1 Kings 14:7

14:7-20 Whether we keep an account of God's mercies to us or not, he does; and he will set them in order before us, if we are ungrateful, to our greater confusion. Ahijah foretells the speedy death of the child then sick, in mercy to him. He only in the house of Jeroboam had affection for the true worship of God, and disliked the worship of the calves. To show the power and sovereignty of his grace, God saves some out of the worst families, in whom there is some good thing towards the Lord God of Israel. The righteous are removed from the evil to come in this world, to the good to come in a better world. It is often a bad sign for a family, when the best in it are buried out of it. Yet their death never can be a loss to themselves. It was a present affliction to the family and kingdom, by which both ought to have been instructed. God also tells the judgments which should come upon the people of Israel, for conforming to the worship Jeroboam established. After they left the house of David, the government never continued long in one family, but one undermined and destroyed another. Families and kingdoms are ruined by sin. If great men do wickedly, they draw many others, both into the guilt and punishment. The condemnation of those will be severest, who must answer, not only for their own sins, but for sins others have been drawn into, and kept in, by them.

Go tell Jeroboam,.... Thy husband: thus saith the Lord God of Israel; so he continued to be, though they had revolted from him: forasmuch as I exalted thee from among the people; the common people, from a low estate in which he was: and made thee prince over my people Israel; so they were when he made them king over them; and there were some among them still that loved the Lord, served and feared him, of which the prophet himself, now speaking, was an instance.

(7, 8) I exalted thee. —There is throughout a close allusion to Ahijah’s prophecy ( 1Kings 11:31 ; 1Kings 11:37-38 ), which promised Jeroboam “a sure house, like that of David,” on condition of the obedience of David. The sin of Jeroboam lay in this—that he had had a full probation, with unlimited opportunities, and had deliberately thrown it away, in the vain hope of making surer the kingdom which God’s promise had already made sure. The lesson is, indeed, a general one. The resolution to succeed at all hazards, striking out new ways, with no respect for time-honoured laws and principles, is in all revolutions the secret of immediate success and ultimate disaster. But in the Scripture history, here as elsewhere, we are permitted to see the working of God’s moral government of the world, unveiled in the inspired declarations of His prophetic messenger.

3-11. And take with thee ten loaves, and cracknels, and a cruse of honey, and go to him—This was a present in unison with the peasant character she assumed. Cracknels are a kind of sweet seed-cake. The prophet was blind, but having received divine premonition of the pretended countrywoman's coming, he addressed her as the queen the moment she appeared, apprised her of the calamities which, in consequence of the ingratitude of Jeroboam, his apostasy, and outrageous misgovernment of Israel, impended over their house, as well as over the nation which too readily followed his idolatrous innovations.

Verse 7. - Go, tell Jeroboam, Thus saith the Lord Cod of Israel, Forasmuch as I exalted thee from among the people [compare 2 Samuel 12:8 ; Psalm 78:70 ; 1 Kings 16:2 ], and made thee prince over my people Israel. [God still claims dominion over Israel, despite the schism. They are still His people, and He is still their God], 1 Kings 14:7

The saying was as follows: "Therefore, because thou hast exalted thyself from the people, and I have made thee prince over my people Israel (cf., 1 Kings 11:31 ), ... but thou hast not been as my servant David, who kept my commandments...(cf., 1 Kings 11:34 ), and hast done worse than all who were before thee (judices nimirum et duces Israelis - Cler.), and hast gone and hast made thyself other gods (contrary to the express command in Exodus 20:2-3 ), ... and hast cast me behind thy back: therefore I bring misfortune upon the house of Jeroboam," etc. The expression, to cast God behind the back, which only occurs here and in Ezekiel 23:35 , denotes the most scornful contempt of God, the strict opposite of "keeping God before the eyes and in the heart." בּקיר משׁתּין, every male person; see at 1 Samuel 25:22 . A synonymous expression is ועזוּב עצוּר, the fettered (i.e., probably the married) and the free (or single); see at Deuteronomy 32:36 . "In Israel," i.e., in the kingdom of the ten tribes. The threat is strengthened by the clause in 1 Kings 14:10 , "and I will sweep out after the house of Jeroboam, as one sweepeth out dung, even to the end," which expresses shameful and utter extermination; and this threat is still further strengthened in 1 Kings 14:11 by the threat added from Deuteronomy 28:26 , that of those cut off not one is to come to the grave, but their bodies are to be devoured by the dogs and birds of prey, - the worst disgrace that could befall the dead.

Instead of wild beasts ( Deuteronomy 28:26 ) the dogs are mentioned here, because in the East they wander out in the streets without owners, and are so wild and ravenous that they even devour corpses (vid., Harmar, Beobachtungen, i. p. 198). לירבעם with ל of relationship, equivalent to of those related to Jeroboam. It is the same in 1 Kings 14:13 .

13 . And all Israel shall mourn for him ] Abijah, though called ‘a child’ in 1 Kings 14:3 ; 1 Kings 14:12 ; 1 Kings 14:17 must have been of such an age as to exhibit qualities that made him beloved of the people. The Hebrew word for ‘child’ in 1 Kings 14:3 ; 1 Kings 14:17 (not in 12) is the same which Solomon uses of himself in 1 Kings 3:7 above. See note there. there is found some good thing toward the Lord ] Out of this expression has grown the Jewish tradition that Abijah endeavoured, contrary to the wish of his father, to encourage the people to go up to Jerusalem to worship, and removed hindrances that had been put in the way of such journeys. This was his goodness toward the Lord.