14:12 “As for you, get up and go home. When you set foot in the city, the boy will die. 14:13 All Israel will mourn him and bury him. He is the only one in Jeroboam’s family 7 who will receive a decent burial, for he is the only one in whom the Lord God of Israel found anything good. 14:14 The Lord will raise up a king over Israel who will cut off Jeroboam’s dynasty. 8 It is ready to happen! 9 14:15 The Lord will attack Israel, making it like a reed that sways in the water. 10 He will remove Israel from this good land he gave to their ancestors 11 and scatter them beyond the Euphrates River, 12 because they angered the Lord by making Asherah poles. 13 14:16 He will hand Israel over to their enemies 14 because of the sins which Jeroboam committed and which he made Israel commit.”
14:17 So Jeroboam’s wife got up and went back to 15 Tirzah. As she crossed the threshold of the house, the boy died. 14:18 All Israel buried him and mourned for him, just as the Lord had predicted 16 through his servant the prophet Ahijah.
14:19 The rest of the events of Jeroboam’s reign, including the details of his battles and rule, are recorded in the scroll called the Annals of the Kings of Israel. 17 14:20 Jeroboam ruled for twenty-two years; then he passed away. 18 His son Nadab replaced him as king.
14:21 Now Rehoboam son of Solomon ruled in Judah. He 19 was forty-one years old when he became king and he ruled for seventeen years in Jerusalem, 20 the city the Lord chose from all the tribes of Israel to be his home. 21 His mother was an Ammonite woman 22 named Naamah.
14:22 Judah did evil in the sight of 23 the Lord. They made him more jealous by their sins than their ancestors had done. 24 14:23 They even built for themselves high places, sacred pillars, and Asherah poles on every high hill and under every green tree. 14:24 There were also male cultic prostitutes 25 in the land. They committed the same horrible sins as the nations 26 that the Lord had driven out from before the Israelites.
14:25 In King Rehoboam’s fifth year, King Shishak of Egypt attacked Jerusalem. 14:26 He took away the treasures of the Lord’s temple and of the royal palace; he took everything, including all the golden shields that Solomon had made. 14:27 King Rehoboam made bronze shields to replace them and assigned them to the officers of the royal guard 27 who protected the entrance to the royal palace. 14:28 Whenever the king visited the Lord’s temple, the royal guard carried them and then brought them back to the guardroom.
14:29 The rest of the events of Rehoboam’s reign, including his accomplishments, are recorded in the scroll called the Annals of the
Kings of Judah. 28 14:30 Rehoboam and Jeroboam were continually at war with each other. 14:31 Rehoboam passed away 29 and was buried with his ancestors in the city of David. His mother was an Ammonite named Naamah. His son Abijah 30 replaced him as king.
1 tn Heb “you went and you made for yourself other gods, metal [ones], angering me, and you threw me behind your back.”
2 sn Disaster. There is a wordplay in the Hebrew text. The word translated “disaster” (רָעָה, ra’ah) is from the same root as the expression “you have sinned” in v. 9 (וַתָּרַע [vattara’], from רָעַע, [ra’a’]). Jeroboam’s sins would receive an appropriate punishment.
3 tn Heb “house.”
4 tn Heb “and I will cut off from Jeroboam those who urinate against a wall (including both those who are) restrained and let free (or “abandoned”) in Israel.” The precise meaning of the idiomatic phrase עָצוּר וְעָזוּב (’atsur vÿ’azuv) is uncertain. For various options see HALOT 871 s.v. עצר 6 and M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 107. The two terms are usually taken as polar opposites (“slaves and freemen” or “minors and adults”), but Cogan and Tadmor, on the basis of contextual considerations (note the usage with אֶפֶס [’efes], “nothing but”) in Deut 32:36 and 2 Kgs 14:26, argue convincingly that the terms are synonyms, meaning “restrained and abandoned,” and refer to incapable or incapacitated individuals.
5 tn The traditional view understands the verb בָּעַר (ba’ar) to mean “burn.” Manure was sometimes used as fuel (see Ezek 4:12, 15). However, an alternate view takes בָּעַר as a homonym meaning “sweep away” (HALOT 146 s.v. II בער). In this case one might translate, “I will sweep away the dynasty of Jeroboam, just as one sweeps away manure it is gone” (cf. ASV, NASB, TEV). Either metaphor emphasizes the thorough and destructive nature of the coming judgment.
6 tn The Hebrew text has “belonging to Jeroboam” here.
7 tn Heb “house.”
8 tn Heb “house.”
9 tn Heb “This is the day. What also now?” The precise meaning of the second half of the statement is uncertain.
10 tn The elliptical Hebrew text reads literally “and the
11 tn Heb “fathers” (also in vv. 22, 31).
12 tn Heb “the River.” In biblical Hebrew this is a typical reference to the Euphrates River. The name “Euphrates” has been supplied in the translation for clarity.
13 tn Heb “because they made their Asherah poles that anger the
14 tn Heb “and he will give [up] Israel.”
15 tn Heb “went and entered.”
16 tn Heb “according to the word of the
17 tn Heb “As for the rest of the events of Jeroboam, how he fought and how he ruled, are they not written on the scroll of the events of the days of the kings of Israel?”
18 tn Heb “lay down with his fathers.”
19 tn Heb “Rehoboam.” The proper name has been replaced by the pronoun (“he”) in the translation for stylistic reasons.
20 map For location see Map5-B1; Map6-F3; Map7-E2; Map8-F2; Map10-B3; JP1-F4; JP2-F4; JP3-F4; JP4-F4.
21 tn Heb “the city where the
22 tn Heb “an Ammonite”; the word “woman” is implied.
23 tn Heb “in the eyes of.”
24 tn Heb “and they made him jealous more than all which their fathers had done by their sins which they sinned.”
25 tc The Old Greek translation has “a conspiracy” rather than “male cultic prostitutes.”
26 tn Heb “they did according to all the abominable acts of the nations.”
27 tn Heb “runners.”
28 tn Heb “As for the rest of the events of Rehoboam, and all which he did, are they not written on the scroll of the events of the days of the kings of Judah?”
29 tn Heb “lay down with his fathers.”
30 tn In the Hebrew text the name is spelled “Abijam” here and in 1 Kgs 15:1-8.