The Unremarkable End of a Foolish King Text: 1 Kings 14:29-31
Introduction: The Obituary of a Generation
We come now to the end of a chapter, and the end of a reign. The Bible is a book of histories, and it is therefore a book of obituaries. And God writes the obituaries. Men write their own histories, they commission their own chronicles, they erect their own monuments, but at the end of the day, it is God who writes the final summary. And His summaries are ruthlessly honest, because He is the truth. He is not interested in the kind of flattery that gets carved into granite by court historians. He is interested in covenant faithfulness, and the lack thereof.
The reign of Rehoboam, son of Solomon, was a catastrophe. It was a train wreck in slow motion. He inherited a united, glorious, and wealthy kingdom, the envy of the world. And within days, through his own arrogant folly, he split it right down the middle. He lost ten of the twelve tribes, and spent the rest of his life trying to put the toothpaste back in the tube. He was a fool. He listened to the hot-headed advice of his young friends and scorned the wisdom of the elders who had stood before his father. This is always the first step to ruin: despise the wisdom of your fathers.
Our passage today is the divine obituary for this man. It is short, it is blunt, and it is packed with theological dynamite. It tells us three things: where to find the rest of the story, the defining characteristic of his reign, and the simple fact of his death and succession. But woven into this terse summary are lessons for us about the nature of God's sovereignty, the long consequences of sin, the importance of historical records, and the subtle poison of idolatry that had already begun to work its way through the bloodstream of Judah's royal line.
We live in an age that despises history, which means we live in an age that despises God's providence. We think we are the first people to ever exist, and that all our problems are brand new. But the Preacher tells us there is nothing new under the sun. The story of Rehoboam is our story. It is the story of squandered inheritance, of proud foolishness, and of God's patient, grinding judgment. So let us pay close attention to how God closes the book on this king.
The Text
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?
Now 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 the Ammonitess. And Abijam his son became king in his place.
(1 Kings 14:29-31 LSB)
God's Footnotes (v. 29)
We begin with the first part of the summary, which points us to another book.
"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?" (1 Kings 14:29)
The Holy Spirit, through the author of Kings, is telling us that this inspired account is not exhaustive. It is selective. God has chosen to include in His holy Word precisely what we need for our salvation, for our instruction in righteousness. But this does not mean that other records are useless or non-existent. There was a public, civil record, a book of chronicles for the kings of Judah. This was the raw data of history, the court records, the annals of the kingdom.
This verse is a quiet but firm rebuke to two kinds of errors. The first is the error of the modernist critic who wants to treat the Bible as a collection of myths with no historical basis. The biblical author here confidently appeals to an external, verifiable source, accessible to his original audience. He is saying, "Go check the records. The things I am telling you are public knowledge." The Christian faith is not a leap in the dark; it is grounded in historical, verifiable events. God works in time and space, in the mud and blood of human history.
The second error is that of a certain kind of pietist who thinks that only the Bible is worth reading. God is the Lord of all truth. He is the Lord of the "Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah" just as much as He is the Lord of the Book of Kings. All history is His story. The Bible is the inspired, infallible key that unlocks the meaning of all the other books. It is the constitution, and the court records are the case law. We are not to despise these other records; we are to read them through the lens of Scripture. The Bible gives us the theological meaning, the "why." The chronicles give us more of the "what." And God assumes we are intelligent enough to know the difference and to see His hand in both.
So, the Spirit is telling us, "I have given you the highlights, the spiritually significant summary. If you want more details about his building projects or his tax policies, go read the official annals." But the summary He gives is what truly matters for eternity.
A Reign Defined by War (v. 30)
Next, the sacred historian gives us the one-sentence summary of Rehoboam's entire seventeen-year reign.
"Now there was war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam all their days." (1 Kings 14:30)
This is what it all came down to. Constant, grinding, bloody civil war. This was the fruit of his sin and the sin of his father Solomon. Remember, the division of the kingdom was a direct judgment from God because of Solomon's idolatry (1 Kings 11:11-13). Rehoboam's foolishness was simply the instrument God used to bring about His declared purpose. And the result was not peace and prosperity, but a perpetual state of conflict. Brother against brother.
This is what sin does. It divides. It alienates. It brings strife. The first sin in the garden brought division between man and God, between man and woman, and between man and creation. The sin of Solomon and Rehoboam brought division to the covenant nation. This war was not an accident of geopolitics. It was a covenantal curse. God had promised to give His people rest from their enemies if they were obedient. When they were disobedient, He promised strife, confusion, and the sword.
