nted the kingdom of Rehoboam for
three years. And after he had married a woman of his own kindred, and
had by her three children born to him, he married also another of
his own kindred, who was daughter of Absalom by Tamar, whose name was
Maachah, and by her he had a son, whom he named Abijah. He had moreover
many other children by other wives, but he loved Maachah above them all.
Now he had eighteen legitimate wives, and thirty concubines; and he had
born to him twenty-eight sons and threescore daughters; but he appointed
Abijah, whom he had by Maachah, to be his successor in the kingdom, and
intrusted him already with the treasures and the strongest cities.

2. Now I cannot but think that the greatness of a kingdom, and its
change into prosperity, often become the occasion of mischief and of
transgression to men; for when Rehoboam saw that his kingdom was so much
increased, he went out of the right way unto unrighteous and irreligious
practices, and he despised the worship of God, till the people
themselves imitated his wicked actions: for so it usually happens, that
the manners of subjects are corrupted at the same time with those of
their governors, which subjects then lay aside their own sober way of
living, as a reproof of their governors' intemperate courses, and follow
their wickedness as if it were virtue; for it is not possible to show
that men approve of the actions of their kings, unless they do the same
actions with them. Agreeable whereto it now happened to the subjects
of Rehoboam; for when he was grown impious, and a transgressor himself,
they endeavored not to offend him by resolving still to be righteous.
But God sent Shishak, king of Egypt, to punish them for their unjust
behavior towards him, concerning whom Herodotus was mistaken, and
applied his actions to Sesostris; for this Shishak, [26] in the fifth
year of the reign of Rehoboam, made an expedition [into Judea] with many
ten thousand men; for he had one thousand two hundred chariots in number
that followed him, and threescore thousand horsemen, and four hundred
thousand footmen. These he brought with him, and they were the greatest
part of them Libyans and Ethiopians. Now therefore when he fell upon
the country of the Hebrews, he took the strongest cities of Rehoboam's
kingdom without fighting; and when he had put garrisons in them, he came
last of all to Jerusalem.

3. Now when Rehoboam, and the multitude with him, were shut up in
Jerusalem by