The Folly of Favoritism: Rehoboam's Disordered House
Introduction: The Kingdom Begins at Home
We come now to a passage that our modern sensibilities might tempt us to skim over. It is a genealogical record, a list of wives and children, a brief domestic snapshot in the life of a king. But we must never forget that the Bible is a thoroughly patriarchal book, and by that, I mean that it understands that the family, the household, is the cornerstone of all society. As the family goes, so goes the church, and as the church goes, so goes the nation. A man who cannot rule his own household has no business attempting to rule a city, let alone a kingdom. The personal is political, not in the way the feminists mean it, but in the way God designed it. A king's house is a microcosm of his kingdom.
Rehoboam has just lost ten of the twelve tribes of Israel. His kingdom has been shattered by his own arrogant folly. And yet, in the immediate aftermath, God grants him a measure of stability. The Levites and the faithful remnant from the northern tribes flood into Judah, strengthening his hand for three years. He fortifies his cities and consolidates his power. But here, in the quiet of his own palace, we see the same seeds of disorder that plagued his father Solomon and his grandfather David. The sin of polygamy, a direct violation of God's creational standard and the explicit command for Israel's kings, continues to wreak its slow, steady havoc. This passage is a quiet but potent illustration of how sin complicates everything. It shows us a man trying to wisely manage a foolish situation of his own making. Rehoboam displays a certain worldly shrewdness, but it is a shrewdness applied to a domestic structure that is fundamentally disordered and contrary to God's law.
This is not just ancient history. We live in an age that has declared war on the created order of the family. We are told that marriage is whatever we want it to be, that households can be arranged in any configuration imaginable. But God is not mocked. When we disregard His blueprint for the family, we reap the whirlwind. Rehoboam's story is a case study in the consequences of disobedience and the difficult task of governing a house built on a compromised foundation.
The Text
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, and she bore him sons: Jeush, Shemariah, and Zaham. And after her he took Maacah the daughter of Absalom, and she bore him Abijah, Attai, Ziza, and Shelomith. 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. And Rehoboam set up Abijah the son of Maacah to be head and ruler among his brothers, for he intended to make him king. 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.
(2 Chronicles 11:18-23 LSB)
A Tangled Legacy (vv. 18-20)
The account begins by detailing Rehoboam's marital alliances, which are deeply rooted in the house of David.
"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, and she bore him sons: Jeush, Shemariah, and Zaham. And after her he took Maacah the daughter of Absalom, and she bore him Abijah, Attai, Ziza, and Shelomith." (2 Chronicles 11:18-20)
Rehoboam, like the kings around him, is practicing dynastic politics. His first wife mentioned, Mahalath, is a granddaughter of David. This is an attempt to consolidate his claim to the throne, weaving the royal lineage as tightly as possible. He is doubling down on his Davidic credentials. But the problem with sin is that it never stays simple. The multiplication of wives was a clear violation of the law for kings laid out in Deuteronomy 17:17: "And he shall not acquire many wives for himself, lest his heart turn away." Solomon's catastrophic failure on this very point was the direct cause of the kingdom's division, and here is his son, Rehoboam, walking down the exact same path, albeit on a smaller scale.
Then he takes Maacah. The text says she is the "daughter of Absalom." This is a fraught connection. Absalom was David's rebellious, usurping son. To marry into his line was to bring the memory of that treason and turmoil right into the heart of the royal family. There is some debate whether "daughter" means granddaughter here, but the point remains. This is a politically charged union. But it is this wife, Maacah, connected to the handsome and treacherous Absalom, who will capture Rehoboam's heart and complicate the succession of his kingdom.
The very structure of this family is a powder keg. Multiple wives means multiple factions, competing sons, and divided loyalties. This is not God's design of one flesh, one union, but a political arrangement rife with potential for jealousy and strife, as the history of David's own house so bloodily demonstrated.
The Poison of Favoritism (vv. 21-22)
The Chronicler then reveals the emotional center of this disordered household and the political decision that flows from it.
