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Selected Verse: 1 Kings 14:21 - King James

Verse	Translation	Text
1Ki 14:21	King James	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.

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A Commentary, Critical, Practical, and Explanatory on the Old and New Testaments, by Robert Jamieson, A.R. Fausset and David Brown [1882]
REHOBOAM'S WICKED REIGN. (Kg1 14:21-24) he reigned . . . in Jerusalem--Its particular designation as "the city which the Lord did choose out of all the tribes of Israel, to put his name there," seems given here, both as a reflection on the apostasy of the ten tribes, and as a proof of the aggravated wickedness of introducing idolatry and its attendant vices there. his mother's name was Naamah an Ammonitess--Her heathen extraction and her influence as queen mother are stated to account for Rehoboam's tendency to depart from the true religion. Led by the warning of the prophet (Kg1 12:23), as well as by the large immigration of Israelites into his kingdom (Kg1 12:17; Ch2 11:16), he continued for the first three years of his reign a faithful patron of true religion (Ch2 11:17). But afterwards he began and encouraged a general apostasy; idolatry became the prevailing form of worship, and the religious state of the kingdom in his reign is described by the high places, the idolatrous statues, the groves and impure rites that with unchecked license were observed in them. The description is suited to the character of the Canaanitish worship.

A Commentary, Critical, Practical, and Explanatory on the Old and New Testaments, by Robert Jamieson, A.R. Fausset and David Brown [1882]

REHOBOAM'S WICKED REIGN. (Kg1 14:21-24)

he reigned . . . in Jerusalem--Its particular designation as "the city which the Lord did choose out of all the tribes of Israel, to put his name there," seems given here, both as a reflection on the apostasy of the ten tribes, and as a proof of the aggravated wickedness of introducing idolatry and its attendant vices there.

his mother's name was Naamah an Ammonitess--Her heathen extraction and her influence as queen mother are stated to account for Rehoboam's tendency to depart from the true religion. Led by the warning of the prophet (Kg1 12:23), as well as by the large immigration of Israelites into his kingdom (Kg1 12:17; Ch2 11:16), he continued for the first three years of his reign a faithful patron of true religion (Ch2 11:17). But afterwards he began and encouraged a general apostasy; idolatry became the prevailing form of worship, and the religious state of the kingdom in his reign is described by the high places, the idolatrous statues, the groves and impure rites that with unchecked license were observed in them. The description is suited to the character of the Canaanitish worship.

Notes on the Bible, by Albert Barnes, [1834]
On the age of Rehoboam at his accession, see Kg1 12:8 note. The 17 years of his reign must have been complete, or a little more than complete, if Abijam ascended the throne in the "eighteenth" year of Jeroboam Kg1 15:1.

