HISTORICAL AND ETHICAL.

of the prediction, pronouncing the natural and necessary end of Jeroboam's sin. To take away 1. From the long reign (twenty-two years) of Jero- this conclusion is to break off the point of the bram, whose history closes with the present section, our whole. Thenius only objects to the second half author only selects those deeds that bear on his of ver. 15, on account of the expression; "beyond apostasy from the fundamental law of Israel, i. e., the river;" this he thinks is from an "elaborator." on the sin wherewith he made Israel to sin." But the Euphrates is generally given as the exHe passes over all the rest that Jeroboam did as treme limit of the land that was promised to the a shrewd and powerful regent or warrior, because fathers (Gen. xv. 18; Ex. xxiii. 31; Deut. 1. 7; xi. it was of far less importance to the history of the 24; Josh. i. 3, 4; Ps. lxxx. 12). The prophet, kingdom and of the entire theocracy than that sin when he wished to say that Israel should lose the which especially characterized his government, | land given to their fathers, could scarcely use any and the results of which were felt for hundreds of other form of expression than that they should be years. David was the king who faithfully kept sent away beyond the river; a case which Solothe fundamental law, and was therefore the type mon foresaw as possible (see above). If criticism of a theocratic king, but Jeroboam was the king did not take it for granted that any genuine prewho openly broke the fundamental law, made the diction is impossible, it would not think of doubtbull-worship the religion of the State, and used it as ing the authenticity of this. That the prophet prea bulwark of his kingdom over against Judah. He dicted the cutting off of Jeroboam's house, and the was the real cause of the apostasy of all the after destruction of the kingdom of Israel, is as little to kings of the ten tribes, for they all regarded it as be doubted as the prediction connected with it, that the support of their power, and as a firm wall of of Abijah's death, whom the blind prophet had not. separation between both kingdoms. This is the even seen. reason why the account of his reign significantly closes with the divine sentence on him and the apostate kingdom. It was a divine dispensation that he himself, after all warnings and threatenings had been in vain, called forth this divine sentence by the deceitful means he took, and even from the very prophet who had announced to him his future elevation; so that he could judge from the fulfilment of that announcement that the sentence would also come to pass. As his sin was the type of the sin of all succeeding kings and of the whole kingdom, so Ahijah's prediction is the type of all succeeding predictions regarding this kingdom; it forms the key-tone that rings through all of them (chap. xvi. 4; xxi. 23; xxii. 28; 2 Kings IX. 36).

2. Ahijah's prophecy, in form as well as in contents (cf. above on ver. 7) is a perfectly connected whole. It refers back (ver. 7, 8) to the former prediction, chap. xi. 30, particularly to ver. 37 sq.

After, in ver. 8, it is stated in a general way that Jeroboam did not follow David's example, which | was the condition imposed upon him. Ver. 9 declares how he sinned; then follows, in vers. 10 and 11, the announcement of the punishment, which was to be a shameful destruction of his house; vers. 12 and 13 apply this to the heir-apparent, to the sick and only son, who was, indeed, also to die, but he was not to perish so disgracefully, because some good thing" was found in him. Vers. 10 and 11 are repeated in ver. 14, and it is added who is to carry out this sentence; but as Jeroboam had drawn all Israel into his sin, and they had consented thereto, the prophecy finally proceeds in vers. 15, 16 to deal with guilty Israel, pronouncing its disastrous future and final ruin. This alone shows how unfounded the assertion of the recent criticism is, that the form of the prediction, as it now is, is not the original. According to Ewald, vers. 9 and 15 are clearly an addition of the later (i. e., fifth Deuteronomical) author; " the style of ver. 9 is peculiar to this author, and ver. 15 interrupts the connection. But ver. 9 is an essential part of the whole, and its omission would leave a serious gap; the following sentence of punishment is founded on what ver. 9 states. Just as little does ver. 15 break the connection; it rather forms the object and acme

