Verse 1
THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF REHOBOAM'S REIGN;
REHOBOAM PREPARES FOR WAR
"And when Rehoboam was come to Jerusalem, he assembled the house of Judah and Benjamin, a hundred and fourscore thousand chosen men, that were warriors, to fight against Israel, to bring the kingdom again to Rehoboam. But the word of Jehovah came to Shemaiah the man of God, saying, Speak unto Rehoboam the son of Solomon, king of Judah, and unto all Israel in Judah and Benjamin, saying, Thus saith Jehovah, Ye shall not go up, nor fight against your brethren: return every man to his house; for this thing is of me. So they hearkened unto the words of Jehovah, and refrained from going against Jeroboam."
It was impossible for Rehoboam to recover from the stupid blunder he had already made. If he had proceeded against Jeroboam, the strong probability is that Jeroboam would have defeated him and brought an even greater disaster upon Rehoboam and Jerusalem. See the parallel account in 1 Kings 12:21-24.
REHOBOAM'S BUILDING PROGRAM
The Chronicler accepted the renunciation of Northern Israel regarding their having "no inheritance in the son of Jesse" (10:16), and proceeded to ignore the northern kingdom altogether, except where their history involved Judah. He turned his attention to recording the progression of the southern kingdom's rulers, in some instances, giving a more complete report than we found in Kings. Examples of this are in this chapter.
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