1 Kings 14:21-31

THIRD SECTIONThe Kingdom In Judah Under Rehoboam, Abijam, And Asa

(1 Kings 14:21 to 1 Kings 15:24)

A.—The Rule of Rehoboam

1 Kings 14:21-31

21And Rehoboam the son of Solomon reigned in Judah. Rehoboam was forty and one8 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 Ammonitess. 22And 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 23fathers had done. For they9 also built them high places, and images [pillars]10, and groves, on every high hill, and under every green tree. 24And 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. 25And it came to pass in the fifth year of king Rehoboam, that Shishak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem: 26and he took away the treasures of the house of the Lord [Jehovah], and the treasures of the king’s house; he even took away all: and he took away all the shields of gold which11 Solomon had made. 27And king Rehoboam made in their stead brazen shields, and committed them unto the hands of the chief12 of the guard, which kept the door of the king’s house. 28And it was so, when the king went into the house of the Lord [Jehovah], that the guard bare them, and brought them back into the guard-chamber. 29Now the rest of the acts of Rehoboam, and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the Chronicles of the kings of Judah? 30And there was war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam all their days. 31And 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.13 And Abijam his son reigned in his stead.

Exegetical and Critical

1 Kings 14:21. 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 1 Kings 12:13) and all translations give the latter, and only some MSS. give twenty and one, yet this is indisputably the right reading. For (a) in 1 Kings 12:8; 1 Kings 12:10 (2 Chronicles 10:8; 2 Chronicles 10:10), Rehoboam’s companions at the time of his accession are called יְלָדִים, which generally mean infants, or at most youths, but never men of forty. The older commentators resorted to the very strange and far-fetched supposition that the young men mentioned in chap. 12 were not young in years but in understanding. Thenius thinks that their youth was relative as compared with the age of the “old men;” but men in ripe manhood of one and forty years cannot be called ילדים in any case. (b) Regarding the son of Rehoboam, Abijah, 2 Chronicles 13:7, says, the insurrection of Jeroboam and the separation of the ten tribes took place because his (Abijah’s) father was still a boy, גַעַר, and רַךְ־לֵבָב (of a weak, tender heart, cf. Genesis 33:13). The son wishes to explain the conduct of his father by his youthful age; but he could not possibly speak thus of a man forty-one years old. Besides, 1 Kings 12:6 sq. agrees perfectly with the description of Rehoboam’s conduct. (c) If Rehoboam were forty-one years old at the death of Solomon, who reigned forty years (1 Kings 11:42), Solomon must have married during David’s life-time, and have married an Ammonitess, which was contrary to the law; and, as he calls himself only a נַעַר (1 Kings 3:7) when he had become king, he must have had a son in about his 18th year. There is nothing, however, of all this in the history; on the contrary, it says expressly that he married a daughter of Pharaoh after he became king, and she was the real queen (1 Kings 3:1; 1 Kings 9:24); he did not take Canaanitish wives till later (1 Kings 11:1 sq.). All these positive historical evidences for the youth of Rehoboam at his accession cannot be disproved and rejected on account of a mere numerical figure, though it were originally in the text. We must, therefore, believe, like Capellus and Le Clerc, that the numeral signs were changed, as so often happens, viz., that of מ with כ; this obviates all difficulties, and there is no passage that in the least contradicts it. The name and descent of the mother are expressly given, because the queen-mother was very much esteemed and very influential, as the גְּבִירָה, just as the sultana Walida is now in the Turkish empire. The text also subsequently gives the name of the queen-mothers, but only of those belonging to the Judah-kings (1 Kings 15:2; 1Ki 15:13; 1 Kings 22:42, &c.). The reason of the words, in Jerusalem, the city which the Lord did choose, &c., is found in the following 1 Kings 14:22; 1 Kings 14:24, in connection with which they mean: the residence of Jeroboam was indeed the city where Jehovah’s dwelling stood, which was the centre of the whole theocracy, but even here the people fell into idolatry. For the expression: put His name there, see above on chap. 6

