The
kingdom being divided into that of
Judah
and that of
Israel, we must henceforward, in these books of
Kings, expect and attend their separate history, the succession of their
kings, and the affairs of their kingdoms, accounted for distinctly. In this
chapter we have, I. The prophecy of the destruction of Jeroboam's house,
ver. 7-16. The sickness of his child was the occasion of it (ver. 1-6), and
the death of his child the earnest of it (ver. 17, 18), together with the
conclusion of his reign, ver. 19, 20. II. The history of the declension and
diminution of Rehoboam's house and kingdom (ver. 21-28) and the conclusion
of his reign, ver. 29-31. In both we may read the mischievous consequences
of sin and the calamities it brings on kingdoms and families.
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Abijah's
Sickness; the Prophet Ahijah Consulted.
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B.
C. 960.
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1 At that time Abijah the son of Jeroboam
fell sick. 2 And Jeroboam said to his wife, Arise, I pray thee,
and disguise thyself, that thou be not known to be the wife of Jeroboam; and
get thee to
Shiloh: 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 cruse of honey, and go
to him: he shall tell thee 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. 5 And
the LORD said unto Ahijah, Behold,
the wife of Jeroboam cometh to ask a thing of thee for her son; for he is
sick: thus and thus shalt thou say unto her: for it shall be, when she
cometh 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 door, that he said, Come in, thou wife of Jeroboam; why feignest
thou thyself to be another? for I am sent to thee with
heavy tidings.
How Jeroboam persisted in his contempt of God and religion we read in the
close of the foregoing chapter. Here we are told how God proceeded in his
controversy with him; for when God judges he will overcome, and sinners
shall either bend or break before him.
I. His child fell sick, v. 1. It is probable that he was his eldest
son, and heir-apparent to the crown; for at his death all the kingdom went
into mourning for him, ch. xiii. His dignity as a prince, his age as
a young prince, and his interest in heaven as a pious prince, could not
exempt him from sickness, dangerous sickness. Let none be secure of the
continuance of their health, but improve it, while it continues, for the
best purposes. Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest, thy favourite, he
whom
Israel
loves, their darling, is sick. At that time, when Jeroboam
prostituted the profaned the priesthood (ch. xiii. 33), his child
sickened. When sickness comes into our families we should enquire whether
there be not some particular sin harboured in our houses, which the
affliction is sent to convince us of and reclaim us from.
II. He sent his wife in disguise to enquire of Ahijah the prophet what
should become of the child, v. 2, 3. The sickness of his child
touched him in a tender part. The withering of this branch of the family
would, perhaps, be as sore an affliction to him as the withering of that
branch of his body, ch. xiii. 4. Such is the force of natural
affection; our children are ourselves but once removed. Now,
1. Jeroboam's great desire, under this affliction, is to know what shall
become of the child, whether he will live or die. (1.) It would have
been more prudent if he had desired to know what means they should use for
the recovery of the child, what they should give him, and what they should
do to him; but by this instance, and those of Ahaziah (2 Kings i. 2) and
Benhadad (2 Kings viii. 8), it should seem they had then such a foolish
notion of fatality as took them off from all use of means; for, if they were
sure the patient would live, they thought means needless; if he would die,
they thought them useless; not considering that duty is ours, events are
God's, and that he that ordained the end ordained the means. Why should a
prophet be desired to show that which a little time will show? (2.) It would
have been more pious if he had desired to know wherefore God contended with
him, had begged the prophet's prayers, and cast away his idols from him;
then the child might have been restored to him, as his hand was. But most
people would rather be told their fortune than their faults or their duty.
2. That he might know the child's doom, he sent to Ahijah the prophet, who
lived obscurely and neglected in Shiloh, blind through age, yet still blest
with the visions of the Almighty, which need not bodily eyes, but are rather
favoured by the want of them, the eyes of the mind being then most intent
and least diverted. Jeroboam sent not to him for advice about the setting up
of his calves, or the consecrating of his priests, but had recourse to him
in his distress, when the gods he served could give him no relief. Lord,
in trouble have those visited thee who before slighted thee. Some have
by sickness been reminded of their forgotten ministers and praying friends.
He sent to Ahijah, because he had told him he should be king, v.
2. "He was once the messenger of good tidings, surely he will be so
again." Those that by sin disqualify themselves for comfort, and yet
expect their ministers, because they are good men, should speak peace and
comfort to them, greatly wrong both themselves and their ministers.
