1 Kings 14:1-20

Abijah and Ahijah.

Perhaps there is no single section of this book more full of lessons, and lessons of the most varied kind, than this. Let us try to gather something of what God has strawed with so liberal a hand.

1. " At that time ( 1 Kings 14:1 )"—the time of 1 Kings 13:33 . The sickness of the child distinctly connects itself with the father's persistence in sin (see Deuteronomy 7:15 ; Deuteronomy 28:22 , Deuteronomy 28:61 ). The hard and impenitent heart treasures to itself wrath ( Romans 2:5 ). Warnings ( 1 Kings 13:1-34 .) have been unheeded: it is now the time for judgment. "If we sin wilfully," etc. ( Hebrews 10:26 , Hebrews 10:27 ). Deus kabet suas horas et moras . As "the fulness of time" gave us a Redeemer, so it will give us a Judge.

2. " Abijah , the son of Jeroboam, fell sick " ( ib .) Observe—

" Te rapuit coelum, tales nam gaudet habere

Illustres animas degeneresque fugit ."

"Tis ever thus, 'tis ever thus with all that's best below,

The dearest, noblest, loveliest are always first to go;

The bird that sings the sweetest, the pine that crowns the rock,

The glory of the garden, the flower of the flock.

"'Tis ever thus, 'tis ever thus with creatures heavenly fair,

Too finely framed to bide the brunt more earthly creatures bear;

A little while they dwell with us, blest ministers of love,

Then spread their wings we had not seen, and seek their home above."

See also Longfellow's poem of "The Reaper and the Flowers."

"Let us be patient! These severe afflictions

Not from the ground arise,

But oftentimes celestial benedictions

Assume this dark disguise."

3. "Get thee to Shiloh" ( 1 Kings 13:2 ). But Shiloh was not one of his sanctuaries. Why not to Bethel? There were his priests and prophets (see on 1 Kings 22:6 ). But Jeroboam only does what many more have clone since. He has one religion for health, another for sickness. Like Joab, he turns in adversity to the altar which he scorned in prosperity. He would fain share the consolations of those to whose admonitions he never listened. This sending to Ahijah is one result of the sickness of Abijah.

"'There is no God,' the foolish saith,

But none, 'there is no sorrow;'

And nature oft, in time of need,

The cry of faith will borrow.

Eyes that the preacher could not school

By wayside graves are raised,

And lips say, 'God be pitiful,'

Which ne'er said, 'God be praised.'"

4. " There is Ahijah the prophet " ( ib .) Whom he has never troubled since the day when "he spake of him for king" ( 1 Kings 11:31 ). "Yet did not the chief butler remember Joseph, but forgat him" ( Genesis 40:1-23 :31). The ministers of Christ may well be content if they are sent for in times of sorrow and sickness. "Lord, in trouble have they visited thee" ( Isaiah 26:16 ). We think scorn of those who only come near us when they want something. But how often do we serve God thus?

5. " Disguise thyself, that thou be not known to be the wife of Jeroboam " ( ib .) Was ever grosser infatuation than this? Jeroboam, the most astute of politicians, the Machiavelli of the Old World, thinks that a prophet who can peer into futurity cannot penetrate his flimsy disguises. It never occurs to him that "the seer" can see through a woman's veil. Ahithophel is not the only statesman whose wisdom has been turned into foolishess ( 2 Samuel 15:31 ). What an illustration does this history afford of that saying of the Temanite, "He taketh the wise in their own craftiness" ( Job 5:13 ; 1 Corinthians 3:19 ).

6. " He shall tell thee what shall become of the child " ( 1 Kings 13:3 ). A strange object for such a journey. It is not, "what to do for the child;" still less, "what to do for the sin ;" but simply, what should be the issue of the sickness. But that, time would show. It needed no ghost, no prophet to declare that. Che sara sara . Probably Jeroboam despaired of obtaining more. There are petitions "which for our unworthiness we dare not ask." Despair is not uncommonly the end of presumption. "Sin makes such a strangeness between God and man, that the guilty heart either thinks not of suing to God, or fears it" (Bp. Hall). Or was it fatalism prompted this inquiry? It has often been remarked that unbelief and superstition are very near of kin. Man cannot divest himself of all belief. Head and heart alike "abhor a vacuum." Those who will not believe in one God shall be the victims of strong delusions, and shall believe a lie ( 2 Thessalonians 2:11 ).

"Hear the just law, the judgment of the skies,

He that hates truth shall be the dupe of lies;

And he that will be cheated to the last,

Delusions strong as hell shall bind him fast."

Witness Julian the Apostate, Lord Herbert of Cherbury, Robert Owen, and many more. The Chinese people the air with demons and spirits of the dead. Infidel France thinks it unlucky to travel on a Friday. "There was never wicked man that was not infatuate" (Hall).

7. " His eyes were set " ( 1 Kings 13:4 ). Yet "having his eyes open" ( Numbers 24:4 ). Reason is "the candle of the Lord." Revelation is a "light to the feet, and a lamp to the path." Inspiration is as "eyes to the blind." "Visions of the Almighty need not bodily eyes, but are rather favoured by the want of them" (Henry). The eye is but the instrument of vision. Eyes of flesh are not the organs of the spirit.

8. " I am sent to thee with heavy tidings " (verse 6). Compare Ezekiel 14:4 . "I the Lord will answer him that cometh according to the multitude of his idols." Heavy tidings for heavy transgression. The sentence should be proportionate to the sin. "Whatsoever a man soweth," etc.

