Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of 1 Kings 14:6
And it was [so], 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 [am] sent to thee [with] heavy [tidings].
6. For I am sent to thee with heavy tidings] The LXX. ( Alex.) rendering, which gives a word for word version of the Hebrew, will explain the italics of the A. V. .
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
For I am sent to thee – Rather, I also am sent to thee. As thou hast a message to me from thy husband, so have I a message to thee from the Lord.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
1Ki 14:6
Why feignest thou thyself to be another?
A cheat exposed
I. Wickedness involves others, trying to make them its dupes, its allies, and its scapegoats. Jeroboam proposed to hoodwink the Lords prophet. Iniquity is a brag, but it is a great coward. It lays the plan, gets some one else to execute it–puts down the gunpowder train, gets some one else to touch it off–contrives mischief, gets some one else to work it–starts the lie, gets some one else to circulate it. Jeroboam plots the lie, contrives the imposition, and gets his wife to execute it. Stand off from all imposition and chicanery. Do not consent to be anybodys dupe, anybodys ally in wickedness, anybodys scapegoat.
II. Royalty sometimes passes in disguise. The frock, the veil, the hood of the peasant woman hid the queenly character of this woman of Tirzah. Nobody suspected that she was a queen or a princess as she passed by; but she was just as much a queen as though she stood in the palace, her robes encrusted with diamonds. Glory veiled. Affluence hidden. A queen in mask. A princess in disguise. When you think of a queen you do not think of Catharine of Russia, or Maria Theresa of Germany, or Mary Queen of Scots. When you think of a queen you think of a plain woman who sat opposite your father at the table, or winked with him down the path of life arm in arm–sometimes to the thanksgiving banquet, sometimes to the grave, but always side by side, soothing your little sorrows and adjusting your little quarrels. Mother, mother! Ah! she was the queen. Your father knew it. You knew it. She was the queen, but the queen in disguise. The world did not recognise it.
III. How people put on masks, and how the Lord tears them off. It was a terrible moment in the history of this woman of Tirzah when the prophet accosted her, practically saying, I know who you are; you cannot cheat me; you cannot impose upon me; why feignest thou thyself to be another? She had a right to ask for the restoration of her son: she had no right to practise that falsehood. It is never right to do wrong.
IV. How precise, and accurate, and particular, are Gods providences. Just at the moment that woman entered the city the child died. Just as it was prophesied, so it turned out, so it always turns out. The sickness comes, the death occurs; the nation is born, the despotism is overthrown at the appointed time. God drives the universe with a stiff rein. Events do not just happen so. Things do not go slipshod. In all the book of Gods providences there is not one if. Gods providences are never caught in deshabille. To God there are no surprises, no disappointments, and no accidents. The most insignificant event flung out in the ages is the connecting link between two great chains–the chain of eternity past and the chain of eternity to come. (T. De Witt Talmage, D. D.)
A hearer in disguise
I. We have before us the occasional hearer. Jeroboam and his wife did not often go to hear Ahijah. They were not people who went to worship Jehovah; they neither feared God nor regarded His prophet.
1. This occasional hearer was totally destitute of all true piety. Most occasional hearers are. Those who have true religion are not occasional hearers.
2. The second remark about these occasional hearers is, that when they do come, they very generally come because they are in trouble. When Jeroboams wife came and spoke to the prophet, it was because the dear child was ill at home.
3. This woman would not have come but that her husband sent her on the ground that he had heard Ahijah preach before. It was this prophet who took Jeroboams mantle and rent it in pieces, and told him he was to be king over the ten tribes. That message proved true; therefore Jeroboam had confidence in Ahijah.
4. They had one godly member of their family, and that brought them to see the prophet. Their child was sick and ill, and it was that which led them to inquire at the hands of the Lord.
5. But there is one sad reflection which should alarm the occasional hearer. Though Jeroboams wife did come to the prophet that once, and heard tidings, yet she and her husband perished after all.
II. The useless disguise. Jeroboams wife thought to herself, If I go to see Ahijah, as he knows me to be the wife of Jeroboam, he is sure to speak angrily, and give me very bad news. Strange to tell, though the poor old gentleman was blind, she thought it necessary to put on a disguise. There was a Judas among the twelve; there was a Demas among the early disciples; and we must always expect to find chaff on Gods floor mingled with the wheat. After the most searching ministry, there are still some who will wrap themselves about with a mantle of deception.
