1 Kings 14: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

Jeroboam's son Abijah falls sick, and Jeroboam sends his wife in disguise to the prophet Ahijah at Shiloh. Ahijah recognizes her anyway and delivers God's message: because Jeroboam made other gods, his family will be wiped out, the sick child will die when she reaches the city, and Israel will one day be uprooted and scattered beyond the River. The child dies as she returns, and a note records the length of Jeroboam's reign. The chapter then turns to Rehoboam's seventeen years in Judah, the shrines and practices Judah took up, Shishak of Egypt stripping the temple and palace treasures, and the ongoing war between the two kings.

Claim by Claim

1. 14:1
   • At that time Abijah the son of Jeroboam became sick.
2. 14:2
   • Jeroboam said to his wife to get up and disguise herself.
   • Jeroboam said the purpose of the disguise was that she not be recognized as the wife of Jeroboam.
   • Jeroboam told his wife to go to Shiloh.
   • Jeroboam said that Ahijah the prophet was there.
   • Jeroboam said that Ahijah had spoken concerning him that he would be king over this people.
3. 14:3
   • Jeroboam told his wife to take with her ten loaves of bread.
   • Jeroboam told his wife to take small cakes.
   • Jeroboam told his wife to take a jar of honey.
   • Jeroboam told his wife to go to Ahijah.
   • Jeroboam said Ahijah would tell her what would happen to the boy.
4. 14:4
   • Jeroboam's wife did so.
   • Jeroboam's wife arose and went to Shiloh.
   • Jeroboam's wife came to the house of Ahijah.
   • Ahijah could not see.
   • Ahijah's eyes were fixed because of his old age.
5. 14:5
   • The LORD said to Ahijah that the wife of Jeroboam was coming to inquire of him about her son.
   • The LORD said that her son was sick.
   • The LORD told Ahijah to say thus and thus to her.
   • The LORD said that when she came in she would be pretending to be another woman.
6. 14:6
   • Ahijah heard the sound of her feet as she came in at the door.
   • Ahijah said, Come in, wife of Jeroboam.
   • Ahijah asked why she was pretending to be another.
   • Ahijah said he was sent to her with harsh news.
7. 14:7
   • Ahijah told her to go and tell Jeroboam.
   • Ahijah said this is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says.
   • The LORD said he had raised Jeroboam up from among the people.
   • The LORD said he had made Jeroboam ruler over his people Israel.
8. 14:8
   • The LORD said he tore the kingdom away from the house of David.
   • The LORD said he gave the kingdom to Jeroboam.
   • The LORD said Jeroboam had not been like his servant David.
   • The LORD said David kept his commandments.
   • The LORD said David followed him with all his heart.
   • The LORD said David did only what was right in his eyes.
9. 14:9
   • The LORD said Jeroboam had done more evil than all who were before him.
   • The LORD said Jeroboam went and made for himself other gods.
   • The LORD said Jeroboam made molten images.
   • The LORD said this was done to provoke him to anger.
   • The LORD said Jeroboam had cast him behind his back.
10. 14:10
    • The LORD said that therefore he was bringing disaster on the house of Jeroboam.
    • The LORD said he would cut off from Jeroboam every male.
    • The LORD said he would cut off both bond and free in Israel.
    • The LORD said he would burn away what remained of the house of Jeroboam as one burns away dung until it is all gone.
11. 14:11
    • The LORD said the dogs would eat anyone belonging to Jeroboam who died in the city.
    • The LORD said the birds of the air would eat anyone who died in the field.
    • The reason given is that the LORD has spoken it.
12. 14:12
    • Ahijah told the woman to arise and go to her own house.
    • Ahijah said that when her feet entered the city, the child would die.
13. 14:13
    • Ahijah said all Israel would mourn for the child.
    • Ahijah said they would bury him.
    • Ahijah said he alone of Jeroboam's house would come to a grave.
    • Ahijah said the reason was that in him something good toward the LORD, the God of Israel, was found in the house of Jeroboam.
14. 14:14
    • Ahijah said the LORD would raise up for himself a king over Israel.
    • Ahijah said that king would cut off the house of Jeroboam.
    • Ahijah said this is the day, and even now.
15. 14:15
    • Ahijah said the LORD would strike Israel as a reed is shaken in the water.
    • Ahijah said the LORD would uproot Israel from this good land.
    • Ahijah said the LORD gave this land to their fathers.
    • Ahijah said the LORD would scatter them beyond the River.
    • Ahijah said the reason was that they had made their sacred poles for the goddess Asherah, provoking the LORD to anger.
16. 14:16
    • Ahijah said the LORD would give Israel up.
    • Ahijah said this was because of the sins Jeroboam had sinned.
    • Ahijah said Jeroboam had caused Israel to sin.
17. 14:17
    • Jeroboam's wife arose and departed.
    • Jeroboam's wife came to Tirzah.
    • As she came to the threshold of the house, the boy died.
18. 14:18
    • They buried the boy.
    • All Israel mourned for him.
    • This happened according to the word of the LORD, which he spoke by the hand of his servant Ahijah the prophet.
19. 14:19
    • The rest of the acts of Jeroboam, how he warred and how he reigned, are written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel.
20. 14:20
    • Jeroboam reigned twenty-two years.
    • Jeroboam slept with his fathers.
    • Nadab his son reigned in his place.
21. 14:21
    • Rehoboam the son of Solomon reigned in Judah.
    • Rehoboam was forty-one years old when he began to reign.
    • Rehoboam reigned seventeen years in Jerusalem.
    • Jerusalem is the city the LORD chose out of all the tribes of Israel to put his name there.
    • Rehoboam's mother's name was Naamah the Ammonitess.
22. 14:22
    • Judah did what was evil in the sight of the LORD.
    • They provoked him to jealousy with the sins they committed, more than all that their fathers had done.
23. 14:23
    • They also built for themselves high places.
    • They also built standing stone pillars.
    • They also made sacred poles for the goddess Asherah.
    • They did this on every high hill and under every green tree.
24. 14:24
    • There were also male cult prostitutes in the land.
    • They did according to all the abominations of the nations.
    • The LORD had dispossessed those nations before the children of Israel.
25. 14:25
    • In the fifth year of king Rehoboam, Shishak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem.
26. 14:26
    • Shishak took the treasures of the house of the LORD.
    • Shishak took the treasures of the king's house.
    • Shishak took everything.
    • Shishak took all the shields of gold which Solomon had made.
27. 14:27
    • King Rehoboam made bronze shields in their place.
    • Rehoboam committed the shields to the hands of the captains of the guard.
    • The guard kept the door of the king's house.
28. 14:28
    • Whenever the king went into the house of the LORD, the guards carried the shields.
    • The guards brought the shields back into the guard chamber.
29. 14:29
    • The rest of the acts of Rehoboam and all that he did are written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah.
30. 14:30
    • There was war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam all their days.
31. 14:31
    • Rehoboam slept with his fathers.
    • Rehoboam was buried with his fathers in the city of David.
    • His mother's name was Naamah the Ammonitess.
    • Abijam his son reigned in his place.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

