1 Kings 14:1-22

1 At that time Abijah the son of Jeroboam fell sick.
2 Jeroboam said to his wife, Please get up and disguise yourself, that you not be known to be the wife of Jeroboam; and get you to Shiloh: behold, there is Ahijah the prophet, who spoke concerning me that I should be king over this people.
3 Take with you ten loaves, and cakes, and a jar of honey, and go to him: he will tell you what shall become of the child.
4 Jeroboam's wife did so, and arose, and went to Shiloh, and came to the house of Ahijah. Now Ahijah could not see; for his eyes were set by reason of his age.
5 Yahweh said to Ahijah, Behold, the wife of Jeroboam comes to inquire of you concerning her son; for he is sick: thus and thus shall you tell her; for it will be, when she comes in, that she will feign herself to be another woman.
6 It was so, when Ahijah heard the sound of her feet, as she came in at the door, that he said, Come in, you wife of Jeroboam; why feign you yourself to be another? for I am sent to you with heavy news.
7 Go, tell Jeroboam, Thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel: Because I exalted you from among the people, and made you prince over my people Israel,
8 and tore the kingdom away from the house of David, and gave it you; and yet you have 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 my eyes,
9 but have done evil above all who were before you, and have gone and made you other gods, and molten images, to provoke me to anger, and have cast me behind your back:
10 therefore, behold, I will bring evil on the house of Jeroboam, and will cut off from Jeroboam every man-child, him who is shut up and him who is left at large in Israel, and will utterly sweep away the house of Jeroboam, as a man sweeps away dung, until it be all gone.
11 Him who dies of Jeroboam in the city shall the dogs eat; and him who dies in the field shall the birds of the sky eat: for Yahweh has spoken it.
12 Arise you therefore, get you to your house: [and] when your feet enter into the city, the child shall die.
13 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 Yahweh, the God of Israel, in the house of Jeroboam.
14 Moreover Yahweh will raise him up a king over Israel, who shall cut off the house of Jeroboam that day: but what? even now.
15 For Yahweh will strike Israel, as a reed is shaken in the water; and he will root up Israel out of this good land which he gave to their fathers, and will scatter them beyond the River, because they have made their Asherim, provoking Yahweh to anger.
16 He will give Israel up because of the sins of Jeroboam, which he has sinned, and with which he has made Israel to sin.
17 Jeroboam's wife arose, and departed, and came to Tirzah: [and] as she came to the threshold of the house, the child died.
18 All Israel buried him, and mourned for him, according to the word of Yahweh, which he spoke by his servant Ahijah the prophet.
19 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 The days which Jeroboam reigned were two and twenty years: and he slept with his fathers, and Nadab his son reigned in his place.
21 Rehoboam the son of Solomon reigned in Judah. Rehoboam was forty-one years old when he began to reign, and he reigned seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city which Yahweh had chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, to put his name there: and his mother's name was Naamah the Ammonitess.
22 Judah did that which was evil in the sight of Yahweh, and they provoked him to jealousy with their sins which they committed, above all that their fathers had done.

1 Kings 14:1-22 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO 1 KINGS 14

This chapter relates the sickness of Jeroboam's son, the application of his wife, at his instance, to the prophet Ahijah, in the child's favour, 1Ki 14:1-6, the prophecy of the prophet concerning the ruin of Jeroboam's house, and the death of the child, which came to pass, 1Ki 14:7-18, an account of the years of Jeroboam's reign, and also of Rehoboam's, 1Ki 14:19-21, and of the evil things done and suffered by the latter in his kingdom, and the calamities that came upon him for it, 1Ki 14:22-28 and the conclusion of his reign, 1Ki 14:29-31.

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