Context No. 3535 of 4322 · 2 Chronicles

2 Chronicles 11:18-23: in context

18Rehoboam took a wife for himself, Mahalath the daughter of Jerimoth the son of David and of Abihail the daughter of Eliab the son of Jesse. 19She bore him sons: Jeush, Shemariah, and Zaham. 20After her, he took Maacah the granddaughter of Absalom; and she bore him Abijah, Attai, Ziza, and Shelomith. 21Rehoboam loved Maacah the granddaughter of Absalom above all his wives and his concubines; for he took eighteen wives and sixty concubines, and became the father of twenty-eight sons and sixty daughters. 22Rehoboam appointed Abijah the son of Maacah to be chief, the prince among his brothers, for he intended to make him king. 23He dealt wisely, and dispersed some of his sons throughout all the lands of Judah and Benjamin, to every fortified city. He gave them food in abundance; and he sought many wives for them.

This passage records Rehoboam's many wives, eighteen of them, and sixty concubines, and his favoritism, loving Maacah above all the rest. The chronicler notes that he dealt shrewdly in distributing his sons through the fortified cities, a piece of political calculation to secure his throne.

But there is a shadow over the whole account. The many wives were the very thing the law had warned kings against, and the favoritism among his children was the very thing that had brought so much grief to his grandfather David's house. Rehoboam repeats the pattern of his father Solomon, multiplying wives, and his favoritism sows the seeds of future division. What is called shrewd in worldly terms often ignores the deeper wisdom of God's ways. Political cleverness and the accumulation of wives and power are no substitute for the simple faithfulness God asks; the shrewd arrangements of the flesh may look wise, and still quietly plant the seeds of trouble.

Do I mistake worldly shrewdness for real wisdom, or do I seek the deeper wisdom of simple faithfulness to God's ways, which alone builds what lasts?

Sources

2 Chronicles 11:21: "Rehoboam loved Maacah the granddaughter of Absalom above all his wives and his concubines; for he took eighteen wives and sixty concubines."
2 Chronicles 11:23: "He dealt wisely, and dispersed some of his sons throughout all the lands of Judah and Benjamin, to every fortified city."
Deuteronomy 17:17: "He shall not multiply wives to himself, that his heart not turn away."