Commentary on the Old Testament, by Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch [1857-78]
Reign of Rehoboam in Judah (compare 2 Chron 11:5-12:16). - Kg1 14:21. Rehoboam, who ascended the throne at the age of forty-one, was born a year before the accession of Solomon (see at Kg1 2:24). In the description of Jerusalem as the city chosen by the Lord (cf., Kg1 11:36) there is implied not so much an indirect condemnation of the falling away of the ten tribes, as the striking contrast to the idolatry of Rehoboam referred to in Kg1 14:23. The name of his mother is mentioned (here and in Kg1 14:31), not because she seduced the king to idolatry (Ephr. Syr.), but generally on account of the great influence which the queen-mother appears to have had both upon the king personally and upon his government, as we may infer from the fact that the mother's name is given in the case of every king of Judah (vid., Kg1 15:2, Kg1 15:13; Kg1 22:42, etc.). Kg1 14:22-24 The general characteristics of Rehoboam's reign are supplied and more minutely defined in the account in the Chronicles. According to 2 Chron 11:5-12:1, he appears to have been brought to reflection by the announcement of the prophet, that the falling away of the ten tribes had come from the Lord as a punishment for Solomon's idolatry (Kg1 12:23-24; Ch2 11:2-4); and in the first years of his reign to have followed the law of God with earnestness, and to have been occupied in the establishment of his government partly by the fortification of different cities (Ch2 11:5-12), and partly by setting in order his domestic affairs, placing his numerous sons, who were born of his many wives and concubines, in the fortified cities of the land, and thus providing for them, and naming Abijam as his successor (Ch2 11:18-22); while his kingdom was still further strengthened by the priests, Levites, and pious Israelites who emigrated to Judah and Jerusalem from the ten tribes (Ch2 11:13-17). But this good beginning only lasted three years (Ch2 11:17). When he thought that he had sufficiently fortified his kingdom, he forsook the law of the Lord, and all Israel (i.e., all the covenant nation) with him (Ch2 12:1). "Judah did that which was displeasing in the sight of the Lord; they provoked Him to jealousy more than all that their fathers (sc., under the Judges) had done with their sins." קנּא, to provoke to jealousy (Num 5:14), is to be explained, when it refers to God, from the fact that the relation in which God stood to His people was regarded under the figure of a marriage, in which Jehovah appears as the husband of the nation, who is angry at the unfaithfulness of his wife, i.e., at the idolatry of the nation. Compare the remarks on קנּא אל in the Comm. on Exo 20:5. Kg1 14:23 They also (the Judaeans as well as the Israelites) built themselves bamoth, altars of high places (see at Kg1 3:3), monuments and Ashera-idols. מצּבות are not actual images of gods, but stones set up as memorials (Gen 31:13; Gen 35:20; Exo 24:4), more especially stone monuments set up in commemoration of a divine revelation (Gen 28:18, Gen 28:22; Gen 35:14). Like the bamoth, in connection with which they generally occur, they were originally dedicated to Jehovah; but even under the law they were forbidden, partly as places of divine worship of human invention which easily degenerated into idolatry, but chiefly because the Canaanites had erected such monuments to Baal by the side of his altars (Exo 23:24; Exo 34:13; Deu 7:5, etc.), whereby the worship of Jehovah was unconsciously identified with the worship of Baal, even when the mazzeboth were not at first erected to the Canaanitish Baal. As the מצּבות of the Canaanites were dedicated to Baal, so were the אשׁרים to Astarte, the female nature-deity of those tribes. אשׁרה, however, does not mean a grove (see the Comm. on Deu 16:21), but an idol of the Canaanitish nature-goddess, generally most likely a lofty wooden pillar, though sometimes perhaps a straight trunk of a tree, the branches and crown of which were lopped off, and which was planted upon heights and in other places by the side of the altars of Baal. The name אשׁרה was transferred from the idol to the goddess of nature (Kg1 15:13; Kg1 18:19; Kg2 21:7, etc.), and was used of the image or column of the Phoenician Astarte (Kg1 16:33; Kg2 13:6; Kg2 17:16, etc.), just as אשׁרות in Jdg 3:7 alternates with עשׁתּרות in Jdg 2:13. These idols the Israelites (? Judaeans - Tr.) appear to have also associated with the worship of Jehovah; for the external worship of Jehovah was still maintained in the temple, and was performed by Rehoboam himself with princely pomp (Kg1 14:28). "On every high hill," etc.; see at Deu 12:2. Kg1 14:24 "There were also prostitutes in the land." קדּשׁ is used collectively as a generic name, including both male and female hierodylae, and is exchanged for the plural in Kg1 15:12. The male קדשׁים had emasculated themselves in religious frenzy in honour of the Canaanitish goddess of nature, and were called Galli by the Romans. They were Canaanites, who had found their way into the land of Judah when idolatry gained the upper hand (as indicated by וגם). "They appear here as strangers among the Israelites, and are those notorious Cinaedi more especially of the imperial age of Rome who travelled about in all directions, begging for the Syrian goddess, and even in the time of Augustine went about asking for