3. He sent his wife to enquire of the prophet, because she could best put
the question without naming names, or making any other description than
this, "Sir, I have a son ill; will he recover or not?" The heart
of her husband safely trusted in her that she would be faithful both in
delivering the message and bringing him the answer; and it seems there were
none of all his counsellors in whom he could repose such a confidence;
otherwise the sick child could very ill spare her, for mothers are the best
nurses, and it would have been much fitter for her to have staid at home to
tend him than go to Shiloh to enquire what would become of him. If she go,
she must be incognito--in disguise, must change her dress, cover her
face, and go by another name, not only to conceal herself from her own court
and the country through which she passed (as if it were below her quality to
go upon such an errand, and what she had reason to be ashamed of, as
Nicodemus that came to Jesus by night, whereas it is no disparagement to the
greatest to attend God's prophets), but also to conceal herself from the
prophet himself, that he might only answer her question concerning her son,
and not enter upon the unpleasing subject of her husband's defection. Thus
some people love to prescribe to their ministers, limit them to smooth
things, and care not for having the whole counsel of God declared to
them, lest it prove to prophesy no good concerning them, but evil.
But what a strange notion had Jeroboam of God's prophet when he believed
that he could and would certainly tell what would become of the child,
and yet either could not or would not discover who was the mother! Could he
see into the thick darkness of futurity, and yet not see through the thin
veil of this disguise? Did Jeroboam think the God of Israel like his calves,
just what he pleased? Be not deceived, God is not mocked.
III. God gave Ahijah notice of the approach of Jeroboam's wife, and that she
came in disguise, and full instructions what to say to her (v. 5),
which enabled him, as she came in at the door, to call her by her name, to
her great surprise, and so to discover to all about him who she was (v.
6): Come in, thou wife of Jeroboam, why feignest thou thyself to be
another? He had no regard, 1. To her rank. She was a queen, but what was
that to him, who had a message to deliver to her immediately from God,
before whom all the children of men stand upon the same level? Nor, 2. To
her present. It was usual for those who consulted prophets to bring them
tokens of respect, which they accepted, and yet were no hirelings. She
brought him a handsome country present (v. 3), but he did not think
himself obliged by that to give her any finer language than the nature of
her message required. Nor, 3. To her industrious concealment of herself. It
is a piece of civility not to take notice of those who desire not to be
taken notice of; but the prophet was no courtier, nor gave flattering
titles; plain dealing is best, and she shall know, at the first word, what
she has to trust to: I am sent to thee with heavy tidings. Note,
Those who think by their disguises to hide themselves from God will be
wretchedly confounded when they find themselves disappointed in the day of
discovery. Sinners now appear in the garb of saints, and are taken to be
such; but how will they blush and tremble when they find themselves stripped
of their false colours, and are called by their own name: "Go out, thou
treacherous false-hearted hypocrite. I never knew thee. Why feignest thou
thyself to be another?" Tidings of a portion with hypocrites will
be heavy tidings. God will judge men according to what they are, not
according to what they seem.
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The
Ruin of Jeroboam's House Foretold; Abijah's Character and Death.
B. C. 960.
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7 Go, tell Jeroboam,
Thus saith the LORD
God of Israel, Forasmuch as I exalted thee from among the people, and made
thee prince over my people Israel, 8 And rent the kingdom away
from the house of David, and gave it thee: and yet thou hast not been
as my servant David, who kept my commandments, and who followed me with all
his heart, to do that only which was right in mine eyes;
9 But hast done evil above all that were before thee: for thou hast gone and
made thee other gods, and molten images, to provoke me to anger, and hast
cast me behind thy back: 10 Therefore, behold, I will
bring evil upon the
house of Jeroboam, and will cut off from Jeroboam him that pisseth against
the wall, and him that is shut up and left in Israel, and will take
away the remnant of the house of Jeroboam, as a man taketh away dung, till
it be all gone. 11 Him that dieth of Jeroboam in the city shall
the dogs eat;
and him that dieth in the field shall the fowls of the air eat: for the LORD
hath spoken it. 12 Arise thou therefore, get thee to
thine own house: and when thy 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, 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.