14:1

Jeroboam was the first king of the northern kingdom of Israel, which had broken away from Solomon's son Rehoboam a chapter earlier. The two kingdoms (Israel in the north, Judah in the south) are tracked side by side from here on. This son Abijah is not the same person as Abijam, Rehoboam's son, who appears at the end of the chapter, though the two names are close.

14:2

Shiloh, about ten miles north of Bethel, had been Israel's chief sanctuary before Jerusalem; the aged prophet Ahijah still lived there. A prophet was a person understood to speak messages received from God, and people consulted prophets about ordinary matters (illness, lost property, the outcome of a journey) as well as about affairs of state. The disguise is so that the household and neighbors will not report that the king's wife has come asking about his heir.

14:3

Bringing a gift was normal etiquette when consulting a prophet, and the size and quality of the gift signaled the status of the person asking. Ten plain loaves, some small cakes and a jar of honey are what a village woman would bring, part of the disguise, not a royal offering.

14:5

"Thus and thus shalt thou say" is a Hebrew placeholder, like writing "say such and such." The narrator is not repeating the message twice; the actual words God gives Ahijah are the speech that follows in verses 7 to 16.

14:7

"Prince" in the King James does not mean a king's son. It translates a Hebrew word for a leader publicly appointed to office. Jeroboam had begun as a foreman over Solomon's forced labor gangs, not as royalty, which is the point being made here.

14:8

"The house of David" means the royal family descended from David, which still ruled the southern kingdom from Jerusalem. Jeroboam's kingdom exists because that line lost the ten northern tribes.

