Dear Friends,

Here are the study notes for yesterday’s adult Sunday school class on I Kings 14-15, two very revealing chapters on how not to do it with your life. Lord bless you.

Because of Calvary,

John Janney

Grace Bible Fellowship Church

Adult SS Elective: I Kings 14:1-15:31                                                                                                                                             May 1, 2016

  d. Judgment Experienced  (14:1-20)

“For twenty-two years the unrepentant Jeroboam rules the young Northern Kingdom, first from his early capital at Shechem and apparently in later years from the city of Tirzah about seven miles to the northeast of Shechem.” [Dilday, p. 170]

“We don’t read in Scripture that Jeroboam sought the Lord’s will, prayed for spiritual discernment, or asked the Lord to make him a godly man. He prayed for healing for his arm, and now he asked the prophet Ahijah to heal his son, the crown prince and heir to the throne. It’s obvious that physical blessing were more important to him than spiritual blessings.” [Wiersbe, The Bible Exposition Commentary II, p. 459]

“Ahijah, the prophet who had informed Jeroboam that he was to be king, is given the opportunity by Jeroboam himself to prophesy against the King…” [Van Groingen, p. 244]

“…When God judges he will overcome, and sinners shall either bend or break before him.” [Matthew Henry’s Commentary II, p. 506]

(i)   The Disguised Woman (14:1-3)

“At that time, when Jeroboam prostituted the profaned the priesthood (ch. 13:33), his child sickened.” [Matthew Henry’s Commentary II, p. 506]

“Abijah wasn’t a little child at this time. He was old enough to be approved to the Lord (v. 13) and appreciated by the people, for they mourned over him when he died (v. 18). No doubt the godly remnant in Israel pinned their hopes on the young prince, but God judged the royal family and the apostate citizens by calling the boy away from the cesspool of iniquity that was called Israel.” [Wiersbe, The Bible Exposition Commentary II, p. 459]

“Abijah, (Jehovah is my father). The name prob. given in Egypt before the schism.” [Gray & Adams Bible Commentary I, p. 883]

“First Jeroboam’s hand was stricken, now his son…” [Hall, Contemplations II, p. 163]

“Extremity draws Jeroboam’s thoughts to the prophet, whom else he had not cared to remember.” [Hall, Contemplations II, p. 164]

“Why did the king not consult one of the false gods he worshipped? And why not go to the Lord’s prophet personally and openly? Because Jeroboam was a coward and did not want to weaken his ‘religious establishment.’ He did not dare identify himself publicly with the true worship of Jehovah, even though he knew that his own religious leaders could not help him.” [Wiersbe, With the Word, p. 204]

Jeroboam is “a type of the man who in prosperity rejects religion, but who in trouble seeks its consolation, yet whose pride prevents his right seeking in the way of true repentance.” [Gray & Adams Bible Commentary I, p. 883]

“It would have been more pious if he had desired to know wherefore God contended with him, had begged the prophet’s prayers, and cast away his idols from him; then the child might have been restored to him, as his hand was. But most people would rather be told their fortune than their faults or their duty.”[Matthew Henry’s Commentary II, p. 506]

“…She must be…in disguise… to conceal herself from the prophet himself, that he might only answer her question concerning her son, and not enter upon the unpleasing subject of her husband’s defection…. Be not deceived, God is not mocked.” [Matthew Henry’s Commentary II, p. 506-507]

“I. Sin seeks disguises. Truth needs none. II. God sees through all disguises. III. God can open the eyes of the blind.” [J. A. Macdonald in Gray & Adams Bible Commentary I, p. 883]

“Could he see into the thick darkness of futurity, and yet not see through the thin veil of this disguise? Did Jeroboam think the God of Israel like his calves…?” [Matthew Henry’s Commentary II, p. 507]

  (ii)  The Discerning Prophet (14:4-6)

“Shiloh].… That he [Ahijah] still lived there and had not emigrated with the other faithful Israelites must have been owing to his age and infirmity. (See verse 4.)” [Rawlinson, p. 568]

“Ere the quick eyes of that great lady can discern him, he hath espied her; and, as soon as he hears the sound of her feet, she hears from him the sound of her name, ‘Come in thou wife of Jeroboam.’” [Hall, Contemplations II, p. 168]

     (iii) The Distressing Message (14:7-16)

(A)  Concerning her husband (14:7-11)

“The event related is the first judgment upon him for his obduracy, the beginning of the cutting off of his house from the face of the earth.” [Rawlinson, p. 567]

(I)   God’s grace (14:7-8a)

