Seder Olama timeline of Jewish history

Shemaiah the Prophet שמעיה הנביא

stopped a war between the two halves of the people with a single sentence

The split had just happened, and Rehoboam had mustered an army from Judah and Benjamin — a hundred and eighty thousand picked men — to take the kingdom back. The word came to Shemaiah the man of God before the army marched: say to Rehoboam and to all the house of Judah: do not go up and do not fight against your brothers, the children of Israel; return every man to his house, for this thing is from Me.

And then a line that is rare in Scripture: "and they obeyed the word of the LORD and turned back." There was no civil war that year. What happened later under Abijah happened without that prohibition in force.

Shemaiah appears a second time in the fifth year, when Shishak comes against the land. He brings a word that sounds like a verdict: "you have abandoned Me, and so I abandon you into the hand of Shishak." The officers and the king humble themselves and say, "the LORD is just." Then comes the softening: you will not be destroyed, but you shall become his servants — "that they may know what it is to serve Me and what it is to serve the kingdoms of the earth." Jerusalem stood; the treasures went.

Chronicles names Shemaiah's records among the sources for Rehoboam's reign.

On the timeline

Sources

Tanakh

  • Melachim I 12:22–24 — “do not fight against your brothers” — and the army turned back
  • Divrei HaYamim II 12:5–8 — the word during Shishak's invasion and the officers' humbling
  • Divrei HaYamim II 12:15 — Shemaya's records as a source for Rechavam

Basis: stated in the Tanakh.

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