9. " I exalted thee from among the people " ( Ezekiel 14:7 ). It was Jeroboam's abuse of the singular favours he had received, and his forgetfulness of Divine benefits, that so much enhanced his sin. Cf. 1 Kings 11:9 ; 1 Samuel 15:17 ("When thou wast little in thine own sight"); 2 Samuel 12:8 , 2 Samuel 12:9 ; Psalms 73:10 ("Took him from the sheepfolds," etc.); Luke 12:48 ("Unto whomsoever much is given," etc.); Luke 10:15 ("Exalted to heaven, thrust down to hell"). It is well to remember the rock whence we were hewn, and the hole of the pit whence we were digged ( Isaiah 51:1 ).

10. " Other gods and molten images " ( Luke 10:9 ). Men often disguise their sins under specious names. "Cherubic symbols" was perhaps Jeroboam's name for his calves. He would not allow that they were images or idols. Josephus happily reproduces the language he held to his subjects: "I suppose, my countrymen, you know that every place hath God in it," etc. (Ant. 8.8. 4). But God calls things as they really are. Longfellow truly says that "things are not what they seem." But they are what they seem to the Omniscient.

11. " And rent the kingdom away from the house of David, " etc. Note the contrast between this language and the discourse which Ahijah held with Jeroboam once before. That meeting was full of promises; this message is fall of upbraidings. Then God declared that He would rend the kingdom; here He complains that He has done so, and done so in vain. Then He proposed David as Jeroboam's pattern—his name is mentioned six times—here He accuses the king of contemning that example. There He speaks of a "sure house;" here, of "taking away the remnant of the house," "as a man taketh away dung." Yet "the gifts and calling of God are without repentance." It is Jeroboam's sin has made this difference.

12. "I will bring evil on the house of Jeroboam, and will cut off, " etc. Compare 1 Kings 12:27 . "And they shall kill me." So the very means which Jeroboam took to secure his throne procured its overthrow. "The engineer is hoist with his own petard." If he could but have trusted God his kingdom would have lasted. But he must needs prop it up himself, with rotten supports, and leaning on these he brought it speedily to the ground.

13. " When thy feet enter into the city the child shall die " ( 1 Kings 12:12 ). For the second time does a prophet give Jeroboam a sign the same day. And the second sign was hardly less significant than the first. For the mother was, in some sense, the cause of her child's death. Her step on the threshold was the signal for the severance of his "thin-spun life." It was not only a foretaste, consequently, of the doom awaiting the entire house; it was also a shadowing forth of the cause of that destruction. The sins of the father were visited upon the children,

14. " And all Israel shall mourn for him " ( 1 Kings 12:13 ). The most, and the most genuine, tears are shed over the graves of children. (Is it that many of us, as we grow older, become less lovely and engaging, less desirable as companions?) Yet of this child it might justly have been said, "Weep ye not for the dead, neither bemoan him" ( Jeremiah 22:10 ). For

And he escaped, too, the danger of contamination and moral ruin. His life was not unduly shortened. Life is to be measured not by the beats of the pulse, but by the life work we have accomplished. "He being made perfect in a short time fulfilled a long time."

"It may be by the calendar of years

You are the elder man; but 'tis the sun

Of knowledge on the mind's dial shining bright

And chronicling deeds and thoughts that makes true time."

15. " For the Lord shall smite Israel " ( 1 Kings 12:15 ). For if Jeroboam had "made Israel to sin," Israel had loved to have it so ( 1 Kings 12:30 ). He could not have had his calves and sanctuaries without priests; and calves, sanctuaries, and priests would have been useless without worshippers. But as the king, so the people. Jeroboam was but a sample of many thousands of his subjects. As the chief offender, he was the first to suffer, and suffered most. But the nation that had shared his sin must suffer in its measure and turn.

16. " Beyond the river " ( ib .) The judgments of God are governed by a lex talionis . Not only "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth," but, "Like as ye have forsaken me, and served strange gods in your land, so shall ye serve strangers in a land that is not yours" ( Jeremiah 5:19 ).

17. " And Jeroboam's wife arose, and departed, and came to Tirzah " ( 1 Kings 12:17 ). It is hardly possible to realize the horror with which the princess, still wearing her disguise, heard the doom of her house, and who shall attempt to describe the agonies of that journey home. Rizpah, the daughter of Aiah ( 2 Samuel 21:10 sqq.), has been called the Mater Dolorosa of the Old Testament, but the title equally belongs to Jeroboam's wife. But why, let us ask, does she suffer such things? Why must this sword pierce her soul? Was it not because of her share in the sin? As she is included in the sentence against the house ( 1 Kings 12:11 , Heb.), it is probable that she had aided and abetted her husband in his irreligious and schismatic policy. And now she must drink of his cup: she must be the first to taste its bitterness; she must bring death to one child and tell of disgrace worse than death to the rest.

18. " And they buried him " ( 1 Kings 12:18 ). In Tirzah the beautiful ( Song of Solomon 6:4 ), great lamentation was made over him. And indeed his seemed to be a case for tears. The heir to the throne, he was never to ascend it. The possessor of singular gifts and advantages, he was never to exercise the former or enjoy the latter. Had he lived, he might have effected a reformation, and suppressed the calf worship. But now the grave closes over him, and he is no more seen. What a proof this of a life to come! Otherwise there would be injustice with God, inequality in His dealings with men. "But the righteous live forevermore, their reward also is with the Lord." "We fools counted his life madness and his end to be without honour. How is he numbered among the children of God, and his lot is among the saints" (Wis. 5:4, 5, 15).

HOMILIES BY J.A. MACDONALD