alms in the streets of Carthage as a remnant of the Phoenician worship (de civ. Dei, vii. 26)." - Movers, p. 679. On the female קדשׁות see the Comm. on Gen 38:21 and Deu 23:18. This sinking into heathen abominations was soon followed by the punishment, that Judah was given up to the power of the heathen. Kg1 14:25-27 King Shishak of Egypt invaded the land with a powerful army, conquered all the fortified cities, penetrated to Jerusalem, and would probably have put an end to the kingdom of Judah, if God had not had compassion upon him, and saved him from destruction, in consequence of the humiliation of the king and of the chiefs of the nation, caused by the admonition of the prophet Shemaiah, so that after the conquest of Jerusalem Shishak contented himself with withdrawing, taking with him the treasures of the temple and of the royal palace. Compare the fuller account of this expedition in Ch2 12:2-9. Shishak (שׁישׁק) was the first king of the twenty-second (or Bubastitic) dynasty, called Sesonchis in Jul. Afric., Sesonchosis in Eusebius, and upon the monuments on which Champollion first deciphered his name, Sheshonk or Sheshenk. Shishak has celebrated his expedition against Judah by a bas-relief on the outer wall of the pillar-hall erected by him in the first palace at Karnak, in which more than 130 figures are led in cords by Ammon and the goddess Muth with their hands bound upon their backs. The lower portion of the figures of this long row of prisoners is covered by escutcheons, the border of which being provided with battlements, shows that the prisoners are symbols of conquered cities. About a hundred of these escutcheons are still legible, and in the names upon them a large number of the names of cities in the kingdom of Judah have been deciphered with tolerable certainty. (Note: Compare Max Duncker, Gesch. des Alterthums, Bd. i. p. 909, ed. 3, and for the different copies of this bas-relief in the more recent works upon Egypt, Reutschi in Herzog's Cycl. (art. Rehoboam). The latest attempts at deciphering are those by Brugsch, Geogr. Inschriften in den gypt. Denkmltern, ii. p. 56ff., and O. Blau, Sisaqs Zug gegen Juda aus dem Denkmale bei Karnak erlutert, in the Deutsch. morgenl. Ztschr. xv. p. 233ff. Champollion's interpretation of one of these escutcheons, in his Prcis du systme hierogl. p. 204, viz., Juda hammalek, "the king of Judah," has been rejected by Lepsius and Brugsch as philologically inadmissible. Brugsch writes the name thus: Judh malk or Joud-hamalok, and identifies Judh with Jehudijeh, which Robinson (Pal. iii. p. 45) supposes to be the ancient Jehud (Jos 19:45). This Jehud in the tribe of Dan, Blau (p. 238) therefore also finds in the name; and it will not mislead any one that this city is reckoned as belonging to the tribe of Dan, since in the very same chapter (Jos 19:42) Ajalon is assigned to Dan, though it was nevertheless a fortress of Rehoboam (Ch2 11:10). But Blau has not given any explanation of the addition malk or malok, whereas Gust. Roesch takes it to be מלך, and supposes it to mean "Jehud of the king, namely, of Rehoboam or of Judah, on account of its being situated in Dan, which belonged to the northern kingdom." But this is certainly incorrect. For where could the Egyptians have obtained this exact knowledge of the relation in which the tribes of the nation of Israel stood to one another?) Shishak was probably bent chiefly upon the conquest and plundering of the cities. But from Jerusalem, beside other treasures of the temple and palace, he also carried off the golden shields that had been made by Solomon (Kg1 10:16), in the place of which Rehoboam had copper ones made for his body-guard. The guard, רצים, runners, are still further described as המּלך בּית פּתח בּית ה השּׁמרים, "who kept the door of the king's house," i.e., supplied the sentinels for the gate of the royal palace. Kg1 14:28 Whenever the king went into the house of Jehovah, the runners carried these shields; from which we may see that the king was accustomed to go to the temple with solemn pomp. These shields were not kept in the state-house of the forest of Lebanon (Kg1 10:17) as the golden shields were, but in the guard-chamber (תּא; see at Eze 40:7) of the runners. Kg1 14:29-30 Further particulars are given in 2 Chron 11 and 12 concerning the rest of the acts of Rehoboam. "There was war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam the whole time (of their reign)." As nothing is said about any open war between them, and the prophet Shemaiah prohibited the attack which Rehoboam was about to make upon the tribes who had fallen away (Kg1 11:23.), מלחמה can only denote the hostile feelings and attitude of the two rulers towards one another. Kg1 14:31 Death and burial of Rehoboam: as in the case of Solomon (Kg1 11:43). The name of the queen-mother has already been given in Kg1 14:21, and the repetition of it here may be explained on the supposition that in the original sources employed by the author of our books it stood in this position. The son and successor of Rehoboam upon the throne is called Abijam (אביּם) in the account before us; whereas in the Chronicles he is always called Abijah (אביּה, Ch2 12:16; Ch2 13:1, etc., or אביּהוּ, Ch2 13:21). אביּם, i.e., father of the sea, is unquestionably the older form of the name, which was reduced to אביּה, and then identified with the formation from אבי and יה = יהוּ (from יהוה).

