Sick at heart, Solomon in his old age,
wrote the saddest book in the Bible; and though his first writing, the
Canticles, had been a joyful prophetic song of the love between the Lord
and His Church, his last was a mournful lamentation over the vanity and
emptiness of the world, and full of scorn of all that earth can give.
LESSON VII.
THE KINGDOM OP JUDAH.
"But if his children forsake My Law, and walk not in My judgments: if
they break My statutes, and keep not My Commandments, I will visit their
offences with the rod, and their sin with scourges."--_Ps._ lxxxix. 31,
32.
Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, brought about, by his own harshness and
folly, the punishment that God had decreed. By the advice of his hasty
young counsellors, he made so violent a reply to the petition brought to
him by his subjects, that they took offence, and the ten northern tribes
broke away from him, setting up as their king, Jeroboam, who had been
already marked out by the prophet.
The lesson of meekness seems to have been the one chiefly appointed for
Rehoboam, for when he assembled the fighting men of Judah and Benjamin
to subdue the revolt, Shemaiah the prophet was sent to forbid him, and
he submitted at once; and when again Jeroboam's friend Shishak invaded
his kingdom, Shemaiah told him it was as a punishment sent him by God,
against which he must not struggle; so he gathered all the riches left
him by his father, paid the tribute that the Egyptians required; and
for being thus patient and submissive, he was again blessed by God, and
Judah prospered.
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