Bible Commentaries
1 Kings 14

Verses 1-31

In the story now recorded God is seen acting in judgment. The sickness of the son of Jeroboam was the first stroke of punishment and in connection therewith the prophet Ahijah uttered the doom of the man who had so grievously sinned.

In the name of God he reminded him through his wife, that his exaltation to power had been by the act of God, and declared that, because of his sin he and all his were to be swept away.

In the meantime, the southern kingdom of Judah was also sinning. Thus so quickly after David the nation. Was steeped in idolatry, and utterly failed to bear to the surrounding nations testimony to the purity of the divine government, although such testimony constituted the very purpose for which the nation had been created.

To fail to fuIfil God's purpose is ever worse than to be merely useless. Peoples unrepentant because of the failure of the chosen become a scourge in the hand of God. This is seen in the invasion and spoliation of Judah by Shishak. The great principle uttered long after by Christ is seen here in its working. Salt which loses its savor is flung out, to be trodden under foot of men, whose corruption it ought to have prevented.