You don’t quite need a scorecard to keep track of who’s who yet (in later chapters you might), but when you see the names Ahijah and Abijah, remember: Ahijah with an H (the “high” one) is the prophet, and Abijah with a B is the boy.
And as long as we haven’t looked at the text yet, the prophet Ahijah’s name means “Brother of the LORD,” a wonderful truth we all enjoy by the grace of God: Christ is our brother (we share the same Father in heaven; Galatians 3:26). The boy Abijah’s name means “My Father is the LORD,” a wonderful name that Jeroboam probably gave to his child before he set up the calves as idols, when he still treasured the grace of God.
Ahijah’s Prophecy Against Jeroboam
14 At that time Abijah son of Jeroboam became ill, 2 and Jeroboam said to his wife, “Go, disguise yourself, so you won’t be recognized as the wife of Jeroboam. Then go to Shiloh. Ahijah the prophet is there—the one who told me I would be king over this people. 3 Take ten loaves of bread with you, some cakes and a jar of honey, and go to him. He will tell you what will happen to the boy.” 4 So Jeroboam’s wife did what he said and went to Ahijah’s house in Shiloh.
Now Ahijah could not see; his sight was gone because of his age. 5 But the LORD had told Ahijah, “Jeroboam’s wife is coming to ask you about her son, for he is ill, and you are to give her such and such an answer. When she arrives, she will pretend to be someone else.”
6 So when Ahijah heard the sound of her footsteps at the door, he said, “Come in, wife of Jeroboam. Why this pretense? I have been sent to you with bad news.”
There quite a few cases in the Bible of people with sick children going to a prophet rather than to a doctor. The Shunnamite woman went to Elisha; how many mothers and fathers went to see Jesus? We can’t even estimate. Some passages like Mark 1:34 simply say that “Jesus healed many” and that he “drove out many demons.”
Jeroboam had already decided that his new religion was more important for his place on the throne than anything God had to offer through his grace. At the end of chapter 13 we saw him still appointing priests willy-nilly and carrying on despite the fulfilled message from the man of God. But now the king and his wife had a sick child, and since this was their son, there was also Jeroboam’s dynasty that was in jeopardy. Modern parents might scoff at this latter point, but we don’t have to look farther than Henry VIII to see just how obsessed a king can become with the idea of an heir.
Jeroboam knew that if he or his wife made themselves known to Ahijah, he would give them bad news. Thinking they might deceive him, Mrs. Jeroboam wore a disguise and went to see him. But he wasn’t fooled for a moment. “Come in, Mrs. Jeroboam. Here comes your bad news…”
The word for “bad news” is qasheh, “something hard, something severe.” Something qasheh can be very hard like hard work (Exodus 1:14) or “unyielding” like the grave (Song of Solomon 8:6), Hard news about a sick child is very, very hard on parents. But it was going to be even worse for Jeroboam.
7 “Go, tell Jeroboam that this is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: ‘I raised you up from among the people and appointed you ruler over my people Israel. 8 I tore the kingdom away from the house of David and gave it to you, but you have not been like my servant David, who kept my commands and followed me with all his heart, doing only what was right in my eyes. 9 You have done more evil than all who lived before you. You have made for yourself other gods, idols made of metal; you have aroused my anger and turned your back on me.
10 “‘Because of this, I am going to bring disaster on the house of Jeroboam. I will cut off from Jeroboam every last male in Israel—slave or free. I will burn up the house of Jeroboam as one burns dung, until it is all gone. 11 Dogs will eat those belonging to Jeroboam who die in the city, and the birds will feed on those who die in the country. The LORD has spoken!’ (NIV)
The problem with throwing away God is that Jeroboam was throwing away God’s grace. Look at Ahijah’s words from the Lord. He uses many of the great giving words that the Bible uses for God’s grace.
I raised you up. Jeroboam didn’t do this all by himself.
I appointed you ruler. This would never have happened without God’s
will.
I tore the kingdom away… God didn’t do this for Jeroboam because
of something deserving in Jeroboam, but because God wanted to give it
to him.
…and gave it to you. This is the language of giving a gift, and that’s just
what grace is. It’s a gift we don’t have coming; something we haven’t
earned.
Jeroboam rejected God’s grace and God’s gifts. Jeroboam had treated God’s graciousness like dung, so God would burn away Jeroboam like someone would burn up so much dung. Those are harsh and graphic words, as are the statements about dogs and birds eating the corpses of Jeroboam’s descendants. But that’s how serious God is about our devotion. He uses marriage language for our relationship with him—language that doesn’t get watered down as we turn from the Old Testament to the New. It’s still there, right to the end, where the union of Christ with believers in eternity is called “the wedding supper of the Lamb” (Revelation 19:9). God wants us to be exclusive to him just as a husband and wife should be exclusive to one another.
God showed us just how gracious and giving he is by giving everything for us. He gave us everything in Christ. He has given us the forgiveness only he can give, and the blessings that can only come from his hand. All of it is because of his grace. He offers it to everyone (Isaiah 26:10), but we trust it by faith. Treasure his grace.
Those who cling to worthless idols
forfeit the grace that could be theirs. (Jonah 2:8)
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in New Ulm, Minnesota. His wife, Kathryn, attended Chapel from 1987-1990 while studying Secondary Education (Theater and Math) at UW-Madison. Kathryn’s father, John Meyer, was also the first man to serve as a Vicar at Chapel.
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