1 Kingschapter 14
31 verses · Jeremiah, by tradition · 6th century BC · History
I tore the kingdom away from the house of David and gave it to you. But you were not like My servant David, who kept My commandments and followed Me with all his heart, doing only what was right in My eyes.
Introduction
Jeremiah, by tradition, History, 1 Kings Overview.
The writer of Kings is not named, and Jewish tradition gives the book to Jeremiah. Here he begins the pattern that carries the rest of his work. His first hearers had seen the temple's treasures carried to Babylon and knew what it meant to watch the wealth of a nation leave it. The chapter sets a prophet's word in the north beside a foreign invasion in the south. It is the first chapter to close each reign with the book's fixed summary of years, deeds and burial. Listen for the gift a mother carries, and for the metal that replaces gold in the palace.
Context
- Who
- Israelites in both kingdoms watching the wealth of Solomon's era leave the country
- What
- An account of Ahijah's sentence on the house of Jeroboam, followed by the reign of Rehoboam and Shishak's raid on Jerusalem.
- Where
- The prophet Ahijah's house at Shiloh, Jeroboam's residence at Tirzah, and Jerusalem.
- When
- About 925 to 910 BC, with Shishak's invasion in Rehoboam's fifth year, about 925 BC; the years are reckoned and approximate.
- Why
- To show that both kingdoms fell under judgment within a generation of the division, the north for its calves and the south for its high places.
Historical context
The chapter belongs to two kings and one prophet. Ahijah the Shilonite was the man who had given Jeroboam the kingdom years earlier, and he is old and blind by this chapter.
Show the rest of the historical context, 6 more paragraphs
Shiloh matters because of the direction of travel. It was the old sanctuary town, so Jeroboam's wife walked away from her husband's new shrines to reach the prophet who had made him king.
The occasion is an ordinary errand made secret. Consulting a prophet about a sick child was normal, and so was bringing a gift, which is why the disguise was built the way it was.
A first hearer would have read the basket before the clothes. Ten loaves, some cakes and a jar of honey is what a farmer's wife brings, so the gift itself was the disguise.
He knew the idiom in the sentence on the house as well. The blunt phrase the oracle uses for every male of a household means everyone, with nobody overlooked, and the older rendering speaks of him who is shut up and him who is left at large.
The invasion in the second half is the first event in Israel's history with a matching foreign record. Pharaoh Shoshenq I carved a list of the towns he took on the Bubastite Portal at the Karnak temple in Egypt.
The list fits the account closely. It runs through the Negev, the coastal plain and up into the Jezreel valley, and Jerusalem itself is absent from the surviving portion, which matches a city bought off rather than sacked.
Significance
The first hearers had heard chapter 10's inventory of Solomon's gold. Fifteen years later a foreign army carried it away, and the palace parade continued in bronze.
Show the rest of the significance, 1 more paragraph
Both kingdoms are indicted in one chapter, the north for its calves and the south for its high places and shrine attendants. Neither side was left anything to feel superior about.
This chapter in Jewish lifeWhat this chapter is in Jewish life and reading.
How it is read
Rashi reads the opening of the chapter through the manners of the age. On the gift the queen carries to the prophet he explains the parched grain and the dish made from its flour. Beside it he carries Ralbag's note, that it was the custom of those days to give a prophet a present before asking him a question. The same custom in the book of Samuel is named as the parallel (Rashi on I Kings 14:3:1, The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J, CC-BY). The disguise he explains in four words, that she went "As though it was not she" (Rashi on I Kings 14:5:1). The word sent to her he marks as coming from heaven "with a harsh message" (Rashi on I Kings 14:6:1).
The oracle itself is read close to the Hebrew. At the tenth verse Rashi gives the rendering of Targum Yonatan for the hard idiom, "one who knows knowledge," a man who places knowledge into the walls of his heart. Radak's alternative stands beside it, that the phrase names a dog and so measures how complete the destruction of the house will be (Rashi on I Kings 14:10:1). On the one son who is to be buried and mourned Rashi supplies a reason the verse itself withholds. He takes it from the Talmud at Moed Katan. The boy had been posted by his father as a sentry, to stop the people going up to Jerusalem for the pilgrimage festival. Rashi writes that "He abandoned his watch and went up." (Rashi on I Kings 14:13:1). At the fourteenth verse he reads the sentence on the house as covering two generations at once, those already born on that day and those still to be born. He names Targum Yonatan as the authority for the reading (Rashi on I Kings 14:14:1).
The chapter turns south at the twenty-first verse, and Rashi's notes there are short and pointed. He reads the naming of the chosen city as a charge rather than a comfort, glossing it with the words "Yet, even so," (Rashi on I Kings 14:21:1). He answers it at the next verse, where Judah does evil "And they did not pay attention to this." (Rashi on I Kings 14:22:1). The high places are read as the same sin as in the north, so the phrase that they too built them means "Like the other tribes" (Rashi on I Kings 14:23:1). The word for what was practised at them Rashi glosses with the plain term twice over, and softens it nowhere (Rashi on I Kings 14:24:1). On the invader Rashi carries a midrashic identification from Midrash Shir Hashirim, that the king of Egypt named here was Pharaoh Neco. He was called by this name because all his life he longed for "the ivory throne that belonged to Shlomo his son-in-law, and now, he went up and took it" (Rashi on I Kings 14:25:1). What he took first, in this reading, was the throne, "that was dearer to him than everything" (Rashi on I Kings 14:26:1).
