Commentaria in III Regum
Chapter 14
The wife of Jeroboam, going to the prophet Ahias for the health of her son, receives from him the dire threats of God. Then, verse 21, the rest of the deeds of Jeroboam as well as of Roboam are recounted.
1. At that time Abia the son of Jeroboam fell sick. 2. And Jeroboam said to his wife: Arise, and change thy dress, that thou be not known to be the wife of Jeroboam: and go to Silo, where is Ahias the prophet, who told me that I should reign over this people. 3. And take with thee ten loaves, and a cracknel, and a pot of honey, and go to him: for he will tell thee what shall become of this child. 4. Jeroboam’s wife did as he had said: and rising up went to Silo, and came to the house of Ahias: but he could not see, for his eyes were dim by reason of his age. 5. And the Lord said to Ahias: Behold the wife of Jeroboam cometh in to consult thee concerning her son that is sick: thus and thus shalt thou speak to her. So when she was coming in, and feigned herself to be another woman, 6. Ahias heard the sound of her feet coming in at the door, and said: Come in, thou wife of Jeroboam: why dost thou feign thyself to be another? Now I am sent to thee a heavy messenger. 7. Go, and tell Jeroboam: Thus saith the Lord the God of Israel: Whereas I exalted thee from among the people, and made thee prince over my people Israel, 8. And rent the kingdom of the house of David, and gave it to thee, and thou hast not been as my servant David, who kept my commandments, and followed me with all his heart, doing that which was pleasing in my sight: 9. But hast done evil above all that were before thee, and hast made thee strange gods and molten gods, to provoke me to anger, and hast cast me behind thy back: 10. Therefore behold I will bring evils upon the house of Jeroboam, and I will cut off from Jeroboam him that pisseth against the wall, and him that is shut up, and the meanest in Israel: and I will sweep away the remnants of the house of Jeroboam as dung is swept away till all be clean. 11. Him that dieth of Jeroboam in the city, the dogs shall eat: and him that dieth in the field, the birds of the air shall eat: for the Lord hath spoken it. 12. Arise therefore, and go to thy house: and in the very entrance of thy foot into the city, the child shall die, 13. And all Israel shall mourn for him, and shall bury him: for he alone of Jeroboam shall be brought to the sepulchre, because in him there is found a good word of the Lord the God of Israel in the house of Jeroboam. 14. But the Lord hath appointed him a king over Israel, who shall cut off the house of Jeroboam in this day, and in this time: 15. And the Lord shall strike Israel, as a reed is wont to be 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 them groves, to provoke the Lord. 16. And the Lord shall deliver up Israel because of the sins of Jeroboam, who hath sinned, and made Israel to sin. 17. And Jeroboam’s wife arose, and departed, and came to Thersa: and when she was come to the threshold of the house, the child died, 18. And they buried him: and all Israel mourned for him, according to the word of the Lord, which he spoke in the hand of his servant Ahias the prophet. 19. Now the rest of the acts of Jeroboam, how he warred, and how he reigned, behold they are written in the book of the words of the days of the kings of Israel. 20. And the days that Jeroboam reigned, were two and twenty years: and he slept with his fathers, and Nadab his son reigned in his stead. 21. And Roboam the son of Solomon reigned in Juda. Roboam was one and forty years old when he began to reign: and he reigned seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city which the Lord chose out of all the tribes of Israel, to put his name there: and his mother’s name was Naama an Ammonitess. 22. And Juda did evil in the sight of the Lord, and they provoked him above all that their fathers had done in their sins which they committed. 23. For they also built them altars, and statues, and groves, upon every high hill, and under every shady tree. 24. There were also effeminate persons in the land, and they did all the abominations of the nations which the Lord had destroyed before the face of the children of Israel. 25. And in the fifth year of king Roboam, Sesac king of Egypt came up to Jerusalem, 26. And took away the treasures of the house of the Lord, and the treasures of the king’s house, and took all: the golden shields also, which Solomon had made: 27. Instead of which the king made brazen ones, and delivered them to the hand of the captains of the shield-bearers, and of them that kept watch before the gate of the king’s house. 28. And when the king went into the house of the Lord, they that were of the guard carried them: and afterwards they brought them back to the armoury of the shield-bearers. 29. Now the rest of the acts of Roboam, and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the words of the days of the kings of Juda? 30. And there was war between Roboam and Jeroboam all the days. 31. And Roboam slept with his fathers, and was buried with them in the city of David: and his mother’s name was Naama an Ammonitess: and Abiam his son reigned in his stead.
