John Kitto Morning Bible Devotions: October 25

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John Kitto Morning Bible Devotions: October 25

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Rehoboam

1Ki_11:43; 1Ki_12:1

Only one son of Solomon appears in history, and it is generally supposed that he had no other. On this Hall quaintly observes—“Many a poor man hath an houseful of children by one wife, whereas this great king hath only one son by many housefuls of wives.” And this one son was, as Ness remarks, “none of the wisest, but a silly child when at the age of forty years.” It should seem to be in the course of nature, that sons brought up under the nurture of wise fathers, should be themselves wise. But it is not always seen—perhaps not often seen—that wise fathers have wise sons. How is this? It may be that the wisdom of the son -the formation of his character—depends more on the mother than the father, and that a wise mother is even more essential than a wise father to the formation of a wise son. It is probably for this reason that the sacred historian is careful to record that Rehoboam’s mother was an Ammonitess, and being such, was, we may presume, one of those women who seduced Solomon into idolatry; for the gods of the Ammonites are specified among those he worshipped. As the mother of his only son, or at least of his heir, the influence of this lady, whose came was Naamah, must have been paramount in the harem; and in a mutter respecting the worship of her gods, no other woman could have had any influence comparable to hers; nor would he have gone into this Ammonitish idolatry in direct opposition to her wishes. At any rate, she could hardly have been a wise mother in the Hebrew point of view, if in any other.

The importance of a wise mother to the bringing up a wise son, is not obscurely expressed more than once by Solomon himself. He had a wise father, and he gratefully acknowledges the advantages he derived from his instructions; but he gives praise to his mother also, whom he mentions with affectionate regard, as one to whose tender counsels he owed not less. “I was,” he says, “my father’s son, tender and only beloved in the sight of my mother,” Pro_4:3; and his Book of Proverbs concludes “with the words of king Lemuel, the prophecy which his mother taught him;” and from the specimen of her instruction there given, we can see that she was indeed a wise, a loving, and experienced mother, however frail and fatal her conduct may at one time have been. Ah, with what emphasis could she pour into the heedful ears of her son the words—“Favor is deceitful, and beauty is vain; but a woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised.” She herself had that praise, and from her own son, too, when, in mature life, he looked thankfully back upon the large benefit which he owed to her early instructions. No: we may hear of foolish sons having wise fathers, and of foolish fathers having wise sons, but rarely of a wise son having had a foolish mother.” Note: “Several young men who were associated in preparing for the Christian ministry felt interested in ascertaining what proportion of their number had pious mothers. They were greatly surprised and delighted in finding that, out of 120 students, more than 100 had been blessed by a mother’s prayers, and directed by a mother’s counsels to the Saviour.”—Arvine’s Anecdotes, p. 553. New York.

That Solomon was conscious of the imbecile character of his son, there can be no doubt. It is impossible to resist the conviction, that he speaks in Ecc_2:18-19, on this point, from the bitterness of his own misgivings—“I hated all my labor which I had taken under the sun; because I should leave it unto the man that shall be after me. And who knoweth whether he shall be a wise man or a fool? Yet shall he have rule over all my labor wherein I have labored, and wherein I have showed myself wise under the sun.”

Rehoboam’s conduct was so childish and ignorant, and betrayed such utter unacquaintance with the spirit of the age and temper of the people, as to remind us of the Oriental princes called out of the harem to reign, with all their experience, even at a mature age, yet to be acquired. And this was very probably the case. The common reason for this is jealousy on the part of the reigning prince of his heir, whether of his own ambition, or of his becoming so popular as to induce the people to call him to reign before his time. To prevent this, he is kept within the palace, beyond which little concerning him, besides the fact of his existence, is suffered to transpire. This had not been the policy of David, nor was it generally that of the Jewish kings. But Solomon might have been led to shut up his son, by the recollection of how much his own father had suffered by the conspiracy of two of his sons. Or it may be that he did it from the desire of concealing the deficiencies of that son from the knowledge of the people. It is impossible to say whether the imbecility of Rehoboam was the cause or the effect of his being kept in the seraglio; but that he was shut up there, seems altogether probable. It is charitable to him to suppose, that his utter ignorance of public affairs and public principles, arose less from natural incapacity than from the seclusion in which he had lived. In confirmation of this conjecture as to the previous seclusion of Rehoboam, there is a verse in Ecc_4:14, describing a king as coming out of confinement to reign; which at least shows that the mind of the author was familiar with the practice. This, coupled with the fears of his son’s foolishness contained in the same book, seems to evince that he did not keep him in seclusion from any interested motive, but merely to prevent any prejudice being conceived against him before the time came for him to reign. We cannot question that in this seclusion, Solomon attempted to impart to his son such knowledge and instruction as his station required. But probably he gave up the attempt at length, for nothing discourages one more than the endeavor to fill a leaky vessel.

When the death of Solomon became known, the chiefs of the tribes assembled at Shechem, an ancient and venerated place of convocation, to which on that account, as well as from its central position, Rehoboam could not object, although he would doubtless have preferred that the assembly should have been held at Jerusalem, rather than in the chief town of a tribe so disaffected as that of Ephraim, and so notoriously adverse to the predominance which the tribe of Judah possessed through the rule of David’s house. It will be remembered, that both Saul and David had received the crown under certain covenants with the people, and with certain limitations, which had been overlooked under the peculiar circumstances of Solomon’s accession. To this neglect the people appear to have ascribed the despotic tendencies and oppressive exactions of Solomon’s later government; and they felt that their consequent inability to lay to his charge the neglect or contravention of personal covenants, had deprived them of a powerful weapon of constitutional opposition, and had laid them comparatively helpless at the foot of his throne. They resolved that this mistake should not again occur; and that the new king must accept the throne under stipulations for redress of grievances, and of reigning in accordance with the principles of the old covenants. This course was perfectly constitutional. Even Rehoboam—high as were his notions of royal prerogative, and of his divine rights as the heir of David—had sense enough to see that it was such, and therefore proceeded with his court to Shechem, to accept the crown in the presence of the assembled states. So far, both parties acted guardedly; and although the place of meeting, and the sending for Jeroboam out of Egypt to take a leading part in the transactions, bear some indication of a foregone conclusion on the part of the tribes, it is impossible not to respect their determination to keep within the forms of the constitution, in resisting those marked tendencies to absolutism which the government had of late years manifested.