2 Chronicleschapter 12
16 verses · Ezra, by tradition · 450 to 400 BC · History
After Rehoboam had established his sovereignty and royal power, he and all Israel with him forsook the Law of the LORD.
Introduction
Ezra, by tradition, History, 2 Chronicles Overview.
This chapter was written for a people who served a foreign empire and wondered what their service meant. Tradition gives the book to Ezra. It records an Egyptian invasion that is also carved on a temple wall in Egypt. Listen for the reason the prophet gives for the disaster and for what changes when the leaders respond. Notice the one detail about shields, which the writer uses as a picture of the whole reign. The chapter ends with a verdict on Rehoboam that names what was missing in him.
Context
- Who
- A people serving a foreign empire and wondering what it meant
- What
- The invasion of Judah by Shishak of Egypt, the prophet Shemaiah's word, the leaders' humbling, and the summary of Rehoboam's reign.
- Where
- Jerusalem under an Egyptian army, after the fortified towns of Judah had fallen.
- When
- The fifth year of Rehoboam, about 925 BC.
- Why
- To show that forsaking the LORD brings judgment, that humbling oneself before Him brings mercy, and that serving Him differs from serving the kings of the earth.
Historical context
Shishak is Shoshenq I, the founder of Egypt's twenty-second dynasty, and this campaign is one of the best outside-confirmed events in Kings and Chronicles. On the great gateway he built at Karnak, Shoshenq carved a list of the towns his army took in Israel, Judah and the southern desert. Scores of names stand in rows, with the god Amun presenting them to him.
Show the rest of the historical context, 3 more paragraphs
The force described is a coalition. Chariots, horsemen, and troops of Libyans, Sukkites and Cushites. Egypt's armies of this period were built largely from Libyan units and from Nubian troops of the south, which is what the text names.
The tribute is paid out of the temple and the palace. The gold shields Solomon had made were taken, and Rehoboam replaced them with bronze. The detail that the guard carried them and returned them to the guardroom shows the ceremony continuing unchanged with cheaper metal, and that one substitution is the writer's picture of the whole reign.
Shemaiah's message states the principle in one sentence. You have forsaken Me, and therefore I have forsaken you into the hand of Shishak. When the leaders humble themselves the sentence is reduced rather than cancelled, so Jerusalem is spared and Judah becomes Shishak's servant.
Significance
The reason God gives for reducing rather than cancelling is the most useful line in the chapter. They will become his servants, so that they may learn the difference between serving Me and serving the kings of other lands.
Show the rest of the significance, 1 more paragraph
That was written down for people paying taxes to Persia. Serving a foreign king was a school rather than a proof of abandonment, and the subject of the school was the difference between one yoke and every other.
This chapter in Jewish lifeWhat this chapter is in Jewish life and reading.
What is done
2 Chronicles is not read in the synagogue. Chronicles stands among the Writings in the Hebrew canon rather than among the Prophets the Haftarah is drawn from. The division into two books came in through the Greek. The book therefore carries neither a weekly Torah portion nor a Haftarah, and this site's own reading table records the same for all thirty-six chapters. Shishak's invasion and Rehoboam's humbling are met in the commentary and the midrash instead, and the rest of this card is drawn from them.
How it is read
The turn of the chapter is the word for humbling, and Rashi treats the repetition in the verse as ordinary style. Scripture repeats a word when it has interrupted itself, and he gives two other places where it does so (Rashi on II Chronicles 12:7:1, the Judaica Press Tanach with Rashi, CC-BY). The same habit explains why the wrath turning away is reported late. It should have stood immediately after the march of Shishak, and it waits only because the copper shields had to be mentioned first (Rashi on II Chronicles 12:12:1).
The sentence passed on Judah he reads as a lesson in service rather than a punishment alone. They will be slaves of Shishak and of the other nations. Rashi sets the two services against each other in one line. "When they repent, no ruler of the kings of the nations will be over them" (Rashi on II Chronicles 12:8:2). Abandoning the Law brings servitude to the kings of the lands instead (Rashi on II Chronicles 12:8:1 and 12:8:2). The choice on this reading is never between service and freedom, but between whom a people serves.