“Whether we keep an account of God’s mercies to us or no, he does, and will set even them in order before us, if we be ungrateful, to our greater confusion; otherwise he gives and upbraids not.” [Matthew Henry’s Commentary II, p. 507]

(II)  Jeroboam’s sin (14:8b-9)

(III) God’s judgment (14:10-11)

”He thought, by his idolatry, to establish his government, and by that he not only lost it, but brought destruction upon his family, the universal destruction of all the males…. He worshipped dunghill-deities, and God removed his family as a great dunghill.”” [Matthew Henry’s Commentary II, p. 508]

“This was accomplished by Baasha (1 K. xv.28, 29.” [Rawlinson, p. 569]

(B)  Concerning her son (14:12-13)

“A good child in the house of Jeroboam is a miracle of divine grace: to be there untainted is like being in the fiery furnace unhurt, unsinged. Observe the care taken of him: he only, of all Jeroboam’s family, shall die in honor, shall be buried, and shall be lamented as one that lived desired.” [Matthew Henry’s Commentary II, p. 508]

“In mercy to him, lest, if he live, he be infected with the sin, and so involved in the ruin, of his father’s house.” [Matthew Henry’s Commentary II, p. 508]

“…When thy feet enter into the city, just then the child shall die. This was to be a sign to her of the accomplishment of the rest of the threatenings…” [Matthew Henry’s Commentary II, p. 508]

“…The passage about Abijah has a unique preciousness, because it stands alone in Scripture as an expression of the truth that early death is no sign at all of the Divine anger, and that the length or brevity of life are matters of little significance to God, seeing that, at the best, the longest life is but as one tick of the clock in the eternal silence…. This passage may be the consolation of many thousands of hearts that ache for some dear lost child. ‘Is it well with the child? It is well!’” [Farrar, p. 288]

“This hopeful child dies first of all the family, for God often takes those soonest whom he loves best.” [Matthew Henry’s Commentary II, p. 508]

(C)  Concerning the kingdom (14:14-16)

“The general prophecy of Moses (Deut. xxix.28) that the disobedient Israelites would be rooted up out of their land, and cast into another land, is here for the first time repeated, and is definitively applied to the ten tribes, which are to be removed beyond the river (Euphrates, see 1 K. iv.21, 24), and ‘scattered.’ On the fulfillment of this prophecy, and especially on the scattering of the ten tribes, see 2 K. xvii.6; xviii.11; 1 Chr. v.26; Ezek. i.3…” [Rawlinson, p. 570]

“…Why should Yahweh be so irate? None of the other gods or goddesses of the ancient Near East demanded or expected exclusive worship from their devotees…. Yahweh had done what no other god had done — entered into a covenant with his people, a marriage-like relation which demands exclusive devotion…. When there is a marriage relation and one of the spouses commits infidelity, the other spouse will be devastated, crushed, and — hopefully — furious. Why? Because it is the proper character of love within an exclusive relationship to be jealous, to be rightfully possessive of the one who has promised to be totally his/hers. If such an aggrieved spouse reacted with apathy or indifference we would question if any love were present.” [Davis, p. 163-164]

             (iv) The Devastating Fulfillment (14:17-20)

“…What a mixture is here of severity and favor in one act!…severity to the father, that he must lose such a son; favor to the son, that he shall be taken from such a father.” [Hall, Contemplations II, p. 170]

“Just as David was God’s standard for measuring the good kings, Jeroboam was God’s example of the worst of the bad kings. See 1 Kings 15:34; 16: 2, 3, 7, 19, 26, 31; 22:52; 2 Kings 3:3; 9:9; 10:29, 31; 13:2, 6, 11; 14:24; 15:9; 18, 24, 28; 17:21-22.” [Wiersbe, The Bible Exposition Commentary II, p. 460]

“The writer has little interest in Jeroboam’s military and political successes but has spilled all his ink on how the king responded to the basic covenant demand. Accomplishments don’t matter; fidelity does. Verse 19 is frightening: all the energy and exertion you have poured into making your mark in your calling may prove one huge irrelevance. The only thing that matters is whether you worshiped Yahweh alone. Were you contented with the real God?” [Davis, p. 167]

    3. The Folly of the Southern Kingdom (14:21-15:24)

“The writer….switches to the southern kingdom, depicting about sixty years of life in Judah (931-870 BC, the reigns of Rehoboam, Abijam, and Asa).” [Davis, p. 169]

      a. Under Rehoboam (14:21-27)

“The only records of the son of Solomon are meager records of disaster and disgrace” [Farrar, p. 290]

“Under King Rehoboam, Solomon’s great kingdom lost both quantity (the tribes) and quality (the treasures).”  [Wiersbe, With the Word, p. 204]

