When King Rehoboam succeeded his father Solomon as King of Israel, things immediately started to go wrong. He was advised by his wise counsellors to ease the burden Solomon had laid on the people. In an attempt to assert his authority he said, notoriously: "My father scourged you with whips; I will scourge you with scorpions" (2 Chronicles 10:11).
Not surprisingly the people of the northern tribes, always less loyal to David's house, rebelled against him. The kingdom split, with Rehoboam left ruling the rump kingdom of Judah. But when he gathered his powers to retake Israel by war, a prophet warned him not to – and Rehoboam stood his men down (11:4).
He may have had little choice. Shemaiah, the prophet, gave the Lord's word not just to the king but to the people, and perhaps they wouldn't fight. But it represented a terrible loss of face for him and meant the Hebrew kingdoms would never be united again. Indeed, they would often be at war, and the religious and political divisions were tragic.
We learn more about Rehoboam in 2 Chronicles 11 and 12. He seems to have swung between faithfulness and foolishness. He strengthened the kingdom and acted as a wise ruler, with the loyalty and support of the people. But before too long, he "abandoned the law of the Lord" and was attacked by the Egyptians. The prophet Shemaiah, who had warned him not to attack his fellow Israelites, urged him to repent; he did so, and retained his throne at the cost of becoming subject to the Egyptian Pharaoh and paying over a vast amount of treasure.
In a note of wistfulness, the Chronicler says in 12:12, "Because Rehoboam hmbled himself, the Lord's anger turned from him, and he was not totally destroyed. Indeed, there was some good in Judah."
In his failure to settle consistently on one path of faithful service to God, Rehoboam is like many of us. He was influenced by arrogance, lust and self-will. He threw away the advantages he had been given because he lacked a living faith in the living God.
But he was still able to respond to the promptings of God's Spirit. He listened to Shemaiah, the prophet. And when the Chronicler writes, "Indeed, there was some good in Judah, it isn't just a wry way of saying, "Just not very much"; it's an expression of hope in God's grace. Even Rehoboam, with all his failures, had enough awareness of God's grace him to be able to do the right thing when he had to.
So the story of Rehoboam is in the end an encouraging one. God always gives second chances – and third, and fourth. And by his grace we are still able to respond to them.
Follow Mark Woods on Twitter: @RevMarkWoods
