Bible Commentaries

1 Kings 11:22

We can scarcely doubt that love of country was the ruling feeling in Hadad's wish to return to Edom. Had it been revenge or ambition, he could have named it to Pharaoh, and he would have been understood; but it was a feeling he could not explain. It is an old Edomite anticipation of the saying of the Latin poet, "I know not what charm it is which leads us captive in the love of native land; it will not let us forget."

I. The love of country is a feeling not only deep in our nature, as we do not need to show, but acknowledged and approved in the Bible. (1) It is one of the ways by which God secures that the earth should be inhabited. The world must have an anchor as well as a sail. Rocky Edom is dear as fertile Egypt, and bleak, storm-struck islands more than southern Edens. (2) This love of the native soil has been one of the great springs of the poetry of the race. Apart from the region of the spirit itself, imagination is never more pure and purifying than when it takes for its subject the things of native land and home.

II. Another thought suggested by this feeling is that it leads to acts of great self-sacrifice and endeavour. Next to religion there is probably nothing in human nature which has called out such a heroic spirit of martyrdom or such long, persistent labour, as the love of native land.

III. This feeling should enable us to understand the hearts and work for the rights of all men. Augustine has said that we may make a ladder of the dead things within us to climb to the highest; but there is another ladder of living things by which we can rise as high, and by which our sympathies can be travelling to and fro like the angels in the dream of Bethel. The vision begins in the dreamer's own breast, and then it passes up into the skies.

IV. This feeling may help the conception of another and a higher country. It is one of the ways by which God keeps the heart above sensualism and bitter selfishness, a kind of salt that saves nations from entire corruption. He takes hold of this, as of other natural affections, to lift men to the "fatherland of souls." We should purify our affection for the lower, that it may lead us on and lift us to the higher.

J. Ker, Sermons, 2nd series, p. 137.

I. Men cannot always give an account of their impulses. We seem to have everything, yet we want something else. We have all Egypt, yet we are willing to leave it for Edom.

II. What we mistake, either in ourselves or in others, for mere restlessness may be the pressure of destiny. We blame some men roughly for desiring a change when really the Lord has spoken to them.

III. We may judge of the value of our impulses by the self-denial imposed by their operation. This law of judgment will disenchant many of our supposed Divine impulses.

IV. Is it not by some such impulse that the good man meets death with a brave heart? How else could he leave loved ones, home, manifold enjoyment, and social honour?

V. Remember how possible it is to overrule our best impulses. Is not the Spirit of Christ urging every man to leave the Egypt of sinful bondage? "Come out from among them, and be separate, saith the Lord."

Parker, The Ark of God, p. 233.

References: 1 Kings 11:14-22.—Parker, vol. vii., p. 342. 1 Kings 11:21.—S. Baring-Gould, One Hundred Sermon Sketches, p. 158. 1 Kings 11:28.— Thain Davidson, Talks with Young Men, p. 175. 1 Kings 11:29.—Expositor, 3rd series, vol. v., p. 47. 1 Kings 11:31, 1 Kings 11:32.—G. Rawlinson, Hampton Lectures, 1859, p. 89; Clergyman's Magazine, vol. xi., p. 14. 1 Kings 12:1-3.—Homiletic Magazine, vol. ix., p. 174. 1 Kings 12:1-20.—Parker, Fountain, Jan. 4th, 1877. 1 Kings 12:1-33.—Clergyman's Magazine, vol. v., p. 18. 1 Kings 12:13.—A. Young, Thursday Penny Pulpit, vol. ii., p. 121.