2 Chronicles 12:2

And it came to pass, that in the fifth year of king Rehoboam Shishak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem, because they had transgressed against the LORD,

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(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.

Benson Commentary

2 Chronicles 12:2. In the fifth year Shishak came up against Jerusalem — Presently after the apostacy of the king and people, which was in the fourth year. As this great calamity came upon them so soon after they began to desert the worship of God, and by a hand they had so little reason to suspect, having had a great deal of friendly correspondence with Egypt in the last reign; and as it came with so much violence, that all the fenced cities of Judah, which Rehoboam had lately fortified and garrisoned, and on which he relied much for the safety of his kingdom, fell into the hands of the enemy without making any resistance, it plainly appeared that the Lord had sent it, because they had transgressed against him. And doubtless God brought this unexpected trouble upon them so soon after their departure from him, not only to manifest his displeasure at, and to punish them for, their crime, but also and especially to recover them to repentance before their hearts were hardened.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

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.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Shishak ... came up ... because they had transgressed - The writer speaks from a divine, not a human, point of view. Shishak's motive in coming up was to help Jeroboam, and to extend his own influence.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

2. Shishak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem—He was the first king of the twenty-second or Bubastic Dynasty. What was the immediate cause of this invasion? Whether it was in resentment for some provocation from the king of Judah, or in pursuance of ambitious views of conquest, is not said. But the invading army was a vast horde, for Shishak brought along with his native Egyptians an immense number of foreign auxiliaries.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

In the fifth year; presently after the apostacy of the king and people, which was in his fourth year, by comparing this with 2 Chronicles 11:17.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

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.''

Geneva Study Bible

And it came to pass, that in the fifth year of king Rehoboam Shishak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem, because they had transgressed against the LORD,

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

2. Shishak] The Egyptian king has commemorated this expedition in a pictorial inscription on the wall of the temple of Karnak. It appears that the Northern kingdom suffered as well as the Southern, but no permanent conquest of Canaan was attempted. (Maspero, Histoire Ancienne, ed. v. pp. 360, 1.)

because they had trespassed] A touch characteristic of the Chronicler; cp. 2 Chronicles 13:18; 2 Chronicles 21:10; 2 Chronicles 24:24; 2 Chronicles 25:20; 2 Chronicles 27:6; 2 Chronicles 28:19; and 1 Chronicles 10:13-14. The Chronicler sees the working of temporal rewards and of temporal punishments everywhere.

Pulpit Commentary

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.) 2 Chronicles 12:2

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

In punishment of this defection (בי מעלוּ כּי, because they had acted faithlessly to Jahve), Shishak, the king of Egypt, marched with a great host against Jerusalem. This hostile invasion is also briefly narrated in 1 Kings 14:25-28. Shishak (Sisak) is, as we have remarked on 1 Kings 14, Sesonchis or Sechonchosis, the first king of the 22nd dynasty, who has celebrated his victory in a relief at Karnak. In this sculpture the names of the cities captured are recorded on shields, and a considerable number have been deciphered with some certainty, and by them our account is completely confirmed. According to 2 Chronicles 12:3, Shishak's host consisted of 1200 chariots, 60,000 horsemen-numbers which, of course, are founded only upon a rough estimate-and an innumerable multitude of footmen, among whom were לוּבים, Libyans, probably the Libyaegyptii of the ancients (see on Genesis 10:13); סכּיּים, according to the lxx and Vulg. Troglodytes, probably the Ethiopian Troglodytes, who dwelt in the mountains on the west coast of the Arabian Gulf; and Cushites, i.e., Ethiopians. The Libyans and Cushites are mentioned in Nahum 3:9 also as auxiliaries of the Egyptians.