Commentaria in III Regum
14. BUT THE LORD HATH APPOINTED (decreed to appoint) HIM A KING OVER ISRAEL (Baasa, servant of Jeroboam) WHO SHALL CUT OFF THE HOUSE OF JEROBOAM IN THIS DAY, AND IN THIS TIME,—that is, shortly, after few days, after a little time. For “in this time” the Hebrews literally have, and what? even now; as if to say: Nay from now, from this instant I shall begin to strike Jeroboam, by killing his little sick son. Otherwise Vatablus, as if to say: What now? that is, how little and how small is this punishment and tribulation, compared with those which are prepared for king Jeroboam in the future, namely in hell? Otherwise also the Chaldee, who translates: He shall exterminate the house of Jeroboam, him that lives today, and also him that shall be born from now and onward.
15. AND THE LORD SHALL STRIKE ISRAEL, AS A REED IS WONT TO BE SHAKEN,—as if to say: God shall strike king Jeroboam and his people Israel continually on all parts from every side; as a reed is continually shaken by all the winds, so that it has no rest, but is beaten by the continual inroads of enemies, ravagings and battles, until it falls and perishes. Again, HE SHALL SCATTER (that is, disperse to every wind, and scatter to the four quarters of the world and the winds) THEM (the Israelites) BEYOND THE RIVER,—namely the Euphrates, which was the boundary of the land promised to the Jews. This he actually did, when under Osee the last king the ten tribes were carried away by Salmanasar into Assyria in the 6th year of king Ezechias, as we shall hear in chapters 16 and 17.
BECAUSE THEY HAVE MADE THEM GROVES,—namely woods planted with trees, shady, pleasant and wooded, in which after the manner of the Gentiles they worshipped their idols, to which they dedicated these groves. Whence in them by revelling, drinking and fornicating they served Bacchus and Priapus, as is plain from chapter 15, verse 13. Other causes of groves Pliny brings, book 12, chapter 1: “These,” he says, “were once the temples of the divinities, and the country in the old rite was simple; even now they dedicate to a god an outstanding tree: nor do we adore images shining with gold and ivory more than groves and the very silences in them. The kinds of trees dedicated to their deities are kept for ever, as the holm-oak to Jove, the laurel to Apollo, the olive to Minerva, the myrtle to Venus, the poplar to Hercules. Nay we believe that sylvans and fauns and kinds of goddesses are assigned to the woods, and their own divinities, no less than to heaven.”
demands, but severe chastity. Then because it is not lawful to bring thither what makes for the greenness of trees, that is, the dung of beasts and men. Thirdly, because of wild timber there is no use, since it is, as the poets say, a useless weight of the earth: but fruit-bearing trees would draw the less wise and pious away from the intention of mind and the religion due to sacred things. Moreover the thickness of woods suits evil-doers seeking security from their hiding-places and occasion for ambushes: but open places exposed to the eyes, which those who enter can be seen by others and see others, are most suitable and fitting for sacred rites.”
16. AND THE LORD SHALL DELIVER UP ISRAEL (that is, Israel, namely the ten tribes into the hands of enemies, the Assyrians) BECAUSE OF THE SINS OF JEROBOAM.—Note here the four most grievous scourges with which God chastised the public idolatry of Jeroboam. First, He foretells that his son, a boy, will die. Second, that he himself will perish with all his posterity, and that with infamy, so that they lack burial and are torn by dogs and wild beasts. Third, that the kingdom will be transferred from Jeroboam and his family to another king. Fourth, that the whole people will be led away into captivity.
19. NOW THE REST OF THE ACTS (that is of the deeds; it is a metonymy) OF JEROBOAM, etc., ARE WRITTEN IN THE BOOK OF THE WORDS (deeds) OF THE DAYS OF THE KINGS OF ISRAEL,—namely in the Annals, Chronicles and Diaries, in which the deeds of the kings and people of Israel were written day by day. Some think that this book is the book of Paralipomenon; but they err, because this book is cited in the book of Paralipomenon, wherefore it was written before the book of Paralipomenon as well as before the books of Kings (for in these it is cited here and elsewhere). See Abulensis, Preface to the book of Paralipomenon.
21. NOW ROBOAM,—the deeds of Jeroboam the first king of Israel being finished, he passes to the deeds of Roboam the first king of Juda.
TO PUT HIS NAME THERE.—“Name,” that is, the knowledge of His name, faith, worship, adoration, as well as celebrity, fame, glory, miracles, oracles, etc. For in Jerusalem were the temple, priests, pontiffs and prophets, who instructed the people in the faith and worship of God.
