Bible Commentaries

B.—The prophecy of Ahijah against the house and kingdom of Jeroboam, and the death of the latter.

1 Kings 14:1-20

1¹ At that time Abijah the son of Jeroboam fell sick. And Jeroboam said 2 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 king² over this people 3 And take with thee ten loaves, and cracknels,³ 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 Song of Solomon, 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 [Jehovah] said unto Ahijah, Behold, the wife of Jeroboam cometh to ask a thing of thee for her son; for he is sick: thus and thus⁴ shalt thou say unto her: for it shall be, when she cometh in, that she shall feign herself to be another woman. 6And it was Song of Solomon, 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:7am sent to thee with heavy tidings. Go tell Jeroboam, Thus saith the Lord [Jehovah] God of Israel, Forasmuch as I exalted thee from among the people, and made thee prince over my people Israel, 8and 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; 9but 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: 10therefore, behold, I will bring evil upon⁵ the house of Jeroboam, and will cut off from Jeroboam him that pisseth against the wall, and him that is shut up and left⁶ in Israel, and will take away the remnant⁷ 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 [Jehovah] hath spoken it. 12Arise 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 [Jehovah] 14God of Israel in the house of Jeroboam. Moreover, the Lord [Jehovah] shall raise him up a king over Israel, who shall cut off the house of Jeroboamthat 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 [Jehovah] 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: 18and they buried him; and all Israel mourned for him, according to the word of the Lord [Jehovah], which he spake by the hand of his servant Ahijah the prophet.

19And 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.

Exegetical and Critical

1 Kings 14:1-6. At that time, &c. As Jeroboam was not led to a change of heart by what is recorded in chap, 13, a visitation overtook him in the form of the illness of his promising son Abijah, who was doubtless to have been his successor. Then, when in distress, he thought of the prophet who once promised him the kingdom, and a “sure house” ( 1 Kings 11:38); he thought of Ahijah, whose prophecy respecting the kingdom had been fulfilled, and he hoped to receive from him a sure answer to a question which concerned the continuance of his dynasty. But, conscious that he had not fulfilled the prophet’s condition—unswerving loyalty to Jehovah—he did not venture to go himself, but tried to deceive him, and, as it were, to steal an answer from him. He sends the mother, the most natural intercessor for the son; she is disguised, so that no one can know her and tell the prophet who she is. The presents that it was customary to take ( 1 Samuel 9:8) were purposely very small, for she wished, no doubt, to appear to the prophet as a very poor woman; but נִקֻּדִּים does not mean “mouldy loaves” (Hess, Dereser, and others), for נָקֹד means punctured, spotted, but not therefore mouldy; the Sept. gives κολλυρίς, the Vulgate crustula. The expression קָמוּ עֵינָיו ( 1 Kings 14:4), i.e, his eyes stood (were set), “means the gray cataracts, amaurosis, that take place in old age, through paralysis of the optic nerves” (Keil) ( 1 Samuel 4:15). קָשָׁה, 1 Kings 14:6, is the same as in 1 Kings 12:13.

1 Kings 14:7-9. Go tell Jeroboam, &c. 1 Kings 14:7. The older commentators remark that the prophecy which begins here and ends in 1 Kings 14:16 takes a rhythmical form. It has ten verses ( 1 Kings 14:7-16), five of which make one section ( 1 Kings 14:7-16); the first section is in3 + 2, and the second in2 + 3verses. Jeroboam had sinned above all that were before him ( 1 Kings 14:9); for none, whether king, Judges, or leader, had made an unlawful worship a State institution, and forcibly maintained it to gratify lust of power and selfishness; Solomon had only permitted the idolatrous worship, and that first to his already idolatrous wives. מַסֵּכוֹת, the same as in Deuteronomy 9:12; Judges 17:3-4, molten images. Worship of images is here placed on a level with worship of idols, because it involuntarily leads to it (see Hist. and Eth. on 1 Kings 12:28). “The expression, hast cast me (God) behind thy back, which occurs nowhere else but in Ezekiel 23:35, is the strongest possible phraseology to denote intentional contempt of God—the opposite from having God before one’s eyes; and it is stronger than ‘cast Thy law behind their backs,’ Nehemiah 9:26” (Keil).