The copper shields draw two readings. The first is a matter of storage. They were taken from the house of the forest of Lebanon and given to the chiefs of the runners, who returned them to their own chamber (Rashi on II Chronicles 12:10:1). The second Rashi heard from his teacher. Rehoboam feared the king of Egypt and the king of Israel, so the shields were carried before him (Rashi on II Chronicles 12:10:1).
Two notes are about the record itself. The king's strength at Jerusalem he explains by his age, and then works the arithmetic out loud. Rehoboam was forty-one at his accession, and he was a year old when David died, because Solomon reigned forty years and Rehoboam was born before that reign began (Rashi on II Chronicles 12:13:1). The mention of the chosen city he reads as reproach rather than praise, since the people deteriorated and caused the Shechinah to leave them (Rashi on II Chronicles 12:13:2). At the fifteenth verse he explains where the Chronicler's material came from. Every prophet wrote his own book of what he prophesied, and Rashi proves it from the next chapter, where the deeds of Abijah stand in the book of Iddo. That book "was called midrash" (Rashi on II Chronicles 12:15:1).
Radak, Metzudat David and Malbim comment across this chapter as well, and one note of Rashi himself is carried without text. The corpus gives the reason in each case, that Sefaria holds no English version of the ref, so they stand here cited and unquoted. Malbim on II Chronicles 12:1:1, 12:2:1, 12:3:1, 12:5:1, 12:7:1, 12:10:1 and 12:14:1. Metzudat David on II Chronicles 12:2:1, 12:7:1, 12:8:1, 12:11:1, 12:12:1 and 12:14:1. Radak on II Chronicles 12:11:1 and 12:15:1. Rashi on II Chronicles 12:11:1.
What the rabbis say
The corpus carries nineteen rabbinic locators for this chapter and the text of none. Each is cited and linked here rather than quoted. The first verse, where the kingdom is established and the law forsaken, carries five. They are Mekhilta DeRabbi Shimon Ben Yochai 17:8, Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael, Tractate Amalek 1:9, Midrash Tanchuma, Beshalach 25:4, Seder Olam Rabbah 16:2 and Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 263:1.
The invasion draws the next run. The second verse carries Shishak coming up against Jerusalem in the fifth year. It draws Sifrei Aggadah on Esther, Midrash Abba Guryon 1:3, Sifrei Aggadah on Esther, Midrash Panim Acherim, Version I 1:5, and Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 154:1. The sixth, where the princes and the king humble themselves and say the LORD is righteous, carries Eikhah Rabbah 3:14 and Jerusalem Talmud Taanit 2:1:8, and Taanit is the tractate of the fast day. The seventh carries Seder Olam Rabbah 20:2, and the eighth carries Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Beshalach 20:2.
The treasures carried off draw five more. The ninth verse carries the treasures of the house of the LORD and the golden shields Solomon had made. Two of its five are Avot DeRabbi Natan, Recension B 47:2 and Midrash Mishlei 23:1. Three stand in the Otzar Midrashim. They are Otzar Midrashim, Chuppah of Eliyahu, Chuppat Eliyahu Rabbah 107, Otzar Midrashim, Midrash Shelosha v'Arba'ah 1:3, and Otzar Midrashim, Pesikta, Pesikta Chadata 19.
The close carries the last two. The thirteenth verse, the chosen city and the name of the king's mother, carries Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 87:1. The fifteenth, the books of Shemaiah and Iddo, carries Jerusalem Talmud Sanhedrin 11:5:4. What each of them teaches is a saying of the rabbis, and is reported as theirs wherever this site quotes one. The quotations wait on a fetch that carries the text.
