Bird's-eye view
This short passage gives us a glimpse into the domestic life of King Rehoboam after the catastrophic division of the kingdom. Having been forbidden by God to go to war against the northern tribes, Rehoboam turns his attention to consolidating his own kingdom of Judah. Part of this consolidation involves establishing his dynasty, which, in the ancient world, was inextricably linked to the king's family, his wives, and his heirs. The Chronicler, with divine inspiration, gives us a brief but telling snapshot of Rehoboam's household. We see a man who, like his father Solomon and his grandfather David, falls into the sin of polygamy, accumulating a large harem. This is not presented as a righteous model but as a statement of fact, and the careful reader of Scripture knows this practice was a departure from God's creation ordinance and a constant source of trouble for Israel's kings. Yet, within this tangled and sinful arrangement, we see Rehoboam exercising a measure of worldly wisdom and political shrewdness in managing his many sons to prevent the kind of infighting and rebellion that plagued his grandfather David's house. He is a mixed bag, this Rehoboam. He is a man capable of foolishness and sin, yet also capable of a certain practical discernment. The passage serves as a reminder that God's covenant purposes advance even through the messy and compromised lives of His people and their leaders.
The central theme here is the tension between Rehoboam's sinful self-indulgence and his practical political wisdom. He multiplies wives, which Deuteronomy explicitly warned kings against, yet he astutely manages the resulting explosion of sons to secure his throne and the stability of his kingdom. He shows favoritism to one wife, Maacah, and her son Abijah, setting up a potential conflict, but then mitigates that risk by strategically placing his other sons in positions of authority throughout the land. It is a portrait of a man trying to secure his legacy through his own efforts, a blend of folly and foresight. God's grace is evident in the background, preserving the line of David despite the sins of David's descendants.
Outline
- 1. Rehoboam's Royal Household (2 Chron 11:18-23)
- a. A Proliferation of Wives and Children (2 Chron 11:18-21)
- b. The Sin of Polygamy and Favoritism (2 Chron 11:21)
- c. A Prudent Succession Plan (2 Chron 11:22)
- d. Astute Political Administration (2 Chron 11:23)
Context In 2 Chronicles
This passage follows directly on the heels of the great schism. In chapter 10, Rehoboam's arrogance and folly led to the ten northern tribes breaking away under Jeroboam. In the first part of chapter 11, Rehoboam musters an army to force them back, but the prophet Shemaiah delivers a word from the Lord: "You shall not go up or fight against your relatives... for this thing is from me" (2 Chron 11:4). Rehoboam and the people obey, which is a rare moment of wisdom for him. He then focuses on strengthening the kingdom he has left, fortifying cities throughout Judah and Benjamin. This section on his family life (11:18-23) is part of that consolidation narrative. It shows him not just building physical fortresses, but also attempting to build a secure dynasty. This domestic account is bracketed by his obedience to God's prophet (11:4) and the subsequent period of faithfulness where he, along with all Judah, "walked in the way of David and Solomon" for three years (11:17). This passage, therefore, describes the internal state of the king's house during a brief period of relative stability and external obedience to God, before he and all Israel with him would forsake the law of the Lord in chapter 12.
Key Issues
- Polygamy in the Old Testament
- Royal Succession and Favoritism
- The Relationship Between Sin and Worldly Prudence
- God's Preservation of the Davidic Covenant
- The Nature of a "Mixed" Character in Scripture
A Tangled Legacy
One of the consistent temptations for God's people is to think that we can secure God's promises through our own carnal means. The covenant is established by God's grace, and we are called to walk within it by faith. But we are always trying to help God out, to build our own little towers of Babel to make a name for ourselves and ensure our own security. Rehoboam is a case study in this. God had promised an enduring dynasty to his grandfather David. Rehoboam's job was to walk in the ways of the Lord, and God would establish his throne. Instead, we see him here imitating the worldly patterns of other ancient kings, and even the sins of his own father, Solomon. He gathers a harem. He fathers a multitude of children. This was the ancient world's equivalent of a geopolitical strategy. More wives meant more political alliances. More sons meant more potential administrators and military leaders. From a purely secular viewpoint, it looked like strength. But from a biblical viewpoint, it was a spiritual cancer. The law in Deuteronomy 17 was explicit: the king "shall not multiply wives for himself, lest his heart turn away." Solomon's spectacular failure was a recent and potent object lesson on this very point. Yet Rehoboam walks right into the same trap. It is a picture of how easily sin can be rationalized as political necessity.
Verse by Verse Commentary
18 Then Rehoboam took as a wife Mahalath the daughter of Jerimoth the son of David and of Abihail the daughter of Eliab the son of Jesse,
The Chronicler begins the genealogy of Rehoboam's family by noting his first wife, Mahalath. The details are significant. She is a descendant of David through his son Jerimoth, and also of Jesse (David's father) through Jesse's son Eliab. This marriage was a strategic move to consolidate his claim to the throne by tying himself more closely to the wider royal family. He is marrying within the clan, strengthening his Davidic credentials. This is standard royal practice, an attempt to shore up his legitimacy after losing the majority of his kingdom.
