And Rehoboam went to Shechem: for all Israel were come to Shechem to make him king.
Rehoboam went to Shechem, х Rªchab`aam (H7346), enlarger of the people; Septuagint, Roboam]. He was the oldest, if not the only, son of Solomon, and had been doubtless designated by his father heir to the throne, as Solomon had been by David. The incident here related took place after the funeral obsequies of the late king, and the period for public mourning had passed. When "all Israel came to make him king" - i:e., the public representatives of all Israel (cf. 1 Samuel 8:4; 1 Samuel 8:7; 1 Samuel 8:10; 1 Samuel 8:19; 1 Samuel 8:21; 1 Samuel 10:17; 1 Samuel 10:19; 1 Samuel 11:14; 1 Samuel 12:1; 2 Samuel 3:21; 2 Samuel 5:1; 2 Samuel 5:3; 2 Samuel 19:43; 2 Samuel 21:1, etc.) - it was not to exercise their old right of election (1 Samuel 10:19-21); because, after God's promise of the perpetual sovereignty to divide posterity, their duty was submission to the authority of the rightful heir; but their object was, when making him king, to renew the conditions and stipulations to which their constitutional kings were subject (1 Samuel 10:25), and to the omission of rehearsing, which, under the special circumstances in which Solomon was made king, they were disposed to ascribe the absolutism of his government. Shechem [Septuagint, Sikima] - an ancient, venerable, and central town-was the place of convocation; and it is evident, if not from the appointment of that place, at least from the tenor of their language, and the concerted presence of Jeroboam, that the people were determined on revolt.