HOMILETICS OF 1 Kings 11:14-40
THE AGENTS OF DIVINE RETRIBUTION
I. Are secretly preparing when least suspected. Hadad and Rezon on the frontier, and Jeroboam under the shadow of the throne, were plotting mischief for the empire. In a time of unexampled peace and security, the seeds of rebellion were being sown. Things are not always what they seem. The loveliest flower may hide within its cup the deadliest poison. The mountain draped with richest verdure, and musical with forest songs, may simmer with internal fires which shall burst their prison, and spread devastation and woe in their burning pathway. The most promising productions of earth may be blasted in a single night. But the agents of destruction are not always in haste: they can afford to wait. Not at once does Divine retribution overtake the offender; but after much long-suffering and many opportunities for repentance.
II. Often accomplish their mission by gratifying personal revenge and ambition (1 Kings 11:14-17; 1 Kings 11:25-26). The Edomite prince, who escaped when a child, the desolating slaughter of David (2 Samuel 8), dreamed of recovering the lost throne of his father. He dreamed of vengeance for the blood of his countrymen; and “dreams grow realities to earnest men.” Rezon was influenced in all his plottings against Israel by a spirit of bitter and ungovernable hatred (1 Kings 11:25), and lost no opportunity of inflicting injury on Solomon. Jeroboam, endowed with unquestioned ability, and evidently conscious of it, was eagerly ambitious of place and power. While these men pursued their several selfish ends, Jehovah used them as agents for the punishing of wrong-doing. History is full of examples of this Divine procedure. The Lord can make the wrath of men His servant, and to minister to His praise (Psalms 76:10). His hand is on all the springs of being. All the forces of the universe are His obedient instruments in scattering blessings, or in accomplishing the sterner missions of justice.
III. Embitter the close of a career which had a brilliant and promising beginning. How few can foresee the contrast which the end of life will present with its opening! How sad, how heart-rending would be the picture if we could see, as God sees, the horrid process by which the innocence of youth gives place to the hardened effrontery and guilt of old age! “Nothing but love and peace sounded in the name of Solomon; nothing else was found in his reign while he held in good terms with his God; but when once he fell foul with his Maker, all things began to be troubled. There are whips laid up against the time of Solomon’s foreseen offence which are now brought forth for his correction. God would have us make account that our peace ends with our innocence. The same sin that sets debate betwixt God and us, arms the creatures against us. It were a pity we should be at any quiet, while we are fallen out with the God of peace. Solomon’s reign of peace closes amid the threatenings of war, the firmness of his government is supplanted by the tremors of rebellion, his enormous supplies are failing him, his greatness is dwarfed to littleness, his wisdom is transformed into folly. Many a bitter pang smote the monarch’s heart as he beheld the wreck and failure of his life. The grave holds many a human heart that has been wounded and broken by disappointed hopes, baffled endeavours, or dethroned pride.
IV. Are limited and restrained by the Divine will (1 Kings 11:34; 1 Kings 11:39). The Power which has directed the migrations and limited the wars of nations, fixed the boundaries of the ocean, and adjusted the force of gravitation, also interferes in moderating and defining the degree of punishment for sin. “I will for this afflict the seed of David; but not for ever” (1 Kings 11:39). Here breaks in another ray of promise to the House of David, whose sons, though chastened and smitten with the rod of men (2 Samuel 7:14), were to be the human line of fathers to that Great Son who shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever, and of whose kingdom there shall be no end. The very anger of God is more constructive than destructive. The worst enemies can do the church no damage beyond what the will of God permits.
V. Cannot be defeated in their purpose by human malice (1 Kings 11:40). “Solomon thought therefore to kill Jeroboam.” Murder has ever been the ghastly policy of the tyrant, the idolized weapon of the coward, the sport of the brutal, the sanguinary carnival of monsters. Solomon’s relations to Jeroboam were strikingly similar to those of Saul to David. Solomon, like Saul, drew down upon himself by disobedience the anger of heaven; and to him, as to Saul, the words of the Lord announced judgments that darkened all his future. Like Saul, he knew and sought to kill his rival. The beginning of his reign, like that of Saul’s, was popular and auspicious, but its end was sad and dark. The rage of man is impotent to frustrate the ultimate designs of God.