Commentary on the Old Testament, by Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch [1857-78]

Reign of Rehoboam in Judah (compare 2 Chron 11:5-12:16). - Kg1 14:21. Rehoboam, who ascended the throne at the age of forty-one, was born a year before the accession of Solomon (see at Kg1 2:24). In the description of Jerusalem as the city chosen by the Lord (cf., Kg1 11:36) there is implied not so much an indirect condemnation of the falling away of the ten tribes, as the striking contrast to the idolatry of Rehoboam referred to in Kg1 14:23. The name of his mother is mentioned (here and in Kg1 14:31), not because she seduced the king to idolatry (Ephr. Syr.), but generally on account of the great influence which the queen-mother appears to have had both upon the king personally and upon his government, as we may infer from the fact that the mother's name is given in the case of every king of Judah (vid., Kg1 15:2, Kg1 15:13; Kg1 22:42, etc.).

Kg1 14:22-24

The general characteristics of Rehoboam's reign are supplied and more minutely defined in the account in the Chronicles. According to 2 Chron 11:5-12:1, he appears to have been brought to reflection by the announcement of the prophet, that the falling away of the ten tribes had come from the Lord as a punishment for Solomon's idolatry (Kg1 12:23-24; Ch2 11:2-4); and in the first years of his reign to have followed the law of God with earnestness, and to have been occupied in the establishment of his government partly by the fortification of different cities (Ch2 11:5-12), and partly by setting in order his domestic affairs, placing his numerous sons, who were born of his many wives and concubines, in the fortified cities of the land, and thus providing for them, and naming Abijam as his successor (Ch2 11:18-22); while his kingdom was still further strengthened by the priests, Levites, and pious Israelites who emigrated to Judah and Jerusalem from the ten tribes (Ch2 11:13-17). But this good beginning only lasted three years (Ch2 11:17). When he thought that he had sufficiently fortified his kingdom, he forsook the law of the Lord, and all Israel (i.e., all the covenant nation) with him (Ch2 12:1). "Judah did that which was displeasing in the sight of the Lord; they provoked Him to jealousy more than all that their fathers (sc., under the Judges) had done with their sins." קנּא, to provoke to jealousy (Num 5:14), is to be explained, when it refers to God, from the fact that the relation in which God stood to His people was regarded under the figure of a marriage, in which Jehovah appears as the husband of the nation, who is angry at the unfaithfulness of his wife, i.e., at the idolatry of the nation. Compare the remarks on קנּא אל in the Comm. on Exo 20:5.

Kg1 14:23

They also (the Judaeans as well as the Israelites) built themselves bamoth, altars of high places (see at Kg1 3:3), monuments and Ashera-idols. מצּבות are not actual images of gods, but stones set up as memorials (Gen 31:13; Gen 35:20; Exo 24:4), more especially stone monuments set up in commemoration of a divine revelation (Gen 28:18, Gen 28:22; Gen 35:14). Like the bamoth, in connection with which they generally occur, they were originally dedicated to Jehovah; but even under the law they were forbidden, partly as places of divine worship of human invention which easily degenerated into idolatry, but chiefly because the Canaanites had erected such monuments to Baal by the side of his altars (Exo 23:24; Exo 34:13; Deu 7:5, etc.), whereby the worship of Jehovah was unconsciously identified with the worship of Baal, even when the mazzeboth were not at first erected to the Canaanitish Baal. As the מצּבות of the Canaanites were dedicated to Baal, so were the אשׁרים to Astarte, the female nature-deity of those tribes. אשׁרה, however, does not mean a grove (see the Comm. on Deu 16:21), but an idol of the Canaanitish nature-goddess, generally most likely a lofty wooden pillar, though sometimes perhaps a straight trunk of a tree, the branches and crown of which were lopped off, and which was planted upon heights and in other places by the side of the altars of Baal. The name אשׁרה was transferred from the idol to the goddess of nature (Kg1 15:13; Kg1 18:19; Kg2 21:7, etc.), and was used of the image or column of the Phoenician Astarte (Kg1 16:33; Kg2 13:6; Kg2 17:16, etc.), just as אשׁרות in Jdg 3:7 alternates with עשׁתּרות in Jdg 2:13. These idols the Israelites (? Judaeans - Tr.) appear to have also associated with the worship of Jehovah; for the external worship of Jehovah was still maintained in the temple, and was performed by Rehoboam himself with princely pomp (Kg1 14:28). "On every high hill," etc.; see at Deu 12:2.