Radak, Malbim and Metzudat David comment across the chapter as well. The corpus carries their refs with the reason that Sefaria holds no English version of them, so they stand here cited and unquoted. The corpus holds Radak on I Kings 14:2:1, 14:4:1, 14:9:1, 14:12:1, 14:15:1, 14:16:1 and 14:17:1. It holds Malbim on I Kings 14:1:1, 14:7:1 and 14:8:1. It holds Metzudat David on I Kings 14:11:1 and 14:19:1.
What the rabbis say
The corpus carries forty rabbinic locators for this chapter and the text of none, so each is cited and linked here rather than quoted. Four stand on the fourth verse, where the prophet's eyes are set from age and he knows the queen at the door before she speaks. They are Bereshit Rabbah 65:10, Bereshit Rabbah 65:11, Midrash Sekhel Tov, Bereshit 28:9:10 and Midrash Shmuel 8:8. Midrash Shmuel 14:1 stands on the fifth and Midrash Sekhel Tov, Bereshit 42:7:2 on the sixth.
The oracle carries the heaviest clusters. On the ninth verse the corpus carries Berakhot 10b:30 and Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Berakhot 1:54. On the tenth it carries four from one tractate alone: Bava Kamma 23b:5, Bava Kamma 2b:20, Bava Kamma 3a:1 and Bava Kamma 3a:7. That is the run a reader of the sweeping image in that verse is sent to. On the twelfth it carries Otzar Midrashim, Midrashim on Missing and Extra Letters 1:35. On the thirteenth, the verse about the child who is mourned, it carries four. They are Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Moed Katan 3:18, Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Sanhedrin 6:15, Ein Yaakov, Moed Katan 3:35 and Ein Yaakov, Sanhedrin 6:13. The fifteenth verse has Israel shaken as a reed in the water and scattered beyond the River. It carries Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Sanhedrin 11:97, Ein Yaakov, Taanit 3:5, Midrash Lekach Tov, Numbers 24:6:1 and Sanhedrin 105b:20. On the sixteenth, the verse that gives the north its standing charge, it carries Horayot 10b:3 and Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 469:24, and on the nineteenth, Midrash Tannaim on Deuteronomy 32:19:2.
The southern half carries its own run. On the twenty-first verse, where Rehoboam's mother is named as an Ammonite, the corpus carries four. They are Avot DeRabbi Natan, Recension B 43:19, Bava Kamma 38b:7, Ein Yaakov, Bava Kamma 4:3 and Shir HaShirim Rabbah 1:1:5. Pesikta Rabbati 27:1 stands on the twenty-second. On the twenty-fourth it carries four, Jerusalem Talmud Sanhedrin 7:7:2, Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael, Tractate Nezikin 17:18, Midrash Lekach Tov, Deuteronomy 23:18:1 and Midrash Tannaim on Deuteronomy 23:18:3. The invasion carries Aggadat Bereshit 64:2 and Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Pesakhim 10:21 on the twenty-fifth, Avot DeRabbi Natan 41:9 across the twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth, and Vayikra Rabbah 17:7 on the twenty-sixth. The bronze shields made to replace the gold ones carry Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Bamidbar 31:1 and Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Bo 15:1 on the twenty-seventh. The guard who carried them into the house carries Otzar Midrashim, Midrashim on King Solomon, Throne and Hippodrome of King Solomon 6 on the twenty-eighth. What each of them teaches is a saying of the rabbis, and is reported as theirs wherever this site quotes one. The quotations wait on a fetch that carries the text.
Sources: Rashi, Rashi on I Kings 14:3:1, 14:5:1, 14:6:1, 14:10:1, 14:13:1, 14:14:1, 14:21:1, 14:22:1, 14:23:1, 14:24:1, 14:25:1 and 14:26:1, The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J, CC-BY; Radak, Radak on I Kings 14:2:1, 14:4:1, 14:9:1, 14:12:1, 14:15:1, 14:16:1 and 14:17:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; Malbim, Malbim on I Kings 14:1:1, 14:7:1 and 14:8:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; Metzudat David, Metzudat David on I Kings 14:11:1 and 14:19:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; The Sefaria corpus, scripts/data/sources/sefaria/1-kings/14.json, the 40 Talmud and Midrash locators of this chapter.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
A disguise that fools no blind prophet
1 Kings 14:1-3
Abijah son of Jeroboam became ill: Jeroboam's son falls ill. It is the first crack in the house promised at 11:38, “a lasting dynasty just as I built for David”. Jeroboam leaves the altars standing and sends his wife in disguise to Ahijah, the prophet “who spoke about my kingship over this people”.
1 Kings 14:1
“At that time - The phrase here connects the narrative which follows with Jeroboam’s persistence in his evil courses. The event related is the first judgment upon him for his obduracy, the beginning of the cutting off of his house from the face of the earth. Abijah - We see by this name that Jeroboam did not intend to desert the worship of Yahweh, since its signification is “Yahweh is my father,” or “Yahweh is my desire” Job 34:36.”