LESSONS:—
1. The prosperous have always many enemies.
2. The fall of a great man involves many in his ruin.
3. The instruments by which a man climbs to greatness will, when abused, be his most inveterate adversaries.
4. Gilded sins entail dismal retributions.
GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES
1 Kings 11:14. The certainty of punishment for sin.
1. Is here directly attributed to Jehovah.
2. May be effected by human agencies.
3. Is a warning to evil doers.
4. Vindicates the righteousness of the Divine law.
—God is said to have stirred up Solomon’s adversaries, not by infusing this malice into them, but as using it to punish his wickedness by them, even as a workman worketh by tools that another made, and by crooked tools oft maketh straight and smooth work.—Trapp.
1 Kings 11:14-40. Solomon’s enemies.
1. They are roused against him by God, so that he may know and confess what heart-suffering it brings to forsake the fear of the Lord his God (Jeremiah 2:19). So marvellously does God bring it about, that he who will not fear Him must needs fear his fellow-men. Once the man of rest and the prince of peace, now he is pressed sore by enemies from the north, from the south, and from his midst. They are the scourges with which the Lord chastises him. When foes and opponents rise against thee and cause thee care and anguish, then think, the Lord has summoned them on account of thy sins and unfaithfulness. The hostility of man is a sermon of repentance from thy God to thee.
2. They were in God’s hands, and could do not more than He permits. They rebelled, but they were powerless to take from Solomon the throne and kingdom during his lifetime. The Lord commands our foes, So far shalt thou go, and no further.—Cramer.
1 Kings 11:14-25. The power of the little to annoy the great. Solomon’s last years were not suffered to pass without heavy troubles, which must have brought down his kingly pride very low. Enemies, one after another, appeared, who had in his early years been kept down by the memory of David’s victories, and by the show of substantial strength which his own government presented. At length, however, they ventured to try its texture, and finding it more vulnerable than even they had suspected, that there was nothing very terrible to resolute men in its showy greatness; and having found that the king had really no power to make any effectual opposition to their assaults, far less to put them down, they were emboldened to take further measures, until some established their independence, while others offered the passive resistance of withholding their tributes—so that his power became shorn at the borders, and eventually shaken at home, where the discontinuance of many outer supplies of revenue, and probably the interruption of his various lines of trade, no longer in his undisputed possession, urged him, not to economy and retrenchment, but to make good the deficiency by the taxation of his native subjects.—Kitto.
—Formerly, all kings did homage to Solomon, and brought him gifts, and journeyed from all countries to see and hear him; his power was as great as his kingdom. But now his power and might are abased before those who hitherto ranked far below him, whom he had regarded as the least of his slaves and vassals. Humiliation coming through weak and inferior means is much more bitter than the same humiliation through strong and powerful means. The latter we can ascribe to man, but in the former we must recognize the will and power of God.—Gerhardt.
1 Kings 11:14-22. The fate of Hadad is recounted to us not so much on his own account as on our own, in order that we may learn to regard the ways of God with man, and order our ways by Him who is ever mercy and wisdom (Psalms 25:10). If God brought back the heathen Hadad by mysterious ways to his native land, how much more will he lead those who keep his covenant and testimony to the true native land, and to the eternal rest, how dark and inscrutable soever may be the ways by which He leads them.—Lange.
1 Kings 11:21-22. The love of fatherland.
1. Is deeply implanted in humanity.
2. Creates irrepressible yearnings in the heart of the exile.
3. Becomes intensified under a sense of oppression and wrong.
4. Fires the soul with bravery in its defence.
5. Is a faint image of the love we should feel for the heavenly fatherland—to go to heaven is to go home again.
1 Kings 11:22. The secresy of revenge.
1. The fierceness of revenge is fanned by the rehearsal of past injuries.
2. Is cherished in the midst of peace and plenty.
3. Is hidden from the dearest friend and benefactor.
4. Is intensified by its secresy.
O that the slave had forty thousand lives;
One is too poor, too weak for my revenge!
Arise, black vengeance, from thy hollow cell!
Yield up, O love, thy crown and hearted throne,
To tyrannous hate! Swell, bosom, with thy freight,
For ‘tis of aspics’ tongues!—Othello.
1 Kings 11:23-25. Though vanquished and east down, tyranny and ambition do not forget. They think perpetually of vengeance, and seek to satisfy it, now by rough means, now by subtle ones, whenever an opportunity offers. Therefore warns the apostle so earnestly against those secret and mighty motives in the natural heart of man (Romans 12:19).
