1 Kings 14:17-31 - Frederick Brotherton Meyer's Commentary

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South Rivals Worth in Sinning

1 Kings 14:17-31

Rehoboam's mother's name signifies beauty, and she may have been attractive in her person; but we are twice told that she was an Ammonitess, as if to emphasize the disastrous influence which she exercised over her son, 1 Kings 14:21; 1 Kings 14:31. In the earlier part of the chapter, there are tender reminiscences of David-that he kept God's commandments, followed Him with all his heart, did what was right in His eyes. How dear is such a life to God! How He keeps it in remembrance! How He holds it up to veneration, notwithstanding a serious lapse! But this only serves by contrast to make the corruption of later times the more terrible.

The national sins compelled God to withdraw His environing protection. He no longer went out with their armies. The deterioration in the metal from gold to brass is an apt illustration of how the fine gold of character had become dimmed, Lamentations 4:1. To what may we not come if the grace of God is withdrawn! Well may the Apostle beseech us not to receive it in vain! When corruption sets in, the best and ripest becomes the worst. Traditional goodness-that of our parents-cannot save the soul from the inevitable drift. We must have our personal anchorage in God!

Related Commentaries of 1 Kings 14:17

1 Kings 14:17-31

17 And Jeroboam's wife arose, and departed, and came to Tirzah: and when she came to the threshold of the door, the child died;

18 And they buried him; and all Israel mourned for him, according to the word of the LORD, which he spake by the hand of his servant Ahijah the prophet.

19 And the rest of the acts of Jeroboam, how he warred, and how he reigned, behold, they are written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel.

20 And the days which Jeroboam reigned were two and twenty years: and he sleptb with his fathers, and Nadab his son reigned in his stead.

21 And Rehoboam the son of Solomon reigned in Judah. Rehoboam was forty and one years old when he began to reign, and he reigned seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city which the LORD did choose out of all the tribes of Israel, to put his name there. And his mother's name was Naamah an Ammonitess.

22 And Judah did evil in the sight of the LORD, and they provoked him to jealousy with their sins which they had committed, above all that their fathers had done.

23 For they also built them high places, and images,c and groves, on every high hill, and under every green tree.

24 And there were also sodomites in the land: and they did according to all the abominations of the nations which the LORD cast out before the children of Israel.

25 And it came to pass in the fifth year of king Rehoboam, that Shishak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem:

26 And he took away the treasures of the house of the LORD, and the treasures of the king's house; he even took away all: and he took away all the shields of gold which Solomon had made.

27 And king Rehoboam made in their stead brasen shields, and committed them unto the hands of the chief of the guard,d which kept the door of the king's house.

28 And it was so, when the king went into the house of the LORD, that the guard bare them, and brought them back into the guard chamber.

29 Now the rest of the acts of Rehoboam, and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah?

30 And there was war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam all their days.

31 And Rehoboam slept with his fathers, and was buried with his fathers in the city of David. And his mother's name was Naamah an Ammonitess. And Abijame his son reigned in his stead.