9 But you have done evil more than any before you, and have made for yourself other gods, and images of metal, moving me to wrath, and turning your back on me.
So this is what the Lord has said: Because you have not kept me in your memory, and because your back has been turned to me, you will even undergo the punishment of your evil designs and your loose ways.
Seeing that you have no desire for my teaching, turning your back on my words.
And he himself made priests for the high places, and for the images of he-goats and oxen which he had made.
So after taking thought the king made two oxen of gold; and he said to the people, You have been going up to Jerusalem long enough; see! these are your gods, O Israel, who took you out of the land of Egypt.
They made a young ox in Horeb, and gave worship to an image of gold. And their glory was changed into the image of an ox, whose food is grass.
Or may we be the cause of envy to the Lord? are we stronger than he?
Then he said to me, Have you seen this, O son of man? is it a small thing to the children of Judah that they do the disgusting things which they are doing here? for they have made the land full of violent behaviour, making me angry again and again: and see, they put the branch to my nose.
And he put out the form of a hand and took me by the hair of my head; and the wind, lifting me up between the earth and the heaven, took me in the visions of God to Jerusalem, to the way into the inner door facing to the north; where was the seat of the image of envy.
Then every man becomes like a beast without knowledge; every gold-worker is put to shame by the image he has made: for his metal image is deceit, and there is no breath in them. They are nothing, a work of error: in the time of their punishment, destruction will overtake them. The heritage of Jacob is not like these; for the maker of all things is his heritage: the Lord of armies is his name.
Will you take the goods of others, put men to death, and be untrue to your wives, and take false oaths, and have perfumes burned to the Baal, and go after other gods which are strange to you; And come and take your place before me in this house, which is named by my name, and say, We have been made safe; so that you may do all these disgusting things?
Those who make a pictured image are all of them as nothing, and the things of their desire will be of no profit to them: and their servants see not, and have no knowledge; so they will be put to shame. Whoever makes a god, makes nothing but a metal image in which there is no profit. Truly, all those who make use of secret arts will be put to shame, and their words of power are only words of men: let them all come forward together; they will all be in fear and be put to shame. The iron-worker is heating the metal in the fire, giving it form with his hammers, and working on it with his strong arm: then for need of food his strength gives way, and for need of water he becomes feeble. The woodworker is measuring out the wood with his line, marking it out with his pencil: after smoothing it with his plane, and making circles on it with his instrument, he gives it the form and glory of a man, so that it may be placed in the house. He has cedars cut down for himself, he takes an oak and lets it get strong among the trees of the wood; he has an ash-tree planted, and the rain gives it growth. Then it will be used to make a fire, so that a man may get warm; he has the oven heated with it and makes bread: he makes a god with it, to which he gives worship: he makes a pictured image out of it, and goes down on his face before it. With part of it he makes a fire, and on the fire he gets meat cooked and takes a full meal: he makes himself warm, and says, Aha! I am warm, I have seen the fire: And the rest of it he makes into a god, even his pictured image: he goes down on his face before it, giving worship to it, and making prayer to it, saying, Be my saviour; for you are my god. They have no knowledge or wisdom; for he has put a veil over their eyes, so that they may not see; and on their hearts, so that they may not give attention. And no one takes note, no one has enough knowledge or wisdom to say, I have put part of it in the fire, and made bread on it; I have had a meal of the flesh cooked with it: and am I now to make the rest of it into a false god? am I to go down on my face before a bit of wood? As for him whose food is the dust of a dead fire, he has been turned from the way by a twisted mind, so that he is unable to keep himself safe by saying, What I have here in my hand is false.
Their images are silver and gold, the work of men's hands. They have mouths, but no voice; they have eyes, but they see not; They have ears, but no hearing; they have noses, but no sense of smell; They have hands without feeling, and feet without power of walking; and no sound comes from their throat. Those who make them are like them; and so is everyone who puts his faith in them.
Again in Horeb you made the Lord angry, and in his wrath he would have put an end to you. When I had gone up into the mountain to be given the stones on which was recorded the agreement which the Lord made with you, I was on the mountain for forty days and forty nights without taking food or drinking water. And the Lord gave me the two stones with writing on them done by the finger of God: on them were recorded all the words which the Lord said to you on the mountain out of the heart of the fire, on the day of the great meeting. Then at the end of forty days and forty nights the Lord gave me those stones, the stones of the agreement. And the Lord said to me, Get up now, and go down quickly from this place; for the people you have taken out of Egypt have given themselves over to evil; they have quickly been turned from the way in which I gave them orders to go; they have made themselves a metal image. And then the Lord said to me, I have seen that this people is stiff-necked: Let me send destruction on them till their very name is cut off; and I will make of you a nation greater and stronger than they. So turning round I came down from the mountain, and the mountain was burning with fire; and the two stones of the agreement were in my hands. And I saw that you had done evil against the Lord, and had made for yourselves a metal image of a young ox: you had quickly been turned from the way in which the Lord had given you orders to go.
But they were bitter against the Most High God, testing him, and not keeping his laws;
More than this, he made his children go through the fire in the valley of the son of Hinnom; and he made use of secret arts, and signs for reading the future, and unnatural powers, and gave positions to those who had control of spirits and to wonder-workers: he did much evil in the eyes of the Lord, moving him to wrath.
But still the heat of the Lord's wrath was not turned back from Judah, because of all Manasseh had done in moving him to wrath.
And as if copying the evil ways of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, was a small thing for him, he took as his wife Jezebel, daughter of Ethbaal, king of Zidon, and became a servant and worshipper of Baal.
He did evil in the eyes of the Lord, copying the evil ways of Jeroboam and the sin which he made Israel do.
