Chapter 14
Abijah, apparently Jeroboam's first and only son at this time, gets sick, and J sends his wife, in disguise, to see Ahijah, the prophet of God, and to take him food, and ask what will happen to the child. MSB says that J wanted to "be on God's side" with regard to his son Abijah (R also had a son with this name...) so that his son would be blessed. But he sends his wife in disguise so that his subjects won't know that he is consulting with a prophet of the living God, instead of with the priests of the Golden Calf. She does this. From vs 5b through 16 we have the prophecy of Abijah on the house of Jeroboam. It is nothing good. Only one child - the current one - will be buried in a grave. All the others will be eaten by either dogs or birds when they die. The current son will die as his mother steps into the city upon her return from Ahijah. This son will be buried in a grave because God sees something good in this son. Yet the "good" son dies on that very same day. And the northern kingdom will be cursed and scattered, and all because of J's sin with the golden calves, the high places, and the priests.
2021 - Jeroboam knew that the golden calves he'd had made were fakes. He knew they were not gods at all. He had put these fake gods in place to deceive and manipulate his people so they would not return to Jerusalem, and worship there, and ultimately discount the authority of Jeroboam in favor of the authority of God. My goodness, does this sound familiar at all? Those in power foisting obvious lies on us to keep themselves in power? Lie after lie, so that surely everyone will believe at least one of them? In Jeroboam's case, when he had a personal crisis, he knew enough to seek the help of a prophet of the true God. But rather than reveal this truth of his own convictions to his people, he left them to flounder around praying to false gods for help. If they had been grounded in the Mosaic Law, and faithful to God's commands as recorded there, they would never ever have fallen for the fakes. It is the same with us today. We must keep to the Word, as recorded in the Bible, and judge all the endorsements of those in power by that standard. Then and only then will we recognize deceit. God was not fooled by Jeroboam's disguised wife. He is not fooled by those in power today.
Good FB post.
2021 - God's answer to Jeroboam was a curse on all his descendants, on every male in his household. Only the currently ill son would be buried. All the rest would be eaten by dogs, if they died in the city, and by buzzards if they died out in the country. All Jeroboam's descendants were going to die and be left to rot. This was the curse on he and his house. But there is more. Because of his poor leadership - and I think also because the people followed him, the whole country of Israel, the 10 tribes, are given up right here.
2025 - This verse needs to be included:
15 the LORD will strike Israel as a reed is shaken in the water, and root up Israel out of this good land that he gave to their fathers and scatter them beyond the Euphrates, because they have made their Asherim, provoking the LORD to anger. [1Ki 14:15 ESV]. Not only does God condemn the 10 tribes during the reign of their first King, but he tells them where they will go when they fall. East, beyond the Euphrates.
Here is a key verse:
16 And he will give Israel up because of the sins of Jeroboam, which he sinned and made Israel to sin." [1Ki 14:16 ESV]
This is a very horrible curse on those ten tribes. This must be not only because of their king, but because they worship and follow false gods at the command of their king. They are all apostate, they all knew better, yet all chose the golden calves. You don't do what the king says if it is against what God says. This principal holds throughout the Bible.
I find it interesting that the northern kingdom is doomed to destruction so early in the reign of its very first king. They continue to sin, eventually becoming so awful that it is obvious to anyone why God would wipe them out, but they are already done under Jeroboam. Though God has judged them, the execution of their destruction will not come for many more years. This is how God operates. This is Romans 1 before Paul was ever born. Paul succinctly states what history shows to be God's method of bringing down nations.
One or two FB posts after the one above, continuing the story.
2025 - I assume that the child that dies belonged to Jereboam and this wife of his. The prophet had told her that she was never going to see that child alive again. He would die as she entered. Imagine her hope as she got all the way to the front door of the house where the child was, longing to see that child just one more time, one more second. And yet...
17 Then Jeroboam's wife arose and departed and came to Tirzah. And as she came to the threshold of the house, the child died. [1Ki 14:17 ESV].
And this child was the only "good" thing in the Northern Kingdom at the time.
Jeroboam reigns 22 years, and dies. His son Nadab reigns in his place. (????)
In Judah, things were not much better. It says here that Rehoboam's mother was Naamah, the Ammonitess. So she had come from Ammon, where they worshiped a pretty horrible god, and it is likely that Solomon had allowed her to carry on her worship of and sacrifices to this god. Rehoboam would have been taught to worship this god also. Is it any wonder that he goes so wrong. R allowed idols and high places and Asherim. These people did worse things than their fathers before them had ever done. They were as bad as the nations that God had driven out before them were doing. There were even male cult prostitutes. (I do not know of the specific words translated here are about homosexual prostitutes, or if this means that women as well as men were using prostitutes, or both.) In any case, this is apparently a sign of degradation over and above "normal".
In just the 5th year of R's reign, the next generation after Solomon, Shishak, King of Egypt, came and took away much treasure - even from the Temple. Vs 26 says he took away everything, including those golden shields Solomon had made. Wonder if they took that unique ivory throne, covered in gold, with lions on every step?
2024 - Shishak is also the Pharaoh who had given asylum to Jeroboam when he fled from Solomon's order to kill him. So Shishak had pretty much chosen opposition to Judah from the very beginning. Even so, one has to wonder where the 14,000 chariots Solomon had were during this invasion from the south. Were they mostly stationed in the northern areas, and so completely unavailable to Jeroboam? And why did Shishak not kill Jeroboam? If he so captured Jerusalem that he could remove even those gold shields, then surely he could have done whatever else he deemed right?
R dies, is buried with his fathers, and his son Abijam reigns in his place.
The eulogies of both Jeroboam and Rehoboam state that the acts and deeds of Jeroboam are recorded in the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel and those of Rehoboam in the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah. Almost implies that there are two different Chronicles, and only one survives.
First notes, 8/9/18
After Jeroboam has sinned by making golden calves and appointing his own priests, his child gets very sick. He sends his wife in disguise to ask the prophet what will become of the child. The prophet answers:
"And all Israel shall mourn for him and bury him, for he is the only one of Jeroboam who shall come to the grave, because in him there is found something good toward the Lord God of Israel in the house of Jeroboam."
I Kings 14:13 NKJV
This child dies, and is buried, not because God wants to punish Jeroboam, but because God has found good in the child. The child is the lucky one, because Jeroboam and all his followers will be eaten by wildlife and none will be granted the honor of a proper burial.
This is a hard one to understand. A little child dies because God favors him. The child is removed from the horrors to come and instead moves on to heaven, a much better place.
But verse 20 says...
The period that Jeroboam reigned was twenty-two years. So he rested with his fathers. Then Nadab his son reigned in his place.
I Kings 14:20 NKJV
Jeroboam's body wasn't eaten by animals, and he was buried according to custom, and his son Nadab reigns in his place,. So... Why did this child die?
Later... In I Kings 15:29 ALL of Jeroboam's descendants are killed by Baasha. This was two years into Nadab's reign. The child that died would have been murdered at this time.