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14 [a] At that time Jeroboam’s son Abijah became sick. Jeroboam told his wife, “Disguise[b] yourself so that people cannot recognize you are Jeroboam’s wife. Then go to Shiloh; Ahijah the prophet, who told me I would rule over this nation, lives there.[c] Take[d] ten loaves of bread, some small cakes, and a container of honey and visit him. He will tell you what will happen to the boy.”

Jeroboam’s wife did as she was told. She went to Shiloh and visited Ahijah.[e] Now Ahijah could not see; he had lost his eyesight in his old age.[f] But the Lord had told Ahijah, “Look, Jeroboam’s wife is coming to find out from you what will happen to her son, for he is sick. Tell her such and such.[g] When she comes, she will be in a disguise.” When Ahijah heard the sound of her footsteps as she came through the door, he said, “Come on in, wife of Jeroboam! Why are you pretending to be someone else? I have been commissioned to give you bad news.[h] Go, tell Jeroboam, ‘This is what the Lord God of Israel has said: “I raised you up[i] from among the people and made you ruler over my people Israel. I tore the kingdom away from the Davidic dynasty and gave it to you. But you are not like my servant David, who kept my commandments and followed me wholeheartedly by doing only what I approve.[j] You have sinned more than all who came before you. You went and angered me by making other gods, formed out of metal; you have completely disregarded me.[k] 10 So I am ready to bring disaster[l] on the dynasty[m] of Jeroboam. I will cut off every last male belonging to Jeroboam in Israel, including even the weak and incapacitated.[n] I will burn up the dynasty of Jeroboam, just as one burns manure until it is completely consumed.[o] 11 Dogs will eat the members of your family[p] who die in the city, and the birds of the sky will eat the ones who die in the country.”’ Indeed, the Lord has announced it!

12 “As for you, get up and go home. When you set foot in the city, the boy will die. 13 All Israel will mourn him and bury him. He is the only one in Jeroboam’s family[q] who will receive a decent burial, for he is the only one in whom the Lord God of Israel found anything good. 14 The Lord will raise up a king over Israel who will cut off Jeroboam’s dynasty.[r] It is ready to happen![s] 15 The Lord will attack Israel, making it like a reed that sways in the water.[t] He will remove Israel from this good land he gave to their ancestors[u] and scatter them beyond the Euphrates River,[v] because they angered the Lord by making Asherah poles.[w] 16 He will hand Israel over to their enemies[x] because of the sins which Jeroboam committed and which he made Israel commit.”

17 So Jeroboam’s wife got up and went back to[y] Tirzah. As she crossed the threshold of the house, the boy died. 18 All Israel buried him and mourned for him, in keeping with the Lord’s message that he had spoken through his servant, the prophet Ahijah.

Jeroboam’s Reign Ends

19 The rest of the events of Jeroboam’s reign, including the details of his battles and rule, are recorded in the scroll called the Annals of the Kings of Israel.[z] 20 Jeroboam ruled for twenty-two years; then he passed away.[aa] His son Nadab replaced him as king.

Rehoboam’s Reign over Judah

21 Now Rehoboam son of Solomon ruled in Judah. He[ab] was forty-one years old when he became king and he ruled for seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city the Lord chose from all the tribes of Israel to be his home.[ac] His mother was an Ammonite woman[ad] named Naamah.

22 Judah did evil in the sight of[ae] the Lord. They made him more jealous by their sins than their ancestors had done.[af] 23 They even built for themselves high places, sacred pillars, and Asherah poles on every high hill and under every green tree. 24 There were also male cultic prostitutes[ag] in the land. They committed the same horrible sins as the nations[ah] that the Lord had driven out from before the Israelites.

25 In King Rehoboam’s fifth year, King Shishak of Egypt attacked Jerusalem. 26 He took away the treasures of the Lord’s temple and of the royal palace; he took everything, including all the golden shields that Solomon had made. 27 King Rehoboam made bronze shields to replace them and assigned them to the officers of the royal guard[ai] who protected the entrance to the royal palace. 28 Whenever the king visited the Lord’s temple, the royal guard carried them and then brought them back to the guardroom.