And he will give Israel up because of the sins which Jeroboam has done and made Israel do.
After this Jeroboam, not turning back from his evil ways, still made priests for his altars from among all the people; he made a priest of anyone desiring it, so that there might be priests of the high places. And this became a sin in the family of Jeroboam, causing it to be cut off and sent to destruction from the face of the earth.
They have given my honour to that which is not God, moving me to wrath with their false worship: I will give their honour to those who are not a people, moving them to wrath by a foolish nation,
The honour which was his they gave to strange gods; by their disgusting ways he was moved to wrath. They made offerings to evil spirits which were not God, to gods who were strange to them, which had newly come up, not feared by your fathers.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible » Commentary on 1 Kings 14
Commentary on 1 Kings 14 Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
CHAPTER 14
1Ki 14:1-20. Ahijah Denounces God's Judgments against Jeroboam.
1. At that time—a phrase used often loosely and indefinitely in sacred history. This domestic incident in the family of Jeroboam probably occurred towards the end of his reign; his son Abijah was of age and considered by the people the heir to the throne.
2. Jeroboam said to his wife, Arise, I pray thee, and disguise thyself—His natural and intense anxiety as a parent is here seen, blended with the deep and artful policy of an apostate king. The reason of this extreme caution was an unwillingness to acknowledge that he looked for information as to the future, not to his idols, but to the true God; and a fear that this step, if publicly known, might endanger the stability of his whole political system; and a strong impression that Ahijah, who was greatly offended with him, would, if consulted openly by his queen, either insult or refuse to receive her. For these reasons he selected his wife, as, in every view, the most proper for such a secret and confidential errand, but recommended her to assume the garb and manner of a peasant woman. Strange infatuation, to suppose that the God who could reveal futurity could not penetrate a flimsy disguise!
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.
8. thou hast not been as my servant David—David, though he fell into grievous sins, repented and always maintained the pure worship of God as enjoined by the law.
10, 11. I will bring evil upon the house of Jeroboam—Strong expressions are here used to indicate the utter extirpation of his house;
him that is shut up and left in Israel—means those who were concealed with the greatest privacy, as the heirs of royalty often are where polygamy prevails; the other phrase, from the loose garments of the East having led to a different practice from what prevails in the West, cannot refer to men; it must signify either a very young boy, or rather, perhaps, a dog, so entire would be the destruction of Jeroboam's house that none, not even a dog, belonging to it should escape. This peculiar phrase occurs only in regard to the threatened extermination of a family (1Sa 25:22-34). See the manner of extermination (1Ki 16:4; 21:24).
12. the child shall die—The death and general lamentation felt through the country at the loss of the prince were also predicted. The reason for the profound regret shown at his death arose, according to Jewish writers, from his being decidedly opposed to the erection of the golden calves, and using his influence with his father to allow his subjects the free privilege of going to worship in Jerusalem.
13. all Israel shall mourn for him, and bury him—the only one of Jeroboam's family who should receive the rites of sepulture.
14. the Lord shall raise him up a king … but what? even now—namely, Baasha (1Ki 15:27); he was already raised—he was in being, though not in power.
17. Tirzah—a place of pre-eminent beauty (So 6:4), three hours' travelling east of Samaria, chosen when Israel became a separate kingdom, by the first monarch, and used during three short reigns as a residence of the royal house. The fertile plains and wooded hills in that part of the territory of Ephraim gave an opening to the formation of parks and pleasure-grounds similar to those which were the "paradises" of Assyrian and Persian monarchs [Stanley]. Its site is occupied by the large village of Taltise [Robinson]. As soon as the queen reached the gate of the palace, she received the intelligence that her son was dying, according to the prophet's prediction [1Ki 14:12].
19. the rest of the acts of Jeroboam—None of the threatenings denounced against this family produced any change in his policy or government.
1Ki 14:21-24. Rehoboam's Wicked Reign.
21. he reigned … in Jerusalem—Its particular designation as "the city which the Lord did choose out of all the tribes of Israel, to put his name there," seems given here, both as a reflection on the apostasy of the ten tribes, and as a proof of the aggravated wickedness of introducing idolatry and its attendant vices there.
his mother's name was Naamah an Ammonitess—Her heathen extraction and her influence as queen mother are stated to account for Rehoboam's tendency to depart from the true religion. Led by the warning of the prophet (1Ki 12:23), as well as by the large immigration of Israelites into his kingdom (1Ki 12:17; 2Ch 11:16), he continued for the first three years of his reign a faithful patron of true religion (2Ch 11:17). But afterwards he began and encouraged a general apostasy; idolatry became the prevailing form of worship, and the religious state of the kingdom in his reign is described by the high places, the idolatrous statues, the groves and impure rites that with unchecked license were observed in them. The description is suited to the character of the Canaanitish worship.
1Ki 14:25-31. Shishak Spoils Jerusalem.
25, 26. Shishak king of Egypt came up—He was the instrument in the hand of Providence for punishing the national defection. Even though this king had been Solomon's father-in-law, he was no relation of Rehoboam's; but there is a strong probability that he belonged to another dynasty (see on 2Ch 12:2). He was the Sheshonk of the Egyptian monuments, who is depicted on a bas-relief at Karnak, as dragging captives, who, from their peculiar physiognomy, are universally admitted to be Jews.
29. Now the rest of the acts of Rehoboam …, are they not written in the book of the chronicles?—not the book so called and comprehended in the sacred canon, but the national archives of Judah.
30. there was war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam—The former was prohibited from entering on an aggressive war; but as the two kingdoms kept up a jealous rivalry, he might be forced into vigilant measures of defense, and frequent skirmishes would take place on the borders.