11 Now whereas my father did lade you with a heavy yoke, I will add to your yoke: my father chastised you with whips, but I [will chastise you] with scorpions.
The Egyptians ruthlessly made the children of Israel serve, and they made their lives bitter with hard service, in mortar and in brick, and in all manner of service in the field, all their service, in which they ruthlessly made them serve.
Pharaoh said, "Behold, the people of the land are now many, and you make them rest from their burdens." The same day Pharaoh commanded the taskmasters of the people, and their officers, saying, "You shall no longer give the people straw to make brick, as before. Let them go and gather straw for themselves. The number of the bricks, which they made before, you require from them. You shall not diminish anything of it, for they are idle; therefore they cry, saying, 'Let us go and sacrifice to our God.' Let heavier work be laid on the men, that they may labor therein; and don't let them pay any attention to lying words."
Go, and tell Hananiah, saying, Thus says Yahweh: You have broken the bars of wood; but you have made in their place bars of iron. For thus says Yahweh of Hosts, the God of Israel: I have put a yoke of iron on the neck of all these nations, that they may serve Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon; and they shall serve him: and I have given him the animals of the field also.
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Commentary on 2 Chronicles 10 Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
CHAPTER 10
2Ch 10:1-15. Rehoboam Refusing the Old Men's Good Counsel.
1. Rehoboam went to Shechem—(See on 1Ki 12:1). This chapter is, with a few verbal alterations, the same as in 1Ki 12:1-19.
3. And they sent—rather, "for they had sent," &c. This is stated as the reason of Jeroboam's return from Egypt.
7. If thou be kind to this people, and please them, and speak good words to them—In the Book of Kings [1Ki 12:7], the words are, "If thou wilt be a servant unto this people, and wilt serve them." The meaning in both is the same, namely, If thou wilt make some reasonable concessions, redress their grievances, and restore their abridged liberties, thou wilt secure their strong and lasting attachment to thy person and government.
15-17. the king hearkened not unto the people, for the cause was of God—Rehoboam, in following an evil counsel, and the Hebrew people, in making a revolutionary movement, each acted as free agents, obeying their own will and passions. But God, who permitted the revolt of the northern tribes, intended it as a punishment of the house of David for Solomon's apostasy. That event demonstrates the immediate superintendence of His providence over the revolutions of kingdoms; and thus it affords an instance, similar to many other striking instances that are found in Scripture, of divine predictions, uttered long before, being accomplished by the operation of human passions, and in the natural course of events.