“…The writer wraps this Rehoboam segment by references to the king’s Ammonite mother (vv. 21,31)…. What good can come from such pagan influence behind the throne (cf. 11:1-2)?” [Davis, p. 169-170]

“None can imagine how lasting and how fatal the consequences may be of being unequally yoked with unbelievers.” [Matthew Henry’s Commentary II, p. 509]

“Not much time nor space is wasted in narrating the remaining years of King Rehoboam. His weak, vacillating performance as king led Judah into sins far more severe than those of Israel to the north.” [Dilday, p. 173]

“Judah, the only professing people God had in the world, did evil in his sight, in contempt and defiance of him and the tokens of his special presence with them; they provoked him to jealousy, as the adulterous wife provokes her husband by breaking the marriage-covenant. Their fathers had been bad enough, especially in the times of the judges, but they did abominable things, above all that their fathers had done. The magnificence of their temple, the pomp of their priesthood, and all the secular advantages with which their religion was attended, could not prevail to keep them to it.” [Matthew Henry’s Commentary II, p. 509]

“2 Chr. 11-12 gives   more detail and refers to a good start spoilt by later apostasy. The sins cited are religious ― high places…sacred stones…Asherah poles were the marks of Canaanite cultus condemned in Dt. 12:1-3, which involved ritual prostitution associated with nature religions.” [Martin, p. 357]

“When men once turn aside from the living God to follow inventions of their own, there is no telling where they will go; nothing is too foul, nothing is too filthy for them.” [Spurgeon, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit XXXIX, (1893), p. 214]

“They dishonored God by the one sin and then God left them to dishonor themselves by another. They profaned the privileges of a holy nation, therefore God gave them up to their own hearts’ lusts, to imitate the abominations of the accursed Canaanites… And when they did like those that were cast out, what could they expect any other than to be cast out like them?” [Matthew Henry’s Commentary II, p. 509]

“Immediately after…vv. 22-24 we hear of the invasion of Shishak (or Shoshenk I, 945-924 BC, founder of the 22nd dynasty), the king of Egypt…. Clearly, we are meant to understand Shishak’s plundering expedition as an initial blow of Yahweh’s judgment upon Judah’s infidelity — and as a sign that there would be more of the same at the end (see v. 24b).” [Davis, p. 171]

“After Shishak hauled off, among other spoil, the ceremonial gold shields Solomon had made (v. 26b), we read that ‘King Rehoboam made bronze shields to replace them’ (v. 27a)…. The splendor is fading. But the pomp and ceremony must continue…. The show must go on. We may willingly sacrifice the pure worship of God (vv. 22-24), but we must not give up our sorry attempts to imitate the old glory with our trinkets and tinsel.” [Davis, p. 172]

“Rehoboam, in spite of being warned not to wage war with Jeroboam, does so throughout his reign. There is no peace for either nation; both fail miserably in being agents of covenantal blessings to other nations.” [Van Groingen, p. 245]

      b. Under Abijam (15:1-8)

“Reign of Abijam (cf., 2 Chron. 13). —Abijam reigned three years, and his mother’s name was Maacah, daughter (i.e., grand-daughter) of Absalom. We have the same in 2 Chron. 11:20, 21; but in 2 Chron. 13: 2 she is called Michajahu, daughter of Uriel of Gibeah. …Absalom had only one daughter, viz., Thamar (2 Sam. 14:27), who was fifty years old when Solomon died, Maacah must have been a daughter of this Thamar, who had married Uriel of Gibeah, and therefore a granddaughter of Absalom.” [Keil, p. 153]

“The prince is mentioned under three names. He is called Abijam in Kings, Abijah and Abijahu in Chronicles. Abijah was probably his real name of which Abijahu (2 Chr. xiii.20) is an accidental corruption, while Abijam is a form due to the religious feeling of the Jews, who would not allow the word JAH to be retained as an element in the name of so bad a king.” [Rawlinson, p. 573]

“Abijam walked as king in the footsteps of his father. Although he made presents to the temple (v. 15), his heart was not…wholly or undividedly given to the Lord, like the heart of David (cf., ch. 11: 4); but…for David’s sake Jehovah had left him a light in Jerusalem, to set up his son after him and to let Jerusalem stand, because…David had done right in the eyes of God, etc., i.e., so that it was only for David’s sake that Jehovah did not reject him, and allowed the throne to pass to his son.” [Keil, p. 153]

“…It was for David’s sake that he was advanced, and continued upon the throne; it was for his sake (v. 4, 5) that God thus set up his son after him; not for his own sake, nor for the sake of his father, in whose steps he trod, but for the sake of David, whose example he would not follow.” [Matthew Henry’s Commentary II, p. 510]

