2 Chronicles 10 in plain modern English. New Ground English Translation.
Time Period
~930 BC, immediately after Solomon's death
Location
Shechem, a town in the central hill country about thirty miles north of Jerusalem, long the gathering place of the northern tribes
Audience
Post-exilic Judeans, descendants of the southern kingdom, reading the origin of the split that shaped their history
Situation
Rehoboam goes north to Shechem to be made king, and the assembly asks him to lighten the heavy labour and taxes his father imposed. He rejects the advice of the older counsellors, follows his contemporaries, and threatens harsher treatment, so ten tribes walk away and the kingdom breaks in two.
Key Background
Kingship in Israel was not purely hereditary in the north; the tribes expected to confirm a king by agreement, which is why Rehoboam had to travel to Shechem rather than simply succeed in Jerusalem. Solomon's building programme had been paid for with conscripted labour and heavy taxation, and the northern tribes carried more of that burden than Judah did, so the grievance was concrete rather than symbolic. The split produced two kingdoms, Israel in the north and Judah in the south, and Chronicles follows only the southern line from here on, since that was the community its readers descended from.
Rehoboam went to because that's where all of had gathered to make him king.
When son of Nebat heard about this — he was still in Egypt where he had fled from King Solomon — he came back from Egypt.
They sent for him and called him back. So Jeroboam came with all of Israel, and they spoke to Rehoboam:
"Your father put a on us. If you lighten the and the heavy load your father put on us, we'll serve you."
He told them, "Come back to me in three days." So the people left.
King Rehoboam consulted the who had served his father Solomon while he was still alive. "What do you advise me to tell these people?" he asked.
They told him, "If you're good to these people and them — if you give them a favorable answer — they'll serve you forever."
But he rejected the advice the older men gave him and instead consulted the young men who had grown up with him — the ones who were now his attendants.
He asked them, "What do you advise? How should we respond to these people who are asking me to lighten the burden my father put on them?"
The young men who had grown up with him said, "Here's what you should tell these people who said, 'Your father made our load heavy — make it lighter.' Tell them: 'My is than my
"So — my father loaded you with a heavy burden? I'll make it even heavier. My father disciplined you with I'll discipline you with
On the third day, Jeroboam and all the people came back to Rehoboam, just as the king had said: "Come back to me on the third day."
The king answered them harshly. King Rehoboam rejected the older advisors' counsel
and spoke to them the way the young men had advised: "My father made your burden heavy, and I'll make it even heavier. My father disciplined you with whips; I'll use scorpion-tipped whips."
The king refused to listen to the people, because this turn of events was by to fulfill the message had spoken through from to Jeroboam son of Nebat.
When all of Israel saw that the king refused to listen to them, the people answered the king: "What do we have with We have no stake in Jesse's son! Everyone go home, Israel! — look after your own house now!" And all of Israel went home.
But Rehoboam still reigned over the Israelites who lived in the towns of Judah.
King Rehoboam sent out who was in charge of forced labor, but the Israelites to King Rehoboam barely managed to jump into his chariot and escape to Jerusalem.
And that's how Israel from the house of David — and it's been that way