Kings 14:7. "Thus saith Jehovah, the God of Israel: Therefore, because thou hast elevated thyself from

amongst the people, and I have given thee ruler over My people Israel."

If this rendering is correct, it would imply that his elevation, or leadership of Israel, was in the first place

entirely Jeroboam's own act, and that, having so elevated himself and assumed the leadership, God

afterwards bestowed on him the rule to which he aspired, leaving for future trial the fitness of his race for the

But, besides the higher Divine meaning of this history, it possesses also a deep human interest. It gives us a

glimpse into the inner family life of the wretched king, as, divested of crown and purple, and having cast

aside statecraft and religious falsehood, he staggers under a sore blow. For once we see the man, not the

king, and, as each man appears truest, when stricken to the heart by a sorrow which no earthly power can

turn aside. From Shechem the royal residence had been transferred to the ancient Canaanite city (Joshua

12:24) Tirzah, the beautiful (Cant. 6. 4), two hours to the north of Samaria, amidst cultivated fruit -and-olive-

clad hills, up on a swelling height, with glorious outlook over the hills and valleys of rich Samaria.228

The royal palace seems to have stood at the entering in of the city (comp. 1 Kings 14:17 with ver. 12). But

within its stately apartments reigned silence and sorrow. Abijah, Jeroboam's son, and apparently the

intended successor to his throne, lay sick. He seems like the last link that bound Jeroboam to his former

better self. The very name of the child - Abijah, "Jehovah is my Father," or else "my Desire" - indicates this,

even if it were not for the t ouching notice, that in him was "found a good thing towards Jehovah, the God of

Israel, in the house of Jeroboam" (ver. 13) We can conceive how this "good thing" may have sprung up; but

to keep and to cause it to grow in such surroundings, surely needed the gracious tending of the Good

Husbandman. It was the one green spot in Jeroboam's life and home; the one germ of hope. And as his

father loved him truly, so all Israel had set their hopes on him. Upon the inner life of this child - its struggles

and its v ictories - lies the veil of Scripture silence; and best that it should be so. But now his pulses were

beating quick and weak, and that life of love and hope seemed fast ebbing. None with the father in those

hours of darkness -neither counselor, courtier, prophet, nor priest - save the child's mother. As the two kept

sad watch, helpless and hopeless, the past, to which this child bound him, must have come back to

Jeroboam. One event in it chiefly stood out: it was his first meeting with Ahijah the Shilonite. That was a

true prophet - bold, uncompromising withal. With that impulse of despair which comes upon men in their

agony, when all the delusions of a misspent life are swept away, he turned to the opening of his life, so full

of hope and happy possibility, the ambition had urged him upon the path of reckless sacrifice of all that had

been dearest and holiest; the unlimited possession had dazzled his sight and the sound of flattery deafened

his ears. As to Saul of old on the eve of that fatal battle, when Go d and man had become equally silent to

him, the figure of Samuel had stood out - that which to us might seem the most unlikely he could have

wished to encounter - so now to Jeroboam that of Ahijah. Could he have wished to blot out, as it were, all

that had intervened, and to stand before the prophet as on the day when first he met him, when great but

not yet unholy thoughts rose within him? Had he some unspoken hope of him who had first announced to

him his reign? Or did he only in sheer despair long to know what would come to the child, even though he

were to learn the worst? Be this as it may, he must have word from Ahijah, whatever it might be.

In that hour he has no friend nor helper save the mother of his child. She must go, in her love, to the old

prophet in Shiloh. But how dare she, Jeroboam's wife, present herself there? Nay, the people also must not

know what or whither her errand was. And so she must disguise herself as a poor woman, carrying with her,

indeed, as customary, a gift to the prophet, but one such as only the poorest in the land would offer. While

alone and in humble disguise the wife of Jeroboam goes on her heavy embassy, across the hills of Samaria,

past royal Shechem, Another has already brought her message to Shiloh. No need for the queen to disguise

herself, so far as Ahijah was concerned, since age had blinded his eyes. But Jehovah had spoken to His

aged servant, and charged him concerning this matter. And as he heard the sound of her feet within the

door, he knew who his unseen visitor was, and addressed her not as queen but as the wife of Jeroboam.

Stern, terrible things they were which he was commissioned to tell her; and with unswerving faithfulness