“The idolatry of Abijam deserved the same punishment as that of Jeroboam (1 K. xiv.10-14), of Baasha (ib. xvi.2-4), or of Zimri (ib. verse 19), the cutting off of his seed, and transfer of the crown to another family. That these consequences do not follow in the kingdom of Judah, is owing to the faithfulness of David, which brings a blessing on his posterity. Certainly few things are more remarkable and more difficult to account for on mere grounds of human reason, than the stability of the succession in Judah, and its excessive instability in the sister kingdom. One family in Judah holds the throne from first to last, during a space but little short of four centuries, while in Israel there are nine changes of dynasty within two hundred and fifty years.” [Rawlinson, p. 574]

“Abijam inherits the sins of his father Rehoboam, no less than his crown; and so spends his three years, as if he had been no whit akin to his grandfather’s virtues. …Therefore is his reign short because it was wicked. It was a sad case, when both the kings of Judah and Israel, though enemies, yet conspired in sin.” [Hall, Contemplations II, p. 171]

“Whatever the old sin, the young chirp.” [German proverb in Dilday, p. 179]

“Abijah may have had David’s blood flowing in his veins, but he didn’t have David’s perfect heart beating in his breast.” [Wiersbe, The Bible Exposition Commentary II, p. 462]

“The glory of David’s Descendant is that his righteous obedience is impeccable (Rom. 5:18-19), and thankfully so, for our destiny rests on it.” [Davis, p. 174]

  c. Under Asa (15:9-24)

“This section displays two pictures of the new king: (1) Asa the reformer (vv. 11-15) and (2) Asa the politician (vv. 16-22).” [Davis, p. 175]

   i.   His strength (15:9-15)

“He reigned forty-one years in Jerusalem, v. 10. In the account we have of the kings of Judah we find the number of the good kings and the bad ones nearly equal; but then we may observe, to our comfort, that the reign of the good kings was generally long, but that of the bad kings short.” [Matthew Henry’s Commentary II, p. 511]

“Asa’s reign in Judah was a long one, beginning while Jeroboam was still king in Israel and lasting an unprecedented forty-one years. Eight petty kings came and went in the land of Israel while Asa ruled in Judah.” [Dilday, p. 182]

“He removed that which was evil…. Though it was but twenty years after the death of Solomon that he began to reign, yet very gross corruption had spread far and taken deep root. Immorality he first struck at: He took away the sodomites out of the land… Then he proceeded against idolatry: He removed all the idols, even those that his father had made, v. 12…. He re-established that which was good (v. 15): He brought into the house of God the dedicated things…” [Matthew Henry’s Commentary II, p. 511]

“As ruler Asa walked in the ways of his pious ancestor David: he banished the male prostitutes out of the land, abolished all the abominations of idolatry, which his fathers (Abijam and Rehoboam) had introduced, deposed his grandmother Maacah from the rank of a queen, because she had made herself an idol for the Ashera, and had the idol hewn in pieces and burned in the valley of the Kidron.” [Keil, p. 153-154]

“The Jews call any male ancestor, however remote, a father and any female ancestor a mother…. It is evident that the Maachah of this verse if the favorite wife of Rehoboam (2 Chr. xi.21), the mother of Abijam, and, consequently the grand-mother of Asa.” [Rawlinson, p. 574]

  ii.  His fault (15:16-22) Cf. 2 Chronicles 16:1-10

“The fairest characters are not without some but or other in them.” [Matthew Henry’s Commentary II, p. 512]

“A white garment appears worse with slight soiling than do colored garments much soiled; so a little fault in a good man attracts more attention than grave offenses in bad men.” [Gray & Adams Bible Commentary I, p. 884]

“Asa had a wonderful beginning to his reign but a disappointing ending. He was courageous enough to cleanse the temple of religious prostitutes and purge the land of idols, and he even dethroned his own grandmother. But instead of trusting the Lord for victory, he robbed the temple and bribed a pagan king to assist him in a war.”  [Wiersbe, With the Word, p. 205]

“…Baasha….came down to Ramah of Benjamin and fortified it (lit., ‘built it,’ v. 17a). Ramah was strategic: it was only five-plus miles north of Asa’s Jerusalem, sat astride the north-south trunk road, and controlled Judah’s best western access to the coastal plain via Beth-horon. Baasha’s design was no secret; it smells like an economic blockade (v. 17b).

