Would you like to read James McNaught’s novel Sinking Sand”? click here: Sinking Sand
(The view expressed in this blog are my own and should not be taken as inspired in any way.)
1 Kings 14:21–31, “And Rehoboam the son of Solomon reigned in Judah. Rehoboam was forty and one years old when he began to reign, and he reigned seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city which the LORD did choose out of all the tribes of Israel, to put his name there. And his mother’s name was Naamah an Ammonitess. And Judah did evil in the sight of the LORD, and they provoked him to jealousy with their sins which they had committed, above all that their fathers had done. For they also built them high places, and images, and groves, on every high hill, and under every green tree. And there were also sodomites in the land: and they did according to all the abominations of the nations which the LORD cast out before the children of Israel. And it came to pass in the fifth year of king Rehoboam, that Shishak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem: And he took away the treasures of the house of the LORD, and the treasures of the king’s house; he even took away all: and he took away all the shields of gold which Solomon had made. And king Rehoboam made in their stead brasen shields, and committed them unto the hands of the chief of the guard, which kept the door of the king’s house. And it was so, when the king went into the house of the LORD, that the guard bare them, and brought them back into the guard chamber. Now the rest of the acts of Rehoboam, and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah? And there was war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam all their days. And Rehoboam slept with his fathers, and was buried with his fathers in the city of David. And his mother’s name was Naamah an Ammonitess. And Abijam his son reigned in his stead.”
From Rehoboam’s reign the kingdom was divided and we have a dual history for the rest of the kingdom period. While Jeroboam was ruling in Israel in the north, Rehoboam ruled in Jerusalem in the south. The southern kingdom was called Judah because king David was from the tribe of Judah. Rehoboam was sinful and didn’t worship the Lord God as David had done before him. The people began to worship the local god on every hill top and followed the fertility customs of the Amorites who lived in the Land before Israel took possession. While Solomon had been very rich and made an alliance with Egypt, the Egyptians came and took away much of the riches that belonged to Solomon. Rehoboam replaced the gold from Solomon’s ceremonial displays with bronze. Jeroboam reigned 22 years but Rehoboam reigned only 17 years.
No comments:
Post a Comment