Kg1 14:24

"There were also prostitutes in the land." קדּשׁ is used collectively as a generic name, including both male and female hierodylae, and is exchanged for the plural in Kg1 15:12. The male קדשׁים had emasculated themselves in religious frenzy in honour of the Canaanitish goddess of nature, and were called Galli by the Romans. They were Canaanites, who had found their way into the land of Judah when idolatry gained the upper hand (as indicated by וגם). "They appear here as strangers among the Israelites, and are those notorious Cinaedi more especially of the imperial age of Rome who travelled about in all directions, begging for the Syrian goddess, and even in the time of Augustine went about asking for alms in the streets of Carthage as a remnant of the Phoenician worship (de civ. Dei, vii. 26)." - Movers, p. 679. On the female קדשׁות see the Comm. on Gen 38:21 and Deu 23:18.

This sinking into heathen abominations was soon followed by the punishment, that Judah was given up to the power of the heathen.

Kg1 14:25-27

King Shishak of Egypt invaded the land with a powerful army, conquered all the fortified cities, penetrated to Jerusalem, and would probably have put an end to the kingdom of Judah, if God had not had compassion upon him, and saved him from destruction, in consequence of the humiliation of the king and of the chiefs of the nation, caused by the admonition of the prophet Shemaiah, so that after the conquest of Jerusalem Shishak contented himself with withdrawing, taking with him the treasures of the temple and of the royal palace. Compare the fuller account of this expedition in Ch2 12:2-9. Shishak (שׁישׁק) was the first king of the twenty-second (or Bubastitic) dynasty, called Sesonchis in Jul. Afric., Sesonchosis in Eusebius, and upon the monuments on which Champollion first deciphered his name, Sheshonk or Sheshenk. Shishak has celebrated his expedition against Judah by a bas-relief on the outer wall of the pillar-hall erected by him in the first palace at Karnak, in which more than 130 figures are led in cords by Ammon and the goddess Muth with their hands bound upon their backs. The lower portion of the figures of this long row of prisoners is covered by escutcheons, the border of which being provided with battlements, shows that the prisoners are symbols of conquered cities. About a hundred of these escutcheons are still legible, and in the names upon them a large number of the names of cities in the kingdom of Judah have been deciphered with tolerable certainty.

(Note: Compare Max Duncker, Gesch. des Alterthums, Bd. i. p. 909, ed. 3, and for the different copies of this bas-relief in the more recent works upon Egypt, Reutschi in Herzog's Cycl. (art. Rehoboam). The latest attempts at deciphering are those by Brugsch, Geogr. Inschriften in den gypt. Denkmltern, ii. p. 56ff., and O. Blau, Sisaqs Zug gegen Juda aus dem Denkmale bei Karnak erlutert, in the Deutsch. morgenl. Ztschr. xv. p. 233ff. Champollion's interpretation of one of these escutcheons, in his Prcis du systme hierogl. p. 204, viz., Juda hammalek, "the king of Judah," has been rejected by Lepsius and Brugsch as philologically inadmissible. Brugsch writes the name thus: Judh malk or Joud-hamalok, and identifies Judh with Jehudijeh, which Robinson (Pal. iii. p. 45) supposes to be the ancient Jehud (Jos 19:45). This Jehud in the tribe of Dan, Blau (p. 238) therefore also finds in the name; and it will not mislead any one that this city is reckoned as belonging to the tribe of Dan, since in the very same chapter (Jos 19:42) Ajalon is assigned to Dan, though it was nevertheless a fortress of Rehoboam (Ch2 11:10). But Blau has not given any explanation of the addition malk or malok, whereas Gust. Roesch takes it to be מלך, and supposes it to mean "Jehud of the king, namely, of Rehoboam or of Judah, on account of its being situated in Dan, which belonged to the northern kingdom." But this is certainly incorrect. For where could the Egyptians have obtained this exact knowledge of the relation in which the tribes of the nation of Israel stood to one another?)

Shishak was probably bent chiefly upon the conquest and plundering of the cities. But from Jerusalem, beside other treasures of the temple and palace, he also carried off the golden shields that had been made by Solomon (Kg1 10:16), in the place of which Rehoboam had copper ones made for his body-guard. The guard, רצים, runners, are still further described as המּלך בּית פּתח בּית ה השּׁמרים, "who kept the door of the king's house," i.e., supplied the sentinels for the gate of the royal palace.

