In 2 Chronicles 11, we are told that King Rehoboam had 18 wives in addition to an extra 60 concubines for his amusement — which is actually a surprisingly big step down from his father King Soloman’s numbers. We are also told that Rehoboam had a clear favorite among them: Maakah, the daughter of Absalom.

Unlike Soloman — who married some pretty interesting women, including an Egyptian princess and political matches from various neighboring civilizations — we don’t really have much interesting backstory for Rehoboam’s many wives. Apart from Maakah, his only other named wife is Mahalath, the granddaughter of King David. Out of 88 children — 28 sons and 60 daughters — only his seven children by Maakah and Mahalath are mentioned directly: Jeush, Shemariah, Zaham, Abijah, Attai, Ziza, and Shelomith.

Sadly, Rehoboam’s massive family is not a big part of his story in the Old Testament. The unfortunate king seems to have had a pretty troubled reign in which he spent most of his time trying to put Israel back together again and fending off the raids of a rogue Egyptian pharaoh. What happened to his many offspring is largely a mystery, but we do know that his son Abijah succeeded him as king of Judah.

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