1 Kings 14:10-12. Therefore behold, I will bring evil, 1 Kings 14:10. The expression “that pisseth against the wall” in 1 Samuel 25:22 ( 1 Kings 16:11; 1 Kings 21:21; 2 Kings 9:8), was, no doubt, originally used of dogs, and was not an honorable way of alluding to the male sex; for it is employed in all these passages only of those who are to be cast away and rooted out. The words עָצוּר וְעָזוּב, which are mostly connected with it, are epexegetical; literally, the detained, and those set free, which Seb. Schmidt rightly interprets puer, qui domi adhuc detinetur et qui emancipatus est; the male descendants not of age are under guardians ( 2 Kings 10:1; 2 Kings 10:5; 1 Chronicles 27:32). This is the only explanation which suits the word בְּיִשְׁרָאֵל, which “refers to an intruded, or already assumed share in public life” (Thenius); all the male descendants of the king, even the minors, were threatened with destruction. Luther’s translation, “those shut up and forsaken in Israel,” is decidedly erroneous. “Behind the house of Jeroboam” means: as often as a new scion arises I shall take it away, &c. (cf. Isaiah 14:23). The Vulgate which Luther followed is wrong: mundabo reliquias domus Jeroboam. The threat reaches its climax in 1 Kings 14:11, which foretells the frightful and disgraceful manner of the destruction. To remain unburied was an intolerable thought to the Hebrews; and in all the ancient world it was accounted the severest disgrace, because in such cases the corpse became the prey of the birds or of wild beasts, or of the voracious dogs in the East, that ran wild and were reckoned unclean. According to Deuteronomy 28:26 this punishment was a divine curse. The same threat occurs elsewhere, especially in Jeremiah ( 1 Kings 16:4; 1 Kings 21:24; Ezekiel 29:5; Ezekiel 39:17; Jeremiah 7:33; Jeremiah 8:2; Jeremiah 9:22; Jeremiah 12:9; Jeremiah 14:16). cf. Winer R- W-B. I. s. 148. The כִּי at the end is to heighten the effect, as elsewhere, and is = imo (Ewald, Lehrb. der hebr. Sprache § 330 b); yes, Jehovah will fulfil this as well as the former prophecy of Jeroboam’s elevation.

1 Kings 14:13-14. Some good thing toward the Lord God, 1 Kings 14:13. אֶל יְהוָֹה is not to be connected with נמצא, and then translated as the Vulgate has it, a domino (Thenius); but it means towards, or in relation to, Jehovah (cf. 2 Kings 6:11). The whole context shows that it can scarcely mean anything else than that this Song of Solomon, from whom the king and people hoped so much, was inclined to the pure and lawful worship of Jehovah. The Rabbins have a fable that he disobeyed his father’s command to hinder people from travelling to Jerusalem to keep the feasts, and that he even removed obstructions in the road. The abrupt words in 1 Kings 14:14 : וּמֶה גַּם־עָתָּה are obscure, and are very variously explained. Thenius adopts the view of the Chald.: He shall cut off the house of Jeroboam “that which now (lives), and that which shall be (born) to it.” But the athnach with הַיּוֹם as well as with מֶה contradicts this, which means not quod but quid. The meaning seems to be: Jehovah will raise up a king, who at a certain period shall cut off the house of Jeroboam; what now occurs (the death of the boy) is the sign and beginning of this complete destruction. The interrogatory form makes the words more impressive. The Hirsch-berger Bible says: “And what shall I say (on that coming day)? It is even now come;” Keil also; “but what (sc. say I)? even now (viz. he has raised him up).”

