Rehoboam's Family

 

 

2 Chronicles 11:18-23

 

June 25, 2023

 

Rehoboam's Family

Rehoboam took as 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.  After her, he took Maacah the daughter of Absalom, who bore him Abijah, Attai, Ziza, and Shelomith.  Rehoboam loved Maacah the daughter of Absalom above all his wives and concubines (he took eighteen wives and sixty concubines, and fathered twenty-eight sons and sixty daughters).  And Rehoboam appointed Abijah the son of Maacah as chief prince among his brothers, for he intended to make him king.  And he dealt wisely and distributed some of his sons through all the districts of Judah and Benjamin, in all the fortified cities, and he gave them abundant provisions and procured wives for them. 

In many ways Rehoboam did not hold a light to his dad Solomon, one was in the number of wives and concubines, which may have been a good thing.  Jan and I have been married for almost 58 years and it keeps getting better each year, but I can imagine, having more than one wife.

 

But give him some credit he married ladies of his family and nation. 

 

And what about the daughter of Absalom, her name was Maacah and she had two sons who became kings of Judah the first was Abijam he did what was evil in the sight of God and lasted 3 years, but his brother Asa a man like David.  I Kings 15:9-11, In the twentieth year of Jeroboam king of Israel, Asa began to reign over Judah, and he reigned forty-one years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Maacah the daughter of Abishalom.  And Asa did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, as David his father had done.

 

From the Back Porch,

 

Bob Rice