1 Kings 14:21

THE ACCOUNT OF REHOBOAM'S EVIL REIGN IN JUDAH

"And Rehoboam, son of Solomon, reigned in Judah. Rehoboam was forty and one years old when he began to reign, and he reigned seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city which Jehovah had chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, to put his name there: and his mother's name was Naamah the Ammonitess. And Judah did that which was evil in the sight of Jehovah, and they provoked him to jealousy with their sins which they committed, above all that their fathers had done. For they also built them high places, and pillars, and Asherim on every high hill, and under every green tree; and there were also Sodomites in the land: they did according to all the abominations of the nations which Jehovah drove out before the children of Israel."

Little comment is needed here. Rehoboam was an evil king just like his father, and he did absolutely nothing to restrain the wickedness of the people who followed the style of idolatry with their high places and Asherim, just as their kinsmen in northern Israel were doing under the encouragement of Jeroboam. In short, all Israel was rapidly descending into the very same idolatry that was practiced by the Canaanites whom God drove out before them. The prophet Ezekiel charged that the children of Israel actually became worse than Sodom and Gomorrah (Ezekiel 16:47-52). That horrible decline was stimulated and aggravated by the actions of Jeroboam.