1 Kings 14:14-16. For the Lord shall smite Israel, 1 Kings 14:15. Smiting refers to the wasting of Israel by hostile nations, before the Assyrian captivity. A “reed” continually waves to and fro in water, as it cannot resist the force of the wind and waves. “The image is very striking, for Israel was brought so low, that every political influence bore it along” (Thenius). The “scattering” took place in the captivity ( 2 Kings 15:29; 2 Kings 17:23; 2 Kings 18:11). אֲשֵׁרִים does not mean groves (Luther), but the statues of the female deity, elsewhere called Astarte (see above on 1 Kings 11:5), who stands over against Baal, the Canaanitish (Phœnician) male deity. These statues were wooden (upright tree-stems); the worship was licentious ( Judges 3:7; Judges 6:25 sq.; 2 Kings 23:7; Ezekiel 23:42 sq.). It is not expressly said that images of Astarte were erected under Jeroboam, but 1 Kings 14:23 remarks that this was done in Judah under Rehoboam, how much more then in Israel. The Astarte worship existed in the time of the Judges (cf. on the place). Jeroboam’s image-worship is here regarded as a continual evil and source of all ruin. Keil’s assertion that “אֲשֵׁרִים stands for any idols, among which the golden calves are to be numbered,” is not susceptible of proof.

1 Kings 14:17-18. And Jeroboam’s wife … to Tirzah, 1 Kings 14:17. According to Joshua 12:24, Tirzah was originally a Canaanitish royal city, situated in a beautiful district ( Ecclesiastes 6:4). We cannot ascertain its precise situation; it was probably near Shechem; Robinson thinks it was rather north of Mount Ebal; former travellers state that they found a Tersah on a high mountain, three hours’ distance east of Samaria (cf. Winer, R-W-B. II. s. 613). According to 1 Kings 12:25, Shechem was the residence of Jeroboam; and he must either have changed it afterwards to Tirzah, or the latter must have been only a summer residence. Penuel, mentioned above, was not a place of residence but a fortress; so that the present passage does not at all contradict that one, as Thenius thinks. The kings Baasha and Asa and Elah resided at Tirzah ( 1 Kings 15:21; 1 Kings 15:33; 1 Kings 16:8).

1 Kings 14:19-20. The rest of the acts of Jeroboam, &c, 1 Kings 14:19. For the book of the contemporaneous history of the kings of Israel see Introduction § 2. What is only alluded to by our author, in the words “how he warred,” is fully given by the Chronicler, from the book of the prophet Iddo; 2 Chronicles 13:2-20. This is an account of a great defeat of Jeroboam by king Abijah, and it says at the end: “and the Lord struck him (וַיִּגְּפֵהוּ), and he died.” Bertheau’s supposition that this refers to the defeat itself, is scarcely right; neither can it mean a sudden death (Thenius), but, as in 2 Chronicles 21:18, a severe and painful illness.

Historical and Ethical

1. From the long reign (twenty-two years ) of Jeroboam, whose history closes with the present section, our author only selects those deeds that bear on his apostasy from the fundamental law of Israel, i.e, on “the sin wherewith he made Israel to sin.” He passes over all the rest that Jeroboam did as a shrewd and powerful regent or warrior, because it was of far less importance to the history of the kingdom and of the entire theocracy than that sin which especially characterized his government, and the results of which were felt for hundreds of years. David was the king who faithfully kept the fundamental law, and was therefore the type of a theocratic king, but Jeroboam was the king who openly broke the fundamental law, made the bull-worship the religion of the State, and used it as a bulwark of his kingdom over against Judah. He was the real cause of the apostasy of all the after kings of the ten tribes, for they all regarded it as the support of their power, and as a firm wall of separation between both kingdoms. This is the reason why the account of his reign significantly closes with the divine sentence on him and the apostate kingdom. It was a divine dispensation that he himself, after all warnings and threatenings had been in vain, called forth this divine sentence by the deceitful means he took, and even from the very prophet who had announced to him his future elevation; so that he could judge from the fulfilment of that announcement that the sentence would also come to pass. As his sin was the type of the sin of all succeeding kings and of the whole kingdom, so Ahijah’s prediction is the type of all succeeding predictions regarding this kingdom; it forms the key-tone that rings through all of them ( 1 Kings 16:4; 1 Kings 21:23; 1 Kings 22:28; 2 Kings 9:36).