3. Ahijah's prophecy repeatedly describes the consequence and working of Jeroboam's sin" (vers. 9 and 15) in the words, provoked the Lord to anger. This expression occurs in other parts of the Old Testament also (chap. xiv. 22; xvi. 2, 7, 13; xxi. 22; 2 Kings xvii. 11, 17; xxiii. 26; Deut. iv. 25; xxxi. 29; xxxii. 16, 21; 2 Chron. xxiii. 25; Ezek. viii. 17; xvi. 26; Ps. lxxviii. 58); it by no means presupposes rude, anthropopathical ideas of the nature of God, but is founded on perfectly just views of the deity. The two expressions for Jehovah's anger, Dy and p, which are cited in the above passages, sometimes interchanged and sometimes used synonymously, are employed only in reference to a particular sin, i. e., apostasy from Jehovah through idolatry or image-worship, and never of sin in general; and they have, therefore, direct reference to the fundamental law, the covenant, in which this sin is forbidden, with the addition, "for the Lord thy God is a Nap by," i. c., a jealous God. Jehovah had from love chosen Israel out of all peoples to be His people, and had made a covenant with them (Ex. xix. 4, 5; Deut, iv. 36– 40; vii. 6-13; x. 14, 15; Ps. xlvii. 5; Jer. xxxi. 3), that they should be a holy people, even as He is holy (Lev. xix. 2). The holy love of Jehovah to his people is so great and strong that each departure of Israel from the covenant excites His "jealousy;" Jehovah, "the holy God," is, as such, also "a jealous God" (Josh. xxiv. 19), and He would appear as faithless and unholy if He were indifferent to idolatry and image-worship, which are breaches of the covenant, and therefore called adultery and whoredom (Jer. iii. 9, and many other places). Offence against the holy love of God awakens His jealousy, which manifests itself in retributive justice, i. e., it provokes Him to anger. "Just anger can only be conceived of as closely united with mercy. The Old Testament proclaims this high aud blessed truth with a voice above that of man. This is its greatest excellence, and conspicuously with it is to be seen its peculiar sublimity, which consists in its preaching at one and the same time the all-consuming wrath of God and the ardor of His mercy, surpassing infinitely that of a mother. Both are closely and inseparably interwoven on every page, the thunder of God's

wrath and the quickening spring-breath of His mercy. Classical antiquity had no genuine, aweinspiring knowledge of divine anger, neither had it any living consciousness of the divine mercy" (Rothe, Theologische Ethik II. 8. 203).

a superstitious faith. If God send thee necessity and distress, take no by-ways, but go to Him and pour out thine heart before Him; He hears al who call upon Him, all who earnestly cry unte Him. Disguise thyself, that no one mark who and what thou art! This is the bad advice which the world gives for the conduct of life, and which passes current with it as the true wisdom thereof. How social life is vitiated by this sin, by the endeavor to seem before people rather than to beoften it is like a masquerade! It is even more deceived by actions, by mien and manner, than by words. The art of disguise corrupts man in the profoundest ground of his being, and transforms him into an incarnate lie.-Vers. 3, 4. CALW. B.: The little bit of faith which worldly people often exhibit is but part of their selfishness. ... The foreknowledge of the future in the affairs of daily yield himself, in faith, to the will of God. Hence flow often superstition, fortune-telling, dream-interpretation, astrology, both among the heathens as well as among Christians.-CRAMER: The gift of God neither should nor can be sold or bought for money. As a rule, unbelief is bound with superstition. Jeroboam did not believe when God spoke to him by word and deed (chap. xiii.), and yet he believed that by means of a few loaves and cakes he could persuade God to reveal the future to him. [The history of religion in modern times confirms and illustrates this.]