29 The rest of the events of Rehoboam’s reign, including his accomplishments, are recorded in the scroll called the Annals of the Kings of Judah.[aj] 30 Rehoboam and Jeroboam were continually at war with each other. 31 Rehoboam passed away[ak] and was buried with his ancestors in the City of David. His mother was an Ammonite named Naamah. His son Abijah[al] replaced him as king.

Footnotes

  1. 1 Kings 14:1 tc Some mss of the Old Greek lack vv. 1-20.
  2. 1 Kings 14:2 tn Heb “Get up, change yourself.”
  3. 1 Kings 14:2 tn Heb “look, Ahijah the prophet is there; he spoke about me as king over this nation.”
  4. 1 Kings 14:3 tn Heb “take in your hand.”
  5. 1 Kings 14:4 tn Heb “and the wife of Jeroboam did so; she arose and went to Shiloh and entered the house of Ahijah.”
  6. 1 Kings 14:4 tn Heb “his eyes were set because of his old age.”
  7. 1 Kings 14:5 tn Heb “like this and like this.”sn Tell her such and such. Certainly the Lord gave Ahijah a specific message to give to Jeroboam’s wife (see vv. 6-16), but the author of Kings here condenses the Lord’s message with the words “so-and-so.” For dramatic effect he prefers to have us hear the message from Ahijah’s lips as he speaks to the king’s wife.
  8. 1 Kings 14:6 tn Heb “I am sent to you [with] a hard [message].”
  9. 1 Kings 14:7 tn The Hebrew text has “because” at the beginning of the sentence. In the Hebrew text vv. 7-11 are one long sentence comprised of a causal clause giving the reason for divine punishment (vv. 7-9) and the main clause announcing the punishment (vv. 10-11). The translation divides this lengthy sentence for stylistic reasons.
  10. 1 Kings 14:8 tn Heb “what was right in my eyes.”
  11. 1 Kings 14:9 tn Heb “you went and you made for yourself other gods, and metal [ones], angering me, and you threw me behind your back.”
  12. 1 Kings 14:10 sn Disaster. There is a wordplay in the Hebrew text. The word translated “disaster” (רָעָה, raʿah) is from the same root as the expression “you have sinned” in v. 9 (וַתָּרַע [vattaraʿ], from רָעַע, [raʿaʿ]). Jeroboam’s sins would receive an appropriate punishment.
  13. 1 Kings 14:10 tn Heb “house.”
  14. 1 Kings 14:10 tn Heb “and I will cut off from Jeroboam those who urinate against a wall (including both those who are) restrained and let free (or “abandoned”) in Israel.” The precise meaning of the idiomatic phrase עָצוּר וְעָזוּב (ʿatsur veʿazuv) is uncertain. For various options see HALOT 871 s.v. עצר 6 and M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 107. The two terms are usually taken as polar opposites (“slaves and freemen” or “minors and adults”), but Cogan and Tadmor, on the basis of contextual considerations (note the usage with אֶפֶס [ʾefes], “nothing but”) in Deut 32:36 and 2 Kgs 14:26, argue convincingly that the terms are synonyms, meaning “restrained and abandoned,” and refer to incapable or incapacitated individuals.