1 more voice on this verseWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
1 Kings 14:1
“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.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
disguise yourself so they will not: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown see a father's fear for his son mixed with the cunning of a king who had turned from God. Albert Barnes adds that Jeroboam knew he had broken the terms Ahijah gave him at 11:38. Shiloh had once held the Tent of Meeting.
1 Kings 14:2
“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.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
2 more voices on this verse
1 Kings 14:2
“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. Such is the force of natural affection; our children are ourselves but once removed. Jeroboam's great desire, under this affliction, is to know what shall become of the child, whether he will live or die.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
1 Kings 14:2
“Disguise thyself - Jeroboam fears that even Ahijah the Shilonite, who in some sort made him king, will scarcely give his queen a favorable answer. The king’s conscience tells him that he has not performed the conditions on which he was promised “a sure house” 1Ki 11:38.”
ten loaves of bread, some cakes: Albert Barnes and Jamieson, Fausset and Brown read the bread, cakes and honey as the gifts a poor country wife would bring to a prophet. Barnes notes that Jeroboam also counted on the dim eyes of Ahijah, told at verse 4, and compares blind Isaac at Genesis 27.
1 Kings 14:3
“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.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 more voice on this verse
1 Kings 14:3
“See the marginal reference The presents here were selected for the purpose of deception, being such as a poor country person would have been likely to bring. Jeroboam counted also on Ahijah’s blindness 1Ki 14:4 as favoring his plan of deception (compare Gen 27:1, Gen 27:22). Cracknels - See the margin. The Hebrew word is thought to mean a kind of cake which crumbled easily.”
1 Kings 14:4-6
Ahijah could not see: Ahijah is blind with age. The Lord tells him who is coming, and he knows her by “the sound of her feet entering the door”. The prophet who tore a new cloak into twelve pieces, at 11:29-31, cannot be fooled by a disguise made for eyes he no longer has.
You are to say such and such: The LORD tells the blind prophet who is coming before she arrives. Albert Barnes renders the last clause literally as she will make herself strange, the Hebrew way of saying she will come disguised. The disguise fails before it is tried.
1 Kings 14:5
“Feign herself to be another woman - literally, “she shall make herself strange,” i. e., “she shall come in disguised.” So 1Ki 14:6.”
Why are you disguised?: Albert Barnes reads the Hebrew as a matching commission: she carries a question from her husband, and Ahijah carries an answer from the LORD. Charles Spurgeon draws from the blind prophet a lesson that God's servants can have joy without the light of the sun. The bad news comes first.
1 Kings 14:6
“AHIJAH the Prophet was blind. Did I not tell you this morning that God's servants could be happy without the light of the sun? If God should be pleased to deprive their natural eyes of the pleasures of light their souls would not be without joy, for as in the New Jerusalem, so in the renewed heart—"the glory of God does lighten it and the Lamb is its Light. " Doubtless this was the case with that venerable Prophet. He was not like Moses, whose eyes did not wax dim and whose natural strength did not abate.”
1 more voice on this verse
1 Kings 14:6
“For I am sent to thee - Rather, “I also am sent to thee.” As thou hast a message to me from thy husband, so have I a message to thee from the Lord.”
Judgment on Jeroboam's house; Israel rooted up beyond the River
1 Kings 14:7-9
The oracle opens with Jeroboam's rise, “I raised you up from among the people and appointed you ruler over My people Israel”. The language is that of 2 Samuel 7, spoken to David. Verse 8 measures him against David, the standard this book applies to the kings after him.
1 Kings 14:7
“As Jeroboam’s appointment to the kingdom had been formally announced to him by the prophet Ahijah, so the same prophet is commissioned to acquaint him with his forfeiture of it. Compare 1Sa 15:26-28.”
1 more voice on this verse
1 Kings 14:7
“David - Who though he fell into some sins, yet, first, he constantly persevered in the true worship of God; from which thou art revolted. Secondly, he heartily repented of, and turned from all his sins whereas thou art obstinate and incorrigible.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
you were not like My servant David: David also sinned, and John Wesley names the difference: David kept to the true worship of God and repented of his sins. Jeroboam left that worship and held to his course. The kings of Judah are measured against David in the same way, at 15:3 and 15:11.
1 Kings 14:8
“And rent the kingdom away from the house of David, and gave it thee,.... Even ten parts out of twelve: 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; who never was guilty of idolatry, but always constantly and cordially attended the pure worship of God, and was careful to do everything in that according to the will of God, whatever else he might be deficient in.”
2 more voices on this verse
1 Kings 14:8
“And rent the kingdom away from the house of David - That is, permitted it to be rent, because of the folly and insolence of Rehoboam.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 Kings 14:8
"The Lord is compassionate and merciful, long-suffering and plenteous in mercy." "The Lord is sweet to all, and his tender mercies are over all his works." You hear that his mercies are so great, and do you dare to put your trust in your own virtue? "Let all your works, O Lord, confess to you." If people are also part of his works, then all people should confess their sins.