19 and she bore him sons: Jeush, Shemariah, and Zaham.
These three sons are named, but they do not feature prominently in the rest of the narrative. They are part of the large stable of princes that Rehoboam will have to manage later in the passage. Their mention here establishes the fruitfulness of his first marriage.
20 And after her he took Maacah the daughter of Absalom, and she bore him Abijah, Attai, Ziza, and Shelomith.
Here is the pivotal marriage. Maacah is identified as the "daughter of Absalom." This is likely a reference to her being Absalom's granddaughter, perhaps through his daughter Tamar (2 Sam 14:27). Marrying into the line of the great rebel Absalom was another politically charged act, perhaps an attempt to unify factions within the royal house that still held some loyalty to Absalom's memory. This marriage produces four more sons, including the all-important Abijah, who will be his successor.
21 And Rehoboam loved Maacah the daughter of Absalom more than all his other wives and concubines. For he had taken eighteen wives and sixty concubines and became the father of twenty-eight sons and sixty daughters.
This verse gets to the heart of the matter. First, the Chronicler gives us the raw numbers, and they are staggering. Eighteen wives and sixty concubines. Eighty-eight children. This is a direct echo of his father Solomon's excess, albeit on a smaller scale. It is a clear violation of the Deuteronomic law for kings. This is not piety; it is self-indulgence and worldly political calculation masquerading as royal prerogative. Then comes the key phrase: he loved Maacah... more than all his other wives. This kind of favoritism in a polygamous household is the script for disaster. It was the very thing that caused such grief and turmoil in the house of Jacob. Love is to be singular and covenantal. When it is divided and then ranked, it breeds jealousy, strife, and intrigue. Rehoboam is building a house on a foundation of sin and emotional instability.
22 And Rehoboam set up Abijah the son of Maacah to be head and ruler among his brothers, for he intended to make him king.
The favoritism shown to the wife is now extended to her son. Abijah is not necessarily the firstborn, but he is the chosen one. Rehoboam makes his succession plan clear and public. He elevates Abijah to a position of leadership over his many brothers. This was a preemptive move to forestall the kind of bloody succession crises that were common in the ancient world, and which had afflicted David's own family with Absalom and Adonijah. Rehoboam has learned something from history, at least on a practical level. He knows that an ambiguous succession is an invitation to civil war, so he makes his intentions plain.
23 And he acted with discernment and distributed some of his sons through all the lands of Judah and Benjamin to all the fortified cities, and he gave them sustenance in abundance. And he sought a multitude of wives for them.
This verse is fascinating because it explicitly commends Rehoboam's discernment. Having named his heir, what does he do with the other twenty-seven sons? A paranoid tyrant might have them imprisoned or executed. Rehoboam does something much smarter. He scatters them. He places them in charge of the newly fortified cities throughout his kingdom. This accomplishes several things at once. It gets potential rivals out of the capital city, Jerusalem, preventing them from forming conspiracies. It gives them positions of real authority and purpose, keeping them occupied and invested in the stability of the kingdom. And by giving them "sustenance in abundance," he keeps them happy and loyal. He essentially makes them regional governors, extending his own royal authority through them. Then, in a final stroke of political genius, he finds wives for them. This binds them to the local communities and aristocratic families, further embedding them in the fabric of the nation and giving them their own households to manage. He is solving his problem of too many princes by using them to solve his problem of administering a kingdom. It is worldly wise, shrewd, and politically astute. But notice the last phrase: he sought a "multitude of wives" for them. He is perpetuating the very sin of polygamy in the next generation. The solution to the problem created by his sin is more sin.
Application
The story of Rehoboam's household is a potent reminder that worldly wisdom and spiritual faithfulness are not the same thing. It is possible to be politically clever and spiritually compromised at the same time. Rehoboam's plan for his sons was, from a Machiavellian perspective, brilliant. He neutralized threats, delegated authority, and secured his dynasty. We should not despise this kind of practical wisdom; Scripture itself commends his discernment. There is a place for prudence, for planning, for astute leadership.
However, we must see that his entire administrative solution was built upon a foundation of sin. The problem he was solving, an abundance of rival princes, was a problem of his own making, created by his disobedient accumulation of wives. And his solution involved encouraging his sons into the same pattern. This is what sin does. It creates problems that we then try to solve with more, slightly different, sin. We lie, and then have to tell more intricate lies to cover the first one. We indulge in greed, and then have to engage in frantic and anxious machinations to protect what we have wrongly gained. We build our family life on something other than God's one-flesh pattern for marriage, and then have to spend our lives engaged in complex emotional and practical damage control.
The gospel call is to repent not just of the initial sin, but of the whole sinful structure we build on top of it. Christ did not come to give us better techniques for managing our sin. He came to kill our sin at the root. Rehoboam managed his tangled family with discernment, but the grace of God in Christ offers something far better. It offers forgiveness for the tangles we have made, and the power to begin building on a new and solid foundation: the rock of Christ Himself. Our goal is not to be clever managers of our own little compromised kingdoms, but to be faithful citizens of His, where true wisdom begins with the fear of the Lord, not with shrewd political calculation.