Strange Story: WHY WAS REHOBOAM THE ONE TO SUCCEED SOLOMON AS KING?

Of all Solomon’s children, we are only given the name of three of them; two of them are girls and the other is the son that followed Solomon as king. The name of that son is not mentioned until he became king.

I believe that if the Shulammite had given birth to a son, he would have been the next king. I also think that the two daughters that are mentioned by name were most likely the children of the Shulammite. Therefore, I am convinced that Solomon and Shuly only had two children, both of them were girls.

In the end, it was Rehoboam who succeeded Solomon as king (I Kings 11:43). He was the son of Naamah, the Ammonitess (probably a princess) (I Kings 14:31). We are not told whether Solomon named Rehoboam king, or if Solomon died without naming a king, allowing his oldest and most ruthless son, Rehoboam, to take that position using threats and intimidation of his younger brothers. If Solomon did nothing, he did so knowing it would throw the kingdom into turmoil and that Rehoboam would end up on the throne. I believe he did this in an effort to get back at God for taking away his favorite wife. The inspired writer of the biblical text wanted the reader to see that Rehoboam becoming the king was a problem. It is significant that I Kings chapter 14 mentions the foreign mother of King Rehoboam twice, verse 21 and verse 31.

 Right after Rehoboam became king, most of the tribes of Israel formed their own country under the leadership of Jeroboam.

The biblical text tells us that Rehoboam, son of Solomon, and the people of Judah “walked in the ways of David and Solomon for three years” (II Chron 11:17). Notice that this casts Solomon in a positive light, meaning that his apostacy only characterized the last few years of his life. Then we read this in II Chron 12:1 “It happened that when the kingdom had been established and Rehoboam had become strong, he forsook the law of YHVH and all Israel with him.”

Why the change?

When Jeroboam took the northern tribes and made his own country, he quickly realized that he needed to do something to keep his people from being dependent on the temple in Jerusalem for all aspects of their religion. So he set up two idols, one in the south and one in the north of his country, and told the people to worship them and not go down to the temple in Jerusalem. He also established a priesthood for those idols, leaving the priests of God out in the cold.

According to II Chronicles 11:13-16, seeing what was going on, the Priests of God, the Levites who took their turns serving in the temple, and lots of God-fearing people, moved from the northern tribes to the southern tribes to be close to the temple. It was the influx of these righteous people that caused things to go in a positive direction for about 3 years (II Chron 11:17). However, was this a spiritual revival or just political positioning and economic maneuvering on the part of Rehoboam? I think it was politically motivated. As long as it was politically advantageous in order to keep drawing people from the north to the south, Rehoboam pretended to follow YHVH, but once everyone who was inclined to move to his kingdom had done so, he showed his true colors and made an abrupt change to following idols. It is the abruptness of his change that makes me think those were his true colors and the first three years he was just doing what was necessary in order to firmly establish himself as the unquestioned leader of his kingdom.

Therefore, it almost seems like Solomon purposefully put a son on the throne who would predictably lead the nation to self-destruction, through tribal division, heavy taxation, and idolatry.

It seems like Solomon was saying: “If God can hurt me so deeply, I will hurt God back. I’m so angry at God I’ll purposefully send the children of Israel into idolatry.” He thought he could threaten God by shaking his shriveled fist in God’s face.

In my theory, I find it interesting that Solomon ended up honoring the one whose seduction he had called “more bitter than death” (Ecc 7:26). In an attempt to hurt God, he was willing to honor the woman who had hurt him the most.

The next story about Solomon’s life is WAS THE SHULAMMITE REHOBOAM’S MOTHER?