Jerome · written before 420 · Against the Pelagians 2.20patristic
You have done more evil than all: Albert Barnes reads all who came before as every ruler from the days of the judges, and he recalls Gideon's ephod at Judges 8:27. Matthew Henry notes that Saul never served idols and Solomon never made Israel sin. Jeroboam set up idol worship for a whole nation.
1 Kings 14:9
“Above all that were before thee - i. e., above all previous rulers of the people, whether Judges or kings. Hereto none of the rulers of Israel had set up the idolatrous worship of ephod, teraphim, and the like Jdg 18:17, as a substitute for the true religion, or sought to impose an idolatrous system on the nation. Gideon’s ephod “became a snare” contrary to his intention Jdg 8:27. Solomon’s high places were private - built for the use of his wives, and not designed to attract the people.”
1 more voice on this verse
1 Kings 14:9
“Saul, that was rejected, never worshipped idols; Solomon did it but occasionally, in his dotage, and never made Israel to sin.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
1 Kings 14:10-11
I am bringing disaster on the house of Jeroboam: The sentence is total: “I will burn up the house of Jeroboam as one burns up dung until it is gone”. Verse 11 begins a formula this book repeats over doomed houses, against Baasha's at 16:4 and Ahab's at 21:19-24. Baasha fulfills it in chapter 15.
1 Kings 14:10
“Therefore, behold, I will bring evil upon the house of Jeroboam,.... Calamities, destruction, and ruin: and will cut off from Jeroboam him that pisseth against the wall; not leave a dog of his, or rather a male, see 1Sa 25:22. and him that is shut up and left in Israel; in garrisons or in prisons, in cities or in fields, or in whatsoever situation or circumstances they may be.”
2 more voices on this verse
1 Kings 14:10
“All the males of the family of Jeroboam were put to death by Baasha 1Ki 15:28-29. The phrase “will cut off,” etc., appears to have been a common expression among the Jews from the time of David 1Sa 25:22 to that of Jehu 2Ki 9:8, but scarcely either before or after. We may suspect that, where the author of Kings uses it, he found it in the documents which he consulted. Him that is shut up and left in Israel - See the marginal reference note.”
1 Kings 14:10
“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.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
will be eaten by dogs: Albert Barnes notes that dogs cleared the streets of the city and vultures, the birds of the air, cleared the open field. John Gill reads the sentence as no burial at all for anyone belonging to Jeroboam. For an Israelite that was the worst of ends.
1 Kings 14:11
“Him that dieth of Jeroboam in the city shall the dogs eat, and him that dieth in the fields shall the fowls of the air eat,.... The meaning is, that they should have no burial: for the Lord hath spoken it; and therefore shall be fulfilled, for what he hath said he will do, Num 23:19.”
1 more voice on this verse
1 Kings 14:11
“The dogs are the chief scavengers of Oriental cities (compare Psa 59:6, Psa 59:14). And the vulture is the chief scavenger in the country districts, assisted sometimes by kites and crows (see Job 39:27-30, where the vulture, not the eagle, is intended). Vultures are very abundant in Palestine.”
1 Kings 14:12-13
When your feet enter the city: The child's death is timed to his mother's steps, so the sign cannot be read as chance. Verse 13 makes the death the family's one mercy. Only in him “has the LORD, the God of Israel, found any good in the house of Jeroboam”.
1 Kings 14:12
“There is therefore no absurdity in the prophets [of the Jews] having uttered predictions even about events of no importance, to soothe those who desire such things, as when Samuel prophesies regarding three donkeys that were lost, or when mention is made in the third book of Kings respecting the sickness of a king's son.”
Origen of Alexandria · written before 253 · Against Celsus 1.36patristic
found any good in the house: Matthew Henry takes the good in the boy as a love for the true worship of God and a dislike of the calves. John Wesley adds that he was good in a house full of bad examples. Isaiah 57:1 says the righteous are taken from the presence of evil.
1 Kings 14:13
“In him there is found some good thing - Far be it from God to destroy the righteous with the wicked; God respects even a little good, because it is a seed from himself. The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 more voices on this verse
1 Kings 14:13
“Some good - Pious intentions of taking away the calves, and of permitting or obliging his people to go up to Jerusalem to worship, if God gave him life and authority to do it, and of trusting God with his kingdom. In the house - Which is added for his greater commendation; he was good in the midst of so many temptations and wicked examples; a good branch of a bad flock.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
1 Kings 14:13
“WE must take the text, of course, with definite and full reference to its historical context. It seems that in the wicked house and family of Jeroboam, there was one godly child—and death, which very often mysteriously cuts down the green wheat, while it leaves the hemlock to ripen—seized upon this one and laid him low.”
Charles Spurgeon · written before 1892 · The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Sermon No. 3320: “A Bad King's Good Son” (lightly modernized text, CCEL edition)Particular Baptist
1 Kings 14:14-16
the LORD will raise up for Himself a king: The end of verse 14, “yes, even today”, renders a hard Hebrew phrase, and commentators divide over whether it points to a rival already rising. Verse 15 foretells the exile “beyond the Euphrates”. Verse 16 is the book's first charge that Jeroboam “has caused Israel to commit” sins.
