(2) And it came to pass.--See 1Kings 14:25, with which this verse literally coincides, except that the last clause, "because they had transgressed," is added by the chronicler.

In the fifth year of king Rehoboam.--The order of events is thus given: For three years Rehoboam and his people continued faithful to the Lord (2Chronicles 11:17); in the fourth year they fell away; and in the fifth their apostacy was punished.

Shishak.--The Sesonchis of Manetho, and the sh-sh-nk of the hieroglyphs, was the first king of the 22nd dynasty. "His name," says Ebers, "and those of his successors, Osorkon (Zerah) and Takelot, are Semitic, a fact which explains the Biblical notice that Solomon took a princess of this dynasty for his consort, and stood in close commercial relations with Egypt, as well as, on the other hand, that Hadad the Edomite received the sister of Tahpenes the queen to wife (1Kings 11:19). In the year 949 B.C. Shishak, at the instigation of Jeroboam, took the field against Rehoboam, besieged Jerusalem, captured it, and carried off a rich booty to Thebes. On a southern wall of the Temple of Karnak, all Palestinian towns which the Egyptians took in this expedition are enumerated" (Riehm's Handwort. Bibl. Alterth., p. 333).

Because they had transgressed.--For they had been faithless to Jehovah. This is the chronicler's own parenthetic explanation of the event, and expresses in one word his whole philosophy of Israelite history. Of course it is not meant that Shishak had any consciousness of the providential ground of his invasion of Judah.

Verse 2. - Shishak; Hebrew, שִׁישַׁק; Septuagint, Σουσάκιμ; Shishak, Sheshonk, Sesonchis, the Sheshenk I. or Shashank I. of the monuments, son of an Assyrian king called Nimrod or Nemaruth, became King of Egypt as first of six kings who lasted in all a hundred and seventy years, of the twenty-second dynasty of Manetho, reigning in Bubastis. To him Jeroboam had fled for refuge from Solomon (1 Kings 11:40). He reigned An. Sac. 3830 ( B.C. 980) to 3851 or 3863. This makes Solomon's reign A.S. 3799 ( B.C. 1011) to 3839 ( B.C. 971). Shishak's invasion, therefore, in aid of Jeroboam, was A.S. 3844 ( B.C. 966). A representation of it exists in relief sculptured on the south external wall of the temple of Amen, at Karnak, Thebes; and, together with this, an elaborate list of countries, cities, tribes, conquered by Sheshenk or tributary to him, a hundred and thirty-three in number. Among these are some of the very fifteen fenced cities (see our ver. 4) which Rehoboam built or fortified, viz. the three, Shoco, Adoraim, and Aijalon, while the erasure of fourteen names just where these are found accounts, no doubt, for the non-appearance of others of them. There are also the names of Levitical and Canaanite cities, situated in the kingdoms of the ten tribes, but belonging to the Levites who had been compelled to migrate into Judah. The dates given above are those accepted by Conder, in his 'Handbook to the Bible' (see pp. 28-34), and do not quite agree with those adopted in Smith's 'Bible Dictionary,' 3:1287-1294. Both of these most interesting articles will well repay perusal, as well as the article "Thebes" in the latter work, 3:1471-1475. (The name and word Shishak has no relation whatever with the Sheshach of Jeremiah 25:26; It. 41, שֵׁשַׁך, a word which, possibly spelling Babel or even Ur, marks the name of a place, and is evidently used by Jeremiah for Babylon or Babylonia.)

12:1-16 Rehoboam, forsaking the Lord, is punished. - When Rehoboam was so strong that he supposed he had nothing to fear from Jeroboam, he cast off his outward profession of godliness. It is very common, but very lamentable, that men, who in distress or danger, or near death, seem much engaged in seeking and serving God, throw aside all their religion when they have received a merciful deliverance. God quickly brought troubles upon Judah, to awaken the people to repentance, before their hearts were hardened. Thus it becomes us, when we are under the rebukes of Providence, to justify God, and to judge ourselves. If we have humbled hearts under humbling providences, the affliction has done its work; it shall be removed, or the property of it be altered. The more God's service is compared with other services, the more reasonable and easy it will appear. Are the laws of temperance thought hard? The effects of intemperance will be found much harder. The service of God is perfect liberty; the service of our lusts is complete slavery. Rehoboam was never rightly fixed in his religion. He never quite cast off God; yet he engaged not his heart to seek the Lord. See what his fault was; he did not serve the Lord, because he did not seek the Lord. He did not pray, as Solomon, for wisdom and grace; he did not consult the word of God, did not seek to that as his oracle, nor follow its directions. He made nothing of his religion, because he did not set his heart to it, nor ever came up to a steady resolution in it. He did evil, because he never was determined for good.And it came to pass in the fifth year of Rehoboam,.... In the fourth year, the apostasy of him and his people began; and, in the year following, what is next related happened, as a punishment of it:

Shishak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem; of whom see 1 Kings 11:40,

because they transgressed against the Lord; transgressed the law of the Lord by falling into idolatry and other abominable evils; the Targum is,"against the Word of the Lord.''