Page:02.BCOT.KD.HistoricalBooks.A.vol.2.EarlyProphets.djvu/1266

This page needs to be proofread.

and made,” i.e., he made again or continued to make. For the fact itself compare 1Ki 12:31. “Whoever had pleasure (החפץ, cf., Ges. §109), he filled his hand, that he might become a priest of the high places.” מלּא את־ידו, to fill the hand, is the technical expression for investing with the priesthood, according to the rite prescribed for the consecration of the priests, namely, to place sacrificial gifts in the hands of the persons to be consecrated (see at Lev 7:37 and Lev 8:25.). The plural בּמות כּהני is used with indefinite generality: that he might be ranked among the priests of high places.

Verse 34

1Ki 13:34 “And it became in (with) this thing the sin of the house of Jeroboam, and the destroying and cutting off from the earth;” that is to say, this obstinate persistence in ungodly conduct was the guilt which had as its natural consequence the destroying of his house from the face of the earth. הזּה בּדּבר is not a mistake for הזּה הדּבר, but בּ is used, as in 1Ch 9:33; 1Ch 7:23, to express the idea of being and persisting in a thing (for this use of בּ compare Ewald, §295, f.). Reign of Jeroboam. - Vv. 1-18. Ahijah's prophecy against Jeroboam and the kingdom of Israel. - As Jeroboam did not desist from his idolatry notwithstanding the threatened punishment, the Lord visited him with the illness of his son, and directed the prophet Ahijah, to whom his wife had gone to ask counsel concerning the result of the illness, to predict to him not only the cutting off of his house and the death of his sick son, but also the thrusting away of Israel out of the land of its fathers beyond the Euphrates, and in confirmation of this threat caused the sick son to die when the returning mother crossed the threshold of her house again.

Chap. 14


Verses 1-3


When his son fell sick, Jeroboam said to his wife: Disguise thyself, that thou mayest not be known as the wife of Jeroboam, and go to Shiloh to the prophet Ahijah, who told me that I should be king over this people; he will tell thee how it will fare with the boy. השׁתּנּה, from שׁנה, to alter one's self, i.e., to disguise one's self. She was to go to Shiloh disguised, so as not to be recognised, to deceive the old prophet, because otherwise Jeroboam did not promise himself any favourable answer, as he had contemptuously neglected Ahijah's admonition (1Ki 11:38-39). But he turned