1 Kings 14:14
“Moreover the Lord shall raise up a king over Israel,.... Baasha is meant, 1Ki 15:29. who shall cut off the house of Jeroboam that day; immediately, as soon as on the throne, he should destroy his whole family, as he did, 1Ki 15:29, but what? even now; shall it be that day? yes; even at that very time, and which will be very quickly from this time; for as it may be supposed this was said at the latter end of Jeroboam's reign, and his son and successor reigned but two years ere this prophecy was accomplished.”
1 more voice on this verse
1 Kings 14:14
The Hebrew text of this verse appears to be defective in this place. No satisfactory sense can be obtained from it. The true meaning of the original passage is possibly: “Yahweh shall raise up a king who will destroy the house of Jeroboam on the day that he is raised up. What do I say? He will destroy it even now.”
as a reed is shaken in the water: John Wesley reads the reed as a picture of the kingdom to come, tossed by invasions, rival kings and civil wars. Albert Barnes notes that the warning of Deuteronomy 29:28 is here first applied to the ten tribes. Assyria fulfilled it at 2 Kings 17:6.
1 Kings 14:15
“The general prophecy of Moses Deu 29:28, that the disobedient Israelites would be rooted up out of their land, and cast into another land, is here for the first time repeated, and is definitively applied to the ten tribes, which are to be removed “beyond the river” (the Euphrates, 1Ki 4:21, 1Ki 4:24), and “scattered.” On the fulfillment of this prophecy, and especially on the “scattering” of the ten tribes, see 2Ki 17:6 note. Groves - See Exo 34:13 note.”
1 more voice on this verse
1 Kings 14:15
“Is shaken - Hither and thither, with every wind. So shall the kingdom and people of Israel be always in an unquiet and unsettled posture, tossed to and fro by foreign invasions and civil wars; by opposite kings and factions, and by the dissensions of the people.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
the sins Jeroboam has committed: This phrase becomes the refrain for the kings of Israel: each is judged by the sins Jeroboam caused Israel to commit. Matthew Henry notes that kingdoms fall by the sins of their heads. Nadab walks in them at 15:26.
1 Kings 14:16
“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.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
The child dies as she steps on the threshold
1 Kings 14:17-18
as soon as she stepped over the threshold: The boy dies as his mother steps over the threshold, as Ahijah said, and a word spoken in private is confirmed in public. Verse 18 ties it to “the word that the LORD had spoken through His servant Ahijah the prophet”, a closing formula also heard at 13:26.
1 Kings 14:17
“Tirzah - An ancient and royal city, in a pleasant place, where the kings of Israel had a palace, whither Jeroboam was now removed from Shechem, either for his pleasure, or for his son's recovery, by the healthfulness of the place. The threshold - Of the king's house, which probably was upon, or by the wall of the city, and near the gate.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
all Israel mourned for him: John Wesley gives two reasons for the mourning: Israel lost a prince of promise, and his death opened the way for the judgments that followed. The word of verse 13 came true in full.
1 Kings 14:18
“Mourned - And justly: not only for the loss of an hopeful prince, but because his death plucked up the floodgates, at which an inundation of judgments broke in.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
1 Kings 14:19-20
the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel: The narrator points to “the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel”, a lost source distinct from the biblical books of Chronicles. Jeroboam reigns “twenty-two years” and dies unreformed, the man promised “a lasting dynasty” at 11:38 who forfeited it. Nadab his son takes a throne already sentenced.
1 Kings 14:19
“The wars of Jeroboam may be divided into: (1) his wars with Rehoboam (see 1Ki 14:25, 1Ki 14:30); and (2) his war with Abijam (see the marginal reference). The book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel - (of Judah, 1Ki 14:29). See the Introduction.”
1 more voice on this verse
1 Kings 14:19
“The chronicles - not that canonical book of chronicles; for that was written long after this book: but a book of civil records, the annals, wherein all remarkable passages were recorded by the king's command from day to day; out of which the sacred penman by the direction of God's spirit, took those passages which were most useful for God's honour, and mens edification.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
was twenty-two years, and he rested: John Gill notes that Jeroboam outlived Rehoboam and reigned into the second year of Asa, which 15:25 confirms. Gill takes Nadab for a younger brother of the Abijah who died. The house of Jeroboam falls within two years, at 15:27 to 29.
1 Kings 14:20
“And the days which Jeroboam reigned were twenty two years,.... So that he outlived Rehoboam five years, and lived to the second year of the reign of his grandson Asa: and he slept with his fathers; or died as they did: and Nadab his son reigned in his stead; who perhaps was younger than Abijah, whose sickness and death are before related.”
Shishak carries off the gold; Rehoboam makes shields of brass
Rehoboam son of Solomon reigned in Judah: Rehoboam's notice repeats the name formula of the temple chapters, “in which to put His Name”. His mother is named here and again at verse 31. She is “Naamah the Ammonite”, from a nation among Solomon's foreign wives at 11:1, and Deuteronomy 17:17 forbade a king many wives.
