Post by Lee on Oct 19, 2014 20:22:07 GMT
But how was it with Rehoboam and Israel after these three years had passed away? Years in which he had arranged and established his affairs? Did he and Israel continue faithful to Jehovah? Let us hear the testimony. “And it came to pass when Rehoboam had established the kingdom, and had strengthened himself, he forsook the law of the Lord, and all Israel with him.” This was in the 4th year of his reign. In the 5th year Jehovah sent Shishak, king of Egypt, against Jerusalem; and commanded Shemaiah, the prophet, to tell Rehoboam that it was because he and Israel had apostatised from Him, that this evil had overtaken them. It is manifest, then, that as all things went well in the eyes of the Lord in the first three years, and that as he punished them in the fifth, it was because of their forsaking Him in the 4th of Rehoboam’s reign. (It was exactly 390 years from this 4th of Rehoboam to the date of the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar; and it was exactly 40 years from the foundation of the Temple, in the 4th of Solomon, to the 4th of Rehoboam).—Herald, 1852.