In spite of making a good start, the chronicler tells us that once Rehoboam is established and grows strong, he abandons the law of the LORD. And the LORD sends a punishment for his unfaithfulness in the form of an Egyptian pharaoh named Shishak. Shishak's army is enormous. The nation is in danger of being overwhelmed. Through the prophet Shemaiah the LORD tells Rehoboam—"You abandoned me and so I have abandoned you to the hand of Shishak" (12:5). But the king and his officers humble themselves. So the LORD has mercy and sends a second message—because of their repentance there will be "some deliverance." Judah will not be destroyed, but the king and his officers shall be the servants of the pharaoh "so that they will know the difference been serving [the LORD] and serving the kingdoms of other lands" (12:8).
So Shishak comes up against Jerusalem and takes everything that is not nailed down (12:9). Nevertheless, Judah and Jerusalem are not destroyed. A pattern is established that we will see played out again and again. The kings of Judah abandon the LORD, they are warned, they repent, and, because God is faithful to the promise that he swore to David, they are spared. And indeed because Rehoboam humbles himself, the nation is spared, and we are told that "conditions [are] good in Judah" (12:12) during the rest of his reign.
All in all, however, the reign of Rehoboam is a disappointment to the chronicler, because "he [does] not set his heart to seek the LORD" (12:14), and to "seek the LORD" means to actively do his will, as David and Solomon had. In this the next Judean king does better.
There had been continual feuding between Jeroboam and Rehoboam. Now under Rehoboam's son Abijah hostilities heat up, and the Judean forces face the vastly larger army of Israel at Mount Zamaraim. But Abijah is unafraid. In a daring speech he denounces Jeroboam as a rebel and a traitor. God's covenant is with David and his sons (13:5). Jeroboam is a usurper who has driven the priests and Levites out of his land to serve his golden calves (13:9). But as for Judah, the LORD is its God, and it has not abandoned him. In Jerusalem there are priests ministering to him in his temple who are descendents of Aaron (13:10). The promise of God to the house of David and their faithful worship of the LORD guarantee Judah's ultimate victory. Israel is fighting against the LORD, the God of their ancestors (13:12), and not against mortals.
So when the battle is joined, the people shout, and God defeats Jeroboam (13:15). Abijah and the army of Judah prevail because, the chronicler tells us, they rely on the LORD, the God of their ancestors. That word "rely" will reappear in our reading as a synonym for having faith, for depending on the power of LORD not upon mortal strength. Because of his faithfulness Abijah is able to enlarge Judah's territory at the expense of Israel and with various wives fathers twenty-two sons and sixteen daughters (13:21)—a sure sign of the LORD's favor.
At Abijah's death, he is succeeded by one of those many sons Asa also does what is "good and right in the sight of the LORD his God" (14:2). He pursues a rigorous program of reform, destroying the vestiges of paganism wherever he finds them, fully aware that the only reason that Judah still possesses the land is that they "have sought the LORD" (14:7).
When an enormous Ethiopian force—the chronicler numbers them at a million plus (14:9)—menaces the land, Asa goes out to meet them, and again relying on the LORD (14:11), he defeats and slaughters them to a man. After the victory "the spirit of the LORD" comes upon a prophet named Azariah, who tells Asa that "the LORD is with you, while you are with him. If you seek him, he will be found by you, but if you abandon him, he will abandon you" (15:2). And Asa, taking renew courage from his great victory over the Ethiopians, goes on to finish the reformation he had begun (15:7).
He hunts out and destroys pagan idols wherever he finds them. Asa in his zeal even destroys his own mother's "adominable image" of the fertility goddess Asherah (15:16). We are told what the old lady's reaction was to that. But many of those belonging to the northern tribes, desert Israel and join with Asa because they can see that "the LORD his God [is] with him" (15:9). In a covenant renewal ceremony in Jerusalem he publicly reaffirms the commitment of the nation "to seek the LORD" as David and Solomon had done (15:12). And all Judah "rejoices," and following the example of their king, they seek the LORD "with their whole desire." And in response the LORD is "found by them, and the Lord gave them rest all around" (15:15).
And yet for all his enthusiasm for reform, in the end Asa drifts away from his God. He makes a treaty with King Ben-hadad of Aram in order to counter the aggression of Baasha of Israel, Jeroboam's successor. Israel is thwarted, but the prophet Hanani brings an unwanted message to the king that the LORD is not pleased. Asa has relied upon diplomacy rather than on the LORD to save him. "You have done foolishly in this," the prophet tells him, and "from now on you will have wars" (16:9). Asa is furious and slaps the prophet "in the stocks" (15:10). But he does no better. When the king is inflicted with a disease in his feet, and it becomes severe, Asa did not seek the LORD, even though his own name means "May God heal." Instead he turns to his physicians (16:12), and further alienates himself from the LORD. Nevertheless when Asa at last dies, he is buried with great solemnities, and the people make "a great fire in his honor" (16:14) as a sign of their regard.
Asa is followed by his son Jehoshaphat, who will follow his father's earlier example. The lamp of David does not go out.
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