seekeroftruth
Well-Known Member
2 Chronicles 10:6 Then King Rehoboam consulted the elders who had served his father Solomon during his lifetime. “How would you advise me to answer these people?” he asked.
7 They replied, “If you will be kind to these people and please them and give them a favorable answer, they will always be your servants.”
8 But Rehoboam rejected the advice the elders gave him and consulted the young men who had grown up with him and were serving him. 9 He asked them, “What is your advice? How should we answer these people who say to me, ‘Lighten the yoke your father put on us’?”
10 The young men who had grown up with him replied, “The people have said to you, ‘Your father put a heavy yoke on us, but make our yoke lighter.’ Now tell them, ‘My little finger is thicker than my father’s waist. 11 My father laid on you a heavy yoke; I will make it even heavier. My father scourged you with whips; I will scourge you with scorpions.’”
12 Three days later Jeroboam and all the people returned to Rehoboam, as the king had said, “Come back to me in three days.” 13 The king answered them harshly. Rejecting the advice of the elders, 14 he followed the advice of the young men and said, “My father made your yoke heavy; I will make it even heavier. My father scourged you with whips; I will scourge you with scorpions.” 15 So the king did not listen to the people, for this turn of events was from God, to fulfill the word the Lord had spoken to Jeroboam son of Nebat through Ahijah the Shilonite.
16 When all Israel saw that the king refused to listen to them, they answered the king:
“What share do we have in David,
what part in Jesse’s son?
To your tents, Israel!
Look after your own house, David!”
what part in Jesse’s son?
To your tents, Israel!
Look after your own house, David!”
So all the Israelites went home. 17 But as for the Israelites who were living in the towns of Judah, Rehoboam still ruled over them.
18 King Rehoboam sent out Adoniram,[a] who was in charge of forced labor, but the Israelites stoned him to death. King Rehoboam, however, managed to get into his chariot and escape to Jerusalem. 19 So Israel has been in rebellion against the house of David to this day.
a, 2 Chronicles 10:18 Hebrew Hadoram, a variant of Adoniram
The easy English site has a reasonable discussion....
Rehoboam did not accept the advice of the older men. He asked for the advice of those who were of his own age. These men had grown up with him. They had no experience of the hard life of many Israelites. These younger men could see no reason for any change. They thought that to give a favourable answer would show Rehoboam to be weak. Rehoboam should seem to be stronger than Solomon was.
So, they advised him, ‘Say, “My little thing is thicker than my father’s body.” ’ Most translators of the Bible think that the little thing means his little finger. The idea is that Rehoboam’s weakness will be stronger than the strength of his father. He will be much more powerful than Solomon was.
Their advice was to promise the people much harder labour than before. Solomon used whips to make them work. Rehoboam will use whips with sharp points. The ordinary whip had just one string of leather. Rehoboam’s whip would be like the whip that they used on horses. It would have several strings of leather. To make it worse there would be metal bits at the end of each string.
The people came back to Rehoboam after the three days. Rehoboam answered their request in a cruel way. He told them what the younger men had advised him to say. He would not listen to the people.
Solomon and Rehoboam must share the blame for the fact that the kingdom became two kingdoms. Solomon had forced the Israelites to do hard labour. And he had not been loyal to the LORD. He began to worship other gods. Rehoboam was to blame because he would not follow the wise advice. He made matters worse by his answer to the people. And he had not asked the LORD for his advice.
But the result of this event was in the purposes of God. Because Solomon was not loyal to God, God had decided to divide the kingdom. He promised to give 10 tribes to Rehoboam. But he left the two tribes with Rehoboam because of his promises to David (1 Kings 11:29-33).
Because of his attitude, the people of the 10 tribes refused to accept Rehoboam as king. He did not want to help them and to ease their hard labour. So, they could not have him as their king. They decided to end the ties between themselves and David’s family. They went home. But Rehoboam was still the king over Jerusalem and Judah.
Rehoboam sent Hadoram to try to solve the problem. But Hadoram was the man responsible for the forced labour (1 Kings 5:14). So, he was not a wise choice for this task. Probably the people hated him before this time. However, when he came to the people they threw stones at him. In this way, they killed him. Rehoboam was afraid that the people might attack him. So, he ran away back to Jerusalem.
The 10 northern tribes of Israel became a separate kingdom. They would not have a descendant of David as their king. Instead, they made Nebat’s son, Jeroboam king of the 10 tribes (1 Kings 12:20).
And so they are split. Maybe this paragraph from Got Questions will help set it clearly in my poor memory.
Rehoboam was the son of King Solomon and king of Judah for seventeen years (931–913 BC). Solomon had turned away from God, and God told Solomon that He would tear the kingdom from him yet leave him one tribe. God also promised, for the sake of David, not to tear the kingdom away during Solomon’s lifetime but during that of his son (1 Kings 11:9–13). Shortly after Rehoboam became king, a rebellion placed the ten northern tribes under the rule of Jeroboam and left Rehoboam with his own tribe (Judah) and the tribe of Benjamin.
So Solomon had two daughters and two sons. Rehoboam is an idiot... who doesn't know the value of a good workforce. It's rumored that Menelik was the son of the Queen of Sheba and he became a leader in Etheopia. Now God told David that someone from his family would be the Savior. Even tho David was responsible for the murder of Uriah, Bathsheba's husband, on the battlefield.... there was a promise and God was sticking to it. In spite of the fact Solomon is reported to have 700 wives and 300 concubines... he only had two sons.... one stayed in the land of Judah and Benjamin. Jesus is going to come out of the tribe of Benjamin.... still a theocracy... a grandson of David on the throne. Meanwhile... because Solomon wasn't wise enough to realize that his poop did stink.... and he started messing with magic and the occult... worshiping shiny little idols.... and one of his men.... Jeroboam would sit on the throne over the other 10 tribes. Jeroboam was not from the line of David.