Kg1 14:28

Whenever the king went into the house of Jehovah, the runners carried these shields; from which we may see that the king was accustomed to go to the temple with solemn pomp. These shields were not kept in the state-house of the forest of Lebanon (Kg1 10:17) as the golden shields were, but in the guard-chamber (תּא; see at Eze 40:7) of the runners.

Kg1 14:29-30

Further particulars are given in 2 Chron 11 and 12 concerning the rest of the acts of Rehoboam. "There was war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam the whole time (of their reign)." As nothing is said about any open war between them, and the prophet Shemaiah prohibited the attack which Rehoboam was about to make upon the tribes who had fallen away (Kg1 11:23.), מלחמה can only denote the hostile feelings and attitude of the two rulers towards one another.

Kg1 14:31

Death and burial of Rehoboam: as in the case of Solomon (Kg1 11:43). The name of the queen-mother has already been given in Kg1 14:21, and the repetition of it here may be explained on the supposition that in the original sources employed by the author of our books it stood in this position. The son and successor of Rehoboam upon the throne is called Abijam (אביּם) in the account before us; whereas in the Chronicles he is always called Abijah (אביּה, Ch2 12:16; Ch2 13:1, etc., or אביּהוּ, Ch2 13:21). אביּם, i.e., father of the sea, is unquestionably the older form of the name, which was reduced to אביּה, and then identified with the formation from אבי and יה = יהוּ (from יהוה).

Explanatory Notes on the Whole Bible, by John Wesley [1754-65]
Forty one years - Therefore he was born a year before Solomon was king, as appears from Kg1 11:42, this is noted as an aggravation of Rehoboam's folly, that he was old enough to have been wiser. An Ammonitess - A people cursed by God, and shut out of the congregation of his people for ever. This is observed as one cause both of God's displeasure in punishing Solomon with such a son, and of Rehoboam's apostacy after his three first years, Ch2 11:17. None can imagine how fatal and how lasting are the consequence of being unequally yoked with an unbeliever.

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¹⁷ So they strengthened the kingdom of Judah, and made Rehoboam the son of Solomon strong, three years: for three years they walked in the way of David and Solomon.

¹⁶ And after them out of all the tribes of Israel such as set their hearts to seek the LORD God of Israel came to Jerusalem, to sacrifice unto the LORD God of their fathers.

¹⁷ But as for the children of Israel which dwelt in the cities of Judah, Rehoboam reigned over them.

²³ Speak unto Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, king of Judah, and unto all the house of Judah and Benjamin, and to the remnant of the people, saying,

²¹ 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.
²² 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.
²³ For they also built them high places, and images, and groves, on every high hill, and under every green tree.
²⁴ 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.

¹ Now in the eighteenth year of king Jeroboam the son of Nebat reigned Abijam over Judah.

⁸ But he forsook the counsel of the old men, which they had given him, and consulted with the young men that were grown up with him, and which stood before him:

²¹ But Abijah waxed mighty, and married fourteen wives, and begat twenty and two sons, and sixteen daughters.

¹ Now in the eighteenth year of king Jeroboam began Abijah to reign over Judah.

¹⁶ And Rehoboam slept with his fathers, and was buried in the city of David: and Abijah his son reigned in his stead.

⁴³ And Solomon slept with his fathers, and was buried in the city of David his father: and Rehoboam his son reigned in his stead.

³¹ 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.

²³ And God stirred him up another adversary, Rezon the son of Eliadah, which fled from his lord Hadadezer king of Zobah:

²⁹ 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?
³⁰ And there was war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam all their days.

⁷ And every little chamber was one reed long, and one reed broad; and between the little chambers were five cubits; and the threshold of the gate by the porch of the gate within was one reed.

¹⁷ And he made three hundred shields of beaten gold; three pound of gold went to one shield: and the king put them in the house of the forest of Lebanon.

²⁸ 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.

¹⁶ And king Solomon made two hundred targets of beaten gold: six hundred shekels of gold went to one target.

¹⁰ And Zorah, and Aijalon, and Hebron, which are in Judah and in Benjamin fenced cities.

