1 Kings 14:10

10. Him that pisseth against the wall The vilest and most insignificant domestic in his household. See note on 1 Samuel 25:22.

Him that is shut up and left in Israel According to some these words designate the bond and the free in Israel; according to others, the marred and the single. The words עצור ועזוב , mean literally, shut up and loosed, and may refer to such cases of confinement and freedom as are indicated by the translations above given. The slave is shut up to service, the husband to the cares of a household; and loosed may be the opposite of either of these thoughts. But it is better, both here and elsewhere, where the phrase occurs, (Deuteronomy 32:36; 1Ki 21:21 ; 2 Kings 14:26,) to take shut up and left in the wider sense of the prisoner and the one not yet taken, the fettered and the free. The idea is that of a people besieged by a conquering force; some are captured and shut up in prison, others are not yet taken, but one destiny awaits both to be cut off. The expression is hyperbolical, but in keeping with Oriental forms of speech.

The remnant If after the fierce destructions just named there should yet be a remnant of this wicked house that had escaped thus far, even that remnant shall be most vilely taken off. Observe how the prophet associates no dignity with any portion of Jeroboam’s doomed house. He sees in it only the vile slave or the slaughtered victim of Divine judgment, whether already a prisoner or still fighting to keep free from the hands of the foe, or, lastly, the lone few that may have escaped death during the siege.