“What to do? Asa empties the exchequer (‘all of the silver and gold,’ v. 18 — note the same among his dedicated items in v. 15) and sends both commissioners and cash to Ben-hadad [Ben-hadad I, ca. 900-860 BC] of Damascus requesting a treaty (v. 19a). The most essential treaty provision was its flip side: ‘Go, break your treaty with Baasha king of Israel, that he may go up from me’ (v. 19b). Ben-hadad, believing that the hand that fills the coffers should get the help, sent military detachments into northern Israel, attacking Ijon, Dan, and Abel-beth-maacah, indeed causing havoc all over the territory of Naphtali (both west and north of the [New Testament] Sea of Galilee; v. 20). He was only too delighted to do so; controlling these sites gave Damascus dominance of the east-west caravan route to the Mediterranean….

“Baasha could hardly play construction supervisor at Ramah when the other extremity of his realm was under attack; so he left (v. 21), just as Asa had designed. Asa then activated the draft for a patriotic public works project, and his people carted off Baasha’s construction materials, using the pilfered stuff to fortify Geba and Mizpah as Judah’s defensive outposts (v. 22).” [Davis, p. 175-176]

“The king of Israel was sealing Judah’s northern border, closing the trade routes that were important to Judah’s economy.” [Van Groingen, p. 245]

“Let there be a treaty…shows the diplomat’s pathetic optimism that the treaty he makes will be stronger than the treaty he asks Ben-Hadad to break.” [Martin, p. 358]

“…To confront his rival of Israel, Baasha, this religious king of Judah fetches in Benhadad the king of Syria into God’s inheritance…. O Asa, where was thy piety, while thou robbest God to corrupt an infidel, for the slaughter of Israelites?” [Hall, Contemplations II, p. 176]

“Yet, which is worse, Asa doth not only employ the Syrian, but relies on him, relies not on God…and when Hanani, God’s seer, the herald of heaven, came to denounce war against him for these sin, Asa, instead of penitence, breaks into choler: fury sparkles in those eyes which should have gushed out with water; those lips that should have called for mercy, command revenge; how ill do these two agree, the heart of David, the tongue of Jeroboam!… It ill becomes a faithful heart to rage where it should sorrow, and, instead of submission, to persecute…. Any man may do ill, but to defend it, to outface it, is for rebels; yet even upright Asa imprisons the prophet, and crushes his gainsayers.” [Hall, Contemplations II, p. 176-177]

“Everyone was happy with the results of the treaty except the Lord. He sent the prophet Hanani to rebuke the king and give him the Word of the Lord…. The prophet’s message was clear: if Asa had relied on the Lord, the army of Judah would have defeated both Israel and Syria. Instead, Judah had merely gained a few towns, the Lord’s treasury was robbed and the king was now in a sinful alliance with the Syrians…. Judah would pay for his mistake for years to come, and Syria did become a constant problem to the kingdom of Judah.” [Wiersbe, The Bible Exposition Commentary II, p. 465]

“The fundamental problem was not Judah’s lack of defenses but the king’s lack of faith.” [Wiersbe, The Bible Exposition Commentary II, p. 465]

“…Long and prosperous had his reign been; now, after forty years’ health and happiness, he, that imprisoned the prophet, is imprisoned in his bed….and now, behold, he that in his war seeks to Benhadad, not to God, in his sickness seeks not to God but to physicians…. Earthly means are for use, not for confidence; we may, we must employ them, we may not rely upon them.” [Hall, Contemplations II, p. 177]

“The high places were not removed, ‘nevertheless’ Asa’s heart was perfect. He was wise, ‘but’ he made that foolish alliance with Syria. He was prosperous, ‘nevertheless’ he was diseased in his feet.  What a tissue of good and bad is all life, is my life! Help me, my Father, to get rid of the bad, and make my life from end to end just what Thou desirest.” [Wells, The Living Bible, p. 93]

“History called for a better type of the Redeemer ― for the Redeemer Himself.” [De Graff, Promise and Deliverance II, p. 240]

        iii. His end (15:23-24)

“Under the careful examination of the inspired writer, only two kings in the entire book are given a clean record. Most are condemned as wicked. Six others pass his final examination, but with only mediocre grades. Asa, the son of Abijam, is one of the better examples of the last category.” [Dilday, p. 181]

“It is certain Asa left the kingdom stronger and purer than he found it. The strength of his influence may be gauged from the fact that Jehoshaphat his son…is almost a lone case of succession in virtue as well as kingship.” [Martin, p. 358]

  4. The Chaos of the Northern Kingdom (15:25-16:28)

“At this point, the historian turns to the account of the kings of Israel and will remain there until the end of the book.” [Wiersbe, The Bible Exposition Commentary II, p. 466]

a.       The Reign of Nadab (15:25-31) “Nadab…starts the tale of assassination that marks the northern story, and stands in stark contrast to the dynastic principle an