1 Kings 11:26. Solomon’s servant, but unthankful and disloyal, such as was Ahithophel to David, Brutus to Cæsar, Phocas to Mauritius, Frederick III.’s courtiers and creatures to him, Biron to Henry IV. of France. That king had made him of a common soldier a captain, of a captain a knight, of a knight Duke of Biron, Marshal of France, Governor of Burgundy, &c. Yet all this and more could not keep him from conspiring the death of his king, queen, and prince, that the kingdom might be transferred to others, and the Huguenots rooted out.
1 Kings 11:26-40. The dangerous glitter of a crown.
1. Infatuates the ambitions.
2. Has allured many to their ruin.
3. Hides the misery and care of the unhappy wearer.
4. Should be guarded and fenced by a strict moral obedience to the law of God (1 Kings 11:38).
—The disruption of the kingdom was not the work of a day, but the growth of centuries. To the house of Joseph—that is, to Ephraim, with its adjacent tribes of Benjamin and Manasseh—had belonged, down to the time of David, all the chief rulers of Israel: Joshua, the conqueror; Deborah, the one prophetic, Gideon, the one regal, spirit of the judges; Abimelech and Saul, the first kings; Samuel, the restorer of the state after the fall of Shiloh. It was natural that, with such an inheritance of glory, Ephraim always chafed under any rival supremacy. Even against the impartial sway of its own Joshua, or of its kindred heroes, Gideon or Jephthah, its proud spirit was always in revolt, how much more when the blessing of Joseph seemed to be altogether merged in the blessing of the rival and obscure Judah; when the Lord “refused the tabernacle of Joseph, and chose not the tribe of Ephraim, but chose the tribe of Judah, Mount Zion which he had loved (Psalms 78:67). All these embers of dissatisfaction, which had well nigh burst into a general conflagration in the revolt of Sheba, were still glowing; it needed but a breath to blow it into a flame. There was one man who, by his office and character, had long ago been indicated as the natural successor of Joshua. This was Jeroboam.—Stanley.
—Hitherto the chief restraint upon the people had lain in the notion that the Lord had guaranteed the throne over all Israel to the house of David, and the most turbulent spirits had been kept under restraint by the fear of resisting the purposes of God. The intimation of the nomination of Jeroboam under Divine authority fell like a spark upon fuel. The important principle involved—freedom from a restriction which had become intolerable—at once raised the agent, in whose person it had been set forth, to the height of popularity among the tribes under the influence of the house of Joseph; and although he had been warned that no change was to take place until after the death of Solomon, he found himself driven, by the force of circumstances, if not by the promptings of his own ambition, into some immediate demonstrations. The movement was not attended with the result he expected, and, finding that he had become a marked man to Solomon, he deemed it prudent to evade the storm he had raised by retiring into Egypt, and there awaiting the progress of events.—Kitto.
1 Kings 11:26-28. God is wont to chastise the rebellion of princes against His will by means of the rebellion of their own subjects; as Solomon raised his hand against Jehovah, so did his servant Jeroboam against him. Destruction from above unites with ruin from below. Whatever Solomon undertook after his fall was deprived of God’s blessing. By the building of Millo he intended still further to strengthen his dominion over all his enemies, and to render impregnable his dwelling-place; but this very building was the cause why his throne began to totter, and why he lost the greater part of his kingdom. Here applies Psalms 127:1. It was by Divine decree that Solomon himself, without his own will or knowledge, should raise from the dust to high places the very man appointed by God to abase him and to dismember his kingdom. Conspiracies and rebellions are chiefly led by those who have to complain least of injustice or oppression, but have been pampered and favoured until ambition incites them to suppress every feeling of gratitude (John 13:18).—Lange.
1 Kings 11:28. The man of industry.
1. Improves the powers he already possesses.
2. Attracts the notice of the great.
3. Is intrusted with important undertakings.
4. Acquires a position of honour and influence.
1 Kings 11:29. Here we meet with another representative of that interesting order of men—Divine messengers—who appear so often and so prominently during the time of the Hebrew monarchy. Ahijah seems to have been to Jeroboam very much what Samuel was to Saul, and Nathan was to David. He, too, probably, announced to Solomon the word of the Lord as recorded in 1 Kings 11:11-13. His two genuine and authentic prophecies, each of great importance to the kingdom of Israel, are recorded here, 1 Kings 11:29-39, and chap. 1 Kings 14:6-16. Ahijah’s oracles seem like a voice from that olden, sacred past—the voice of the God of Joshua and of Eli—still proclaiming blessings on the obedient, and penal woes on them that forget His name.—Whedon.