III. The heavy tidings. Sinner, unrepenting sinner, I have heavy tidings for thee. The wrath of God abideth on thee. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
By this discovery he both reproves their folly, who thought to conceal themselves or their designs from that God from whom they expected and desired the discovery of the most secret things; and withal gives her assurance of the truth and certainty of that message which he was to deliver.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
And it was so, when Ahijah heard the sound of her feet, as she came in at the door,…. Of the room where the prophet was:
that he said, come in, thou wife of Jeroboam, why feignest thou thyself to be another? which must greatly surprise and confound her, as well as lay open to her the folly of her and her husband to imagine that she could be secreted from God, and a prophet of his; or that a prophet could tell her what was future, and yet not know her that was present; and this might serve to assure her, and so her husband, that what the prophet after delivered would certainly come to pass:
for I am sent to thee with heavy tidings; or hard things, such as would be very disagreeable to her and her husband.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
B. THE MESSAGE OF GODS PROPHET 14:616
TRANSLATION
(6) And it came to pass when Ahijah heard the sound of her feet coming at the door, that he said, Enter, wife of Jeroboam! Why are you pretending to be someone else? For I have been sent unto you with a heavy word. (7) Go say to Jeroboam, Thus says the LORD the God of Israel: Because I raised you up from the midst of the people and made you a prince over My people Israel, (8) and rent the kingdom from the house of David, and gave it to you, and you have not become like My servant David who kept My commandments and who walked after Me with all his heart to do only that which was upright in My eyes, (9) and you have done evil more than all who were before you, and have made for yourself other gods and molten images to provoke Me to anger; and Me you have pushed behind your back: (10) Therefore, behold I am about to bring a calamity upon the house of Jeroboam; and I will cut off from Jeroboam male offspring, both the fettered and the free in Israel, and I will exterminate the rest of the house of Jeroboam, as one takes away dung until it be gone. (11) The one of Jeroboam who dies in the city the dogs shall eat, and the one who dies in the field shall the birds of the heaven eat; for the LORD has spoken. (12) But as for you, Arise, Go to your house. When your feet enter the city the lad will die. (13) And all of Israel shall lament for him and bury him, for he alone of Jeroboam shall come to the grave, because in him there was found a good thing toward the LORD God of Israel in the house of Jeroboam. (14) And the LORD shall raise up for Himself a king over Israel who will cut off the house of Jeroboam this day. And what? Now! (15) For the LORD shall smite Israel, as a reed is shaken in the water; and He shall pluck up Israel from upon this good land which He gave to their fathers, and He shall scatter them beyond the River, because they have made their Asherim, provoking the LORD. (16) And He shall give Israel up on account of the sins of Jeroboam, who sinned and who caused Israel to sin.
COMMENTS
When the queen stood at the door, the prophet ripped away the deception by identifying her and asking why she had attempted to perpetrate this masquerade. No favorable oracle would fall from the lips of the prophet, for he had been instructed by his God to bring to her heavy or rough tidings (1Ki. 14:6). Some writers detect in the phrase heavy tidings a certain sympathy for Jeroboam and his wife. If this be the case, Ahijah did not permit his sympathy to compromise the message he was to deliver from the Lord.
The message which Ahijah gave the queen to take back to Jeroboam was indeed ominous. Before pronouncing sentence, the prophet briefly stated the divine case against Jeroboam. It was God who had raised the lowly Jeroboam to the throne of Israel and, whether he realized it or not, the king was merely Gods vice-regent ruling over Gods people (1Ki. 14:7). In spite of the fact that God had torn such a large part of the kingdom from the house of David and had given it to Jeroboam, the king of Israel had not walked the paths of spiritual fidelity which David had trod (1Ki. 14:8). As a matter of fact Jeroboam had committed a more grievous sin than any of his predecessors whether kings (Saul and Solomon in particular) or judges. In defiance of the decalogue, (Exo. 20:4) Jeroboam had made other gods which were merely molten images, two names for the same things, viz., the calves at Bethel and Dan. Doubtlessly Jeroboam had not intended his calves to be considered idols, but only symbols like the Cherubim in the Jerusalem Temple. But God did not recognize whatever theological distinctions the king had worked out. In His view those calves were other gods, and the introduction of this element into the religion of Israel had provoked God to anger. Jeroboam had put God behind his back, i.e., had contemptuously disregarded Gods revealed will (1Ki. 14:9). For these reasons the king and his dynasty had to be punished.
