REHOBOAM. — King of Judah for 17 years (932–915 BC), son and successor of Solomon (v.). At the beginning of his reign the schism of the northern tribes occurred with the founding of the autonomous Kingdom of Israel by Jeroboam I (v.).
To secure the loyalty of the northern tribes, which already in the last years of Solomon had harbored hostile sentiments toward the Davidic dynasty because of heavy taxes, he summoned the representatives of the tribes of Israel to Shechem. When they demanded tax relief, Rehoboam asked for three days to consider his answer; then, following the advice of the inexperienced young men his own age, he showed unyielding harshness (1 Kgs 12:4–14). Thereupon the northerners, rejecting the Davidic dynasty, elected Jeroboam, an Ephraimite who had been recalled from Egypt, where he had taken refuge to escape Solomon’s persecution, as their king. When Rehoboam sent Adoniram, who had been the overseer of forced labor in the last years of David and throughout Solomon’s reign (2 Sam 20:24; 1 Kgs 4:6; 5:13), to the rebels to bring them back to obedience, the royal messenger was stoned to death by the enraged people.
Some time later Rehoboam planned a military reconquest, but was dissuaded from fratricidal war by the prophet Shemaiah, acting on God’s command. Thus the Israelite nation remained forever divided into two kingdoms. Only the tribe of Judah remained loyal to Rehoboam, though it practically incorporated the tribe of Simeon and part of Benjamin, with a small territory limited to the southern part of Cisjordan; the other ten tribes, under Jeroboam, formed the new northern kingdom, also called the “Kingdom of Israel” or “of Ephraim” or “of the House of Joseph.”
The fifth year of Rehoboam’s reign is linked to the incursion into Palestine by Pharaoh Sheshonq (Söseng), founder of the 22nd dynasty (945–924 BC), which occurred in 926 BC (years 18–19 of Sheshonq). A record of it also survives in the inscription on the wall of the temple of Amun at Karnak, ancient Thebes. According to the biblical account, the Pharaoh took away the treasures of the Temple of Jerusalem, the royal house, and many other precious objects, including Solomon’s golden shields, so that Rehoboam was then forced to replace them with bronze ones (1 Kgs 12).
Following the Egyptian invasion, Rehoboam fortified numerous places in his kingdom, including Lachish and Azekah, and placed his sons in command of the respective garrisons (2 Chr 12:5–12; though the sequence of events does not seem to be in chronological order).
Like Jeroboam I, with whom he remained always at odds, though to a lesser degree, Rehoboam strayed from the purity of Yahwistic religion and allowed “high places, sacred pillars, and Asherah poles to be set up on every high hill and under every luxuriant tree,” and permitted the qedeshim (effeminate ones) to perform their abominable rites there (1 Kgs 14:22–24).