"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. And Rehoboam set up Abijah the son of Maacah to be head and ruler among his brothers, for he intended to make him king." (2 Chronicles 11:21-22)
Here is the heart of the problem. "Rehoboam loved Maacah... more than all his other wives." This is Jacob and Rachel all over again. Whenever you have polygamy, you will almost certainly have favoritism. And where you have favoritism, you have envy, bitterness, and conflict. God's law of monogamy is not arbitrary; it is a reflection of His own singular love for His bride and a profound kindness to us. It protects the family from the very strife Rehoboam is now inviting into his house.
The sheer numbers are staggering: eighteen wives, sixty concubines, eighty-eight children. This is not a family; it is a small tribe. And managing it is a political nightmare. We are meant to see this not as a sign of his virility and power, but as a sign of his folly and disobedience. He is imitating the pagan kings, not the standard God set for His covenant people.
Out of this favoritism comes a crucial decision. He elevates Abijah, the son of his favorite wife, to be the crown prince. Now, Abijah may have been the firstborn of Maacah, but was he the firstborn son of Rehoboam overall? The text doesn't explicitly say, but the emphasis on his mother suggests that affection, not primogeniture, was the deciding factor. Rehoboam is letting his affections dictate the line of succession. This is a dangerous precedent. He is storing up trouble for the future, creating a court full of resentful half-brothers who have been passed over. The stability of the kingdom rests on the stability of the king's house, and Rehoboam's house is built on the shifting sands of romantic preference.
Pragmatic Solutions to a Sinful Problem (v. 23)
The final verse shows us Rehoboam's attempt to manage the fallout from his decisions. He is a politician, trying to keep the peace he has personally endangered.
"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." (2 Chronicles 11:23)
The text says he "acted with discernment." This is a fascinating statement. It is possible to act with a certain worldly wisdom inside of a larger framework of foolishness. Rehoboam knows he has a problem. He has a host of ambitious sons, many of whom likely feel slighted by Abijah's promotion. What does he do? He gets them out of Jerusalem. He scatters them throughout the kingdom, puts them in charge of the fortified cities, gives them a generous allowance, and gets them married off.
This is shrewd political maneuvering. He is giving them position, provision, and preoccupation. He is making them stakeholders in the kingdom's stability and keeping them too busy, too comfortable, and too far apart to easily conspire against their brother Abijah. He is preventing the kind of rebellion that his wife's father, Absalom, had so successfully mounted against David. He learned something from history. He is trying to manage the consequences of his sin.
But notice the final phrase: "And he sought a multitude of wives for them." The tragic irony is that his solution to the problems caused by polygamy is to perpetuate polygamy in the next generation. The very sin that created the domestic instability is now prescribed as the cure. He is treating the symptom, not the disease. He is passing on the same disordered pattern to his sons. This is how generational sin works. The compromises of one generation become the standard operating procedure for the next.
Conclusion: The Greater Son
What are we to make of this? This is a picture of a compromised king trying his best to hold together a compromised kingdom. Rehoboam shows a measure of earthly wisdom, but it is a wisdom that never questions the sinful foundation upon which he is building. He manages the chaos, but he never returns to God's created order.
This passage forces us to look at the messiness of our own lives and our own leadership. How often do we make foolish, sinful choices and then pat ourselves on the back for cleverly managing the ensuing disaster? We create relational chaos through deceit or favoritism and then pride ourselves on our ability to smooth things over. We get into financial trouble through greed and then applaud our ingenuity in shuffling the debt around. This is the wisdom of the world, not the wisdom of God. God's wisdom is to repent of the foundational sin, to return to His statutes.
Rehoboam's story, like that of all the kings of Judah, is meant to make us long for a better King. Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, could not manage his own house. But there is another Son of David, a greater Son, who builds His house, the Church, not on the shifting sands of human affection and political maneuvering, but on the solid rock of His own righteousness. He does not have many brides; He has one Bride, whom He loves with a perfect, singular, and undivided love. He does not scatter His children to keep them from fighting; He gathers them into one body and makes them brothers. He does not manage sin; He crucifies it.
The lesson of Rehoboam's disordered house is that God's design for the family is not a suggestion; it is the foundation of reality. To deviate from it is to invite chaos. But the gospel is the good news that even when we have made a complete wreck of our households and our lives, the true King has come to build a new and better house, an eternal kingdom, where favoritism has no place, and all the brothers dwell together in unity under their glorious Head.