1 Kings 14:23-24. And Judah did evil, &c. Even in the times of the judges the apostasy was never so great in Judah as it was now under Rehoboam. For the expression: provoke to jealousy, see above. For בָּמוֹת see on 1 Kings 3:2, and for אֲשֵׁרִים see on 1 Kings 14:15. The מַצֵּבוֹת are also mentioned in Exodus 34:13; Deuteronomy 7:5; Deuteronomy 12:3; Deuteronomy 16:21 sq., in connection with the Astarte-images; from which passages it appears that the former were made of stone, and the latter of wood. מַצְֹּבָה from נָצַב means something that is made fast or placed firmly, and refers to monuments (Exodus 28:18; Exodus 28:22; Exodus 31:13; Exodus 35:14; Exodus 35:20; Exodus 24:4; 2 Samuel 18:18). As they were only used to commemorate a divine appearance and revelation (Genesis 28:18), men easily came to pay them divine honor, and in the heathen world they passed into regular idols (Leviticus 26:1). Whilst the wooden monuments (Astarte) represented the female nature-divinity, the stone pillars represented the male deity, i.e., Baal; hence הַבַּעַל מַצֵּבַת (2 Kings 3:2; cf. 2Ki 10:26; 2 Kings 18:4; 2 Kings 23:14). The בָּמות were erected on hills and mountains, the idols of the male and female divinities were placed under thick shady trees, as appears from Hosea 4:13, cf. Deuteronomy 12:2; Jeremiah 2:20; Jeremiah 3:6; Jeremiah 17:2. That קָדֵשׁ (1 Kings 14:24), used collectively, does not mean female (Ewald, Thenius), but only male prostitutes, is quite evident from 1 Kings 15:12 (חַקְּדֵשִׁים) and Deuteronomy 23:18; the author mentions as the greatest excess of idolatry, that men or boys allowed themselves to be prostituted in honor of the gods. There is no reason to suppose, as Keil does, that they were such “as had castrated themselves in a fit of religious frenzy.” The words “in the land” (cf. with 1 Kings 15:12) shows that they were not natives (Israelites or Judeans), but strangers, Canaanites or Phœnicians who had settled in the land for unlawful gain.

1 Kings 14:25-26. Shishak came up, 1 Kings 14:25. For this king see on 1 Kings 11:40. 2 Chronicles 12:2-8 gives a further account of his invasion of Judah. We do not know the cause; the Rabbins think it was only a robber expedition. As Jeroboam had sojourned as a refugee with Shishak (according to an addition of the Sept. to 1 Kings 12:24, he had even married the daughter of the latter), it has been supposed that he was induced to undertake the war by Jeroboam. “It can scarcely be doubted that the king with a Jewish countenance on one of the monuments at Carnac (see Winer, R.-W.-B. II. s. 311, 474) was Rehoboam, if Champollion was correct in reading Sheshonk (Précis du syst. hieroglyph, p. 204),” Thenius. וְאֶת־הַכֹּל, i. e., all that he found; took the shields, &c. (1 Kings 10:16). These were of peculiarly high value. According to the connection, the author means, “That Judah was given over into the power of the heathen was the punishment that speedily followed their fall into heathen abominations” (Keil).

1 Kings 14:27-28. King Rehoboam made, &c., 1 Kings 14:27. The רָצִים are the royal guards (see above on 1 Kings 1:38), who were also named celeres with Romulus (Liv. 1 Kings 1:14). They kept watch at the palace gate (see on 2 Kings 11:6) and accompanied the king in solemn procession, as often as he went to the temple; it was only then that they bore these shields, and not on ordinary occasions. תָּא does not mean exactly the “guard-room,” but any place where the runners where staying. The costly golden shields which Solomon had made were in the house of the forest of Lebanon (1 Kings 10:17), but it is doubtful whether the brazen shields of Rehoboam were only kept in the תָּא, being considered as “of no value” (Thenius).

1 Kings 14:29-31. The rest of the acts, &c. What 2 Chronicles 11:0 relates of the cities fortified by Rehoboam, of the emigration of priests and those faithful to Jehovah to the Judah-territory, and of the family relations of Rehoboam, is certainly derived from ancient historical sources, probably from those mentioned in 2 Chronicles 12:15 (Thenius). As also the account of the Chronicles gives no details of a regular war of Rehoboam with Jeroboam, מִלְחָמָה here 1 Kings 14:30, and מִלְחֲמוֹת2Ch 12:15 only refer “to the hostile position of both kingdoms as manifested in single acts” (Winer), therefore not to a warlike disposition simply.—Thenius thinks that the repetition of the concluding words of 1 Kings 14:21 (the name of his mother, &c.) “was caused by a fault in the copyist that cannot be accounted for.” This, however, is very improbable, for why should just these words have been taken by a copyist from 1 Kings 14:21, have been repeated here, and then always have remained? The repetition appears rather to have been intentional, in order to show once more at the end of the account of Rehoboam that the mother of this king was descended from that rough heathenish people, the Ammonites, who were always hostile to Israel, and that under Solomon the worship of Moloch, the “abomination of the Ammonites,” was brought by her to Jerusalem (1 Kings 11:7) and suffered to remain for her by his son Rehoboam. This appears also to be meant by 2 Chronicles 12:14, in connection with 1 Kings 14:13.