Sources: Rashi, Rashi on II Chronicles 12:7:1 to 12:15:1, eight kept notes, The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg, CC-BY; Radak, Radak on II Chronicles 12:11:1 and 12:15:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; Metzudat David, Metzudat David on II Chronicles 12:2:1, 12:7:1, 12:8:1, 12:11:1, 12:12:1 and 12:14:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; Malbim, Malbim on II Chronicles 12:1:1 to 12:14:1, seven refs cited because the corpus carries no English text; The Sefaria corpus, scripts/data/sources/sefaria/2-chronicles/12.json, the 19 Talmud and Midrash locators of this chapter; This site's reading table, src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts, probed in this lane: 2-chronicles parashot total 0, haftarah uses total 0, hasSynagogueReading true for 0 of 36 chapters, festivalReadingForBook null.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
Forsaking the law, Judah is left to Shishak
forsook the Law of the LORD: The chapter opens on the verb the book measures every reign by, reversed: “he and all Israel with him forsook the Law of the LORD”. Three years earlier 11:16-17 had Rehoboam walking in the way of David and Solomon. The epitaph at 12:14 answers this opening verse directly.
2 Chronicles 12:1
“During the first three years of his reign his royal influence was exerted in the encouragement of the true religion. Security and ease led to religious decline, which, in the fourth year, ended in open apostasy. The example of the court was speedily followed by his subjects, for "all Israel was with him," that is, the people in his own kingdom.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
2 Chronicles 12:2-4
Shishak attacks in Rehoboam's fifth year, and Chronicles states the cause, “because they had been unfaithful to the LORD”. With “1,200 chariots, 60,000 horsemen” come “Libyans, Sukkites, and Cushites,” troops Kings never names. The fortified cities Rehoboam built in chapter 11 fall, and Shishak reaches Jerusalem.
2 Chronicles 12:2
“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 1Ki 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.''”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Chronicles 12:2
“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.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Barnes calls the 1,200 chariots of Shishak king of Egypt an ordinary figure, and notes that Ben-hadad later came with as many against Shalmaneser II. The Libyans were an African people whom Egypt called Libu. Wesley reads Sukkites as tent dwellers, while Barnes finds the name nowhere else.
2 Chronicles 12:3
“Lubims - A people of Africk bordering upon Egypt. Sukkiims - A people living in tents, as the word signifies; and such there were not far from Egypt, both in Africk and in Arabia.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
captured the fortified cities of Judah: These were the cities Rehoboam fortified and filled with his sons. Gill says Shishak took them without opposition and reached Jerusalem with no army to meet him. He compares the conquests of Sesostris, whom Manetho describes taking countries without a battle.
2 Chronicles 12:4
“And he took the fenced cities which pertained to Judah,.... Which Rehoboam had lately built, and placed his sons in them, 2Ch 11:5, these he took without any opposition: and came to Jerusalem; there being no army to oppose him; and so Sesostris took many countries without fighting, and among the rest Phoenicia, as Manetho (o) relates, in which Judea may be included. (o) Apud Joseph. contr. Apion. l. 1. c. 15.”
2 Chronicles 12:5-6
Then Shemaiah the prophet came to Rehoboam: Shemaiah the prophet is the Chronicler's own witness, absent from the parallel in 1 Kings. His word is measure for measure: “You have forsaken Me; therefore, I have forsaken you into the hand of Shishak”. The leaders and the king humble themselves and say, “The LORD is righteous”.
The king and the leaders humbled themselves, and Clarke observes that 1 Kings 14:25-29 has no record of this humbling. He holds it was the one reason Jerusalem and the house of David survived an army they could never have resisted. Gill pictures sackcloth, fasting and prayer beside the confession.
2 Chronicles 12:6
“Whereupon the princes of Israel and the king humbled themselves,.... Both by words acknowledging their sins, and the justice of God, and by deeds, perhaps putting on sackcloth, as was usual on such occasions, and betaking themselves to fasting and prayer: and they said, the Lord is righteous; in giving them up into the hand of their enemies, seeing they had forsaken him, and sinned against him.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Chronicles 12:6
“Whereupon the princes of Israel and the king humbled themselves - This is not mentioned in the parallel place, 1Ki 14:25-29: this was the sole reason why Jerusalem was not at this time totally destroyed, and the house of David entirely cut off; for they were totally incapable of defending themselves against this innumerable host.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 Chronicles 12:7-8
When the LORD saw that they had humbled themselves: The LORD sees the humbling and answers through the prophet: “They have humbled themselves; I will not destroy them, but will soon grant them deliverance”. The promise of 7:14, humbling followed by hearing, here works inside one court scene.
