2 Chronicles10chapter 10

came to Rehoboam on the third day: The third day brings Jeroboam and the people back exactly as arranged, and Rehoboam answers roughly, repeating the young men's threat almost word for word as his own. Verse 13 names the choice a second time, forsook the counsel of the old men, so the narrative brackets the whole scene with the same verdict at its start and its close. Chronicles gives this repetition no more comment than Kings does; the moral is left to stand in the doubled statement rather than an added verdict.

for the cause was of God: Here Chronicles states outright what Samuel and Kings leave the reader to infer from the narrative alone: the king hearkened not unto the people, for the cause was of God, that the Lord might perform his word, which he spake by the hand of Ahijah the Shilonite. That word is the prophecy of 1 Ki 11:29-39, the torn garment and the ten pieces, spoken years before Rehoboam ever opened his mouth to the assembly. Rehoboam's folly and the young men's flattery remain real causes at the human level, and Henry reads the verse as showing that with him are strength and wisdom, both the deceived and the deceiver made use of to serve his purposes, without either cause dissolving the other.

What portion have we in David?: Israel's cry, what portion have we in David, and we have none inheritance in the son of Jesse, borrows the words Sheba raised against David a generation earlier at 2 Sam 20:1, a rebellion the united kingdom survived once already. This time the slogan lands and the tribes go home for good: every man to your tents, O Israel, closes a scene that opened with all Israel gathered to crown a son of David. Commentators note the bitterness of and now, David, see to thine own house, spoken over Solomon's own son as though David himself still sat in Jerusalem to be dismissed.

dwelt in the cities of Judah: Chronicles keeps only the ten tribes' rebellion, Hadoram's stoning, and the flight to Jerusalem, then stops: it never follows Jeroboam north to the golden calves at Bethel and Dan or narrates a single reign of the northern kingdom on its own terms, the material 1 Ki 12:25 through 2 Kings carries at length. The book's stated method is at work in the omission; the throne the Chronicler traces is Judah's and David's, and the northern kings will appear from here only where they touch it. Israel rebelled against the house of David unto this day marks the rupture as still open when the Chronicler writes, generations later, to a remnant left with only Judah's throne to remember.