Bible Commentaries

And Jeroboam said to his wife, Arise, I pray thee, ^a 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.

(a) His own conscience bore witness to him that the prophet of God would not satisfy his desires, who was a wicked man.

And take with ^b thee ten loaves, and cracknels, and a cruse of honey, and go to him: he shall tell thee what shall become of the child.

(b) According to the custom when they went to ask counsel of prophets, (1 Samuel 9:7).

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] ^c another [woman].

(c) Than the wife of Jeroboam.

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 ^d wife of Jeroboam; why feignest thou thyself [to be] another? for I [am] sent to thee [with] heavy [tidings].

(d) For God often discloses to his own the craft and subtilty of the wicked.

Go, tell Jeroboam, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, Forasmuch as I exalted ^e thee from among the people, and made thee prince over my people Israel,

(e) Who was but a servant.

But hast done evil above all that were before thee: for thou hast gone and made thee other gods, and ⁱ molten images, to provoke me to anger, and hast cast me behind thy back:

(i) That is, two calves.

Therefore, behold, I will bring evil upon the house of Jeroboam, and will cut off from Jeroboam him that ^g pisseth against the wall, [and] him that ^h 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.

(g) Every male even to the dogs, (1 Samuel 25:22).

(h) As well him that is in the stronghold, as him that is abroad.

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: ⁱ for the LORD hath spoken [it].

(i) They will lack the honour of burial in token of God's curse.

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 ^k [some] good thing toward the LORD God of Israel in the house of Jeroboam.

(k) In the midst of the wicked, God has some on whom he bestows his mercies.

Moreover the LORD shall raise him up a king over Israel, who shall cut off the house of Jeroboam that day: ^l but what? even now.

(l) The Lord will begin to destroy it out of hand.

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 ^m river, because they have made their groves, provoking the LORD to anger.

(m) Meaning the Euphrates.

And he shall give Israel up because of the sins of Jeroboam, who did sin, and who ⁿ made Israel to sin.

(n) The people will not be excused when they do evil at the commandment of their governors.

And the days which Jeroboam reigned [were] two and twenty years: and he ^o slept with his fathers, and Nadab his son reigned in his stead.

(o) The Lord smote him and he died, (2 Chronicles 13:20).

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 ^p 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.

(p) And died about four years before Jeroboam.

And there were also sodomites in the ^q land: [and] they did according to all the abominations of the nations which the LORD cast out before the children of Israel.

(q) Where idolatry reigns, all horrible vices are committed, till at length God's just judgment destroys them completely.

Now the rest of the acts of Rehoboam, and all that he did, [are] they not written in ^r the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah?

(r) Which were called the books of Shemaiah and Iddo the prophets, (2 Chronicles 12:15).

And there was war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam ^s all [their] days.

(s) That is, all the days of Rehoboam's life.

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 ^t Ammonitess. And Abijam his son reigned in his stead.

(t) Whose idolatry Rehoboam her son followed.