2 Chronicles 12:7
“Some deliverance - I will give some stop to the course of my wrath, which was ready to be poured forth upon them to their utter destruction. Those who acknowledge God is righteous in afflicting them, shall find him gracious.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
2 Chronicles 12:7
“Compare the repentance of Ahab (marginal reference) and that of the Ninevites Jon 3:5-10 which produced similar revocations of divine decrees that had been pronounced by the mouth of a prophet. Some deliverance - Rather, “deliverance for a short space” (see the margin). Because of the repentance, the threat cf immediate destruction was withdrawn; but the menace was still left impending, that the people might be the more moved to contrition and amendment.”
they will become his servants: Shishak made them his servants so that they might learn the difference between serving the LORD and serving kings. Gill explains the servitude as tribute, and Spurgeon, preaching on this verse, holds Israel bound to serve the LORD by election, calling and covenant. Clarke calls serving the LORD perfect freedom.
2 Chronicles 12:8
“Nevertheless, they shall be his servants,.... tributaries to the king of Egypt: that they may know my service, and the service of the kingdoms of the countries; the difference between them, how easy the one, which they might perform without taxes and tributes, and how hard and heavy the other, through the exactions and exorbitant demands of those to whom they became subjects.”
2 more voices on this verse
2 Chronicles 12:8
“They shall be his servants - They shall be preserved, and serve their enemies, that they may see the difference between the service of God and that of man. While they were pious, they found the service of the Lord to be perfect freedom; when they forsook the Lord, they found the fruit to be perfect bondage. A sinful life is both expensive and painful.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 Chronicles 12:8
“THE people of God had left their God and He had left them, so that Shishak, the king of Egypt, came against them, and though the Lord had respect to their humble prayer and would not suffer Shishak to destroy Jerusalem, yet He brought them into subjection to the Egyptian king. Our text tells us the reason for this servitude—"They shall be his servants; that they may know My service, and the service of the kingdoms of the countries." Beloved Friends, the children of Israel were bound to the service of God.”
Charles Spurgeon · written before 1892 · The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Sermon No. 2306: “Servitude Or Service—Which?” (lightly modernized text, CCEL edition)Particular Baptist
Gold shields carried off and replaced with brass
2 Chronicles 12:9-11
So King Shishak of Egypt attacked Jerusalem: Shishak seizes the treasures of the temple and the palace, “He took everything, including the gold shields that Solomon had made”. Rehoboam makes “bronze shields in their place,” as 1 Kings 14:27-28 records. The gold of Solomon's glory is answered in bronze, and the text states the decline in objects.
2 Chronicles 12:9
“Took away the treasures - Such a booty as never had before, nor has since, come into the hand of man. The shields of gold - These shields were the mark of the king’s body-guard: it was in imitation of this Eastern magnificence that Alexander constituted his Argyraspides, adorned with the spoils taken from Darius. See Quintus Curtius, lib. viii., c. 5, et alibi.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 more voices on this verse
2 Chronicles 12:9
“So Shishak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem,.... The Vulgate Latin version is,"departed from Jerusalem,''as he did, having taken it, and spoiled it of its riches, and settled a yearly tax on the inhabitants of the land; of this, and the two following verses; see Gill on 1Ki 14:26. 1Ki 14:27. 1Ki 14:28.”
2 Chronicles 12:9
“This was what he came for. David and Solomon, who walked in the way of God, filled the treasuries, one by war and the other by merchandise; but Rehoboam, who forsook the law of God, emptied them.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
made bronze shields in their place: The bronze shields were copies of the gold shields of Solomon that Shishak had just carried off. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown call them insignia of inferior metal, made so that state ceremony could go on. The captains kept them close.
