1 Kings 14:21 returns us to a narrative of Rehoboam in Judah, and Judah is the name by which the southern kingdom is named throughout the rest of the book. The writer uses another stock form of giving basic information about a particular king. The writer tells us how old the king was when he began to reign, how long he reigned, and, for the kings of Judah, who the king’s mother was.
In this case we learn that Rehoboam was forty-one years old at the beginning of his reign. He reigned for seventeen years, and his mother was Naamah, an Ammonite woman. There is a matter added to the formula here that is not usual, for the writer says that he reigned in Jerusalem. In addition, Jerusalem is described as the place where God had determined to place his name out of all the tribes of Israel.
There is perhaps an irony that the writer means us to see. The Lord has particularly chosen Jerusalem to be the centre of his worship in the temple of Solomon, but the mother of the king who reigns there is an idolatrous foreigner. Furthermore, we will see that the influence of the foreign princess was greater than the influence of the temple.
21 Roboam, fils de Salomon, régna sur Juda. Il avait quarante et un ans lorsqu'il devint roi, et il régna dix-sept ans à Jérusalem, la ville que l'Eternel avait choisie sur toutes les tribus d'Israël pour y mettre son nom. Sa mère s'appelait Naama, l'Ammonite.