2. Ahijah’s prophecy, in form as well as in contents (cf. above on 1 Kings 14:7) is a perfectly connected whole. It refers back ( 1 Kings 14:7-8) to the former prediction, 1 Kings 11:30, particularly to 1 Kings14:37 sq. After, in 1 Kings 14:8, it is stated in a general way that Jeroboam did not follow David’s example, which was the condition imposed upon him. 1 Kings 14:9 declares how he sinned; then follows, in 1 Kings 14:10-11, the announcement of the punishment, which was to be a shameful destruction of his house; 1 Kings 14:12-13 apply this to the heir-apparent, to the sick and only Song of Solomon, who was, indeed, also to die, but he was not to perish so disgracefully, because some “good thing” was found in him. 1 Kings 14:10-11 are repeated in 1 Kings 14:14, and it is added who is to carry out this sentence; but as Jeroboam had drawn all Israel into his sin, and they had consented thereto, the prophecy finally proceeds in 1 Kings 14:15-16 to deal with guilty Israel, pronouncing its disastrous future and final ruin. This alone shows how unfounded the assertion of the recent criticism is, that the form of the prediction, as it now is, is not the original. According to Ewald, 1 Kings 14:9; 1 Kings 14:15 are “clearly an addition of the later (i.e, fifth Deuteronomical) author;” the style of 1 Kings 14:9 is peculiar to this author, and 1 Kings 14:15 interrupts the connection. But 1 Kings 14:9 is an essential part of the whole, and its omission would leave a serious gap; the following sentence of punishment is founded on what 1 Kings 14:9 states. Just as little does 1 Kings 14:15 break the connection; it rather forms the object and acme of the prediction, pronouncing the natural and necessary end of Jeroboam’s sin. To take away this conclusion is to break off the point of the whole. Thenius only objects to the second half of 1 Kings 14:15, on account of the expression; “beyond the river;” this he thinks is from an “elaborator.” But the Euphrates is generally given as the extreme limit of the land that was promised to the fathers ( Genesis 15:18; Exodus 23:31; Deuteronomy 1:7; Deuteronomy 11:24; Joshua 1:3-4; Psalm 80:12). The prophet, when he wished to say that Israel should lose the land given to their fathers, could scarcely use any other form of expression than that they should be sent away beyond the river; a case which Solomon foresaw as possible (see above). If criticism did not take it for granted that any genuine prediction is impossible, it would not think of doubting the authenticity of this. That the prophet predicted the cutting off of Jeroboam’s house, and the destruction of the kingdom of Israel, is as little to be doubted as the prediction connected with it, that of Abijah’s death, whom the blind prophet had not even seen.