1. ABIA THE SON OF JEROBOAM FELL SICK,—God punishing the idolatry of Jeroboam by the sickness and death of his son.
CHANGE THY DRESS (that laying aside the royal robe thou mayest put on a plebeian one, and go alone without a retinue) THAT THOU BE NOT KNOWN TO BE THE WIFE OF JEROBOAM,—lest, namely, Ahias, who conferred the kingdom on me with the obligation of keeping the true faith and worship of God, seeing that I have set up golden calves as idols, should sharply rebuke you and me or repel you, nor deign to answer. The Roman Septuagint assert that this wife was the elder sister of the queen of Egypt; and they call her Ano; Lucifer of Cagliari, On Apostatic Kings, calls her Anna. So Serarius and Salianus.
…the Septuagint, and kollyria; Vatablus, sweet breads; in French, des gauffres (wafers): for they were wont to impress on them a certain form in which were holes. For niqqudim signifies pointed things, namely cakes or cracknels marked and distinguished with points. This queen offers gifts not royal, but plebeian and rustic (as she pretended to be), namely loaves, cakes, a pot of honey.
6. NOW I AM SENT TO THEE A HEAVY MESSENGER,—to announce that the son, about whom you consult me, will die, and by the command of God I shall inflict other far greater disasters: because Jeroboam was hard and stubborn toward God: for a hard knot a hard wedge is to be sought.
10. AND I WILL CUT OFF FROM THE HOUSE OF JEROBOAM HIM THAT PISSETH AGAINST THE WALL,—that is, every male: for only males piss against a wall, says Elias in his Tishbi. Or rather, as if to say: I will kill every living thing in the house of Jeroboam, down to the dog, so that I leave no living dog in it: for only dogs with a raised leg sprinkle the wall with their water; as if to say: I will not spare even the dogs. So Theodoret, Vatablus, Serarius.
AND HIM THAT IS SHUT UP,—that is, shut up in prison, or hidden at home.
AND THE MEANEST,—that is, the last, who shall be left until the end of the war; as if to say: All the rest shall perish at last. Or “the meanest,” that is, the vilest, the most abject. Scripture uses this phrase when it wishes to signify absolutely all; as if to say: I will destroy all the remnants and refuse of thy family. In like manner God killed all the first-born of Egypt, “from the first-born of Pharao to the first-born of the captive woman that was in the prison,” Exodus 12:29.
AND I WILL SWEEP AWAY (sweep with brooms, sweep out, overthrow) THE REMNANTS OF THE HOUSE OF JEROBOAM AS DUNG (in Chaldee, stercus) IS SWEPT AWAY TILL ALL BE CLEAN,—so that no dung remains, but the whole floor of the house is clean.
12. IN THE VERY ENTRANCE OF THY FOOT INTO THE CITY, THE CHILD SHALL DIE,—that it may be plain that the death threatened and sent upon the son came from God through me on account of the idols of thee and thy husband, and that therefore you may grieve the more, because you will have been as it were parricides of your son. So the Emperor Valens, by the prayers of St. Basil, drove off the sickness sent on his son on account of Arianism; but, soon calling the Arians to visit him, he lost him.
13. FOR HE ALONE OF JEROBOAM SHALL BE BROUGHT TO THE SEPULCHRE, BECAUSE IN HIM THERE IS FOUND A GOOD WORD OF THE LORD.—Some think that this son did something good, for which he deserved burial from God, for example that he permitted the faithful going to Jerusalem to adore God in the temple. So the Rabbis. But this son was a boy, as was said in verse 12. Better, others attribute it not to the son but to the merits of some member of the household; for this is what “in the house of Jeroboam” signifies, as if to say: Some of the family of Jeroboam did some good things, for which God will reward them with this reward, that this son of Jeroboam be given worthy burial. So Vatablus.