Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of 1 Kings 14:16
And he shall give Israel up because of the sins of Jeroboam, who did sin, and who made Israel to sin.
16. and he shall give Israel up ] i.e. Into the hands of their enemies.
who did sin, and who made Israel to sin ] It is better with R.V. to take the relative as refering to ‘the sin.’ Render, which he hath sinned and wherewith he hath made Israel to sin.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
1Ki 14:16
Jeroboam, who did sin, and who made Israel to sin.
The sin of making others to sin
1. Here we see the tendency of sin to produce sin–to go on propagating sin; here is the connection between the first sinner, who sets the thing in motion–a connection, clear to the eye of God–between him and the very lass result. The Bible does not create this–that book is not accountable for it; for if you had not the Bible, or if you put it out of the question altogether, there is still the fact in the nature of things. People nowadays are perpetually wanting us to keep away from the supernatural revelation, and to take our stand on the natural. Very well. Let us now look at it in that way. I mean to say it is just the natural course of things. Whether there is a God or not, does not alter the question. Put that aside for the moment, and just hear the reality as seen amongst us. The thing is an obvious, absolute fact, wherever it came from, that bad men make bad men–the corrupt produces corruption, and the evil thought, word, or act exerts an influence and propagates itself. Take a man that is dead and buried, and who has been in his grave a hundred years, and you can conceive of his mind coming actually into direct contact with the minds of the present generation, and producing a corrupting influence upon them. Well, then, imagine a man–picture to yourselves the writer of a popular book, aiming to overturn the faith of the young, the indiscreet, and unlearned. Supposing such a man to write such a book which continues to be circulated from generation to generation; copies of it are multiplied and sent forth. Young minds come into contact with it; these minds are corrupted by it; they are defiled and led away from the faith, giving up their confidence in God, and perhaps seduced to what is immoral. Do you not see that though he has been dead two or three hundred years, this author has still a living presence in society? His mind is coming into contact with other living minds; and thus, though dead, he yet speaketh–speaketh against God–speaketh with blasphemy–speaketh to corrupt–and men are thereby corrupted, and taught to blaspheme, and he is thus living, speaking, and operating till the present day by the printing and publication of that work.
2. I want you to see, in the next place, that there is no help for this. On purely natural principles it cannot be helped. If you could get all the readers of Tom Paine to give up their bad books, and agree that they should all be burned, would it not be a miracle? I should like you to try to get that done! But you must do more than that–you must not only destroy the books, but you must annihilate all the impressions on their memories and their hearts that this mans books have made, if you are to stop the evil influence he has set in motion by sinning and teaching others to sin.
3. If a bad man–a man that has sinned himself, and that has taught others to sin, seduced the innocent, sapped the foundations of virtue, destroyed the religious faith of men–supposing such a one to come to a better mind; supposing his heart is changed, and he becomes a penitent believer. He could never undo what he had done for the great mass of those on whom he had exerted a bad influence; and when he wanted to undo what he had done, and exert a good influence, they would just receive his words with mockery, and would go in the way he had led them at first. But even this could not be done. You know that it would be impossible for a man who has exerted a bad influence on others to collect them together and thus to reason with them. No! Before he comes to that better mind, some who were his associates, and whom he has influenced for evil, are dead and beyond his reach. Others are gone to the other side of the globe; and they are beyond his reach. He cannot find where these multitudes are; and they, because of what he did, have influenced others, and others have influenced again; and the thing has gone on, and it is not for him to know its ramifications and its consequences. Now this is the course of nature, and you cannot help it.
4. Now I want you again to make a supposition for the sake of argument. Supposing that there should be a future life; and supposing that, after death, the souls of men are awakened into a new life, with all the recollections of this–with all the memories of this? The only difference, in all probability, is that they would be delivered from what here darkens the judgment–from what here misleads the mind–and from what here hides a man from himself–and what hides from him the characteristics and properties of his sin. Suppose that he will waken into another life–that he will see things as they are in themselves, and see people as they are; and, perhaps, be able to see and to trace the connection between his sin and the sinning of others? Suppose that he will be able to see and trace the influence on generation after generation, of the evil that he did, and of the influence which he set in motion? Supposing that he should waken up, in this other life, to a moral perception of what he did while alive, and what he continues to do by the influences he then set in motion, and which continued to be a power in the world after he had departed? Well, now; only think of a man waking up to that! Where is it to end, supposing the human spirit does wake up to that? You must take your choice; that, I believe, is the real fact of the case. You must take your choice, looking at nature, at the course of things, at the real, awful, terrible facts of our existence! You must take your choice between two things–either that there is nothing but nature, or that there is a fixed course of things, and we must look forward, both in this world and in the next; and, depend upon it, nature never deceives with respect to those great instincts that she has planted In all her creatures. There is not an instinct, in all animated being, which has not an appropriate good. I only state this. Take your choice. You must believe either that nature is all you have, or you must believe that God in His mercy and grace, and looking down on our condition in its natural state of sin, has done something above nature to reach us–to lead us up–to give us hope!