  15. 1 Kings 14:10 tn The traditional view understands the verb בָּעַר (baʿar) to mean “burn.” Manure was sometimes used as fuel (see Ezek 4:12, 15). However, an alternate view takes בָּעַר as a homonym meaning “sweep away” (HALOT 146 s.v. II בער). In this case one might translate, “I will sweep away the dynasty of Jeroboam, just as one sweeps away manure it is gone” (cf. ASV, NASB, TEV). Either metaphor emphasizes the thorough and destructive nature of the coming judgment.
  16. 1 Kings 14:11 tn The Hebrew text has “belonging to Jeroboam” here.
  17. 1 Kings 14:13 tn Heb “house.”
  18. 1 Kings 14:14 tn Heb “house.”
  19. 1 Kings 14:14 tn Heb “This is the day. What also now?” The precise meaning of the second half of the statement is uncertain.
  20. 1 Kings 14:15 tn The elliptical Hebrew text reads literally “and the Lord will strike Israel as a reed sways in the water.”
  21. 1 Kings 14:15 tn Heb “fathers” (also in vv. 22, 31).
  22. 1 Kings 14:15 tn Heb “the River.” In biblical Hebrew this is a typical reference to the Euphrates River. The name “Euphrates” has been supplied in the translation for clarity.
  23. 1 Kings 14:15 tn Heb “because they made their Asherah poles that anger the Lord”; or “their images of Asherah”; ASV, NASB “their Asherim”; NCV “they set up idols to worship Asherah.”sn Asherah was a leading deity of the Canaanite pantheon, wife/sister of El and goddess of fertility. She was commonly worshiped at shrines in or near groves of evergreen trees, or, failing that, at places marked by wooden poles. These were to be burned or cut down (Deut 12:3; 16:21; Judg 6:25, 28, 30; 2 Kgs 18:4).
  24. 1 Kings 14:16 tn Heb “and he will give [up] Israel.”
  25. 1 Kings 14:17 tn Heb “went and entered.”
  26. 1 Kings 14:19 tn Heb “As for the rest of the events of Jeroboam, how he fought and how he ruled, are they not written on the scroll of the events of the days of the kings of Israel?”
  27. 1 Kings 14:20 tn Heb “lay down with his fathers.”
  28. 1 Kings 14:21 tn Heb “Rehoboam.” The proper name has been replaced by the pronoun (“he”) in the translation for stylistic reasons.
  29. 1 Kings 14:21 tn Heb “the city where the Lord chose to place his name from all the tribes of Israel.”
  30. 1 Kings 14:21 tn Heb “an Ammonite”; the word “woman” is implied by the gender of the word.
  31. 1 Kings 14:22 tn Heb “in the eyes of.”
  32. 1 Kings 14:22 tn Heb “and they made him jealous more than all which their fathers had done by their sins which they sinned.”
  33. 1 Kings 14:24 tc The Old Greek translation has “a conspiracy” rather than “male cultic prostitutes.”
  34. 1 Kings 14:24 tn Heb “they did according to all the abominable acts of the nations.”
  35. 1 Kings 14:27 tn Heb “runners.”
  36. 1 Kings 14:29 tn Heb “As for the rest of the events of Rehoboam, and all which he did, are they not written on the scroll of the events of the days of the kings of Judah?”
  37. 1 Kings 14:31 tn Heb “lay down with his fathers.”
  38. 1 Kings 14:31 tn In the Hebrew text the name is spelled “Abijam” here and in 1 Kgs 15:1-8.