3. Ahijah’s prophecy repeatedly describes the consequence and working of “Jeroboam’s sin” ( 1 Kings 14:9; 1 Kings 14:15) in the words, provoked the Lord to anger. This expression occurs in other parts of the Old Testament also ( 1 Kings 14:22; 1 Kings 16:2; 1 Kings 16:7; 1 Kings 16:13; 1 Kings 21:22; 2 Kings 17:11; 2 Kings 17:17; 2 Kings 23:26; Deuteronomy 4:25; Deuteronomy 31:29; Deuteronomy 32:16; Deuteronomy 32:21; 2 Chronicles 23:25; Ezekiel 8:17; Ezekiel 16:26; Psalm 78:58); it by no means presupposes rude, anthropopathical ideas of the nature of God, but is founded on perfectly just views of the deity. The two expressions for Jehovah’s anger, כעם and קנא, which are cited in the above passages, sometimes interchanged and sometimes used synonymously, are employed only in reference to a particular sin, i.e, apostasy from Jehovah through idolatry or image-worship, and never of sin in general; and they have, therefore, direct reference to the fundamental law, the covenant, in which this sin is forbidden, with the addition, “for the Lord thy God is a אֵל קַנָּא,” i.e, a jealous God. Jehovah had from love chosen Israel out of all peoples to be His people, and had made a covenant with them ( Exodus 19:4-5; Deuteronomy 4:36-40; Deuteronomy 7:6-13; Deuteronomy 10:14-15; Psalm 47:5; Jeremiah 31:3), that they should be a holy people, even as He is holy ( Leviticus 19:2). The holy love of Jehovah to his people is so great and strong that each departure of Israel from the covenant excites His “jealousy;” Jehovah, “the holy God,” is, as such, also “a jealous God” ( Joshua 24:19), and He would appear as faithless and unholy if He were indifferent to idolatry and image-worship, which are breaches of the covenant, and therefore called adultery and whoredom ( Jeremiah 3:9, and many other places). Offence against the holy love of God awakens His jealousy, which manifests itself in retributive justice, i. e, it provokes Him to anger. “Just anger can only be conceived of as closely united with mercy. The Old Testament proclaims this high and blessed truth with a voice above that of man. This is its greatest excellence, and conspicuously with it is to be seen its peculiar sublimity, which consists in its preaching at one and the same time the all-consuming wrath of God and the ardor of His mercy, surpassing infinitely that of a mother. Both are closely and inseparably interwoven on every page, the thunder of God’s wrath and the quickening spring-breath of His mercy. Classical antiquity had no genuine, awe-inspiring knowledge of divine anger, neither had it any living consciousness of the divine mercy” (Rothe, Theologische Ethik II. s. 203).

4. The divine judgments announced in Ahijah’s prediction, namely, cutting off Jeroboam’s house, and dispersion of Israel out of the good land given to their fathers, correspond with the nature of the old covenant, which has its form in the bodily and in the temporal. As natural descent and derivation was the condition of belonging to the chosen covenant people, so the curse and blessing, good and evil bound up with the covenant relation, were of a material, temporal nature. As natural descent determined a right to partake of the covenant with Jehovah, so also natural posterity was blessing and peace, while the dying out or cutting off of a race was a curse and misfortune. This is the reason why David, who was faithful to the covenant, was promised that he should always have a light, i.e, a house forever ( 1 Kings 11:36; 1 Kings 15:4; 2 Samuel 21:17), while the speedy and shameful extinction of his house was announced to the unfaithful Jeroboam. So also the “good land,” flowing with milk and honey, was promised to the whole of the chosen people; but when they broke the covenant and partook of Jeroboam’s sin they were deprived of the good land, were scattered in strange lands, and ceased to be a nation, which was to them the greatest punishment.

Homiletical and Practical

1 Kings 14:1-20. The last divine warning to Jeroboam, (a) through the illness of his Song of Solomon, (b) through the prediction of the prophet. Jeroboam in need and in distress, (a) He is only concerned about the taking away of the need and the lifting off of the punishment, not in the renunciation of his sin and the conversion of the heart, which should have been the result of his need, as it is the case now with so many, (b) He seeks consolation and help, not at the hands of his false priests and spiritual hirelings, whom he himself did not trust, but from the prophet, about whom he did not long trouble himself after he had nothing to ask. Thus it is always. In need and necessity unbelievers and the children of this world seek for consolation and comfort from a spiritual preacher, and despise the finery of the hirelings who care only for the wool and not for the sheep, (c) He does not himself apply to the prophet, because he has an evil conscience, and he sends his wife in a disguise, for before the world he does not wish to be viewed as one who cares much for prophets. This is the folly of the wise of this world, that they suppose they can deceive God as they deceive men. But the Lord sees what is concealed in the darkness, and gives to every one what he has deserved.

1 Kings 14:1. When the threatening, warning word of God bears no fruit, God at last sends the cross, especially the cross in the household, to humble us, to bring us to a knowledge of our sins, and to lead us to the cross of Christ.—Starke: God generally lays hold upon men in those respects where it is most grievous to them ( 2 Samuel 12:14; John 4:47).

