Bible Commentaries
2 Chronicles 12

Verses 1-16

2 Chronicles 12:1 . Rehoboam forsook the law of the Lord. His juvenile council, his harem of eighteen queens and sixty concubines, are lamentable proofs of the imbecility of his mind. The apple-tree seldom bears two years alike.

2 Chronicles 12:2 . Shishak is called Sesac by Josephus, He is named by Herodotus, lib. 2., by Diodorus, and by Eusebius, and is called successively Sasochis, and Sebacus, and Asychis, and Sesostris. Being a great conqueror by sea and by land, he had no need to bring so great an army against Rehoboam, who was more like a woman than a man. Thus in little more than four years, the glory of Solomon’s kingdom came to the mercy of a foreign king! All is vanity, and vexation of spirit.

2 Chronicles 12:7 . Shemaiah was a great prophet in the reign of Solomon and of Rehoboam; his addresses brought the nation to repentance, and saved Jerusalem from destruction. Like Samuel, Nathan, and Gad, he left a book of his labours connected with the history of his own times, 2 Chronicles 12:15. He was enrolled by the Jews amongst the forty eight prophets sent of God to their nation.