Ahijah’s Prophecy Against Jeroboam

14 At that time Abijah son of Jeroboam became ill, and Jeroboam said to his wife, “Go, disguise yourself, so you won’t be recognized as the wife of Jeroboam. Then go to Shiloh. Ahijah(A) the prophet is there—the one who told me I would be king over this people. Take ten loaves of bread(B) with you, some cakes and a jar of honey, and go to him. He will tell you what will happen to the boy.” So Jeroboam’s wife did what he said and went to Ahijah’s house in Shiloh.

Now Ahijah could not see; his sight was gone because of his age. But the Lord had told Ahijah, “Jeroboam’s wife is coming to ask you about her son, for he is ill, and you are to give her such and such an answer. When she arrives, she will pretend to be someone else.”

So when Ahijah heard the sound of her footsteps at the door, he said, “Come in, wife of Jeroboam. Why this pretense?(C) I have been sent to you with bad news. Go, tell Jeroboam that this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says:(D) ‘I raised you up from among the people and appointed you ruler(E) over my people Israel. I tore(F) the kingdom away from the house of David and gave it to you, but you have not been like my servant David, who kept my commands and followed me with all his heart, doing only what was right(G) in my eyes. You have done more evil(H) than all who lived before you.(I) You have made for yourself other gods, idols(J) made of metal; you have aroused(K) my anger and turned your back on me.(L)

10 “‘Because of this, I am going to bring disaster(M) on the house of Jeroboam. I will cut off from Jeroboam every last male in Israel—slave or free.[a](N) I will burn up the house of Jeroboam as one burns dung, until it is all gone.(O) 11 Dogs(P) will eat those belonging to Jeroboam who die in the city, and the birds(Q) will feed on those who die in the country. The Lord has spoken!’

12 “As for you, go back home. When you set foot in your city, the boy will die. 13 All Israel will mourn for him and bury him. He is the only one belonging to Jeroboam who will be buried, because he is the only one in the house of Jeroboam in whom the Lord, the God of Israel, has found anything good.(R)

14 “The Lord will raise up for himself a king over Israel who will cut off the family of Jeroboam. Even now this is beginning to happen.[b] 15 And the Lord will strike Israel, so that it will be like a reed swaying in the water. He will uproot(S) Israel from this good land that he gave to their ancestors and scatter them beyond the Euphrates River, because they aroused(T) the Lord’s anger by making Asherah(U) poles.[c] 16 And he will give Israel up because of the sins(V) Jeroboam has committed and has caused Israel to commit.”

17 Then Jeroboam’s wife got up and left and went to Tirzah.(W) As soon as she stepped over the threshold of the house, the boy died. 18 They buried him, and all Israel mourned for him, as the Lord had said through his servant the prophet Ahijah.

19 The other events of Jeroboam’s reign, his wars and how he ruled, are written in the book of the annals of the kings of Israel. 20 He reigned for twenty-two years and then rested with his ancestors. And Nadab his son succeeded him as king.

Rehoboam King of Judah(X)

21 Rehoboam son of Solomon was king in Judah. He was forty-one years old when he became king, and he reigned seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city the Lord had chosen out of all the tribes of Israel in which to put his Name. His mother’s name was Naamah; she was an Ammonite.(Y)

22 Judah(Z) did evil in the eyes of the Lord. By the sins they committed they stirred up his jealous anger(AA) more than those who were before them had done. 23 They also set up for themselves high places, sacred stones(AB) and Asherah poles(AC) on every high hill and under every spreading tree.(AD) 24 There were even male shrine prostitutes(AE) in the land; the people engaged in all the detestable(AF) practices of the nations the Lord had driven out before the Israelites.

25 In the fifth year of King Rehoboam, Shishak king of Egypt attacked(AG) Jerusalem. 26 He carried off the treasures of the temple(AH) of the Lord and the treasures of the royal palace. He took everything, including all the gold shields(AI) Solomon had made. 27 So King Rehoboam made bronze shields to replace them and assigned these to the commanders of the guard on duty at the entrance to the royal palace.(AJ) 28 Whenever the king went to the Lord’s temple, the guards bore the shields, and afterward they returned them to the guardroom.

29 As for the other events of Rehoboam’s reign, and all he did, are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Judah? 30 There was continual warfare(AK) between Rehoboam and Jeroboam. 31 And Rehoboam rested with his ancestors and was buried with them in the City of David. His mother’s name was Naamah; she was an Ammonite.(AL) And Abijah[d] his son succeeded him as king.

Footnotes

  1. 1 Kings 14:10 Or Israel—every ruler or leader
  2. 1 Kings 14:14 The meaning of the Hebrew for this sentence is uncertain.
  3. 1 Kings 14:15 That is, wooden symbols of the goddess Asherah; here and elsewhere in 1 Kings
  4. 1 Kings 14:31 Some Hebrew manuscripts and Septuagint (see also 2 Chron. 12:16); most Hebrew manuscripts Abijam