AND HIS MOTHER’S NAME WAS NAAMA AN AMMONITESS,—namely the sister or daughter of Sobi, whom David had made king of the Ammonites in place of Hanon, conquered in war, who accordingly, to bind David more closely to himself, asked that Naama be given as wife to Solomon son of David, as I said on 2 Kings 17:27. David granted it, because Naama said she wished to be converted to Judaism; but Vatablus and Emmanuel Sa, and others suspect that her conversion was feigned and pretended, and that she remained a Gentile in heart, and a worshipper of her gods; nay that she led her son Roboam over to their worship;
and that this was the cause of idolatry growing strong in Juda. For therefore Scripture immediately adds here: “And Juda did evil in the sight of the Lord, etc. For they also built them altars, and statues, and groves.”
Let Princes learn here how dangerous and displeasing to God it is to marry daughters of unbelievers or heretics, though they say they wish to be converted to the faith: for they say this in hope of a kingdom or principality; because it is hard for them seriously to root out from the heart the heresy which they have drunk in from boyhood.
Hence also David, taking Maacha daughter of the king of Gessur, begot by her Absalom. But what was Absalom? Surely a fratricide and parricide, because he conspired with all Israel to kill his father. Moreover Maacha was the daughter or granddaughter of Absalom, who took this name from her grandmother, namely the mother of Absalom, and was the wife of Roboam, and, imitating the idolatry and crimes of her grandfather, she herself, or rather her sister or niece, became the chief and priestess of the sacred rites of Priapus, whom accordingly her son Asa removed from her place, as we shall hear in the next chapter, verse 13. The propagation of idolatry, therefore, as of heresy (as I showed from St. Jerome on 2 Timothy 3:6), is made by women, as lovers of novelty and obstinate in their own opinion.
22. AND JUDA DID EVIL,—namely idols, which are called by antonomasia “evil,” or “sin,” because they are the supreme crime. Note that Roboam for the first three years of his reign persevered with his tribe of Juda in the faith and worship of the true God: but these having passed, he forsook it, and permitted various filths of the effeminate: for which cause God in the fifth year of his reign sent against him Sesac king of Egypt, who took and despoiled Jerusalem, all which is plain from what follows and from 2 Paralipomenon chapter 11, verse 17, and chapter 12. The cause of idolatry was partly the mother of Roboam, namely Naama, already mentioned; partly his wife Maacha, of whom verse 21; partly the neighbourhood of idolaters: for all the Gentiles round about, and especially the ten tribes of Israel, worshipped idols; and many of them flourished in peace, wealth and delights, and enticed the Jews their neighbours to worship their idols, promising them from their gods a like abundance of things.
The idolaters, Roboam permitting, set up brothels, not only of harlots but also of hired boys, or male prostitutes, for preposterous and execrable lust, such as the impious Simon set up, 2 Machabees 4:9.
Behold the fruit of idolatry, as of heresy: it is lust, and that infamous and horrible; for with this the foul demons wish to be worshipped, whom they adored in idols, that they may drive men to all filth and all crime, to the injury of God their Creator, and to stir up His offence and vengeance.
25. AND IN THE FIFTH YEAR OF KING ROBOAM (God punishing his apostasy and idolatry) SESAC KING OF EGYPT CAME UP TO JERUSALEM,—with sixty thousand horsemen and innumerable infantry gathered from Egyptians, Libyans, Troglodytes and Ethiopians; in Josephus he is called “Sesostris,” by Diodorus, book 1, “Sesoosis,” who also adds that columns were erected by him in Palestine, on which were carved the female genitals, to mark the lust of the inhabitants, and that through effeminacy and cowardice, as if they had lost their manhood, and fearful as women, they had not dared to take arms and resist him. This Sesac seems to have been a relative of Roboam: for his father Solomon had married the daughter of Pharao, in whose kingdom of Egypt Sesac seems to have been successor and son.
26. AND TOOK AWAY THE TREASURES OF THE HOUSE OF THE LORD, etc.—Sesac plundered Jerusalem, but did not overthrow it, both because in Jerusalem were found good works of penance, namely of religion, prayer, sacrifices, alms, by which pious men sought to avert from God the overthrow of it, and because king Roboam, seeing Sesac laying waste Judea, came to himself with his people, saying: “The Lord is just,”
and when the Lord saw that they were humbled, the word of the Lord came to Semeias, saying: Because they are humbled, I will not destroy them, and I will give them some help, and my wrath shall not drop upon Jerusalem by the hand of Sesac. Nevertheless they shall serve him, that they may know the difference between my service and the service of the kingdoms of the earth”: namely what difference there is between serving God and serving man, namely king Sesac. For God enriches and exalts His servants, but Sesac depresses and despoils. Finally in the same place, of Roboam, verse 14, it is said: “And he did evil, and prepared not his heart to seek the Lord.”