(7, 8) I exalted thee.--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.
Verse 7. - Go, tell Jeroboam, Thus saith the Lord Cod of Israel, Forasmuch as I exalted thee from among the people [compare 2 Samuel 12:8; Psalm 78:70; 1 Kings 16:2], and made thee prince over my people Israel. [God still claims dominion over Israel, despite the schism. They are still His people, and He is still their God],
14:7-20 Whether we keep an account of God's mercies to us or not, he does; and he will set them in order before us, if we are ungrateful, to our greater confusion. Ahijah foretells the speedy death of the child then sick, in mercy to him. He only in the house of Jeroboam had affection for the true worship of God, and disliked the worship of the calves. To show the power and sovereignty of his grace, God saves some out of the worst families, in whom there is some good thing towards the Lord God of Israel. The righteous are removed from the evil to come in this world, to the good to come in a better world. It is often a bad sign for a family, when the best in it are buried out of it. Yet their death never can be a loss to themselves. It was a present affliction to the family and kingdom, by which both ought to have been instructed. God also tells the judgments which should come upon the people of Israel, for conforming to the worship Jeroboam established. After they left the house of David, the government never continued long in one family, but one undermined and destroyed another. Families and kingdoms are ruined by sin. If great men do wickedly, they draw many others, both into the guilt and punishment. The condemnation of those will be severest, who must answer, not only for their own sins, but for sins others have been drawn into, and kept in, by them.
thus saith the Lord God of Israel; so he continued to be, though they had revolted from him:
forasmuch as I exalted thee from among the people; the common people, from a low estate in which he was:
and made thee prince over my people Israel; so they were when he made them king over them; and there were some among them still that loved the Lord, served and feared him, of which the prophet himself, now speaking, was an instance.
thus saith the Lord God of Israel; so he continued to be, though they had revolted from him:
forasmuch as I exalted thee from among the people; the common people, from a low estate in which he was:
and made thee prince over my people Israel; so they were when he made them king over them; and there were some among them still that loved the Lord, served and feared him, of which the prophet himself, now speaking, was an instance.