2 Chronicles 12

The TorahRooted Bible (TRB), translated directly from the Hebrew and Greek.

Shishak's invasion

¹ When the kingdom of Rehoboam was established and he was strong, he forsook the Torah of Yahweh, and all Israel with him. ² In the fifth year of King Rehoboam, Shishak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem, because they had acted unfaithfully against Yahweh, ³ with twelve hundred chariots and sixty thousand horsemen; and the people who came with him from Egypt were without number: Libyans, Sukkiim and Cushites. ⁴ And he took the fortified cities of Judah and came as far as Jerusalem.

⁵ Then Shemaiah the prophet came to Rehoboam and to the leaders of Judah, who had gathered at Jerusalem because of Shishak, and said to them, "Thus says Yahweh: 'You have forsaken Me, and so I also have forsaken you into the hand of Shishak.'" ⁶ Then the leaders of Israel and the king humbled themselves and said, "Yahweh is righteous." ⁷ When Yahweh saw that they had humbled themselves, the word of Yahweh came to Shemaiah, saying, "They have humbled themselves; I will not destroy them, but I will grant them some deliverance, and My wrath shall not be poured out on Jerusalem by the hand of Shishak. ⁸ Nevertheless they shall be his servants, that they may know My service and the service of the kingdoms of the lands."

⁹ So Shishak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem, and took away the treasures of the house of Yahweh and the treasures of the king's house; he took away everything. He also took away the shields of gold which Solomon had made. ¹⁰ And King Rehoboam made shields of bronze in their place, and committed them to the hands of the commanders of the guard who kept the door of the king's house. ¹¹ And whenever the king went into the house of Yahweh, the guard came and carried them, and brought them back to the guardroom. ¹² When he humbled himself, the anger of Yahweh turned from him, so as not to destroy him completely; and also in Judah there were good things.

The end of Rehoboam's reign

¹³ So King Rehoboam strengthened himself in Jerusalem and reigned. Rehoboam was forty-one years old when he began to reign, and he reigned seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city which Yahweh had chosen out of all the tribes of Israel to put His name there. His mother's name was Naamah the Ammonite. ¹⁴ He did evil, for he did not set his heart to seek Yahweh. ¹⁵ Now the acts of Rehoboam, from first to last, are they not written in the records of Shemaiah the prophet and of Iddo the seer, in the genealogical register? And there were wars between Rehoboam and Jeroboam continually. ¹⁶ And Rehoboam lay down with his fathers and was buried in the City of David; and Abijah his son reigned in his place.

Notes

• 12:2 Kings gives the bare fact of Shishak's coming (1 Kings 14:25; see the note there on Shoshenq I); Chronicles tells it as cause and effect. Rehoboam "forsook" (azav) the Torah of Yahweh when he was strong (verse 1), after three good years (11:17); Shishak came "because they had acted unfaithfully" (ma'al, the word used for Saul's unfaithfulness, 1 Chronicles 10:13); then came the prophet's word, humbling, and a partial deliverance (verses 5-12).
• 12:3 Shoshenq I was himself of Libyan descent, and Libyans served in Egypt's armies in this period. The Sukkiim are not known outside this verse; some connect them with a people named in Egyptian texts, perhaps auxiliaries from the desert west of Egypt. The Cushites came from the land south of Egypt (see the note on 2 Kings 19:9).
• 12:7 Shemaiah's word turns on one verb: "You have forsaken Me, and so I also have forsaken you" (verse 5). When the king and the leaders humbled themselves (kana, the word of 7:14) and confessed that Yahweh is righteous, He answered with a rescue that was real but limited: "some deliverance" (kim'at, "a little," which some take to mean "soon"). Compare Ahab, who humbled himself and received a delay of judgment (1 Kings 21:29).
• 12:8 "Service" is avodah, the same word as the "hard service" of Solomon that the people had complained of (10:4). Judah would learn by experience the difference between serving Yahweh and serving the kings of the nations, as the Torah had warned: "Because you did not serve Yahweh your Elohim with joy and gladness of heart… therefore you shall serve your enemies" (Deuteronomy 28:47-48).
• 12:14 Chronicles sums up Rehoboam's evil by what he failed to do: he "did not set his heart to seek (darash) Yahweh." David had charged Israel's leaders, "Now set your heart and your soul to seek Yahweh your Elohim" (1 Chronicles 22:19), and those who came from all the tribes had set their heart to seek Him (11:16). Seeking Yahweh, or failing to, runs through the reigns that follow.
• 12:15 As with Solomon (9:29), the acts of Rehoboam are said to be written in the words of prophets: Shemaiah (11:2; 12:5) and Iddo the seer. These writings are not known today. The words "in the genealogical register" render one Hebrew verb, lehityaches, "to be enrolled by genealogy"; its sense in this verse is unclear, and it may describe the kind of record that Iddo's work contained.

2 Chronicles 11 · 2 Chronicles 13

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