2 Chronicles12chapter 12

Shishak is Shoshenq I, the founder of Egypt's twenty-second dynasty, and this campaign is one of the best outside-confirmed events in the books of 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, in rows, with the god Amun presenting them to him.

The force described is a coalition: chariots, horsemen, and troops of Libyans, Sukkiim, and Cushites. Egypt's armies of this period were built largely from Libyan units and Nubian troops from the south, which is exactly 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 — and the detail that the guard carried them and returned them to the guard chamber shows the ceremony went on unchanged with cheaper metal. That single 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 left you in the hand of Shishak. When the leaders humble themselves, the sentence is reduced rather than cancelled — Jerusalem is spared, but Judah becomes Shishak's servant.