2 Chronicles 3-11

The Facts (Chapter number: Verse)

2 Chronicles 3 - No mention of any women.

2 Chronicles 4 - No mention of any women.

2 Chronicles 5 - No mention of any women.

2 Chronicles 6 - No mention of any women.

2 Chronicles 7 - No mention of any women.

8:11 - Solomon brought Pharaoh's daughter from the city of David to the house that he had built for her, for he said, "My wife shall not live in the house of King David of Israel for the places to which the ark of the Lord have come are holy."

9:1-9 - The Queen of Sheba heard of Solomon and his infinite wisdom so she went to Solomon to test him with hard questions. She came to Jerusalem with many gifts for him and once she was with him she told him all that was on her mind. Solomon answered all of her questions and there was nothing he could not answer. When the queen had observed all of Solomon's wisdom, the house he'd built, his food, the seating of his officials and his burnt offerings there was no more spirit in her. So she said to the king, "The report was true that I heard in my own land of your accomplishments and of your wisdom, but I did not believe it until I came and my own eyes had seen it. Not even half had been told to me; your wisdom and prosperity far surpass the report that I have heard. Happy are your wives! Happy are these your servants, who continually attend you and hear your wisdom. Blessed be the Lord your God who set you on the throne of Israel. Because the Lord loved Israel forever, he has made you king to execute justice and righteousness." The queen of Sheba gave Solomon many great treasures, and Solomon gave to the queen every desire that she expressed as well as things out of Solomon's royal bounty. Then she returned to her own land with her servants.

2 Chronicles 10 - No mention of any women.

11:18-22 - Rehoboam took as his wife Mahalath daughter of Jerimoth son of David, and of Abigail daughter of Eliab son of Jesse. She bore him sons: Jeush, Shemariah and Zaham. After he took Maacah daughter of Absalom, who bore him Abijah, Attai, Ziza and Shelomith. Rehoboam loved Maacah daughter of Absalom more than his other wives and concubines (he took eighteen wives and sixty concubines and became the father of twenty-eight sons and sixty daughters). Rehoboam appointed Abijah son of Maacah as chief prince among his brothers, for he intended to make him king.

My Comments

Holy crap! Finally some women! Something to talk about! Even if two of the three are basically repeats it's still something.

There is a bit more detail added to the bit about pharaoh's daughter which answers a lot of the questions I had about it the first time around. Originally we didn't get any information as to WHY Solomon put pharaoh's daughter in her own house, but now we know it was because for some reason she couldn't be in a place made holy by the ark of Lord. So, yeah, much more insulting than it originally looked. Did he have to move all his wives out of the city then? Or was it just pharaoh's daughter for some reason? Was she too unclean to be around a holy place because she was a women or because she was foreign? Maybe a bit of both?

Either way, bet it was totally awesome to know that the reason you had to live outside the city and away from the guy you married because you would profane a holy place.

And by totally awesome I mean not totally awesome at all.

And then we get another bit of the competition that seems inherent in polygamous marriages in the Bible. Rehoboam had all these wives but favored one over all the others, so much so that he put her son above all the rest. It isn't stated up front whether Abijah was the first born of his sons, so there is a good chance that Abijah was put in front of the line to be king disregarding the actual order of the sons. Bet it made all of his other wives feel really special to have their sons pushed aside like that.

Also note: 18 wives and 60 concubines?!?! WTF?!

Friday: 2 Chronicles ?-?