⁴² And Shaalabbin, and Ajalon, and Jethlah,

⁴⁵ And Jehud, and Beneberak, and Gathrimmon,

² And it came to pass, that in the fifth year of king Rehoboam Shishak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem, because they had transgressed against the LORD,
³ With twelve hundred chariots, and threescore thousand horsemen: and the people were without number that came with him out of Egypt; the Lubims, the Sukkiims, and the Ethiopians.
⁴ And he took the fenced cities which pertained to Judah, and came to Jerusalem.
⁵ Then came Shemaiah the prophet to Rehoboam, and to the princes of Judah, that were gathered together to Jerusalem because of Shishak, and said unto them, Thus saith the LORD, Ye have forsaken me, and therefore have I also left you in the hand of Shishak.
⁶ Whereupon the princes of Israel and the king humbled themselves; and they said, The LORD is righteous.
⁷ And when the LORD saw that they humbled themselves, the word of the LORD came to Shemaiah, saying, They have humbled themselves; therefore I will not destroy them, but I will grant them some deliverance; and my wrath shall not be poured out upon Jerusalem by the hand of Shishak.
⁸ Nevertheless they shall be his servants; that they may know my service, and the service of the kingdoms of the countries.
⁹ So Shishak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem, and took away the treasures of the house of the LORD, and the treasures of the king's house; he took all: he carried away also the shields of gold which Solomon had made.

²⁵ And it came to pass in the fifth year of king Rehoboam, that Shishak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem:
²⁶ 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.
²⁷ 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.

¹⁸ Thou shalt not bring the hire of a whore, or the price of a dog, into the house of the LORD thy God for any vow: for even both these are abomination unto the LORD thy God.

²¹ Then he asked the men of that place, saying, Where is the harlot, that was openly by the way side? And they said, There was no harlot in this place.

¹² And he took away the sodomites out of the land, and removed all the idols that his fathers had made.

²⁴ 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.

² Ye shall utterly destroy all the places, wherein the nations which ye shall possess served their gods, upon the high mountains, and upon the hills, and under every green tree:

²⁸ 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.

¹³ And they forsook the LORD, and served Baal and Ashtaroth.

⁷ And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the LORD, and forgat the LORD their God, and served Baalim and the groves.

¹⁶ And they left all the commandments of the LORD their God, and made them molten images, even two calves, and made a grove, and worshipped all the host of heaven, and served Baal.

⁶ Nevertheless they departed not from the sins of the house of Jeroboam, who made Israel sin, but walked therein: and there remained the grove also in Samaria.)

³³ And Ahab made a grove; and Ahab did more to provoke the LORD God of Israel to anger than all the kings of Israel that were before him.

⁷ And he set a graven image of the grove that he had made in the house, of which the LORD said to David, and to Solomon his son, In this house, and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all tribes of Israel, will I put my name for ever:

¹⁹ Now therefore send, and gather to me all Israel unto mount Carmel, and the prophets of Baal four hundred and fifty, and the prophets of the groves four hundred, which eat at Jezebel's table.

¹³ And also Maachah his mother, even her he removed from being queen, because she had made an idol in a grove; and Asa destroyed her idol, and burnt it by the brook Kidron.

²¹ Thou shalt not plant thee a grove of any trees near unto the altar of the LORD thy God, which thou shalt make thee.

⁵ But thus shall ye deal with them; ye shall destroy their altars, and break down their images, and cut down their groves, and burn their graven images with fire.

¹³ But ye shall destroy their altars, break their images, and cut down their groves:

²⁴ Thou shalt not bow down to their gods, nor serve them, nor do after their works: but thou shalt utterly overthrow them, and quite break down their images.

¹⁴ And Jacob set up a pillar in the place where he talked with him, even a pillar of stone: and he poured a drink offering thereon, and he poured oil thereon.

²² And this stone, which I have set for a pillar, shall be God's house: and of all that thou shalt give me I will surely give the tenth unto thee.

¹⁸ And Jacob rose up early in the morning, and took the stone that he had put for his pillows, and set it up for a pillar, and poured oil upon the top of it.

⁴ And Moses wrote all the words of the LORD, and rose up early in the morning, and builded an altar under the hill, and twelve pillars, according to the twelve tribes of Israel.

²⁰ And Jacob set a pillar upon her grave: that is the pillar of Rachel's grave unto this day.

¹³ I am the God of Bethel, where thou anointedst the pillar, and where thou vowedst a vow unto me: now arise, get thee out from this land, and return unto the land of thy kindred.

³ And Solomon loved the LORD, walking in the statutes of David his father: only he sacrificed and burnt incense in high places.

²³ For they also built them high places, and images, and groves, on every high hill, and under every green tree.

