Charles Ellicott Commentary 1 Kings 14

Abijah (“whose father is Jehovah”): The coincidence of names in the sons of Jeroboam and Rehoboam is curious. Possibly it may be more than coincidence, if (as seems likely) the births of both took place about the same time, when Jeroboam was in favour with Solomon.

Shiloh, the regular dwelling place of Ahijah, is hardly mentioned in Scripture after the time of Eli, and the destruction that then seems to have befallen it, probably after the great defeat by the Philistines (Jeremiah 7:12). It is evident that the old blind prophet still remained there, and exercised his prophetic office for the benefit of Israel, though he stood aloof from, and denounced, the new idolatry of Bethel.

This idolatry is always described as pre-eminently the sin of Jeroboam, who by it made Israel to sin. Therefore, while in consequence of it the royal house is condemned, the people are still regarded as God’s chosen people, to whom, even more than to the inhabitants of the kingdom of Judah, the prophets ministered. To these people—who no longer had the Temple and the consecrated royalty of David as perpetual witnesses for God—the prophetic ministrations were of pre-eminent importance. Accordingly, the wife of Jeroboam is told to approach the prophet disguised as a daughter of the people.

And take. —The presentation of this offering, deliberately simple and rustic in character, is consistent with the custom (1 Samuel 9:7–8) of approaching the prophet at all times with some present, however insignificant. In itself an act simply of homage, it would easily degenerate into the treatment of the prophetic function as a mere matter of merchandise. (See above, 1 Kings 13:7.)

Were set. —The same word is rendered were dim in 1 Samuel 4:15. The metaphor is evidently drawn from the solid opaque look of the iris, when affected by cataract or some similar disease.

I exalted you. —There is throughout a close allusion to Ahijah’s prophecy (1 Kings 11:31; 1 Kings 11:37–38), which promised Jeroboam a sure house, like that of David, on condition of the obedience of David. The sin of Jeroboam lay in this—that he had had a full probation, with unlimited opportunities, and had deliberately thrown it away, in the vain hope of making surer the kingdom which God’s promise had already made sure.

The lesson is, indeed, a general one. The resolution to succeed at all hazards, striking out new ways, with no respect for time-honoured laws and principles, is in all revolutions the secret of immediate success and ultimate disaster. But in the Scripture history, here as elsewhere, we are permitted to see the working of God’s moral government of the world, unveiled in the inspired declarations of His prophetic messenger.