king had directed, saying, “Come to me again on the third day. 2 Chronicles 10:13. And the king answered them harshly, for King Rehoboam rejected the counsel of the elders and answered them according to the counsel of the young men, saying, 2 Chronicles 10:14. “My father made your yoke heavy, and I will add to it; my father chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions. 2 Chronicles 10:15. And the king did not listen to the people, for it was a turn of events brought about by God that the Lord might fulfill His word which He spoke by Ahijah the Shilonite to Jeroboam the son of Nebat. 2 Chronicles 10:16. When all Israel saw that the king did not listen to them, the people answered the king, saying, “What portion do we have in David? We have no inheritance in the son of Jesse. Every man to your tents, O Israel! Now look to your own house, David.” And all Israel departed to their tents. 2 Chronicles 10:17. But Rehoboam remained king over the people of Israel who dwelt in the cities of Judah. 2 Chronicles 10:18. Then King Rehoboam sent Adoram, who was over the levy, and the people of Israel stoned him with stones, so that he died. And King Rehoboam hastily mounted his chariot to flee to Jerusalem. 2 Chronicles 10:19. So Israel revolted against the house of David to this day. The account in 2 Chronicles here is almost verbatim the same as the narrative in 1 Kgs 12:1-19, see “Explanatory Bible”, vol. II, pp. 423–425. With the death of Solomon, the undivided Hebrew kingdom ceased to exist, united until then not only by the ruling royal dynasty of the house of David, but also by one sanctuary – the temple built by Solomon in Jerusalem. And whereas the sacred writer of 3 and 4 Kings presents a synchronistic history of both Hebrew kingdoms even after their division, for the sacred writer of Chronicles only the Kingdom of Judah remained a theocratic community with one legitimate temple and one legitimate cult and priesthood at it. The Northern Kingdom of Israel, as lacking these conditions of normal religious and church life, appears to him as if it had ceased to exist, at least for the Old Testament Kingdom of God. Hence almost all the accounts about the Northern Kingdom that are in the books of Kings are omitted in 2 Chronicles. Thus, for example, there is no mention at all of the reign of Jeroboam I of Israel, while in the account of the contemporary Judean king Rehoboam (chapters 10–12), a whole series of new documentary details are added in comparison with 3 Kings: concerning Rehoboam’s fortification of certain cities, concerning the resettlement of priests and Levites in Judah from the Northern Kingdom; a detailed genealogy of the royal family of Rehoboam (chapter 11). In the subsequent reigns, 2 Chronicles dwells at greater length on the reigns of Asa, Jehoshaphat, Joash, Hezekiah, and Josiah, when legitimate service to the Lord flourished in the temple in Jerusalem and the cult with its manifestations occupied the first place in the life of the people of Judah.