Rehoboam

A small portion of today's reading:

2 Chronicles 11:18-21 "Rehoboam married Mahalath, who was the daughter of David’s son Jerimoth and of Abihail, the daughter of Jesse’s son Eliab. She bore him sons: Jeush, Shemariah and Zaham. Then he married Maakah daughter of Absalom, who bore him Abijah, Attai, Ziza and Shelomith. Rehoboam loved Maakah daughter of Absalom more than any of his other wives and concubines. In all, he had eighteen wives and sixty concubines, twenty-eight sons and sixty daughters."

What the. Whoa. Back this train up. Sometimes I get all bleary eyed when I'm reading about Mr. Weird Name marrying Ms. Weirder Name That Sounds Like A Tropical Bird and having a gaggle of weird named children. Sometimes I glaze over the details of passages like this. Not today. Today it hit me, full force, that this dude--Solomon's son--had 88 children. I mean, math wasn't my strong suit but I know that when you add your 28 sons to your 60 daughters you get two eights.

And that just gives a whole new meaning to the term quiverfull.

Girl: Can I have some money?
Rehoboam: Who are you?
Girl: I'm one of your daughters.
Rehoboam: Who isn't?

Seriously.

This is insane. My mind is blown by a portion of Scripture buried in Chronicles. I can barely keep up with my two children. But then again, I am just one woman and I don't have to share my husband with 17 other wives and 60 concubines. And that, y'all, is just nasty and sick and wrong on so many levels. Apparently he took notes from his father. I'm not even going to get into that here. After all, I try to keep this blog family friendly. We'll just leave it there.

But 88 kids? Imagine feeding 88 mouths. Imagine paying for 60 weddings? Remembering 88 birthdays. Forget that, how about remembering 88 names?

Oy vey!