f m¹ 1-4. Message from Jeroboam by his wife.
n¹ 5,6. Messenger revealed to Ahjah.
m² 7-11. Message from Yahaveh to Jeroboam.
n² 12,13. Messenger to return.
m³ 14-16. Message from Yahaveh.
n³ 17. Messenger returns.about 863 B.C.
1 Kings 14)
1 At that time Abijah the son of Jeroboam fell sick.
2 And Jeroboam said to his wife, “Arise, I pray you, and disguise yourself, that you be not known to be the wife of Jeroboam; and get you to Shiloh (he had no confidence in his own gods. They were only political expedients): behold, there [is] Ahijah the prophet, which told me that [I should be] king over this people.
3 And take with thee ten loaves, and cracknels, and a flask (or bottle) of honey, and go to him: and he shall tell you what shall become of the child.”
4 And Jeroboam's wife did so, and arose, and went to Shiloh, and came to the house of Ahijah. But Ahijah could not see; for his eyes were set by reason of his age (cp. 1 Sam. 4:15. One of 9 afflicted with blindness. See Gen.19:11).
5 And the Lord said to Ahijah, “Behold, the wife of Jeroboam comes to ask a thing of you for her son; for he [is] sick: thus and thus shall you say to her: for it shall be, when she comes in, that she shall feign herself [to be] another [woman].”
6 And it was [so], when Ahijah heard the sound of her feet, as she came in at the entrance, that he said, “Come in, you wife of Jeroboam; why feign you yourself [to be] another? for I [am] sent to you [with] heavy [tidings].
7 Go, tell Jeroboam, ‘Thus says the Lord God of Israel, “Forasmuch as I exalted you from among the People, and made you prince over My People Israel,
8 And tore the kingdom away from the house of David, and gave it to you: and [yet] you have not been as My servant David, who kept My commandments, and who followed Me with all his heart (= mind), to do [that] only [which was] right in My eyes;
9 But has done evil above all that were before you (not merely kings, but all other rulers. No anachronism): for you have gone and made you other gods (Yahaveh does not recognize the calves as being what Jeroboam intended, mere political expedients. See v.2), and molten images, to provoke Me to anger, and have cast Me behind your back:
10 Therefore, behold, I will bring evil upon the house of Jeroboam, and will cut off from Jeroboam him that pisses against the wall (= every male), [and] him that is shut up and left in Israel (the commentators speak of the text being obscure and corrupt. But ‘ãzab is a homonym, meaning: (1) to leave [as in Gen.2:24; 39:6. Neh.5:10. Ps.49:10. Mal.4:1]; and (2) to restore; repair, fortify [as in Neh. 3:8. Ex. 23:5. Deut. 32:36.1 Kings 14:10. 2 Kings 14:26. Jer. 49:25]. Here it means "strengthened and fortified": i.e. they will not escape. Cp. 21:21. 2 Kings 9:8), and will take away the remnant of the house of Jeroboam, according as a man takes away dung, till it be all gone.
11 Him that dies of Jeroboam in the city shall the dogs eat; and him that dies in the field shall the fowls of the air eat: for the Lord has spoken [it].” ’
12 Arise you therefore, get you to your own house: [and] when your feet enter into the city, the child shall die.
13 And all Israel shall mourn for him, and bury him: for he only of Jeroboam shall come to the grave (= burying-place, not sheõl), because in him there is found [some] good thing toward the Lord God of Israel in the house of Jeroboam.
14 Moreover the Lord shall raise him up a king over Israel, who shall cut off the house of Jeroboam that day: but what? even now (here again the text is supposed to be obscure. It is on account of the Figures of speech used: (1) Ellipsis = "But what am I saying 'That day'? Even now has He raised him up". (2) Note the Fig. Amphidiorthõsis = double correction, a correction setting right both hearer and speaker).
15 For the Lord shall smite Israel, [shaking him] as a reed is shaken in the water, and he shall root up Israel out of this good land, which he gave to their fathers, and shall scatter them beyond the river (.e. the Euphrates), because they have made their groves (= Áshêrim. See Deut. 16:21), provoking the Lord to anger.
