Rehoboam Topics

• pagan priests
• judean desert
• upper egypt
• kingdom of judah
• jeroboam
• small temple
• ascents
• levites
• kingship
• northerners
• karnak
• lower taxes
• independent state
• cronies
• breakaway
• whips
• scorpions
• monarchy
• counselors
• legitimacy

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Rehoboam, Rehoboam

The elder counselors formerly of Solomon's kingship advised that he lower taxes to gain favor among the people, while the younger counselors, cronies of the new king, exhorted that he raise taxes to express his authority. Rehoboam sided with the young counselors and said to the people, "my father also chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions." The northerners retracted their recognition of the legitimacy of the rule of the House of David and declared independence. Jeroboam was appointed as king over them, and their breakaway state became known as the Kingdom of Israel.

Shemaiah the prophet proclaimed that it was God's will that the United Monarchy be divided, and Rehoboam immediately abandoned his plans. Nevertheless, Rehoboam skirmished against the forces of Jeroboam I throughout the remainder of his reign. A vast majority of the Levites left the Kingdom of Israel for the Kingdom of Judah because they were being recruited as pagan priests by Jeroboam I.

Rehoboam replaced them with bronze ones. A remarkable memorial of this invasion has been discovered at Karnak, in Upper Egypt, in certain sculptures on the walls of a small temple there. These sculptures represent the king, Shishak, holding in his hand a train of prisoners and other figures, with the names of the captured towns of Judah, the towns which Rehoboam had fortified.

However, the ascents from the Judean Desert in the east and from the Kingdom of Israel in the north were not covered by the defensive works. The Judean Desert was a ground to which enemies were to be lured and ambushed, and the Judah-Israel border was not guarded because Rehoboam did not recognize the Kingdom of Israel as an independent state.

Source: Wikipedia > Rehoboam