4. The divine judgments announced in Ahijah's prediction, namely, cutting off Jeroboam's house, and dispersion of Israel out of the good land given to their fathers, correspond with the nature of the old covenant, which has its form in the bodily and in the temporal. As natural descent and derivation was the condition of belonging to the chosen covenant people, so the curse and blessing, good and evil bound up with the covenant relation, were of a material, temporal nature. As natural descent determined a right to partake of the covenant with Jehovah, so also natural posterity was blessing and peace, while the dying out or cutting off of a race was a curse and misfortune. This is the rea-life man would gladly possess, because he will not son why David, who was faithful to the covenant, was promised that he should always have a light, i. e., a house forever (chap. xi. 36; xv. 4; 2 Sam. xxi. 17), while the speedy and shameful extinction of his house was announced to the unfaithful Jeroboam. So also the "good land," flowing with milk and honey, was promised to the whole of the chosen people; but when they broke the covenant and partook of Jeroboam's sin they were deprived of the good land, were scattered in strange lands, and ceased to be a nation, which was to them the greatest punishment.

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL.

Vers. 1-20. The last divine warning to Jeroboam, (a) through the illness of his son, (b) through the prediction of the prophet. Jeroboam in need and in distress. (a) He is only concerned about the taking away of the need and the lifting off of the punishment, not in the renunciation of his sin and the conversion of the heart, which should have been the result of his need, as it is the case now with so many. (b) He seeks consolation and help, not at the hands of his false priests and spiritual hirelings, whom he himself did not trust, but from the prophet, about whom he did not long trouble himself after he had nothing to ask. Thus it is always. In need and necessity unbelievers and the children of this world seek for consolation and comfort from a spiritual preacher, and despise the finery of the hirelings who care only for the wool and not for the sheep. (c) He does not himself apply to the prophet, because he has an evil conscience, and he sends his wife in a disguise, for before the world he does not wish to be viewed as one who cares much for prophets. This is the folly of the wise of this world, that they suppose they can deceive God as they deceive men. But the Lord sees what is concealed in the darkness, and gives to every one what he has deserved.

Ver. 1. When the threatening, warning word of God bears no fruit, God at last sends the cross, especially the cross in the household, to humble us, to bring us to a knowledge of our sins, and to lead us to the cross of Christ.-STARKE: God generally lays hold upon men in those respects where it is most grievous to them (2 Sam. xii. 14; John iv. 47). Ver. 2. CALW. B.: Jeroboam did not wish to be seen having anything to do with the prophet, by any one. Worldly people are ashamed to make it known that they believe in anything, even if it be

Vers. 4-6. The wife of Jeroboam before the prophet. (a) She means to deceive the aged blind prophet by a disguise, but the Lord gives him sight (Ps. clvi. 8). He gives strength to the weary and power to the feeble. The Lord ever gives sight to His true servants, so that the world cannot deceive and blind them. (b) She hopes, by her present, to secure the desired answer, but, at the hour, the Lord gives him the word he shall speak; it is the Spirit of God who speaks through him (Matt. x. 19 sq.). A true servant of God proclaims the word of truth to every one, without respect of persons, no matter how hard it be for him. This often is his hard yet sacred duty.-Vers. 7-16. Ahijah's sermon of repentance and retribution. (a) Against Jeroboam, who corrupted Isra el. (b) Against Israel, allowing themselves to be corrupted.-Ver. 7 sq. How often it happens that the very ones whom God raises from the dust, and to whom He gives the largest favors, turn their back upon and forget Him. So Jeroboam, so Israel. Deut. xxxii. 6.-Vers. 10, 15. Not a blessing but a curse rests upon a house which turns its back upon the Lord and His commandments. And so also a people who forget the faith of their fathers lose all territory, are given up to all convulsions from within and from without, and go to destruction. Sin is the destruction of the people. (Heb. x. 28-30.)-Vers. 12, 13. The death of a be loved child, for whom God has prepared good, is often the only and the supreme means of turning away the heart of the parents from sin and the world, and of winning them to the life in God to which they are strangers. For many a child it is a divine blessing when it is early taken out of this vain world and called away from surroundings in which there is danger of the corruption both of soul and body.-Ver. 15. Israel, it is thine own sin that thou hast destroyed thyself.-Ver. 16. If the Lord say,—he who offends one of the least of

these, &c., &c. (Matt. xviii. 6), what will He say to those who give offence to an entire people, at the head of which they stand, through unbelief and immorality, and beguile them into an apostasy from the living God?-Ver. 18. What the Saviour said to those who bewailed Him on His way to death, Weep not for me, but, &c. (Luke xxiii. 28), might have been said to the whole people Israel, and is true to-day of so many who are weeping over a grave. We should carry the dead in whom good before God is found with honor to their rest in the grave.

