King James Version, with Nii Okai's journal notes · 10 notes
1At that time Abijah the son of Jeroboam fell sick.
2And Jeroboam said to his wife, Arise, I pray thee, and disguise thyself, that thou be not known to be the wife of Jeroboam; and get thee to Shiloh: behold, there is Ahijah the prophet, which told me that I should be king over this people.
Why was Ahijah the prophet not sent to Jeroboam to warn him of his evil ways, but rather a young prophet was sent? Just wondering out loud.
3And take with thee ten loaves, and cracknels, and a cruse of honey, and go to him: he shall tell thee what shall become of the child.
This was the simple gift to the prophet for such a powerful thing as healing a dying son of a king 👑.
Yet today, prophets want gifts commensurate with the miracle performed, based on a free gift from God.
4And Jeroboam’s wife did so, and arose, and went to Shiloh, and came to the house of Ahijah. But Ahijah could not see; for his eyes were set by reason of his age.
5And the LORD said unto Ahijah, Behold, the wife of Jeroboam cometh to ask a thing of thee for her son; for he is sick: thus and thus shalt thou say unto her: for it shall be, when she cometh in, that she shall feign herself to be another woman.
6And it was so, when Ahijah heard the sound of her feet, as she came in at the door, that he said, Come in, thou wife of Jeroboam; why feignest thou thyself to be another? for I am sent to thee with heavy tidings.
7Go, tell Jeroboam, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, Forasmuch as I exalted thee from among the people, and made thee prince over my people Israel,
8And rent the kingdom away from the house of David, and gave it thee: and yet thou hast not been as my servant David, who kept my commandments, and who followed me with all his heart, to do that only which was right in mine eyes;
9But hast done evil above all that were before thee: for thou hast gone and made thee other gods, and molten images, to provoke me to anger, and hast cast me behind thy back:
10Therefore, behold, I will bring evil upon the house of Jeroboam, and will cut off from Jeroboam him that pisseth against the wall, and him that is shut up and left in Israel, and will take away the remnant of the house of Jeroboam, as a man taketh away dung, till it be all gone.
11Him that dieth of Jeroboam in the city shall the dogs eat; and him that dieth in the field shall the fowls of the air eat: for the LORD hath spoken it.
12Arise thou therefore, get thee to thine own house: and when thy feet enter into the city, the child shall die.
13And all Israel shall mourn for him, and bury him: for he only of Jeroboam shall come to the grave, because in him there is found some good thing toward the LORD God of Israel in the house of Jeroboam.
As young 🧒 as the child was, God saw the good in him and brought him to death and burial.
He was to be the only one of the house of Jeroboam to be buried ⚰ peacefully.
God knows all things.
Wow, so his death was actually a reward from God, because God had found good in him and wanted to spare him from cruel and shameful death.
How old was this child? I believe he must have been very young, and so what had he accomplished for the Lord to say that he has found some good thing in him?
He had not taken the throne nor done some public good; he was but a lad, yet the Lord spoke this way concerning him.
Could it be that the Lord has seen his heart and knew he was a good person, and God, who knows the heart, decided to reward him with honour and respect in letting him die without violence?
I am thinking that just like Jonathan, who was never king yet demonstrated a faith and love in God that his father never had, this young lad might have shown the same, or like David, a man after God's own heart, or like Joseph with his coat of many colours.
14Moreover the LORD shall raise him up a king over Israel, who shall cut off the house of Jeroboam that day: but what? even now.
15For the LORD shall smite Israel, as a reed is shaken in the water, and he shall root up Israel out of this good land, which he gave to their fathers, and shall scatter them beyond the river, because they have made their groves, provoking the LORD to anger.
16And he shall give Israel up because of the sins of Jeroboam, who did sin, and who made Israel to sin.
17And Jeroboam’s wife arose, and departed, and came to Tirzah: and when she came to the threshold of the door, the child died;
18And they buried him; and all Israel mourned for him, according to the word of the LORD, which he spake by the hand of his servant Ahijah the prophet.
19And the rest of the acts of Jeroboam, how he warred, and how he reigned, behold, they are written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel.
20And the days which Jeroboam reigned were two and twenty years: and he slept with his fathers, and Nadab his son reigned in his stead.
21And 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 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, and they provoked him to jealousy with their sins which they had committed, above all that their fathers had done.
23For they also built them high places, and images, 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 cast out before the children of Israel.
There is nothing new under the sun; sodomites have always been around from time immemorial.
Why were the sodomites in particular mentioned — "there were also sodomites" — almost making it a stand-alone sin? It was among the abominations the Lord detested.
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, and the treasures of the king’s house; he even took away all: and he took away all the shields of gold which Solomon had made.
After all the honor God had given this place, I found it interesting that he allowed the place to be raided and such precious riches taken away.
Well, there was a time he even allowed the ark of testimony to be captured.
He created all things, so what really can captivate him?
27And king Rehoboam made in their stead brasen shields, and committed them unto the hands of the chief 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, 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. And Abijam his son reigned in his stead.
Abijam and Abijah.
Same name for both kings' sons — interesting for Israel and Judah to have the same names for their heirs apparent.