A mighty man of valour. — The phrase, like the “mighty valiant man,” applied to the young David (1 Samuel 16:18), has nothing to do with war, but simply signifies “strong and capable.”
The charge (or in margin “the burden”), is, of course, the taskwork assigned to the levy from the tribe of Ephraim (and possibly Manasseh with it). It is clear from this that the levy for the Temple — perhaps originally exceptional — had served as a precedent for future burdens, not on the subject races only, as at first (1 Kings 9:21-22), but on the Israelites also. The LXX. addition makes Jeroboam build for Solomon “Sarira in Mount Ephraim” also.
Ahijah the Shilonite. — In the person of Ahijah, prophecy emerges from the abeyance, which seems to overshadow it during the greatness of the monarchy. Even in David’s old age, the prophet Nathan himself appears chiefly as a mere counsellor and servant of the king (see 1 Kings 1), and from the day of his coronation of Solomon we hear nothing of any prophetic action. Solomon himself receives the visions of the Lord (1 Kings 3:5; 1 Kings 3:2); upon him, as the Wise Man, rests the special inspiration of God; at the consecration of the Temple he alone is prominent, as the representative and the teacher of the people. Now, however, we find in Ahijah the first of the line of prophets, who resumed a paramount influence like that of Samuel or Nathan, protecting the spirituality of the land and the worship of God, and demanding both from king and people submission to the authority of the Lord Jehovah.