Vers. 19, 20. The Scripture says (Prov. x. 7),

The memory of the just is blessed, but the name of the godless will perish (rot). The first is true of David, the last of Jeroboam, whose name is not like an ointment poured out (i. e., diffusing sweet perfume, Eccle. i. 3), but is a savor of death unto death; for with his name, for all the future, this word is connected: who sinned and made Israel to sin. Of what use is it to have worn a worldly crown two and twenty years, to have striven and fought for it, when the crown of life does not succeed it, which they alone obtain who are faithful unto death (Rev. ii. 10)?

THIRD SECTION.

THE KINGDOM IN JUDAI UNDER REHOBOAM, ABIJAM, AND ASA.

(CHAP. XIV. 21.-XV. 24.)

21

A.-The Rule of Rehoboam.

CHAP. XIV. 21-31.

And Rehoboam the son of Solomon reigned in Judah. Rehoboam was forty and one' years old when he began to reign, and he reigned seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city which the Lord [Jehovah] did choose out of all the tribes of Israel, to put his name there. And his mother's name was Naamah an Ammoni22 tess. And Judah did evil in the sight of the Lord [Jehovah], and they provoked him to jealousy with their sins which they had committed, above all that their 23 fathers had done. For they' also built them high places, and images [pillars]', 24 and groves, on every high hill, and under every green tree. And there were

also sodomites in the land: and they did according to all the abominations of the nations which the Lord [Jehovah] cast out before the children of Israel. 25 And it came to pass in the fifth year of king Rehoboam, that Shishak king of 26 Egypt came up against Jerusalem: and he took away the treasures of the house of the Lord [Jehovah], and the treasures of the king's house; he even took away 27 all: and he took away all the shields of gold which' Solomon had made. And king Rehoboam made in their stead brazen shields, and committed them unto the hands of the chief of the guard, which kept the door of the king's house. 28 And it was so, when the king went into the house of the Lord [Jehovah], that 29 the guard bare them, and brought them back into the guard-chamber. Now the

rest of the acts of Rehoboam, and all that he did, are they not written in the 30 book of the Chronicles of the kings of Judah? And there was war between 31 Rehoboam and Jeroboam all their days. And Rehoboam slept with his fathers, and was buried with his fathers in the city of David. And his mother's name was Naamah an Ammonitess." And Abijam his son reigned in his stead.

TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL.

1 Ver. 21.-[Our author substitutes the number twenty-one in his translation, the reasons for which see in the Exeg. Com. On the other hand, the entire agreement of the VV. and MSS. is a strong argument for the text as it stands. Kell decides against the proposed alteration. and they, even they built," i. e., the Jews as well as the Israelites.

= monumental pillars for religious purposes. Sept., σrýλas. See the Exeg. Com.

Ver. 26.-[The Vat. Sept. thus enlarges the close of ver. 26: shields of gold which David received of the hand of the children of Adrazaar, king of Souba, and brought them into Jerusalem, all the things which he received, the arms of gold which Solomon made, and carried them into Egypt.

Ver. 27.-[The Heb., followed by all the VV., has the plural. The A. V. must have used "chief" collectively, • Ver. 31.—The Vat. Sept., as also the Syr., omits the foregoing clause, which is repeated from ver. 21.—F. G.]

Ver. 21. Twenty and one years old was Rehoboam. [Rehoboam was forty and one years old. Eng. Ver.] The usual reading is "forty and one." Although the Chronicler (2 xii. 13) and all translations give the latter, and only some MSS. give twenty and one, yet this is indisputably the right reading. For (a) in chap. xii. 8, 10 (2 Chron. from means something that is made x. 8, 10), Rehoboam's companions at the time of his accession are called D, which generally mean infants, or at most youths, but never men