14:9

"Thrown me behind your back" is a Hebrew idiom for discarding something as worthless, putting it out of sight where you no longer have to look at it.

14:10

The King James "him that pisseth against the wall" is a blunt Hebrew idiom for a male, distinguishing men from women by posture; it appears several times in these books as a way of saying no male heir will survive. The following phrase, "him that is shut up and left," is an old legal pairing whose exact sense is disputed, most take it as a merism meaning everyone without exception, whether bound (in service, or under some restriction) or free. The Hebrew verb translated "take away" can also mean "burn up"; dried dung was ordinary household fuel, so the image is of sweeping out or burning off a heap of it until nothing remains.

14:11

Dogs in this world were scavengers around towns, not pets. To be left unburied for dogs and carrion birds was the worst fate imaginable for a family, burial in the ancestral tomb was the mark of an honorable death, and its denial was a public disgrace.

14:13

Formal mourning by the whole nation was the honor given to a king or a royal heir. Abijah gets the funeral of a prince; the rest of his family, verse 11 has just said, will get no burial at all.

14:14

The last clause of this verse, King James "but what? even now", is one of the most obscure sentences in Hebrew Kings. The words are short and the syntax broken, and translators differ widely; the rendering keeps the abruptness rather than smoothing it into a guess.

14:15

"The River," without a name, always means the Euphrates, the far northeastern boundary of the known world for Israelites, the direction from which Assyria would later deport the northern kingdom. An Asherah pole was a wooden cult object, either a carved image or a living or planted tree, standing for the goddess Asherah; the King James translates the word "grove." A reed shaken in water is a marsh plant with no root-hold, whipped about by current and wind.

14:17

Tirzah, north of Shechem, served as the northern kingdom's royal residence before Samaria was founded.

14:19

The Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel was a royal annal, an official court record, now lost. It is not the biblical books of 1 and 2 Chronicles. The writer cites it repeatedly as a source where a reader could look up the military and administrative detail he is leaving out.

14:20

"Slept with his fathers" is the standard formula for dying and being laid in the family tomb; in these books it usually implies a natural death rather than assassination or death in battle.

14:21

"The place for his name" is covenant language for a site formally claimed as God's own, where his name is invoked in worship. Naming the king's mother is part of the fixed formula used for every king of Judah, the queen mother held a recognized position at court. Ammon was a small kingdom east of the Jordan, a frequent enemy of Israel; foreign royal marriages sealed treaties.

14:22

The Hebrew word behind "jealousy" is the term used of a husband's exclusive claim on his wife. Applied to God it does not mean envy; it is the language of an exclusive relationship being violated by worship given elsewhere.

14:23

A high place was an open-air worship site, usually on a hilltop or ridge, with an altar and often a standing stone and a sacred pole. Standing stones (Hebrew massebot) were upright stones set up to mark a divine presence. "On every high hill and under every green tree" is a stock phrase for the whole network of local country shrines.

14:24

The King James "sodomites" translates the Hebrew qadesh, literally "consecrated man", a male attached to a shrine, generally understood as a cult prostitute. The word says nothing about the city of Sodom; the King James translators supplied that association. "Abominations" renders a word for practices regarded as ritually detestable and forbidden.

14:25

Shishak is Sheshonq I, founder of Egypt's twenty-second dynasty. His own account of this campaign survives carved on a temple wall at Karnak, listing towns he claimed to have taken in Israel and Judah, one of the earliest points where the biblical narrative and an outside record touch.

14:26

The gold shields were ceremonial, made by Solomon for display in the palace armory and carried in procession, not used in battle.

14:27

Bronze was the ordinary metal for armor and fittings; substituting it for gold is a plain measure of what the treasury had left after Shishak's visit. The shields were still paraded, but they were now cheap ones.

14:28

The shields were carried in procession when the king walked to the temple, then locked away again. This was royal pageantry rather than protection, which is why the swap from gold to bronze mattered enough for the writer to record it.

14:30

This does not mean continuous full scale war. It describes ongoing border fighting along the frontier between the two kingdoms, which ran only a few miles north of Jerusalem.

14:31

The City of David was the oldest fortified part of Jerusalem, the ridge David captured from the Jebusites, where the kings of Judah were buried. Abijam is called Abijah elsewhere in the Bible; the two forms are variants of the same name.