2 Chronicles 11:18-23--Rehoboam's Family

2 Chronicles 11:18-23
English Standard Version
​
Rehoboam's Family
18 Rehoboam took as wife Mahalath the daughter of Jerimoth the son of David, and of Abihail the daughter of Eliab the son of Jesse, 19 and she bore him sons, Jeush, Shemariah, and Zaham. 20 After her he took Maacah the daughter of Absalom, who bore him Abijah, Attai, Ziza, and Shelomith. 21 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). 22 And Rehoboam appointed Abijah the son of Maacah as chief prince among his brothers, for he intended to make him king. 23 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.

---

We may look at verse 18 and wonder why Rehoboam was marrying such a close relative, but really the relation is not that close, and the LORD had commanded the people that whenever possible to marry from within their own tribes to make sure that each tribe kept their ancestral land within the tribe and none of the property transferred between tribes.  If they for some reason could not marry within their own tribe, then they were always supposed to marry within the nation of Israel with people that had the same worldview as them (it seems Gentiles who converted to Judaism counted as well as we've seen with Ruth and Boaz), however, the Jewish people were not to take husbands or wives for themselves or their children from among the nations that worshiped other God and had worldviews that are in opposition to the way that the LORD taught His people to live.  They had a different identity than the other nations and they were to marry others with that same identity.  For Christians today, that would mean that we should not be unequally yoked with unbelievers (see 2 Corinthians 6, what I just quoted is verse 14).  This would seem to prohibit a believer from marrying an unbeliever and may extend to other types of binding agreements such as business partnerships and any other "covenant" that may be cut with another person--the Holy Spirit will help you know exactly where He wants you to draw the line, but the context of 2 Corinthians 6 definitely includes marriage and sexual relations--a topic that the Corinthian church struggled with.

Now back to today's passage.  We see that like his father Solomon, and his grandfather David, Rehoboam married several women (something that kings where known for, but that was against the LORD's command as the LORD said marriage was to be between one man and one woman forever--men should not have multiple wives at the same time, nor woman have multiple husbands at the same time, and no-fault divorce is not in the Bible.  The only way out of marriage was supposed to be death and while there is an "exception" made for adultery in the New Testament, it was not an exception in the Old Testament because adultery was a capital offense.)  Eighteen wives and sixty concubines doesn't hold a candle to Solomon's wives and concubines (he had 1,000 combined--I can't remember exactly, but I think it was 300 wives and 700 concubines for Solomon).  The LORD still blessed Rehoboam with twenty-eight sons and sixty daughters (eighty-eight children).

Rehoboam thought he would be the one to appoint which son would be next in line for the throne (probably his oldest son, as that was the common practice) but the fact that the text tells us that he "intended to make him king," points us to the fact that maybe Rehoboam did not inquire of the LORD with this important choice as we don't see him going to the priests or the prophets to ask for counsel or direction.  We have some time before Rehoboam's successor takes that throne, but he's at least making plans and helping to raise up his successor which is probably a good biblical principle--we just should be careful in making important decisions like this to make sure that the LORD is guiding our decisions since He often had a way of surprising people and picking the person we least expected to be the king or leader of His people.