1 Kings 14:21
“Forty one years - Therefore he was born a year before Solomon was king, as appears from chap. xi, 42, this is noted as an aggravation of Rehoboam's folly, that he was old enough to have been wiser.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
2 more voices on this verse
1 Kings 14:21
“On the age of Rehoboam at his accession, see 1Ki 12:8 note. The 17 years of his reign must have been complete, or a little more than complete, if Abijam ascended the throne in the “eighteenth” year of Jeroboam 1Ki 15:1.”
1 Kings 14:21
“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.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
1 Kings 14:22-24
Judah did evil in the sight of the LORD: Judah provokes the LORD “more than all their fathers had done”. Verse 23 names high places, sacred pillars, and Asherah poles “on every high hill and under every green tree”, the pattern Deuteronomy warned against. Verse 24 adds male shrine prostitutes, and “They imitated all the abominations of the nations”.
1 Kings 14:22
“And Judah did evil in the sight of the Lord,.... At the end of three years, from the beginning of the reign of Rehoboam: and they provoked him to jealousy, with their sins which they had committed, above all that their fathers had done; that is, with their idolatries; for they were the sins which moved the Lord to jealousy, and provoked the eyes of his glory; in which they had outdone not the ten tribes, but their fathers, in the times of Moses, Joshua, and the judges, and of their kings before their separation, Saul, David, and Solomon.”
2 more voices on this verse
1 Kings 14:22
“This defection of Judah did not take place until Rehoboam’s fourth year (marginal reference). They provoked him to jealousy - Compare Exo 20:5; and on the force of the metaphor involved in the word, see Exo 34:15 note.”
1 Kings 14:22
“In the sight of the Lord - In contempt and defiance of him, and the tokens of his special presence. Jealousy - As the adulterous wife provokes her husband, by breaking the marriage covenant.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
on every high hill and under: Albert Barnes reads they also as a charge that Judah copied the high places Israel built at 12:31. John Wesley reads every high hill and green tree as corruption through the whole land. Deuteronomy 12:2 had ordered such places destroyed.
1 Kings 14:23
“The words “they also” are emphatic. Not only did the Israelites make themselves high places 1Ki 12:31; 1Ki 13:32, but the people of Judah also. The “high places,” which are said to have been “built,” were probably small shrines or tabernacles hung with bright-colored tapestry Eze 16:16, like the “sacred tent” of the Carthaginians. The “images” were rather “pillars” (Gen 28:18 note). Groves - See 1Ki 14:15, note.”
1 more voice on this verse
1 Kings 14:23
“Groves - Not only after the manner of the Heathens and Israelites, but against a direct and particular prohibition. Under every green tree - The people were universally corrupted: which is prodigious, all things considered, and is a clear evidence of the greatness and depth of the original corruption of man's nature.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
male shrine prostitutes in the land: Adam Clarke gives the Hebrew word as kedeshim, persons consecrated to the service of idols through impure rites. Deuteronomy 23:17 forbade them, and Matthew Henry reads their presence as the LORD giving Judah up to the abominations of the nations before them. Asa drives them from the land at 15:12.
1 Kings 14:24
“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.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
1 more voice on this verse
1 Kings 14:24
“There were also sodomites in the land - קדשים kedeshim, consecrated persons; persons who had devoted themselves, in practices of the greatest impurity, to the service of the most impure idols.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 Kings 14:25-26
Shishak king of Egypt came up and attacked Jerusalem: Shishak's campaign in Rehoboam's fifth year has a record outside Scripture: the Bubastite Portal at Karnak lists a campaign into Palestine. He takes “all the gold shields that Solomon had made”. The book of 2 Chronicles adds that he came “because they had been unfaithful to the LORD”.
1 Kings 14:25
“The examination of the famous inscription of Shishak at Karnak has resulted in the proof that the expedition commemorated was directed against Palestine, and has further thrown a good deal of light on the relations of the two kingdoms at the period. Of the fifteen fenced cities fortified by Rehoboam in the early part of his reign 2Ch 11:5-12, three, Shoco, Adoraim, and Aijalon are distinctly mentioned among Shishak’s conquests. Other towns of Judah or Benjamin also occur.”
1 more voice on this verse
1 Kings 14:25
“Fifth year - Presently after his and his people's apostacy, which was not 'till his fourth year: while apostate, Israel enjoyed peace and some kind of prosperity, of which difference, two reasons may be given: first, Judah's sins were committed against clearer light, and more powerful means and remedies of all sorts, and therefore deserved more severe and speedy judgments.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
all the gold shields that Solomon had made: Solomon made two hundred large shields and three hundred small ones of hammered gold at 10:16 and 17. Adam Clarke calls the plunder the greatest ever taken in one place. It came in the fifth year of Rehoboam.
1 Kings 14:26
“He took away the treasures - All the treasures which Solomon had amassed, both in the temple and in his own houses; a booty the most immense ever acquired in one place. All the shields of gold which Solomon had made - These were three hundred in number, and were all made of beaten gold. See a computation of their value in the note on 1Ki 10:17 (note).”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
1 Kings 14:26
“Secondly, it is probable David and Solomon in their building and altering the city, had more respect to state and magnificence than to its defense, as having no great cause to fear the invasion of any enemies. And it is certain, that after the division between Judah and Israel, the kings of Judah added very much to the fortifications of it.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
1 Kings 14:27-28
made bronze shields in their place: Rehoboam cannot restore the gold, so he makes “bronze shields in their place”, carried whenever the king enters the house of the LORD. At 7:45-47 the bronze of Solomon's temple articles was so great that “The weight of the bronze could not be determined”. Now bronze stands in for gold.