⁵ Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;

¹⁴ And the spirit of jealousy come upon him, and he be jealous of his wife, and she be defiled: or if the spirit of jealousy come upon him, and he be jealous of his wife, and she be not defiled:

¹ And it came to pass, when Rehoboam had established the kingdom, and had strengthened himself, he forsook the law of the LORD, and all Israel with him.

¹⁷ So they strengthened the kingdom of Judah, and made Rehoboam the son of Solomon strong, three years: for three years they walked in the way of David and Solomon.

¹³ And the priests and the Levites that were in all Israel resorted to him out of all their coasts.
¹⁴ For the Levites left their suburbs and their possession, and came to Judah and Jerusalem: for Jeroboam and his sons had cast them off from executing the priest's office unto the LORD:
¹⁵ And he ordained him priests for the high places, and for the devils, and for the calves which he had made.
¹⁶ And after them out of all the tribes of Israel such as set their hearts to seek the LORD God of Israel came to Jerusalem, to sacrifice unto the LORD God of their fathers.
¹⁷ So they strengthened the kingdom of Judah, and made Rehoboam the son of Solomon strong, three years: for three years they walked in the way of David and Solomon.

¹⁸ And Rehoboam took him Mahalath the daughter of Jerimoth the son of David to wife, and Abihail the daughter of Eliab the son of Jesse;
¹⁹ Which bare him children; Jeush, and Shamariah, and Zaham.
²⁰ And after her he took Maachah the daughter of Absalom; which bare him Abijah, and Attai, and Ziza, and Shelomith.
²¹ And Rehoboam loved Maachah the daughter of Absalom above all his wives and his concubines: (for he took eighteen wives, and threescore concubines; and begat twenty and eight sons, and threescore daughters.)
²² And Rehoboam made Abijah the son of Maachah the chief, to be ruler among his brethren: for he thought to make him king.

⁵ And Rehoboam dwelt in Jerusalem, and built cities for defence in Judah.
⁶ He built even Bethlehem, and Etam, and Tekoa,
⁷ And Bethzur, and Shoco, and Adullam,
⁸ And Gath, and Mareshah, and Ziph,
⁹ And Adoraim, and Lachish, and Azekah,
¹⁰ And Zorah, and Aijalon, and Hebron, which are in Judah and in Benjamin fenced cities.
¹¹ And he fortified the strong holds, and put captains in them, and store of victual, and of oil and wine.
¹² And in every several city he put shields and spears, and made them exceeding strong, having Judah and Benjamin on his side.

² But the word of the LORD came to Shemaiah the man of God, saying,
³ Speak unto Rehoboam the son of Solomon, king of Judah, and to all Israel in Judah and Benjamin, saying,
⁴ Thus saith the LORD, Ye shall not go up, nor fight against your brethren: return every man to his house: for this thing is done of me. And they obeyed the words of the LORD, and returned from going against Jeroboam.

²³ Speak unto Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, king of Judah, and unto all the house of Judah and Benjamin, and to the remnant of the people, saying,
²⁴ Thus saith the LORD, Ye shall not go up, nor fight against your brethren the children of Israel: return every man to his house; for this thing is from me. They hearkened therefore to the word of the LORD, and returned to depart, according to the word of the LORD.

²² 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.
²³ For they also built them high places, and images, and groves, on every high hill, and under every green tree.
²⁴ 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.

⁴² Jehoshaphat was thirty and five years old when he began to reign; and he reigned twenty and five years in Jerusalem. And his mother's name was Azubah the daughter of Shilhi.

¹³ And also Maachah his mother, even her he removed from being queen, because she had made an idol in a grove; and Asa destroyed her idol, and burnt it by the brook Kidron.

² Three years reigned he in Jerusalem. And his mother's name was Maachah, the daughter of Abishalom.

³¹ 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.

²³ For they also built them high places, and images, and groves, on every high hill, and under every green tree.

³⁶ And unto his son will I give one tribe, that David my servant may have a light alway before me in Jerusalem, the city which I have chosen me to put my name there.

²⁴ Now therefore, as the LORD liveth, which hath established me, and set me on the throne of David my father, and who hath made me an house, as he promised, Adonijah shall be put to death this day.

¹⁷ So they strengthened the kingdom of Judah, and made Rehoboam the son of Solomon strong, three years: for three years they walked in the way of David and Solomon.

⁴² And the time that Solomon reigned in Jerusalem over all Israel was forty years.