15 For the LORD shall smite Israel, 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, because they have made their groves,
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. 17 And Jeroboam's wife arose, and departed, and came to
Tirzah: and when she came to
the threshold of the door, the child died; 18 And they buried
him; and all
Israel
mourned for him, according to the word of the LORD, which he spake 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. 20 And the days which Jeroboam reigned were two and
twenty years: and he slept with his fathers, and Nadab his son reigned in
his stead.
When those that set up idols, and keep them up, go to enquire of the Lord, h
e determines to answer them, not according to the
pretensions of their enquiry, but according to the multitude of their
idols, Ezek. xiv. 4. So Jeroboam is answered here.
I. The prophet anticipates the enquiry concerning the child, and foretels
the ruin of Jeroboam's house for the wickedness of it. No one else durst
have carried such a message: a servant would have smothered it, but his own
wife cannot be suspected of ill-will to him.
1. God calls himself the Lord God of
Israel. Though
Israel had forsaken God, God had not cast them off, nor given them a bill of
divorce for their whoredoms. He is
Israel's God, and therefore will take vengeance on him who did them the greatest
mischief he could do them, debauched them and drew them away from God.
2. He upbraids Jeroboam with the great favour he had bestowed upon him, in
making him king, exalting him from among the people, the common people, to
be prince over God's chosen Israel, and taking the kingdom from the house
of David, to bestow it upon him. Whether we keep an account of God's
mercies to us or no, he does, and will set even them in order before us, if
we be ungrateful, to our greater confusion; otherwise he gives and upbraids
not.
3. He charges him with his impiety and apostasy, and his idolatry
particularly: Thou hast done evil above all that were before thee, v.
9. Saul, that was rejected, never worshipped idols; Solomon did it but
occasionally, in his dotage, and never made
Israel
to sin. Jeroboam's calves, though pretended to be set up in honour of the
God of Israel, that brought them up out of Egypt, yet are here called
other gods, or strange gods, because in them he worshipped God
as the heathen worshipped their strange gods, because by them he changed
the truth of God into a lie and represented him as altogether different
from what he is, and because many of the ignorant worshippers terminated
their devotion in the image, and did not at all regard the God of Israel.
Though they were calves of gold, the richness of the metal was so far from
making them acceptable to God that they provoked him to anger,
designedly affronted him, under colour of pleasing him. In doing this, (1.)
He had not set David before him (v. 8): Thou hast not been as my
servant David, who, though he had his faults and some bad ones, yet
never forsook the worship of God nor grew loose nor cold to that; his
faithful adherence to that gained him this honourable character, that he followed
God with all his heart, and herein he was proposed for an example to all
his successors. Those did not do well that did not do like David. (2.) He
had not set God before him, but (v. 9), "Thou hast
cast me behind thy back, my law, my fear; thou hast neglected me,
forgotten me, and preferred thy policies before my precepts."
4. He foretels the utter ruin of Jeroboam's house, v. 10, 11. He
thought, by his idolatry, to establish his government, and by that he not
only lost it, but brought destruction upon his family, the universal
destruction of all the males, whether shut up or left, married or unmarried.
(1.) Shameful destruction. They shall be taken away as dung, which is
loathsome and which men are glad to be rid of. He worshipped
dunghill-deities, and God removed his family as a great dunghill. Noble and
royal families, if wicked, are no better in God's account. (2.) Unusual
destruction. Their very dead bodies should be meat for the dogs in the
street, or the birds of prey in the field, v. 11. Thus evil pursues
sinners. See this fulfilled, ch. xv. 29.
5. He foretels the immediate death of the sick child, v. 12, 13.
(1.) In mercy to him, lest, if he live, he be infected with the sin, and so
involved in the ruin, of his father's house. Observe the character given of
him: In him was found some good thing towards the Lord God of
Israel
, in the house of Jeroboam. He had an affection for the true worship
of God and disliked the worship of the calves. Note, [1.] Those are good in
whom are good things towards the Lord God of
Israel
, good inclinations, good intentions, good desires, towards him. [2.]
Where there is but some good thing of that kind it will be found:
God, who seeks it, sees it be it ever so little and is pleased with it. [3.]
A little grace goes a great way with great people. It is so rare to find
princes well affected to religion that, when they are so, they are worthy of
double honour. [4.] Pious dispositions are in a peculiar manner amiable and
acceptable when they are found in those that are young. The divine image in
miniature has a peculiar beauty and lustre in it. [5.] Those that are good
in bad times and places shine very brightly in the eyes of God. A good child
in the house of Jeroboam is a miracle of divine grace: to be there
untainted is like being in the fiery furnace unhurt, unsinged. Observe the
care taken of him: he only, of all Jeroboam's family, shall die in honour,
shall be buried, and shall be lamented as one that lived desired. Note,
Those that are distinguished by divine grace shall be distinguished by
divine providence. This hopeful child dies first of all the family, for God
often takes those soonest whom he loves best. Heaven is the fittest
place for them; this earth is not worthy of them.