1 Kings 14:27
“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.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
the guards would bear the shields: Albert Barnes notes that Rehoboam still went to the house of the LORD in state while idols spread in Judah at verses 22 to 24. Matthew Henry reads the bronze shields as a sign of glory lost. Lamentations 4:1 mourns gold grown dull.
1 Kings 14:28
“It appears from this verse that Rehoboam, notwithstanding that he encouraged, and perhaps secretly practiced, idolatry (1Ki 14:22-24, compare 1Ki 15:3, 1Ki 15:12; 2Ch 12:1), maintained a public profession of faith in Yahweh, and attended in state the temple services. Compare the conduct of Solomon, 1Ki 9:25.”
1 Kings 14:29-31
the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah?: The southern kingdom has its own source, “the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah”. Verse 30 records war “throughout their days” and describes no battle. Rehoboam is buried in the City of David, and Abijam his son succeeds him to a reign the next chapter finds wanting.
1 Kings 14:29
“Now the rest of the acts of Rehoboam and all that he did,.... In the course of his reign, that was memorable: are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah? who had annalists or historiographers to write for them, as the kings of Israel had, 1Ki 14:19, in the writing of which, especially with respect to genealogies, Shemaiah the prophet, and Iddo the seer, were concerned, 2Ch 12:15.”
There was war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam: John Wesley reads this as border fighting in small raids, since 12:24 had forbidden an invasion. Open battle came later, under Abijam, at 15:7. The two kingdoms stayed at war.
1 Kings 14:30
“Was war - Not an invasive war with potent armies, which was forbidden, chap. xii, 24, and not revived 'till Abijam's reign, 2 Chron. xiii, 1-3, but a defensive war from those hostilities which by small parties and skirmishes they did to one another.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Naamah the Ammonite: is named twice, here and at verse 21. John Gill reads the repeat as a pointer to the source of Rehoboam's idolatry, which went on under his son Abijam. Matthew Henry notes that the marriage was made while David was still king.
1 Kings 14:31
“And Rehoboam slept with his fathers, and was buried with his fathers in the city of David,.... Where David and Solomon were buried, 1Ki 2:10 and his mother's name was Naamah, an Ammonitess; which is repeated, that it might be observed as what was the leading step to his idolatry, and the means of his continuing in it: and Abijam his son reigned in his stead; of whom there is a further account in the following chapter.”
1 more voice on this verse
1 Kings 14:31
“Slept with his fathers and was buried ... - Compare 1Ki 11:43. The expression is a sort of formula, and is used with respect to all the kings of Judah, except two or three. The writer probably regards the fact, which he records so carefully, as a continuation of God’s mercy to David. His mother’s name ... - The mention of the queen-mother so regularly in the account of the kings of Judah is thought to indicate that she had an important position in the state.”
How this psalm is built
The form: Oracle and regnal notice together: a prophetic sentence on the house of Jeroboam, then the closing formulas that begin the book's regnal frame, as Kings classes it.
The patterns in this chapter
| Device | What it does | Where to see it |
|---|---|---|
| A disguise that fails at the door | Jeroboam sends his wife in peasant clothes with ten loaves, cakes and a jar of honey, and Ahijah is blind. He knows her by the sound of her feet and greets her by her true name before she can offer a false one. Albert Barnes reads verse 6 as a matching of errands, so that as she carried a message to the prophet from her husband, he carried one to her from the LORD.Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments, 1832 to 1869, on 1 Kings 14:6. | 1 Kings 14:2, 1 Kings 14:3, 1 Kings 14:6 |
| David set as the measure | The oracle at verses 7 to 9 puts Jeroboam's rise in the LORD's own words, exalted from among the people and made prince over Israel. It then sets him against David, who kept the commandments and followed with a whole heart. That comparison becomes the standard the book applies to every king from here forward, north and south alike. The site's published exposition of verses 7 to 9 marks the office language as that of 2 Samuel 7, turned toward a northern king.This site's published exposition of 1 Kings 14, the note on verses 7 to 9, data/commentary/1-kings-14-exposition.json. | 1 Kings 14:7, 1 Kings 14:8, 1 Kings 14:9 |
| The dogs and the birds, a formula opened here | Verse 11 sets a sentence the book will pass over three doomed houses. The one dying in the city is eaten by dogs, and the one dying in the field by the birds of the air. It is spoken here against Jeroboam, then against the house of Baasha at 16:4, and then against Ahab, whose blood the dogs lick at 22:38. Keil and Adam Clarke are the holders the site's published exposition of verses 10 and 11 cites for the idiom and the chain.Keil, cited in this site's published exposition of 1 Kings 14, data/commentary/1-kings-14-exposition.json. | 1 Kings 14:11, 1 Kings 16:4, 1 Kings 22:38 |
| Who made Israel to sin, said for the first time | Verse 16 gives the book its first use of the phrase that grades every northern king who follows. The site's published exposition of verses 14 to 16 records that the refrain falls sixteen more times before Josiah burns the Bethel altar at 2 Kings 23:15. A sentence framed here for one man becomes the yardstick laid against his successors for two centuries.This site's published exposition of 1 Kings 14, the note on verses 14 to 16, data/commentary/1-kings-14-exposition.json. | 1 Kings 14:16, 2 Kings 23:15 |
