CHAPTER 12

(972 B.C.)

REHOBOAMS APOSTASY

¹And it came to pass, when Rehoboam had established the kingdom, and had strengthened himself, he forsook the Law of the LORD, and all Israel (Judah) with him. (Judah prospered. Regrettably, prosperity sometimes is not a blessing. Too many times when Believers are blessed, they do exactly as Rehoboam did. They forsake the Law of the LORD.)

SHISHAK OF EGYPT INVADES JUDAH

²And 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 (in other words, the Lord allowed such, because of Judahs backsliding; the Lord allows such in order to cause people to appeal to Him; sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesnt!),

³With twelve hundred chariots, and threescore thousand (60,000) horsemen: and the people were without number who came with him out of Egypt; the Lubims, the Sukkiims, and the Ethiopians (the troops that accompanied the cavalry and the horse-soldiers were without number).

⁴And he (Shishak) took the fenced cities which pertained to Judah, and came to Jerusalem (the only way that Shishak could have taken Judah, and especially Jerusalem, was because Judah had forsaken the Lord; the Lord was their power and strength; as long as they kept His Commandments and Statutes, no nation in the world, nor confederation of nations, could defeat them; however, when they forsook the Law of the LORD, defeat was inevitable).

⁵Then came Shemaiah the Prophet to Rehoboam, and to the princes of Judah, who were gathered together to Jerusalem because of Shishak, and said unto them, Thus says the LORD, You have forsaken Me, and therefore have I also left you in the hand of Shishak (the Lord, in His Mercy, gives Judah warning; no warning could be more clear than this; if we follow the Lord, we will receive His Blessing; if we forsake the Lord, He will allow enemies to intrude upon us; our blessings are tied totally to Him).

⁶Whereupon the princes of Israel and the king humbled themselves; and they said, The LORD is righteous (regrettably, their Repentance was not very deep; nevertheless, the Lord would honor it; when they said, The LORD is righteous, this means that they knew that He was justified in what He had done, and that they deserved it).

⁷And 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. (Notice the words some deliverance. They would not have a complete Deliverance, only partial. The reason? Their Repentance was partial; therefore, their Deliverance was partial.)

⁸Nevertheless they shall be his servants; that they may know My service, and the service of the kingdoms of the countries (this meant that Judah must learn to obey and know the difference between serving God and serving ungodly nations; if they persisted in their ungodly ways, they would serve ungodly nations!).

⁹So Shishak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem, and took away the treasures of the House of the LORD, and the treasures of the kings house; he took all: he carried away also the shields of gold which Solomon had made. (To be sure, considering the riches that Solomon had amassed, what Shishak took must have been astronomical. Let the reader understand:

Satan desires to take away our spiritual treasures, plus everything else. And he will definitely do so, unless we minutely follow the Lord, which means to minutely follow His Word.)

¹⁰Instead of which king Rehoboam made shields of brass, and committed them to the hands of the chief of the guard, that kept the entrance of the kings house. (The world robs the Church of Divine realities and public worship, and the Church tries to hide the loss by substituting imitation. How many Churches presently have shields of brass instead of shields of gold? The shields of gold represent Deity. They are symbolic of Gods Glory, Protection, and Power. Shields of brass are symbolic of man and mans ways.)

¹¹And when the king entered into the House of the LORD, the guard came and fetched them, and brought them against into the guard chamber.

¹²And when he humbled himself, the wrath of the LORD turned from him, that He would not destroy him altogether: and also in Judah things went well (humility is the only coin that will spend in Gods economy [Isa. 66:2]).

DEATH OF REHOBOAM

¹³So king Rehoboam strengthened himself in Jerusalem, and reigned: for Rehoboam was one and forty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city which the LORD had chosen out of all the Tribes of Israel, to put His Name there. And his mothers name was Naamah an Ammonitess.

¹⁴And he did evil, because he prepared not his heart to seek the LORD. (What an indictment! But yet how true of so many.)

¹⁵Now the acts of Rehoboam, first and last, are they not written in the book of Shemaiah the Prophet, and of Iddo the Seer concerning genealogies? (A continued register of Davids genealogies.) And there were wars between Rehoboam and Jeroboam continually.

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