This phrase, "all their days," is a somber one. There was no resolution. There was no peace treaty that held. It was a constant, simmering, and often boiling conflict for his entire reign. This is the legacy of a man who would not humble himself. He lost the kingdom through pride, and he spent the rest of his life in a futile, prideful war trying to get it back. But you cannot fight against the decrees of God. When God judges, your only recourse is repentance, not rebellion. Rehoboam never seems to have learned this lesson. His reign was defined by the consequences of his sin, a war he could not win because he was fighting against the judgment of God.
An Unsurprising Death and a Poisoned Legacy (v. 31)
Finally, we have the notice of his death, burial, and succession.
"And Rehoboam slept with his fathers and was buried with his fathers in the city of David; and his mother’s name was Naamah the Ammonitess. And Abijam his son became king in his place." (1 Kings 14:31)
The phrase "slept with his fathers" is a standard Old Testament euphemism for death. It speaks of a peaceful end, a gathering to one's people. He died of natural causes and was given a royal burial in the capital city, alongside David and Solomon. In this, God was merciful. He was not cut down by an assassin or dragged off by a foreign army. He was granted the dignity of a king's burial. This is a testimony to God's ongoing faithfulness to His covenant with David, even when David's descendants were faithless fools. The dynasty continued. The line was not broken.
But right in the middle of this standard formula, the Holy Spirit inserts a detail that is dripping with significance: "and his mother’s name was Naamah the Ammonitess." Why mention this here, at his death? It is a divine fingerprint, pointing back to the root of the whole problem. Where did all this trouble start? It started with Solomon and his foreign wives, who turned his heart away from the Lord to their pagan gods (1 Kings 11:1-4). Naamah the Ammonitess was one of those wives. The Ammonites were pagan idolaters, worshippers of the monstrous god Molech. Rehoboam was the son of a divided house. He was the product of a compromised faith.
This is a warning about covenantal succession. You cannot marry the world and expect to raise godly children for the kingdom. You cannot form an alliance with paganism and expect your sons to be faithful to Yahweh. Solomon's sin was not just personal; it was dynastic. He polluted the royal line at its source. And Rehoboam is Exhibit A. His foolishness, his arrogance, his idolatry, which we read about earlier in the chapter, did not come from a vacuum. It was nurtured at the breast of an Ammonitess. The poison was in the bloodstream from the beginning.
And so, the kingdom passes to his son, Abijam. The dynasty continues, but it is a compromised dynasty. The stage is set for more conflict, more idolatry, and more judgment. The obituary of the father contains the seed of the failures of the son. This is how sin works. It is a contagion that passes from one generation to the next, unless it is cut off by radical repentance and faith.
Conclusion: The King Who Does Not Fail
The story of Rehoboam is a sad one. It is a story of a great inheritance squandered. It is a story of a man whose legacy was war and division. His obituary is a stark reminder that God is not mocked. What a man sows, that he will also reap. Solomon sowed compromise, and Rehoboam reaped a divided kingdom. Rehoboam sowed arrogance, and he reaped a lifetime of war.
And as we read this, we must see the contrast. Rehoboam is a foil. He is a picture of every failed king, every foolish heir, every proud man who thinks he can defy God and get away with it. He is a picture of Adam, who also inherited a glorious kingdom and lost it through foolish disobedience.
But the story does not end with Rehoboam. God's promise to David did not depend on the faithfulness of David's feckless grandsons. All these failures, all this strife, all this judgment was pointing forward to the need for a better king. A true son of David. A king who would not be the son of an Ammonitess, but the Son of God. A king who would not listen to foolish counsel, but who is Himself Wisdom incarnate.
Jesus Christ inherited the kingdom, and He did not squander it. He came to a world at war with God, a world divided by sin, and He made peace by the blood of His cross. He did not lose any part of His kingdom; rather, He is gathering a kingdom from every tribe and tongue and nation. He did not sleep with his fathers in failure, but rather He went into the grave and conquered it, rising again on the third day.
The obituary of Rehoboam tells us what sin produces: records of failure, a life of conflict, and a poisoned legacy. The obituary of Jesus Christ, which is the gospel, tells us what His grace produces: a record of righteousness imputed to us, peace with God, and an eternal inheritance that can never be squandered. Rehoboam's story ends with "and Abijam his son reigned in his place." It just continues the sad cycle. But the story of our King ends with Him seated at the right hand of the Father, reigning forever, and of His kingdom there will be no end.