1 Kings 14:2. Calw. B.: Jeroboam did not wish to be seen having anything to do with the prophet, by any one. Worldly people are ashamed to make it known that they believe in anything, even if it be a superstitious faith. If God send thee necessity and distress, take no by-ways, but go to Him and pour out thine heart before Him; He hears all who call upon Him, all who earnestly cry unto Him. Disguise thyself, that no one mark who and what thou art! This is the bad advice which the world gives for the conduct of life, and which passes current with it as the true wisdom thereof. How social life is vitiated by this sin, by the endeavor to seem before people rather than to be—often it is like a masquerade! It is even more deceived by actions, by mien and manner, than by words. The art of disguise corrupts man in the profoundest ground of his being, and transforms him into an incarnate lie.

1 Kings 14:3-4. Calw. B.: The little bit of faith which worldly people often exhibit is but part of their selfishness.…The foreknowledge of the future in the affairs of daily life man would gladly possess, because he will not yield himself, in faith, to the will of God. Hence flow often superstition, fortune-telling, dream-interpretation, astrology, both among the heathens as well as among Christians.—Cramer: The gift of God neither should nor can be sold or bought for money. As a rule, unbelief is bound with superstition. Jeroboam did not believe when God spoke to him by word and deed (chap13), and yet he believed that by means of a few loaves and cakes he could persuade God to reveal the future to him. [The history of religion in modern times confirms and illustrates this.]

1 Kings 14:4-6. The wife of Jeroboam before the prophet, (a) She means to deceive the aged blind prophet by a disguise, but the Lord gives him sight ( Psalm 156:8). He gives strength to the weary and power to the feeble. The Lord ever gives sight to His true servants, so that the world cannot deceive and blind them. (b) She hopes, by her present, to secure the desired answer, but, at the hour, the Lord gives him the word he shall speak; it is the Spirit of God who speaks through him ( Matthew 10:19 sq.). A true servant of God proclaims the word of truth to every one, without respect of persons, no matter how hard it be for him. This often is his hard yet sacred duty.

1 Kings 14:7-16. Ahijah’s sermon of repentance and retribution, (a) Against Jeroboam, who corrupted Israel. (b) Against Israel, allowing themselves to be corrupted.

1 Kings 14:7 sq. How often it happens that the very ones whom God raises from the dust, and to whom He gives the largest favors, turn their back upon and forget Him. So Jeroboam, so Israel. Deuteronomy 32:6.

1 Kings 14:10; 1 Kings 14:15. Not a blessing but a curse rests upon a house which turns its back upon the Lord and His commandments. And so also a people who forget the faith of their fathers lose all territory, are given up to all convulsions from within and from without, and go to destruction. Sin is the destruction of the people. ( Hebrews 10:28-30.)

1 Kings 14:12-13. The death of a beloved child, for whom God has prepared good, is often the only and the supreme means of turning away the heart of the parents from sin and the world, and of winning them to the life in God to which they are strangers. For many a child it is a divine blessing when it is early taken out of this vain world and called away from surroundings in which there is danger of the corruption both of soul and body.

1 Kings 14:15. Israel, it is thine own sin that thou hast destroyed thyself.

1 Kings 14:16. If the Lord say,—he who offends one of the least of these, &c, &c. ( Matthew 18:6), what will He say to those who give offence to an entire people, at the head of which they stand, through unbelief and immorality, and beguile them into an apostasy from the living God?

1 Kings 14:18. What the Saviour said to those who bewailed Him on His way to death, Weep not for me, but, &c. ( Luke 23:28), might have been said to the whole people Israel, and is true to-day of so many who are weeping over a grave. We should carry the dead in whom good before God is found with honor to their rest in the grave.

1 Kings 14:19-20. The Scripture says ( Proverbs 10:7), The memory of the just is blessed, but the name of the godless will perish (rot). The first is true of David, the last of Jeroboam, whose name is not like an ointment poured out (i.e, diffusing sweet perfume, Ecclesiastes 1:3), but is a savor of death unto death; for with his name, for all the future, this word is connected: who sinned and made Israel to sin. Of what use is it to have worn a worldly crown two and twenty years, to have striven and fought for it, when the crown of life does not succeed it, which they alone obtain who are faithful unto death ( Revelation 2:10)?

Footnotes