After this thing, Jeroboam did not turn from his evil way, but made priests for the high places again from among all the people; any who would, he consecrated to be priests of the high places. And this thing became sin to the house of Jeroboam, so as to cut it off and to destroy it from the face of the Earth.
At that time Abijah the son of Jeroboam fell sick. And Jeroboam said to his wife, "Arise, and disguise yourself, that it not be known that you are the wife of Jeroboam, and go to Shiloh. Behold, Ahijah the prophet is there, who said of me that I should be King over this people. Take with you ten loaves, some cakes, and a jar of honey, and go to him. He will tell you what shall happen to the child."
Jeroboam's wife did so; she arose, and went to Shiloh, and came to the house of Ahijah.
Now Ahijah could not see, for his eyes were dim from age. And the Lord said to Ahijah, "Behold, the wife of Jeroboam is coming to inquire of you concerning her son, for he is sick. Thus and thus shall you say to her."
When she came, she pretended to be another woman.
But when Ahijah heard the sound of her feet, as she came in at the door he said, "Come in, wife of Jeroboam; why do you pretend to be another? For I am charged with heavy tidings for you.
"Go, tell Jeroboam, 'Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: "Because I exalted you from among the people, and made you leader over my people Israel, and tore the kingdom away from the house of David and gave it to you; and yet you have not been like my servant David, who kept my commandments, and followed me with all his heart, doing only that which was right in my eyes [?!!!], but you have done evil above all that were before you and have gone and made for yourself other gods, and molten images, provoking me to anger, and have cast Me behind your back; therefore behold, I will bring evil upon the house of Jeroboam, and will cut off from Jeroboam every male, both bond and free in Israel, and will utterly consume the house of Jeroboam, as a man burns up dung until it is all gone. Any one belonging to Jeroboam who dies in the city, the dogs will eat; and any one who dies in the open country the birds of the air shall eat; for the Lord has spoken it."'
"Arise, therefore, go to your house. When your feet enter the city, the child shall die. And all Israel shall mourn for him, and bury him; for he only of Jeroboam shall come to the grave, because in him is found something pleasing to the Lord, the God of Israel, Who shall cut off the house of Jeroboam today.
And henceforth, the Lord will smite Israel, as a reed is shaken in the water, and root up Israel out of this good land which He gave to their fathers, and scatter them beyond the Euphrates, because they have made their Asherim, provoking the Lord to anger. And He will give Israel up because of the sin of Jeroboam, which he sinned and which he made Israel to sin."
Then Jeroboam's wife arose, and departed, and came to Tirzah. And as she came to the threshold of the house, the child died. And all Israel buried him and mourned for him, according to the word of the Lord, which He spoke by his servant Ahijah the prophet.
2 comments:
“ ..my servant David, who kept my commandments, and followed me with all his heart, doing only that which was right in my eyes [?!!!] ..”
I don’t know how that works. God gets blinkered by relativism. David gets a better script writer of good old day nostalgia after David dies. Text editors can’t even keep their stories straight. Like the editor of the NYT saying she grew up reading the paper with her family who felt the paper was like the voice of God. That line lasted in the electronic edition a half-day and magically disappeared. Maybe David’s lyricist here is an original blogger floating press releases to see what the public will tolerate. Or there must be a few George Carlin lovers on the editorial staff, “let’s just throw something out there for those few pitiful souls who are going to take this all seriously thousands of years from now.”
Okay, what we have here is not a tape of the prophet's words, but a paraphrase by a scribe loyal to David's dynasty.
The kings of Israel likewise take heavy flack from their own prophets, as time goes on. Just a little convenient, politic idolatry-- and all this fuss about it!
What is this "idolatry"-- but a basic confusion as to "What's going on here?" and "Who is really in charge?"
The child dies, not because he nor his mother nor his father "deserve" this-- but because they're leaders of a people-- and the ancestors of this people asked God for a national job. They were given the job, and these descendants are acting as if that were no business of theirs--
As if, being rulers, they could rule 'their own' nation by their own cunning for their own purposes.
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