(2.) In wrath to the family. [1.] It was a sign the family would be ruined
when he was taken by whom it might have been reformed. The righteous
are removed from the evil to come in this world, to the good to come in a
better world. It is a bad omen to a family when the best in it are buried
out of it; when what was valuable is picked out the rest is for the fire.
[2.] It was likewise a present affliction to the family and kingdom, by
which both ought to have been bettered; and this aggravated the affliction
to the poor mother that she should not reach home time enough to see her son
alive: When thy feet enter into the city, just then the child
shall die. This was to be a sign to her of the accomplishment of the
rest of the threatenings, as 1 Sam. ii. 34.
6. He foretels the setting up of another family to rule over Israel, v. 14. This was fulfilled in Baasha of Issachar, who conspired
against Nadab the son of Jeroboam, in the second year of his reign, murdered
him and all his family. "But what? Even now. Why do I speak of
it as a thing at a distance? It is at the door. It shall be done even
now." Sometimes God makes quick work with sinners; he did so with
the house of Jeroboam. It was not twenty-four years from his first elevation
to the final extirpation of his family.
7. He foretels the judgments which should come upon the people of
Israel
for conforming to the worship which Jeroboam had established. If the
blind lead the blind, both the blind leaders and the blind followers
shall fall into the ditch. It is here foretold, v. 15, (1.)
That they should never be easy, nor rightly settled in their land, but
continually shaken like a reed in the water. After they left the
house of David, the government never continued long in one family, but one
undermined and destroyed another, which must needs occasion great disorders
and disturbances among the people. (2.) That they should, ere long, be
totally expelled out of their land, that good land, and given up to ruin, v.
16. This was fulfilled in the captivity of the ten tribes by the king of
Assyria
. Families and kingdoms are ruined by sin, ruined by the wickedness of the
heads of them. Jeroboam did sin, and made
Israel
to sin. If great men do wickedly, they involve many others both in
the guilt and in the snare; multitudes follow their pernicious ways.
They go to hell with a long train, and their condemnation will be the more
intolerable, for they must answer, not only for their own sins, but for the
sins which others have been drawn into and kept in by their influence.
II. Jeroboam's wife has nothing to say against the word of the Lord, but she
goes home with a heavy heart to their house in Tirzah, a sweet
delightful place, so the name signifies, famed for its beauty, Cant. vi.
4. But death, which will stain its beauty and embitter all its delights,
cannot be shut out from it. Hither she came, and here we leave her attending
the funeral of her son, and expecting the fate of her family. 1. The
child died (v. 17), and justly did all
Israel
mourn, not only for the loss of so hopeful a prince, whom they were not
worthy of, but because his death plucked up the flood-gates, and made a
breach, at which an inundation of judgments broke in. 2. Jeroboam himself
died soon after, v. 20. It is said (2 Chron. xiii. 20), The Lord
struck him with some sore disease, so that he died miserably, when he
had reigned twenty-two years, and left his crown to a son who lost it, and
his life too, and all the lives of his family, within two years after. For a
further account of him the reader is referred to the annals of his reign,
drawn up by his own secretaries, or to the public records, like those in the
Tower, called here, The Book or register, of the Chronicles of the
Kings of Israel, to which recourse might then be had; but, not being
divinely inspired, these records are long since lost.
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Rehoboam's
Disgrace and Death.
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B.
C. 960.
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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, 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 an
Ammonitess. 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, on every high hill, and under
every green tree. 24 And there were also sodomites in the land: and
they did according to all the abominations of the nations which the LORD cast out
before the children of
Israel. 25 And it came to pass in the fifth year of king Rehoboam, that
Shishak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem: 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: and he
took away all the shields of gold which Solomon had made. 27 And
king Rehoboam made in their stead brasen shields, and committed them
unto 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. 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 Abijam his son
reigned in his stead.
Judah's story and Israel's are intermixed in this book. Jeroboam out-lived Rehoboam, four or five
years, yet his history is despatched first, that the account of Rehoboam's
reign may be laid together; and a sad account it is.