5. The Gospel comes to destroy the spiritual consequences of your sin, and, through repentance, and faith in God, to give you a hope in mercy, and to save your souls; but as long as you continue unfaithful, you continue subject to the course of nature; and any consequences of sin which you have brought on yourself must be taken to the grave with you, and the Gospel will not help you out of it. If you ruin your health by vice, or your character by crime, you may repent, and God will save you, and the interposition of His grace will sanctify your soul, and you may get to heaven; but it will not give you health, nor will it destroy the consequences which sin has brought on your body–it will not set you in society where you were befog–you will still be remembered as having been a criminal and dishonest man, as long as you live; and though people may rejoice at your conversion, and hope for the best, you will never stand where you once did stand in society. Never! There is another thing I am obliged to submit to. I do not understand it. It is a matter of faith, and I say I do not know how it can be, but I believe that it is, in some way or other. That is to say, I believe this–that a very great sinner, who has led a great many into sin, and been the means of the utter destruction and corruption of many, influentially–well, it is a great mystery, but I believe the Gospel is such, that the grace of God can so operate that that soul may hereafter enjoy repose! It is wonderful to think it; but I believe the Gospel makes a provision for it–I believe that it is within the resources of Gods omnipotent mercy, that that soul may be happy in God, notwithstanding the consequences of its sin are going on injuring others! He will go to the grave mourning over that; but then his soul will enter into repose, though these consequences still remain going on. (T. Binney.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
To wit, by his invention, and making of the occasion of their sin, the calves; by his example, by encouraging those, and only those, that worshipped the calves; and by his authority, requiring and compelling them to do it. This is mentioned as a monstrous aggravation of his wickedness, that he was not content with his own sin, but was the great author and chief cause of drawing others into sin, and of corrupting and undoing the whole kingdom; which therefore God would never forgive him, nor forget him, but upon all occasions mentions him with this eternal brand of infamy upon him.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
And he shall give Israel up,…. Into the hands of their enemies:
because of the sins of Jeroboam, who did sin, and who made Israel to sin; by his devices and stratagems, by his example and edicts, and by the methods he took to prevent Israel from worshipping in the manner and place he directed to.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
“ And he will give Israel up because of the sins of Jeroboam, which he has sinned, and with which he has made Israel to sin.”
And this would happen because YHWH had ‘given up Israel’. And it would be because of the sins of Jeroboam in which both he and Israel had partaken. There was to be no doubt of its root cause.
1Ki 14:17
‘ And Jeroboam’s wife arose, and departed, and came to Tirzah, and as she came to the threshold of the house, the child died.’
No doubt shaken by what she had been told Jeroboam’s wife arose and returned home to Tirzah, mentioned here for the first time, but which had clearly become Jeroboam’s place of residence. It would later be Baasha’s capital city (1Ki 15:33). And as soon as she arrived there and was approaching her house the child died. It was a seal on the doom of the house of Jeroboam.
1Ki 14:18
‘ And all Israel buried him, and mourned for him, according to the word of YHWH, which he spoke by his servant Ahijah the prophet.’
But this son at least died in honour. All Israel buried him and mourned him, just as YHWH had said through His prophet Ahijah. He would be the last member of the house of Jeroboam to be respectfully honoured and mourned. It is noteworthy that we are not now told where Jeroboam was buried.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
1Ki 14:16 And he shall give Israel up because of the sins of Jeroboam, who did sin, and who made Israel to sin.
Ver. 16. And he shall give Israel up because of the sins of Jeroboam. ] Whereunto they consented, being “carried away unto those dumb idols, even as they were led.” 1Co 12:2
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
made Israel to sin. The first of twenty-one occurrences in these two books: 1Ki 14:16; 1Ki 15:26, 1Ki 15:30, 1Ki 15:34; 1Ki 16:19, 1Ki 16:26; 1Ki 21:22; 1Ki 22:52. 2Ki 3:3; 2Ki 10:29, 2Ki 10:31; 2Ki 13:2, 2Ki 13:6, 2Ki 13:11; 2Ki 14:24; 2Ki 15:9, 2Ki 15:18, 2Ki 15:24, 2Ki 15:28; 2Ki 16:13; 2Ki 17:21; 2Ki 23:15.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
he shall give Israel: Psa 81:12, Isa 40:24, Hos 9:11, Hos 9:12, Hos 9:16, Hos 9:17
who did sin: 1Ki 12:30, 1Ki 13:34, 1Ki 15:30, 1Ki 15:34, 1Ki 16:2, Exo 32:21, Exo 32:35, Jer 5:31, Hos 5:11, Hos 5:12, Mic 6:16, Mat 18:7, Rom 14:13
Reciprocal: Exo 23:33 – they make Jos 22:25 – make 1Ki 11:26 – Jeroboam 1Ki 14:9 – hast done 1Ki 14:12 – when thy feet 1Ki 15:26 – in his sin 1Ki 16:19 – in his 1Ki 21:22 – made Israel to sin 2Ki 3:3 – which made 2Ki 10:29 – the sins 2Ki 10:31 – he departed 2Ki 13:2 – followed 2Ki 17:6 – carried 2Ki 17:21 – Jeroboam drave 2Ki 17:23 – as he had said 2Ki 21:9 – seduced 2Ki 21:11 – made Judah 2Ki 21:16 – beside his sin 2Ki 23:15 – the altar 1Ch 21:3 – why will 2Ch 21:11 – caused 2Ch 33:9 – made Judah Jer 32:35 – to cause Eze 23:5 – Aholah Hos 10:8 – the sin Amo 8:14 – sin Mic 1:13 – she Mic 5:3 – give Act 4:19 – to hearken Heb 12:15 – and thereby
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
14:16 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.