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Of Rehoboam, the successor of Solomon, the ten tribes north of Judah required pledges that their burdens should be lightened. In the room of the heads and elders of the tribes, the late king's officers had come in to oppress them with their hard exactions. The haughty young king spurned the demand for redress. The temple was left in the hands of Judah and Benjamin.
The history then proceeds regularly through the two books of Samuel, and those of Kings: nothing can be more interesting and entertaining than the reigns of Saul, David, and Solomon: but, after the death of Solomon, when ten tribes revolted from his son Rehoboam, and became a separate kingdom, you will find some difficulty in understanding distinctly the histories of the two kingdoms of Israel and Judah, which are blended together, and by the likeness of the names, and other particulars, will be apt to confound your mind, without great attention to the different threads thus carried on together: The index here will be of great use to you.
Then comes Rehoboam on the scene. The one sensible thing that he did was to take three days to think. Whether or no his little finger was thicker than his father's loins, his head was not half so wise.
"Aye take the counsel of those who are aulder and wiser than yourself, and binna like the godless Rehoboam, who took the advice o' a wheen beardless callants, neglecting the auld counsellors who had sate at the feet o' his father Solomon, and, as it was weel put by Mr. Meiklejohn, in his lecture on the chapter, were doubtless partakers of his sapience.
He also dedicated to God at Jerusalem the golden quivers, the entire armor which the guards of Hadad used to wear; which Shishak, the king of Egypt, took away when he fought with David's grandson, Rehoboam, with a great deal of other wealth which he carried out of Jerusalem. However, these things will come to be explained in their proper places hereafter.
And thus for sin of Solomon, and because Rehoboam would not do after the counsel of the old men, but was counselled by young men, the ten tribes of Israel forsook him, and departed from Jerusalem, and served Jeroboam, and ordained him king upon Israel. Anon after this, Jeroboam fell to idolatry and great division was ever after between the kings of Judah and the kings of Israel.
And Solomon slept with his fathers, and was buried in the city of David his father: and Rehoboam his son reigned in his stead. 1 KINGS xi. 26-43. Solomon falls into the background in the last part of the story of his reign, and his enemies are more prominent than himself.
When Rehoboam humbled himself in the time of his affliction, "the wrath of the Lord turned from him that he would not destroy him: And also in Judah things went well." But his repentance was not unto life. The character given him at his death is that of a wicked man.
The former, which was built by Rehoboam, and is distinguished as the birthplace of Amos the prophet, presents considerable ruins, and even some remains of architecture. It appears to have stood upon a hill, which Pococke describes as being about half a mile in length and a furlong broad.
Rehoboam was forty and one years old when he began to reign, and he reigned seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city which the LORD did choose out of all the tribes of Israel, to put his name there. And his mother's name was Naamah an Ammonitess.
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