GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
2 CHRONICLES 10:6-15
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6 Then King Rehoboam consulted together with the elders who had served his father Solomon during his lifetime. “How would you advise me to answer these people?” he asked. 7 They said, “If you will be good to these people and give them a favorable answer, they will always be your servants.” 8 But Rehoboam rejected the advice the elders gave him. Instead, he consulted the young men who had grown up with him and were serving him as advisors. 9 He asked them, “What is your advice? How should we answer these people saying to me, ‘Lighten the yoke your father put on us’?” 10 The young men who had grown up with him said to him, “This is what you should say to the people saying to you,
‘Your father put a heavy yoke on us,
but make our yoke lighter’–
this is what you should say to them: ‘My little finger is thicker than my father’s waist. 11 My father laid a heavy yoke upon you. I will make it even heavier.
My father scourged you with whips;
I will scourge you with scorpions.’”
12 On the third day Jeroboam and all the people came back to Rehoboam, since the king had said, “Come back to me in three days.” 13 The king answered them harshly. King Rehoboam rejected the advice of the elders 14 and he followed the advice of the young men and said,
“My father made your yoke heavy;
I will make it even heavier.
My father scourged you with whips;
I will scourge you with scorpions.”
15 So the king did not listen to the people, because this turn of events was from God, to fulfill the word the LORD had spoken through Ahijah the Shilonite to Jeroboam son of Nebat.
I had no idea when I began this series on Chronicles some fifteen months ago that we would land on this passage the day after our election for U.S. President. But the question is appropriate no matter what day it is: What kind of impression does a person want to make right after he becomes the leader of a nation? There are perhaps four or five answers a king or other leader might consider:
a, What will be best for the country?
b, Will this give me glory (how people will remember me)?
c, What will make the best impression on our enemies?
d, What will be best for making the people fear and obey me?
e, What would best serve God’s purpose?
f, What will make my wife happy?
Rehoboam’s grandfather David showed in almost everything he did that the fifth of these, God’s will and purpose, was always on his mind. Rehoboam’s father Solomon showed in almost everything he did early in his reign that the first and fifth (God and country) were his desire, but that sometimes, like David and even Saul before him, the third item (impression on one’s enemies) could be important. Late in Solomon’s reign the sixth item, pleasing his many wives, became his obsession.
Rehoboam’s young advisors lacked experience, and they lacked faith in God and trust in God’s promises. They responded as if the second and fourth responses were all that mattered: Rehoboam’s legacy, and the people’s subservience to him, no matter what. This reminds me of the motto of the young man who was Emperor of Rome during the brief years after Pentecost until about the time Paul began his mission work. His name was Caligula, one of the worst freaks to wield power in Rome (he died by assassination when he was just 28). His motto was “Let them hate me, so long as they fear me.”
But the prophet who recorded this book had an insight given to him by the Holy Spirit that goes beyond even the most insightful analysis: This was the hand of God. This was the means the Lord would use to tear away ten tribes from Israel and hand them over to Jeroboam, leaving Solomon’s son with Judah all by itself.
Some people may wonder which “tribe” is left out when the Bible says so clearly that the “ten tribes” were everything except for Judah. Weren’t there twelve tribes? Sometimes it may seem as if the missing tribe should be Simeon, which was not in the north, but was located in the south around the well of Beersheba. However, Simeon was absorbed into Judah, and wasn’t really counted as a tribe anymore. To be clear and thorough, let’s remember the tribes north of Judah: (1) Dan in the far north, (2) Asher, northwest, (3,4,5) Zebulun, Naphtali and Issachar, just west of the Sea of Galilee, (6) ½ Manasseh, east of the Sea of Galilee and ½ Manasseh, west of the Jordan. Moving further south: (7) Ephraim, west of the Jordan, (8) Gad, east of the Jordan, (9) Benjamin, north of Judah, (10) Reuben, east of the Dead Sea. The other tribe apart from Judah was Levi, which had no territory of their own; there were to be Levites scattered in all the other tribes.
God’s will was to humble Judah, and to test Jeroboam and the northern tribes. The Lord could easily still bring the Savior out of the tribe of Judah as he had promised (Genesis 49:10; Psalm 60:7) and still bless the northern kingdom. Would they pass their tests?
Before we judge too severely, since we have heard this story before, we have been taught about the divided kingdom, and we know that both sides would immediately fall into sin, we must also turn this passage inward at ourselves. We cannot judge everything in our lives, just as we can’t confess every last one of our sins, for as we say in our Confession: “In confession it is not necessary to enumerate all trespasses and sins, for this is not possible according to the Psalm: “Who can discern his errors?” (Psalm 19:12). (Augsburg Confession XI:1-2). But we should recognize that we are tested in many ways and at many times by God. We must learn to pray, “Test me O Lord, and may you find no fault. Send your angels into battle all around me to help me, and send your Holy Spirit to help me shoulder to shoulder as I struggle against the wicked foe and all his weapons and cruel allies. For I cannot do anything apart from you, O Lord. In the name of Jesus my Savior, Amen.”
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
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Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, New Ulm, Minnesota
God’s Word for You – 2 Chronicles 10:6-15 The test