| Gold going out and bronze coming in | Verses 25 to 28 list the exchange item by item. Shishak empties the temple treasury and the palace treasury, and takes the shields of gold Solomon had made. Rehoboam has bronze shields made in their place and sets the guard to carry them. Adam Clarke counts the gold shields at three hundred, all of beaten gold, and calls the booty the most immense ever acquired in one place. The site's published exposition of verses 27 and 28 marks that the ceremony continued unchanged while the metal did not.Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible, 1832, on 1 Kings 14:26. | 1 Kings 14:25, 1 Kings 14:26, 1 Kings 14:27, 1 Kings 14:28 |
| Two named sources, one for each kingdom | Verse 19 sends the reader to a book of chronicles kept for Israel's kings, and verse 29 to the matching book kept for Judah's. The two notices frame the chapter's second half and set the pattern the rest of Kings closes each reign with. The site's published exposition of verses 19 and 20 records that the source is now lost and stands apart from the biblical books of Chronicles.Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments, 1832 to 1869, on 1 Kings 14:19. | 1 Kings 14:19, 1 Kings 14:29 |
The historical value
13 more paragraphs on the patterns
Shishak's campaign is the first event in Israel's history with a matching foreign record, and this chapter is where it lands. Pharaoh Shoshenq I carved a list of the towns he took on the Bubastite Portal at the Karnak temple in Egypt, and the site's published historical layer for this chapter, citing K. A. Kitchen's On the Reliability of the Old Testament and the monument itself, records that the list runs through the Negev, the coastal plain and up into the Jezreel valley.
Albert Barnes works the inscription against the biblical account directly. He records that examination of the Karnak inscription proved the expedition was directed against Palestine. Three of the fifteen fortified cities Rehoboam had built, Shoco, Adoraim and Aijalon, are distinctly mentioned among Shishak's conquests, with other towns of Judah or Benjamin also occurring. He adds that whether the submission of the Jewish king is expressly recorded there remains a question. A mid-list entry has been read as Judah, king, and read by others as the name of a Palestinian town not otherwise known.
The site's published historical layer adds the detail that fits the two records together. Jerusalem itself does not appear in the surviving list, which matches a city bought off with the treasuries rather than sacked.
The debated concept: what the good thing in the child was
The text says some good thing toward the LORD was found in the boy and names no deed, and the commentators divide over whether to supply one. John Wesley supplies intentions, reading it as pious purposes of taking away the calves and of permitting or obliging the people to go up to Jerusalem, held if God gave him life and authority. He adds that the phrase in the house is there for the child's greater commendation, a good branch of a bad flock.
Adam Clarke declines to specify and argues from the principle. He holds it far from God to destroy the righteous with the wicked, and that God respects even a little good because it is a seed from Himself. Albert Barnes reads the setting rather than the soul, holding that the child was evidently a prince of some promise and probably the heir.
The site's published exposition of verses 12 and 13 leaves the question where the verse leaves it, and this page does the same. What the chapter states is the mercy in the timing, since this son alone of that house is mourned and buried.
The debated concept: the broken sentence at verse 14
Verse 14 closes with a phrase the commentators cannot settle. The site's published exposition of verses 14 to 16 records the division without a verdict. One reading takes it to name a rival already rising, which would make the sentence a pointer to Baasha in the next chapter. The other reading takes Ahijah's sentence to break off in urgency, so that the phrase marks the speech rather than the successor.
The page states no verdict between them. Both readings agree that the house falls inside one generation, which chapter 15 records.
Where the chapter reaches
Verse 15 describes the northern exile centuries before it happens, an uprooting out of the good land and a scattering beyond the river. The Assyrian deportation it describes arrives at 2 Kings 17:6, where Samaria falls and the Israelites are carried to Halah, to Gozan by the Habor and to the cities of the Medes.
The parallel account supplies a reason this chapter withholds. 2 Chronicles 12:2 states that Shishak came up against Jerusalem in Rehoboam's fifth year because they had been unfaithful to the LORD. The New Testament nowhere cites 1 Kings 14.
Keep studying
Studies4
Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The form and classifications
Charles Spurgeon; This site's published exposition of 1 Kings 14, the notes on verses 1 to 3 and 19 to 20, data/commentary/1-kings-14-exposition.json and This site's published guide to 1 Kings, src/components/book/guides/1-kings/Book1KingsGuide.tsx, the chapter table at chapter 14, Rehoboam and Jeroboam judged and the regnal formula begins.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes; Alfred Edersheim, Bible History: Old Testament; Charles Spurgeon, The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Sermon No. 584: “A Hearer In Disguise” (lightly modernized text, CCEL edition); F. W. Farrar, The First Book of Kings (Expositor's Bible); Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Gill; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament; Keil, The Books of the Kings and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.