2 Chronicles 10 · a question people ask
If it was "brought about by God", did Rehoboam really choose?
The chapter says both. Rehoboam chose: "he abandoned the counsel of the old men which they had given him, and took counsel with the young men" (10:8), and "The king answered them roughly" (10:13). And the chapter says why he didn't listen: "for it was brought about by God, that the LORD might establish his word" (10:15). 1 Kings tells it the same way: "for it was a thing brought about from the LORD" (1 Kings 12:15). Other verses hold the same two things together. Joseph told his brothers, "you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good" (Genesis 50:20), and Peter said that Jesus was "delivered up by the determined counsel and foreknowledge of God" (Acts 2:23). Christians agree that the choice was Rehoboam's and that the LORD's word stood. They explain how the two fit together in two main ways.
How Christians read it
Where Christians differ, Favor sets out the main views side by side and doesn't pick one.
The LORD's hand in the choice itself
Those who read it this way take "it was brought about by God" (10:15) to reach Rehoboam's choice itself, so that what he chose was what the LORD had purposed. They point to "The king’s heart is in the LORD’s hand like the watercourses. He turns it wherever he desires" (Proverbs 21:1), to the LORD's own word in the next chapter, "for this thing is of me" (11:4), and to God "who does all things after the counsel of his will" (Ephesians 1:11).
2 Chronicles 10:15 · Proverbs 21:1 · 2 Chronicles 11:4 · Ephesians 1:11
The LORD working through what people did
Those who read it this way stress the steps the Bible records. The LORD told Solomon why he would tear the kingdom away: "Because this is done by you, and you have not kept my covenant and my statutes" (1 Kings 11:11), and he gave his word to Jeroboam by Ahijah (10:15; 1 Kings 11:31). Rehoboam asked for counsel twice (10:6, 10:9), "abandoned the counsel of the old men" (10:8), and spoke "after the counsel of the young men" (10:14). On this reading the LORD established his word (10:15) through Rehoboam's real choice, as "A man’s heart plans his course, but the LORD directs his steps" (Proverbs 16:9).
1 Kings 11:11 · 1 Kings 11:31 · 2 Chronicles 10:6-9 · 2 Chronicles 10:14-15 · Proverbs 16:9
The verses
“But he abandoned the counsel of the old men which they had given him, and took counsel with the young men who had grown up with him, who stood before him.”
“The king answered them roughly; and King Rehoboam abandoned the counsel of the old men,”
“So the king didn’t listen to the people; for it was brought about by God, that the LORD might establish his word, which he spoke by Ahijah the Shilonite to Jeroboam the son of Nebat.”
“So the king didn’t listen to the people; for it was a thing brought about from the LORD, that he might establish his word, which the LORD spoke by Ahijah the Shilonite to Jeroboam the son of Nebat.”