The judgment which Ahijah pronounced against the house of Jeroboam would be swift[357] and thorough. Every male of his house would be cut off.[358] The proverbial expression him that is shut up and left in Israel (KJV) probably refers to those both bond and free or, in other words, men of all kinds and classes.[359] The translation, proposed by Honor, the fettered and free, preserves the alliteration of the original Hebrew. God would continue to exterminate the members of the royal household until they had all been removed. The expression as one takes away dung indicates the loathing and contempt with which the members of the royal house would be treated in that day of judgment (1Ki. 14:10). The corpses of those pathetic princes would be left unburied. Those who fell in the city would be eaten by the roving packs of savage dogs; those who fall in the open field, by vultures and other birds of prey. To the eastern mind, the thought of being left unburied was the ultimate in disgrace and dishonor. Yet this is exactly what would take place with respect to the offspring of Jeroboam because the Lord has spoken it (1Ki. 14:11).
[357] The Hebrew hinne (behold) and the participle after lakhen (therefore) introduces a prophetic threat in the immediate future.
[358] The Hebrew literally reads, he who urinates against the wall. Hammond (PC, p. 315) restricts the phrase to boys (as opposed to men).
[359] The expression also occurs in Deu. 32:36; 1Ki. 21:21; 2Ki. 9:8. It has been taken to mean: (1) married and single; (2) precious and vile; (3) minors and those of age.
As a sign that the long-range prediction concerning the dynasty of Jeroboam would come to pass, Ahijah gave a prediction which could be verified within a matter of hours. At the precise moment that the queen arrived back at the palace, her son would die (1Ki. 14:12). The entire nation would mourn for the crown prince and they would bury him. He would be the one exception to the gruesome picture of 1Ki. 14:11 of the sons of Jeroboam being left unburied. Of all the members of the royal household, this young prince alone had demonstrated the kind of disposition and piety which deserved recognition by the Lord (1Ki. 14:13). The words almost suggest that Abijah dissented from his fathers ecclesiastical policy. To accomplish His divine purposes against the house of Jeroboam the Lord would raise up a king which later history reveals to be Baasha (1Ki. 15:29). The day of judgment for the house of Jeroboam was to begin on that very day that Ahijah delivered his oracle of doom. The last three words of 1Ki. 14:14 are difficult to interpret. Probably they mean something like, and what do I say? Even now! They are intended to underscore the immediacy of the prediction.[360]
[360] Slotki, SBB, p. 106.
The people as well as the king of Israel would share in the judgment of God. They had acquiesced in the wicked innovations of Jeroboam and had joined in the worship of the calves. God would smite Israel and sweep it away as easily and swiftly as a reed might be swept down a turbulent stream. Israel shall be removed from the land God had promised to the godly patriarchs and carried into captivity beyond the Euphrates river. The captivity foreshadowed by Moses (Deuteronomy 28) and by Solomon (1Ki. 8:46-50) is here prophesied for the first time. This terrible fate would befall the nation because they had provoked the Lord by making their Asherim (1Ki. 14:15). Asherah (not grove as in KJV) was a goddess represented by a wooden pole or a tree stripped of its branches, set up by the side of an altar to Baal.[361] It is clear from this passage that the old Canaanite abominations had survived in Israel and that during the reign of Jeroboam these pagan practices flourished alongside of the recently established calf cult. So because of all the sins inaugurated and tolerated during the reign of the first king of the Northern Kingdom, God was forced to simply give up Israel to her enemies for punishment and judgment (1Ki. 14:16).
[361] Because it was made of wood, there is no possibility of discovering one through archaeological excavation, except perhaps in a carbonized form. Moreover, thus far there has not been found in Palestine any depiction on stone engraving which could be definitely identified as an Asherah. Honor, JCBR, p. 202.
