The Sickness of Abijah and the Fall of Jeroboam's House

The chapter opens with a sick child. Abijah, son of Jeroboam, lies ill, and the king who built golden calves and appointed his own priests does not turn to his own altars. He sends his wife to Shiloh, to the old prophet Ahijah who had once told him he would rule. But he tells her to disguise herself, as if the Lord’s prophet could be fooled by a change of clothes and a basket of bread and honey.

Jeroboam’s wife does as she is told. She dresses plainly, takes the loaves, the cakes, the jar of honey, and walks to Shiloh. Ahijah is blind now, his eyes fixed by age. But the Lord tells him plainly: the wife of Jeroboam is coming, pretending to be someone else, to ask about her son. When she steps through the door, Ahijah hears her feet and calls her by her name. There is no hiding from the word that has already been sent.

The prophet’s message is not for her. It is for Jeroboam. The Lord reminds the king that he was lifted up from among the people, that the kingdom was torn from David’s house and given to him. But Jeroboam did not follow as David followed. David kept the commandments and walked with the Lord with his whole heart. Jeroboam did worse than anyone before him. He made other gods and metal images, provoked the Lord to anger, and threw the Lord behind his back.

The judgment is brutal. The Lord will bring disaster on Jeroboam’s house. Every male in his line will be cut off, whether slave or free. The house will be swept away like dung until it is gone. Those who die in the city will be eaten by dogs; those who die in the field will be eaten by birds. The Lord has spoken, and the words carry the finality of a sentence already carried out in heaven.

But there is one exception. The child Abijah will die when his mother’s feet cross the threshold of the house in Tirzah. All Israel will mourn for him and bury him, because in him alone of Jeroboam’s house something good was found toward the Lord. The boy dies with the mourning of a nation, but he dies under the same judgment that will sweep away his father’s dynasty.

The prophet also speaks beyond the child. The Lord will raise up a king over Israel who will cut off the house of Jeroboam. The Lord will strike Israel like a reed shaken in water, root them out of the good land, and scatter them beyond the River because of the Asherah poles they made. The sins of Jeroboam, and the sins he caused Israel to commit, will bring the nation down.

The queen returns to Tirzah. As she reaches the threshold of the house, the child dies. Israel buries him and mourns him, exactly as the Lord had said through Ahijah. The chapter then closes out Jeroboam’s reign with a short summary: he warred, he reigned twenty-two years, he slept with his fathers, and his son Nadab took the throne.

The narrative then shifts to Judah. Rehoboam, son of Solomon, reigned in Jerusalem at forty-one years old for seventeen years. His mother was Naamah the Ammonitess. And Judah did evil in the sight of the Lord, provoking him to jealousy with sins worse than their fathers. They built high places, pillars, and Asherah poles on every high hill and under every green tree. There were also male cult prostitutes in the land, doing all the abominations of the nations the Lord had driven out before Israel.

In the fifth year of Rehoboam’s reign, Shishak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem. He stripped the temple of the Lord and the king’s house of their treasures. He took everything, including the gold shields Solomon had made. Rehoboam replaced them with bronze shields, handing them to the captains of the guard who carried them whenever the king went to the house of the Lord. The rest of Rehoboam’s acts are written in the chronicles of the kings of Judah. There was continual war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam. Rehoboam slept with his fathers and was buried in the city of David, and his son Abijam reigned in his place.