2 Chronicles 12:10
“Those splendid insignia having been plundered by the Egyptian conqueror, others were made of inferior metal and kept in the guard room of the palace, to be ready for use; as, notwithstanding the tarnished glory of the court, the old state etiquette was kept up on public and solemn occasions.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
entered the house of the LORD: The shields came out only when the king went up to the house of the LORD. Each time the guards returned them to the guardroom. Clarke calls such shields the mark of the king's bodyguard, and says Alexander formed his Argyraspides in imitation of this Eastern display.
Because Rehoboam humbled himself: Humbling turns wrath from destruction to discipline, “the anger of the LORD turned away from him”. The verse adds a clause the parallel in Kings lacks: “Indeed, conditions were good in Judah”. The treasury was stripped in the verses before, so the clause speaks of what survived the invasion.
A reign summed up: he prepared not his heart to seek the LORD
Thus King Rehoboam established himself in Jerusalem: The regnal formula, seventeen years in Jerusalem, “the city the LORD had chosen from all the tribes of Israel in which to put His Name”. It closes this chapter, after the humbling and recovery of verse 12, where 1 Kings 14:21 opens with it. His mother is Naamah the Ammonite.
2 Chronicles 12:13
“Was one and forty years old - Houbigant thinks he was but sixteen years old when he began to reign; and brings many and forcible arguments to prove that the number forty-one must be a mistake. That he was young when he came to the throne, is evident from his consulting the young men that were brought up with him, 2Ch 10:8, 2Ch 10:10. They were young men then; and if he was brought up with them, he must have been young then also.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
2 Chronicles 12:13
“Israel was very much disgraced and weakened by being divided into two kingdoms; yet the kingdom of Judah, having both the temple and the royal city, both the house of David and the house of Aaron, might have done very well if they had continued in the way of their duty; but here we have all out of order there.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Rehoboam did evil because he did not set his heart to seek the LORD: The epitaph is one clause, “Rehoboam did evil because he did not set his heart to seek the LORD”. It answers 11:16, where the faithful from the north “had set their hearts to seek the LORD their God”. The king who forsook the Law is judged by that one test.
2 Chronicles 12:14
“And he did evil,.... Committed idolatry, relapsed into that, his humiliation not being hearty and sincere: because he prepared not his heart to seek the Lord; by prayer and supplication, and by an attendance on the service and worship of God; for though he did these things outwardly, yet not sincerely and heartily; he did not engage in them seriously and in good earnest, with affection and fervour.”
2 Chronicles 12:15-16
the records of Shemaiah the Prophet and of Iddo the Seer: The chapter names its sources, “the records of Shemaiah the Prophet and of Iddo the Seer concerning the genealogies”. Iddo's writing is named again at 13:22 for Abijah's reign. War between Rehoboam and Jeroboam “throughout their days” is stated without a battle described, as at 1 Kings 14:30.
2 Chronicles 12:15
“Concerning genealogies - “In the book of the genealogy of the family of David.” - Targum.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
2 Chronicles 12:15
“Now the acts of Rehoboam,.... Of these two verses; see Gill on 1Ki 14:29. 1Ki 14:30. 1Ki 14:31.”
Rehoboam rested with his fathers: Henry observes that Judah kept both the temple and the royal city, the house of David and the house of Aaron. With those, he says, it might have done well had it kept to its duty. Abijah inherits that advantage and the war with Jeroboam.
2 Chronicles 12:16
“Abijah his son - Concerning the many varieties in this king’s name, see the note on 1Ki 14:31.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
How this psalm is built
The form: Regnal narrative built around a prophetic confrontation, with the accession formula placed at the close rather than the opening, as Keil classes it.
