2 Chronicles 11:22. "[A]nd Rehoboam appointed Abijah the son of Maacah as chief prince among his brothers, for he intended to make him king." Rehoboam was the son of Solomon and became king after Solomon's death, he had eighteen wives, twenty-eight sons, and sixty daughters (2 Chronicles 12:2), but he loved Maacah, the daughter of King David's rebellious son Absalom, the best and made Abijah, his son with Maacah, his heir to the throne. Early in Rehoboam's reign, the northern tribes had split from the kingdom and were being ruled by Jeroboam, so Rehoboam was the king of the southern kingdom of Judah.

It is interesting to see how quickly things start to fall apart as soon as Solomon dies, it shows how much family and national dysfunction reflects the dysfunction of our ancestors. Solomon's power had been great, but he had been disobedient to God by marrying foreign wives and worshiping false gods (whom he was led by his foreign wives). The kingdom held together until his death, but then almost immediately split under Rehoboam when he refused to listen to the northern tribes’ valid complaints, and instead promised to increase the burden his father had placed on them. Rehoboam did this after rejecting the counsel of his elder advisors and listening instead to young men he had grown up with. So the seed of the divided kingdom was planted by Solomon because of his disobedience, and bore fruit under Rehoboam because of his immaturity and rashness. If Solomon had been more faithful to God, he would have been a better example to Rehoboam, and Rehoboam would have learned how to be a better king. Rehoboam would then have known to listen to his wise counselors over his friends. But Solomon was distracted by worldly things, foreign wives, and false gods, and his son, and the entire nation, felt the effects in a divided kingdom that would remain divided until the return from exile, 400 years later. Rehoboam is described as having done evil during his reign “for he did not set his heart to seek the Lord” (2 Chronicles 12:14), and there was continual war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam. When Abijah became king after Rehoboam’s death, he had to deal with the war with the north, but he was faithful to God, and so he defeated Jeroboam, bringing peace to Judah for the remainder of his reign. Nonetheless, each kingdom would continue its downward spiral until they were both ultimately conquered and taken into exile, and it all can be traced back to Solomon's disobedience.

In the Bible, Israel can be seen as a “type” for many things, including for humanity in general, and for the Church more specifically. For humanity in general, we can see, even in our own families, that the failure of one generation, especially of parents, to be faithful to God can bring dysfunction into the family that lasts for generations. We can also see that when rulers are faithless, dysfunction comes into the nation, and affects it for generations. Family, sibling, and national rivalry, fighting, division, and hatred are just some of the sufferings that flow down through generations from faithless authority. Israel is also a type for the Church, and the same kinds of rivalries and dysfunction that split Israel are beginning to be seen in the Church today.

All of this is inevitable, really, it is all a result of the fall, and we are all sinners. There is no such thing as a perfect father, a perfect king, or a perfect priest, other than God the Father and Jesus Christ. That is why God warned Israel, through Samuel, that they really should not ask for a king, they did not realize what they were asking for (and the already had the best ruler possible, God Himself!) (1 Samuel 8:7-9).

Humanity makes mistakes and bad choices all the time, and future generations suffer for them. That is one reason for reading and knowing history, and especially the Bible, so that we learn from those mistakes and try not to repeat them. History does repeat itself, though; the cycle of faithfulness, wisdom, goodness, and peace giving way to sinfulness, ignorance, wickedness, and war is as old as time. It can happen within one generation, as it did with Solomon and Rehoboam, or it can play out more slowly. The history of Israel also shows us, though, that God will always walk with us, even as we suffer through the misery we create with our bad choices and our sin. He will always be our one true king, we just have to turn back to Him, let Him lead us back into His kingdom, and then help Him build it for everyone else.