Historical and Ethical

1. We learn only a few facts from these books regarding king Rehoboam and his reign, and from those few no certain conclusion can be drawn regarding his relation to the fundamental law of Israel; the general phrase also which expresses the relation to Jehovah, and which always immediately follows the account of the personal circumstances of all the later kings (cf. 1 Kings 15:3; 1 Kings 15:11; 1Ki 15:25; 1 Kings 15:34, &c.) is omitted here. But Chron. concludes its rather more explicit account with the words: “he did evil, because he prepared not his heart to seek the Lord (הֵכִין),” 2 Chronicles 12:14; and the remark is made before (1 Kings 14:1), that “he forsook the law of the Lord.” We are not to conclude from this, however, that he himself served idols; on the contrary, it is emphatically said that, in solemn procession, accompanied by his whole body-guard, he continually visited the temple, and thus showed himself publicly to all the people as a worshipper of Jehovah. As such he showed himself also when Shishak made war against him (2 Chronicles 12:6; 2 Chronicles 12:12) But he forsook the law in so far that he did not obey its injunctions; he suffered idolatrous worship in Jerusalem and did nothing towards exterminating it. This was “the evil” he was accused of; he continued Jehovah’s servant, but he wanted firmness and decision. Sometimes fiery and arrogant, sometimes yielding and weak, he was unstable, as he had shown himself in Shechem at the commencement of his reign (1 Kings 12:5-9; 1 Kings 12:18; 1 Kings 12:21); he seems also to have been under the influence of his idolatrous mother (see on 1 Kings 14:31) and wife (1 Kings 15:13), and of his many wives (2 Chronicles 11:21). Menzel (Staats- und Rel.-Gesch., s. 236) is wholly wrong in referring, in his superficial way, the expression לִדְרוֹשׁ אֶת־יְהוָֹה (2 Chronicles 12:14) which he translates “to ask the Lord,” to “the relation of the king to the priesthood, and in that he is blamed for not inquiring of the Lord, we can perceive that Rehoboam had not been led, by the misfortune which had befallen him, to accord greater consideration to the priesthood than they had enjoyed under his predecessors.” That expression denotes rather, as Dietrich very justly remarks (Zu Gesenius W.-B. s. v.), “the striving of the spirit after God, the inward seeking, especially in prayer, and calling upon Him; cf. Isaiah 55:6; Isaiah 58:2; Jeremiah 29:13; 2Ch 15:2; 2 Chronicles 15:14; 2 Chronicles 15:6; Hosea 10:12; Psalms 14:2.” That the priesthood under Rehoboam strove for greater consideration than they had under David (for instance) is a pure invention; but we see from 1 Kings 12:22-24 and 2 Chronicles 12:5-6; 2 Chronicles 12:12, that Rehoboam did not resist or act in opposition to the prophetical word.

2. The idolatrous worship that commenced in Judah under Rehoboam was not begun by the latter but by the people; for 1 Kings 14:22 does not say, he did evil in the sight of the Lord, as is said of other kings, but: Judah did, &c. This seems remarkable, because Judah had the central sanctuary in their midst, and the priests and levites; indeed all the true worshippers of Jehovah had left the apostate ten tribes and had gone to Judah, by which the kingdom of Jeroboam was weakened, but that of Rehoboam strengthened (2 Chronicles 11:13-17). That Judah, nevertheless, fell so deeply was owing to an after-influence of the condition of things under Solomon’s reign, and particularly the latter part of the same. Commerce and intercourse with foreign nations, acquaintance with their customs and mode of life, great riches and uninterrupted peace, had exercised an enervating and demoralizing influence. Ease, superfluity, and luxury gradually undermined serious thought, and brought forth lukewarmness, indifference, and even aversion to the strict covenant-law: what was written in Deuteronomy 32:15 (Hosea 13:6) came to pass. Added to this, Solomon at last removed every obstacle to the strange heathen-worship of his wives, so that although Jerusalem was the centre of the Jehovah-worship, it was at the same time the spot where the most various national gods were adored, and where their unchaste worship found a ready soil (see on 1 Kings 11:1-8). Immediately after Solomon’s death this “religious liberty” could only have been abolished by force and iron severity; but the times were not adapted for this task, and still less was his successor, Rehoboam, the son of the Ammonitess, the נַעַר וְרַךְ־לֵבַב (2 Chronicles 13:7); so that idolatry and immorality rather increased than decreased, and the fall of Judah seems to have been even deeper than that of Israel. However, the condition of Judah was not so bad as the condition of Israel in this respect; as in the latter, the breach of the fundamental law had become the State religion and institution of the kingdom, the separate existence of which depended on the new worship; whilst in Judah the apostasy was only permitted, and the lawful worship of Jehovah had always a firm footing at the central sanctuary. Many good elements also still existed in Judah (2 Chronicles 20:12). Judah always repented as often as they fell into idolatry, and they continued to be the guardian of the law, whilst Israel, on the contrary, never completely returned to the right way.