The patterns in this chapter
| Device | What it does | Where to see it |
|---|---|---|
| They humbled themselves | The verb turns the chapter and it is repeated at each turn. The officers and the king humble themselves at verse 6, the LORD sees it at verse 7, the word comes back through the same prophet, and verse 12 states the result. Three chapters earlier the same sequence stood as a promise in the night answer of 7:14, and here it runs as an account of one week.John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament, 1765, on 2 Chronicles 12:7. | 2 Chronicles 12:6, 2 Chronicles 12:7, 2 Chronicles 12:12 |
| Gold answered in bronze | Verse 9 has Shishak take the gold shields Solomon made, and verse 10 has Rehoboam replace them with bronze. The ceremony continues unchanged at verse 11, the guard carrying them in and returning them to the guardroom. The decline is stated in objects rather than in a verdict. 2 Chronicles 9:15 and 9:16 record the making of the gold ones, in the years when silver counted for nothing.Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710, on 2 Chronicles 12:9 to 11. | 2 Chronicles 12:9, 2 Chronicles 12:10, 2 Chronicles 12:11 |
| The army named by its parts | Verse 3 gives the chariots, the horsemen and then the troops by people: Libyans, Sukkites and Cushites. Albert Barnes reads the list as the composition of an Egyptian force of the period, which drew its units from Libya and from Nubia to the south. Kings names none of the three.Albert Barnes, Notes on the Old Testament, 1832 to 1869, on 2 Chronicles 12:3. | 2 Chronicles 12:3 |
| Forsaken answered with forsaken | Verse 1 says the king and all Israel forsook the law of the LORD, and verse 5 has Shemaiah bring the same verb back in the sentence against them. The measure is exact and the prophet states it as a measure. The epitaph at verse 14 uses the seeking verb instead, and says Rehoboam did evil because he did not set his heart on it.Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710, on 2 Chronicles 12:1. | 2 Chronicles 12:1, 2 Chronicles 12:5, 2 Chronicles 12:14 |
The historical value
12 more paragraphs on the patterns
This is one of the best attested events in either book. Shishak is Shoshenq I, the founder of Egypt's twenty-second dynasty, and his own record of the campaign stands carved on the Bubastite Portal at Karnak, dated about 925 BC. The relief lists the towns his army took, in rows, with the god Amun presenting them to the king. The site's dossier for this book carries the find and states its bearing on 12:2.
The composition of the force in verse 3 agrees with what is known of Egyptian armies of the period, which drew heavily on Libyan units and on Nubian troops from the south. K. A. Kitchen's assessment of the Egyptian evidence is the work the dossier cites for the reliability question.
The chapter adds what the Egyptian record has no reason to carry. The relief lists conquests. Verse 7 says the campaign stopped short of destroying Jerusalem, and gives the reason as the humbling of the king and his officers.
The debated concept
The last clause of verse 12 is read two ways, and the difference is a real one.
The Berean text reads that conditions were good in Judah, which takes the clause as circumstance: the kingdom kept something after the treasury was stripped and the servitude began.
Matthew Henry records the other reading, carried in the margin of older editions, that good things were found in Judah. On that reading the clause is about people rather than circumstance, good ministers and good families whom the calamity made better. Keil reads the clause with the same restraint, as a statement that a remnant of piety survived the invasion.
The two readings agree that the clause is a qualification rather than a claim that Judah escaped. They differ over what was good, and the row keeps both.
The divine connection
The night answer of 2 Chronicles 7:14 is the theological centre of this book, and this chapter is the first place it runs as a story. The sequence is the same in both places and in the same order: the people humble themselves, the LORD sees, and the sentence is reduced.
What the chapter adds is the limit. Verse 8 says they will still become Shishak's servants, so that they may learn the difference between serving the LORD and serving the kings of other lands. Charles Spurgeon preached the verse on exactly that point, taking the servitude as a school rather than a reprieve.
The claim is stated at the text's own level. Jerusalem stood, the treasury was emptied, and the book says why both things are true.
Keep studying
Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The form and classifications
Carl Friedrich Keil, The Books of the Chronicles, 1872, on 2 Chronicles 12:13, which notes the summary standing here where 1 Kings 14:21 sets it before the account; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament, 1765, on 2 Chronicles 12:7 and the site's own guide to this book, src/components/book/guides/2-chronicles/Book2ChroniclesGuide.tsx, the LEDGER table, Rehoboam at 10:1 to 12:16.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes; Charles Spurgeon; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Gill; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament; Keil, The Books of the Chronicles and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.