16 And He shall give Israel up because of the sins of Jeroboam, who did sin, and who made Israel to sin” (first of 21 occ. in these two Books of Kings. #21 = Exceeding sinfulness of sin).
17 And Jeroboam's wife arose, and departed, and came to Tirzah (= delight. Afterward made the capital of Basha [15:21], till Samaria was built by Omri [15:33; 16:8,15,23,24]): [and] when she came to the threshold of the entrance, the child died;
18 And they buried him; and all Israel mourned for him, according to the word of the Lord, which He spoke by the hand of his servant Ahijah the prophet.
19 And the rest of the acts of Jeroboam, how he warred, and how he reigned, behold, they [are] written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel (see 2 Chron.13:3-20).
880 to 858 B.C.
20 And the days which Jeroboam reigned [were] twenty-two years (in 15:25 Nadab reigned 2 years, and began in the second year of Asa, which was the 21st of Jeroboam, so that Nadab's 2 years fall within the time of his father's 22. But from 2 Chron.13:20 we learn that Jeroboam was stricken with a languishing disease, in which time Nadab reigned with him, and died the same year as his father. The number "22" is associated with disorganization and disintegration [= 2 x 11. It is associated with the worst 2 reigns: Jeroboam here;and Ahab in 16:29): and he slept with his fathers (= died. See Deut. 31:16. Said of the wicked Jeroboam and Ahab, as well as of good David and Jehoshaphat), and Nadab his son reigned in his stead.
F¹ P¹ 14:21-31. Rehoboam.
P² 15:1-8. Abijam.
P³ 15:9-24. Asa.
P¹ O 21. Introduction.
P 22-24. Sins. Committed.
P 25-28. Sins. Punished.
O 29-31. Conclusion.
880 to 863 B.C.21 And Rehoboam the son of Solomon reigned in Judah. Rehoboam [was] forty and one years old when he began to reign, and he reigned seventeen years in Jerusalem (#17 = victory), the city which the Lord did choose out of all the tribes of Israel, to put his name there. And his mother's name [was] Naamah (Naamah = loveliness. Mentioned here and in the case of each successive king [cp. 15:10; 22:42. 2 Kings 8:26, &c.]; because the king's character stands connected with the mother; and because of the position which the queen dowager occupied [cp. 2:19; 15:13. Jer. 13:18]) an Ammonitess (twice mention, and in connection with Jerusalem. See v.31).
22 And Judah did evil in the sight of the Lord, and they provoked Him to jealousy with their sins which they had committed, above all that their fathers had done.
23 For they also built them high places, and images, and groves (= Astoreth. See Ex.34:13), on every high hill, and under every green tree.
24 And there were also sodomites in the land (Committers of the sin of Sodom [Gen.19]. Male prostitutes, dedicated to idolatry involving this sin. Connected with the ’Ashtêrah. Cp. Deut.23:17. 1 Kings 15:12; 22:46. 2 Kings 23:7): [and] they did according to all the abominations of the nations which the Lord cast out before the sons of Israel.
25 And it came to pass in the fifth year of king Rehoboam, [that] Shishak king of Egypt (founder of the 22nd dynasty. Campaign described on the wall of the temple in Karnak, near Thebes, with portrait of Rehoboam) came up against Jerusalem (see Judg.1:8):
26 And he took away the treasures of the house of the Lord, and the treasures of the king's house; he even took away all [he could find]: and he took away all the shields of gold which Solomon had made.
27 And king Rehoboam made in their stead brazen shields, and committed [them] to the hands of the chief of the guard, which kept the door of the king's house.
28 And it was [so], when the king went into the house of the Lord, that the guard bare them, and brought them back into the guard chamber.
29 Now the rest of the acts of Rehoboam, and all that he did, [are] they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah?
30 And there was war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam all [their] days (being named first he was probably the aggressor, contrary to 12:24).
31 And Rehoboam slept with his fathers, and was buried with his fathers in the city of David. And his mother's name [was] Naamah an Ammonitess. And Abijah his son reigned in his stead.