I. Here is no good said of the king. All the account we have of him here is,
1. That he was forty-one years old when he began to reign, by which
reckoning he was born in the last year of David, and had his education, and
the forming of his mind, in the best days of Solomon; yet he lived not up to
these advantages. Solomon's defection at last did more to corrupt him than
his wisdom and devotion had done to give him good principles. 2. That he
reigned seventeen years in
Jerusalem, the city where God put his name, where he had opportunity enough to
know his duty, if he had but had a heart to do it. 3. That his mother was
Naamah, an Ammonitess; this is twice mentioned, v. 21, 31. It was
strange that David would marry his son Solomon to an Ammonitess (for it was
done while he lived), but it is probable that Solomon was in love with her,
because she was Naamah, a beauty (so it signifies), and his
father was loth to cross him, but it proved to have a very bad influence
upon posterity. Probably she was daughter to Shobi the Ammonite, who was
kind to David (2 Sam. xvii. 27), and David was too willing to requite him by
matching his son into his family. None can imagine how lasting and how fatal
the consequences may be of being unequally yoked with unbelievers. 4. That
he had continual war with Jeroboam (v. 30), which could not but be a
perpetual uneasiness to him. 5. That when he had reigned but seventeen years
he died, and left his throne to his son. His father, and grandfather, and
grandson, that reigned well, reigned long, forty years apiece. But sin often
shortens men's lives and comforts.
II. Here is much evil said of the subjects, both as to their character and
their condition.
1. See here how wicked and profane they were. It is a most sad account that
is here given of their apostasy from God, v. 22-24. Judah, the only
professing people God had in the world, did evil in his sight, in
contempt and defiance of him and the tokens of his special presence with
them; they provoked him to jealousy, as the adulterous wife provokes
her husband by breaking the marriage-covenant. Their fathers had been bad
enough, especially in the times of the judges, but they did abominable
things, above all that their fathers had done. The magnificence of
their temple, the pomp of their priesthood, and all the secular advantages
with which their religion was attended, could not prevail to keep them to
it. Nothing less than the pouring out of the Spirit from on high will
keep God's
Israel
in their allegiance to him. The account here given of the wickedness of the
Jews agrees with that which the apostle gives of the wickedness of the
Gentile world (Rom. i. 21, 24), so that both Jew and Gentile are
alike under sin, Rom. iii. 9. (1.) They became vain in their
imaginations concerning God, and changed his glory into an image,
for they built themselves high places, images, and groves (v.
23), profaning God's name by affixing to it their images, and God's
ordinances by serving their idols with them. They foolishly fancies that
they exalted God when they worshipped him on high hills and pleased him when
they worshipped him under the pleasant shadow of green trees. (2.) They were
given up to vile affections (as those idolaters Rom. i. 26, 27), for there
were sodomites in the land (v. 24), men with men working
that which is unseemly, and not to be thought of, much less mentioned,
without abhorrence and indignation. They dishonoured God by one sin and then
God left them to dishonour themselves by another. They profaned the
privileges of a holy nation, therefore God gave them up to their own hearts'
lusts, to imitate the abominations of the accursed Canaanites; and herein
the Lord was righteous. And, when they did like those that were cast out,
how could they expect any other than to be cast out like them?
2. See here how weak and poor they were; and this was the consequence of the
former. Sin exposes, impoverishes, and weakens any people. Shishak, king of
Egypt, came against them, and so far, either by force or surrender, made
himself master of Jerusalem itself that he took away the treasures both of
the temple and of the exchequer, of the house of the Lord and of the king's
house, which David and Solomon had amassed, v. 25, 26. These, it is
likely, tempted him to make his descent; and, to save the rest, Rehoboam
perhaps tamely surrendered them, as Ahab, ch. xx. 4. He also took
away the golden shields that were made but in his father's time, v.
26. These the king of Egypt carried off as trophies of his victory; and,
instead of them, Rehoboam made brazen shields, which the life-guard carried
before him when he went to church in state, v. 27, 28. This was an
emblem of the diminution of his glory. Sin makes the gold become dim,
changes the most fine gold, and turns it into brass. We commend Rehoboam for
going to the house of the Lord, perhaps the oftener for the rebuke he
had been under, and do not condemn him for going in pomp. Great men should
honour God with their honour, and then they are themselves most honoured by
it.