Homiletical and Practical

1 Kings 14:21-30. The deep fall of Judah: (a) Whence it came (Deuteronomy 32:15; Hosea 13:6; Proverbs 30:9—see Hist. and Ethic. 2); whither it led (Romans 1:25-28). Amongst individual men as in entire communities, cities, and nations, revolt against the living God results from haughtiness, over-prosperity, and carnal security, bringing as inevitable consequences, poverty, ruin, and misfortune in war. High as stood Judah under David and Solomon, so deep in proportion did it sink under Rehoboam.

1 Kings 14:21-22. Wherever God has a house, the devil always builds a chapel close at hand. How often does it happen that cities and countries, whence it has been ordained by God that the light of His knowledge should shine forth, have become the seat alike of superstition and of scepticism, and thus infinitely sink below the level of those lands which have never heard His blessed word. When an individual man, or a whole community and people, who have received and acknowledged the truth, again depart from it, then is their last state worse than their first (Isa. 11:26).

1 Kings 14:23-24. Wherever profligacy and fornication are in the ascendant, there is true heathendom, how many soever may be the churches. King Rehoboam, too, sinned grievously in this wise—he, although not himself an idol-worshipper, yet failed as a servant of God, in that he did not oppose idol-worship with all his might, and even regarded it as having equal rights with the service of the true God—even, alas, as we find Christian sovereigns who permit unbelief and revolt from the truth to rank upon a level with faith and confession of God in Christ.

1 Kings 14:25 sq. Where the carcass is, there will the eagles be gathered together (Matthew 24:28). The chastisements of God are never delayed where immorality and godlessness prevail, but they do not always lead, as with Judah, to the humble confession: The Lord is righteous! (2 Chronicles 12:6).—Calw. B.: Sovereigns are often only the instruments of God in their undertakings, although they do not or will not recognize the fact.

1 Kings 14:26. The true treasures of the temple are the worship of God in spirit and in truth, prayer, faith, love, and obedience; these no thieves nor robbers can steal, and without them all the gold and silver in temples and churches is vain and empty show. Golden or copper shields are alike in value if only we can say: The Lord is our shield, and the Holy One of Israel our King.

1 Kings 14:27-28. It is better to pray to our heavenly Father in our closet, rather than to worship with pomp in church to be seen by men. Yet now there are many who ceremoniously frequent the churches, but neglect to maintain the fear of God, discipline, and good morals in their own houses and neighborhoods.

1 Kings 14:30-31. It is not to a man’s honor when, at his grave, these words are said: There was life-long enmity between him and his neighbor.

Footnotes:

1 Kings 14:21; 1 Kings 14:21.—[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. Keil decides against the proposed alteration.

1 Kings 14:23; 1 Kings 14:23.—[וַיִּבְנוּ גַס־הֵמָּה “and they, even they built,” i. e., the Jews as well as the Israelites.

1 Kings 14:23; 1 Kings 14:23.—[מַצֵּבוֹת = monumental pillars for religious purposes. Sept., στήλας. See the Exeg. Com.

1 Kings 14:26; 1 Kings 14:26.—[The Vat. Sept. thus enlarges the close of 1 Kings 14:26 : 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.

1 Kings 14:27; 1 Kings 14:27.—[The Heb., followed by all the VV., has the plural. The A. V. must have used “chief” collectively.

1 Kings 14:31; 1 Kings 14:31.—[The Vat. Sept., as also the Syr., omits the foregoing clause, which is repeated from 1 Kings 14:21.—F. G.]