1 Kings 11:30. Here we find the first instance of that mode of delivering a Divine message which became so common in later times, and which has been called “acted parable.” Generally the mode was adopted upon express Divine command (see Jeremiah 13:1-11; Jeremiah 19:1-10; Jeremiah 27:2-11; Ezekiel 3:1-3; Ezekiel 4:1; Ezekiel 5:1). In this instance we may trace a connection between the type selected and the words of the announcement to Solomon, in 1 Kings 11:11-13—“I will surely rend the kingdom from thee”—where the kingdom is likened unto a glorious’ mantle upon the king’s shoulders, as in 1 Samuel 15:28.
1 Kings 11:31. All the world must confess, upon beholding the abasement of the house of David and the elevation of Jeroboam, that the Most High has power over the kingdoms of men, and bestows them on whom He will (Daniel 4:29; 1 Samuel 2:7-8; Luke 1:52).
1 Kings 11:36. Even in the midst of His just anger the Lord is merciful, and the inconstancy of man can never shake His fidelity. The fulfilment of 2 Samuel 7:14-15, is seen in Solomon’s history. The house of David remained a light for “ever,” until that Son of David came who is the Light of the world, which lighteth all men who come into the world (John 1:9; Romans 15:12).—Lange.
1 Kings 11:39. The severity and tenderness of God.
1. God will punish the evil-doer.
2. God will punish with awful severity.
3. God will temper justice with mercy.
4. The severity of God does not destroy His tenderness (Romans 11:22).
—“But not for ever.” for some kings of Judah—as Asa, Hezekiah, Josiah—grew very great. But especially is this to be understood of Christ, in whom the glory was restored to David’s house, such as never any mortal king had.—Trapp.
—In no case—not even if Jeroboam and his seed continued faithful, serving God as David had served Him—was the seed of David to be afflicted for ever. David had been distinctly promised that God should never fail his seed, whatever their short-comings (Psalms 89:28-37). The fulfilment of these promises was seen, partly in the providence which maintained David’s family in a royal position till Zerubbabel, but mainly in the preservation of his seed to the time fixed for the coming of Christ and the birth of Christ—the Eternal King—from one of David’s descendants.—Speaker’s comm.
Verse.
40. Fickle humanity.
1. Solomon at one time promotes Jeroboam to honour, at another seeks to murder him.
2. Jeroboam at one time is the faithful and diligent servant of Solomon, at another his vexatious and rebellious foe.
3. Unhappy subject whose sovereign is so fickle, unhappy sovereign whose subject is so faithless.
—From the time when they furnished to their nation the great conquering leader who settled Israel in the possession of Palestine (Numbers 13:8), the tribe of Ephraim, already encouraged to hope for high things by the blessing of Jacob (Genesis 48:17-22; Genesis 49:22-26), had claimed, and, in the main, enjoyed, a preeminence above their brethren. But the transfer of power to the rival tribe of Judah involved in the elevation of David, and the loss of prestige both by Shiloh and Shechem through the concentration at Jerusalem of both the temporal and the ecclesiastical, must have been bitterly felt by the Ephraimites. When David boasted that God refused the tabernacle of Joseph, and chose not the tribe of Ephraim, but chose the tribe of Judah, he touched a sore place in the hearts of his Ephraimite subjects. They felt themselves the “strength” of Israel, while Judah was the “lawgiver” (Psalms 60:7; Psalms 108:8). The military glory of David’s reign, and the splendour of his son’s in its earlier portion, had prevented the discontent of the Ephraimites from gathering to a head. But as Solomon’s lustre faded, as his oppression became greater and its object more selfish, and as a prospect of deliverance arose from the personal qualities of Jeroboam, the tribe, it is possible, again aspired after its old position. Jeroboam, active, energetic, and ambitious, placed himself at their head, and, encouraged by the prophet’s words, commenced a rebellion (1 Kings 11:26). The step proved premature. The power of Solomon was too firmly fixed to be shaken; and the hopes of the Ephraimites had to be deferred till a fitter season. Speaker’s Comm.
—Rebellion.
1. Is easily fomented where conscious wrong exists.
2. Is the opportunity of the ambitious.
3. Is often ill-timed in its movements.
4. Is always attended with great risks.
5. Is powerless in frustrating Divine arrangements.
6. Is vigilant and impatient to accomplish its purpose.