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
(6) And it was so, 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 am sent to thee with heavy tidings. (7) Go, tell Jeroboam, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, Forasmuch as I exalted thee from among the people, and made thee prince over my people Israel, (8) And 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; (9) But 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: (10) Therefore, behold, I will bring evil upon the house of Jeroboam, and will cut off from Jeroboam him that pisseth against the wall, and him that is shut up and left in Israel, and will take away the remnant 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 hath spoken it. (12) Arise 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 God of Israel in the house of Jeroboam. (14) Moreover the LORD shall raise him up a king over Israel, who shall cut off the house of Jeroboam that 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 to anger. (16) And he shall give Israel up because of the sins of Jeroboam, who did sin, and who made Israel to sin.
What a delightful portrait is here drawn of a faithful minister in the character of Ahijah! though commissioned with heavy tidings, yet he keeps n o thing back. Oh! for all the ministers of Jesus to have grace to imitate such an illustrious example. How gracious is the Lord, even in the midst of judgments, represented! Reader! remark, though Israel had so shamefully revolted, and set up idols, yet the Lord still calls himself the Lord God of Israel. Let the Reader consult another beautiful evidence of the same kind; Mal 2:14-16 . What an awful message is sent to Jeroboam! and what an awful character he was! He had exceeded in impiety all that were before him. Even Saul had never set up idols! and what a dreadful end is pronounced concerning him! Let us, Reader, stop, however, in the midst of this alarming account of the wicked, to remark what is said concerning his son. Some good thing was found in him. And what could this be but grace? And was not this grace distinguishing grace, when found in the child of so graceless a father? See Reader! how the Lord in all ages of his church hath been carrying on his blessed designs in reference to him in whom all the families of the earth are blessed! The prediction of Jeroboam’s ruin in the advance of another king whom the Lord would raise up over Israel, was to take place so speedily, that it might be said to be even now; so near was it at hand. And to show how true the Lord is concerning both his threatenings and promises, it may not be amiss here to remark that this prophecy of a king to be raised to Israel against Jeroboam and his house took place in the person of Baasha soon after the elevation of Nadab to the throne. And indeed the whole race of Jeroboam was extinct in little more than 20 years. So short, so very short, are the triumphs of the ungodly!
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
1Ki 14:6 And it was [so], 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 [am] sent to thee [with] heavy [tidings].
Ver. 6. Come in, thou wife of Jeroboam. ] How God laughs in heaven at the frivolous fetches of crafty politicians and double-minded dissemblers! Surely when they think themselves most sure, he shameth them with a defeat. What an idleness is it for foolish hypocrites to hope that they can dance: in a net unseen of Heaven!
For I am sent to thee with heavy tidings.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
door = entrance.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
thou wife: Job 5:13, Psa 33:10
why feignest: 1Ki 14:2, 1Ki 14:5, Eze 14:3-5, Eze 14:7, Eze 14:8, Luk 20:20-23, Act 5:3-5, Act 5:9, Act 5:10, Heb 4:13
for I am: 1Ki 14:10, 1Ki 14:11, 1Ki 13:20-22, 1Ki 20:42, 1Ki 21:18-24, 1Ki 22:8, 1Sa 15:16, 1Sa 15:26, 1Sa 28:18, Jer 21:2-7, Eze 2:4, Eze 2:5, Dan 4:19-25, Dan 4:19-25, Dan 5:17-28, Mar 14:21
heavy tidings: Heb. hard tidings
Reciprocal: 1Ki 1:45 – This is 2Ki 1:16 – Forasmuch 2Ki 6:32 – the sound Hos 6:5 – have I
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
1Ki 14:6. Come in, thou wife of Jeroboam He called her aloud by her name before she entered the house, doubtless to her great surprise, and thus not only showed that he knew her, notwithstanding the disguise in which she had come, but discovered to all about him who she was. By which discovery he both reproved their folly, who thought to conceal themselves from God, and withal gave her assurance of the truth and certainty of that message which he was to deliver, that she might give the greater credit to his words.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
14:6 And it was [so], when Ahijah heard the sound of her feet, as she came in at the door, that he said, Come in, thou {d} wife of Jeroboam; why feignest thou thyself [to be] another? for I [am] sent to thee [with] heavy [tidings].
(d) For God often discloses to his own the craft and subtilty of the wicked.