7 Go, say to Jeroboam, These are the words of the Lord, the God of Israel: Though I took you from among the people, lifting you up to be a ruler over my people Israel, 8 And took the kingdom away by force from the seed of David and gave it to you, you have not been like my servant David, who kept my orders, and was true to me with all his heart, doing only what was right in my eyes. 9 But you have done evil more than any before you, and have made for yourself other gods, and images of metal, moving me to wrath, and turning your back on me. 10 So I will send evil on the line of Jeroboam, cutting off from his family every male child, those who are shut up and those who go free in Israel; the family of Jeroboam will be brushed away like a man brushing away waste till it is all gone. 11 Those of the family of Jeroboam who come to death in the town, will become food for the dogs; and those on whom death comes in the open country, will be food for the birds of the air; for the Lord has said it. 12 Up, then! go back to your house; and in the hour when your feet go into the town, the death of the child will take place. 13 And all Israel will put his body to rest, weeping over him, because he only of the family of Jeroboam will be put into his resting-place in the earth; for of all the family of Jeroboam, in him only has the Lord, the God of Israel, seen some good. 14 And the Lord will put up a king over Israel who will send destruction on the family of Jeroboam in that day; 15 And even now the hand of the Lord has come down on Israel, shaking it like a river-grass in the water; and, uprooting Israel from this good land, which he gave to their fathers, he will send them this way and that on the other side of the River; because they have made for themselves images, moving the Lord to wrath. 16 And he will give Israel up because of the sins which Jeroboam has done and made Israel do. 17 Then Jeroboam's wife got up and went away and came to Tirzah; and when she came to the doorway of the house, death came to the child. 18 And all Israel put his body to rest, weeping over him, as the Lord had said by his servant Ahijah the prophet. 19 Now the rest of the acts of Jeroboam, how he made war and how he became king, are recorded in the book of the history of the kings of Israel. 20 And Jeroboam was king for twenty-two years, and was put to rest with his fathers, and Nadab his son became king in his place.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on 1 Kings 14:7-20
Commentary on 1 Kings 14:7-20
(Read 1 Kings 14:7-20)
Whether we keep an account of God's mercies to us or not, he does; and he will set them in order before us, if we are ungrateful, to our greater confusion. Ahijah foretells the speedy death of the child then sick, in mercy to him. He only in the house of Jeroboam had affection for the true worship of God, and disliked the worship of the calves. To show the power and sovereignty of his grace, God saves some out of the worst families, in whom there is some good thing towards the Lord God of Israel. The righteous are removed from the evil to come in this world, to the good to come in a better world. It is often a bad sign for a family, when the best in it are buried out of it. Yet their death never can be a loss to themselves. It was a present affliction to the family and kingdom, by which both ought to have been instructed. God also tells the judgments which should come upon the people of Israel, for conforming to the worship Jeroboam established. After they left the house of David, the government never continued long in one family, but one undermined and destroyed another. Families and kingdoms are ruined by sin. If great men do wickedly, they draw many others, both into the guilt and punishment. The condemnation of those will be severest, who must answer, not only for their own sins, but for sins others have been drawn into, and kept in, by them.