1 Kings 14

King Jeroboam I1 was a doer, not a philosopher; he was a man who first caught Solomon’s attention because he was busy, efficient, dependable, and productive (11:26–28). He was the ideal popular leader who knew how to fight the people’s battles and champion their causes. Ask him about his personal faith in the Lord and his answers might be a bit foggy. He had lived in Egypt long enough to develop a tolerance toward idolatry as well as an understanding of how religion can be used to control the people. In this skill, Jeroboam was one with Nebuchadnezzar (Dan. 3), Herod Agrippa I (Acts 12:19–25), and the Antichrist (Rev. 13, 17), and today’s latest demagogue. But Jeroboam made three serious mistakes during his twenty-two-year reign.

We don’t read in Scripture that Jeroboam sought the Lord’s will, prayed for spiritual discernment, or asked the Lord to make him a godly man. He prayed for healing for his arm, and now he asked the prophet Ahijah to heal his son, the crown prince and heir to the throne. It’s obvious that physical blessings were more important to him than spiritual blessings. Like many nominal believers and careless church members today, the only time Jeroboam wanted help from God’s servant was when he was in trouble.

The pretending wife (vv. 1–3). Abijah wasn’t a little child at this time. He was old enough to be approved by the Lord (v. 13) and appreciated by the people, for they mourned over him when he died (v. 18). No doubt the godly remnant in Israel pinned their hopes on the young prince, but God judged the royal family and the apostate citizens by calling the boy away from the cesspool of iniquity that was called Israel. “The righteous man perishes, and no man takes it to heart; and devout men are taken away, while no one understands. For the righteous man is taken away from evil” (Isa. 57: nasb).

The king wanted help from the prophet, but he was too proud to admit it or to face Ahijah personally. The prophet still lived in Shiloh (11:29) because he was too old and infirm to relocate in Judah, and he wanted to be faithful to the very end and warn Jeroboam of the consequences of his sins. Did the king think a disguise would fool the godly prophet, blind as he was? Ahijah could see more in his blindness than Jeroboam and his wife could see with their gift of sight. The gifts the queen carried were those of a common laborer, not gifts fit for a king to give.

The discerning prophet (vv. 4–6). It was about twenty miles from Tirzah to Shiloh, but the prophet knew she was coming before she even arrived in the city. The aged prophet knew who was coming, why she was coming and what he was supposed to tell her. “The secret of the Lord is with those who fear Him” (Ps. 25: nkjv). “Surely the Lord does nothing, unless He reveals His secret to His servants the prophets” (Amos 3: nkjv). Jeroboam sent his wife to Ahijah, but Ahijah said that he was sent to her! He gave her the message she was to give to her husband, and it wasn’t a very happy one.

The revealing message (vv. 7–16). First, the prophet reminded Jeroboam of God’s grace in the past (vv. 7–8a). The Lord had chosen Jeroboam and raised him from being a district leader to ruling over the northern kingdom. God had torn ten tribes away from the house of David and had given them to Jeroboam. But then Ahijah revealed Jeroboam’s sins in the present (vv. 8b-9). Unlike David, who had a heart wholly dedicated to the Lord, Jeroboam did more evil than Saul, David, and Solomon put together. He turned from the true God of Israel and made false gods, and then allowed the people of the ten tribes to worship them. He organized a counterfeit religion, provoked the Lord to anger, and refused to listen to the prophets who were sent to warn him.

This led to Ahijah’s revelation of Jeroboam’s future (vv. 10–16). To begin with, unlike King David, Jeroboam would not establish a dynasty, even though God had promised to bless him with a “sure house” if he obeyed the Lord (11:38). All of Jeroboam’s male descendants would be cut off; the Lord would make a “clean sweep” of Jeroboam’s family and take away every potential heir, just the way servants remove dung from a house. (God didn’t think much of the king’s children!) But even worse, none of them except Abijah, the ailing crown prince, would have a decent, dignified burial. Between the scavenger dogs in the city and the carrion birds in the fields, the children’s corpses would be devoured and never buried, a terrible humiliation for any Jew.

Then Ahijah got to the matter at hand, the future of the sick heir to the throne. Abijah would die, have a dignified burial, and be mourned by the people. The one son of wicked Jeroboam who could have ruled justly would be taken from them, not because he was wicked but because he was good and God wanted to spare him the suffering that lay ahead of the kingdom (Isa. 57:1). As he looked ahead (v. 14), Ahijah then saw Nadab, Jeroboam’s son and heir, reign for two years and then be assassinated by Baasha, a man from the tribe of Issachar (15:25–31). Baasha would not only kill Nadab, but he would exterminate the family of Jeroboam, in fulfillment of Ahijah’s prophecy (15:29).

Then the blind prophet looked even further ahead (vv. 15–16) and saw the entire kingdom of Israel defeated by the enemy (Assyria), rooted out of the land, and scattered among the nations. This happened in 722 BC. The kingdom of Israel had a new religious system, but they were still under the Lord’s covenant (Lev. 26; Deut. 28—30). That covenant warned that their disobedience to God’s law would bring military defeat and national dispersion to the nation (Deut. 28:25–26, 49–52; Lev. 26:17, 25, 33–39; and see Deut. 7: and 12:3–4). What would be the cause of this terrible judgment? “[T]he sins of Jeroboam, who did sin, and who made Israel to sin” (v. 16). Just as David was God’s standard for measuring the good kings, Jeroboam was God’s example of the worst of the bad kings. See 1 Kings 15:34; 16:2–3, 7, 19, 26, 31; 22:52; 2 Kings 3:3; 9:9; 10:29, 31; 13:2, 6, 11; 14:24; 15:9, 18, 24, 28; 17:21–22.

The distressing fulfillment (vv. 17–20). Jeroboam apparently had a palace in Tirzah as well as the palace in Shechem, and it must have been at the edge of the city. Ahijah had told Jeroboam’s wife that the child would die as soon as she entered the city (v. 12), but v. 17 indicates that he died when she stepped on the threshold of the door. All Israel did mourn the loss of this son and they gave him a funeral suited to a crown prince. The king’s hand had been healed and his altar destroyed (13:1–16), and now his son had died. His army would be defeated by the king of Judah, also named Abijah (2 Chron. 13). How many times did God have to warn him before he would repent?

Nobody could sin like Jeroboam, son of Nebat. During his twenty-two years as king of Israel, he led his family and the nation into ruin. One day Jeroboam died and was succeeded by his son Nadab who was assassinated. The day would come when not a single male descendant of King Jeroboam would be alive, nor would you be able to identify the ten tribes of Israel.

“Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever.…” Thomas Jefferson wrote those words in 1781, The kingdoms destroyed (1 Kings but they are just as applicable to us today. 15:1—22:53)