1 Kings 13:33

1Ki 13:33 After this thing Jeroboam returned not from his evil way, but made again of the lowest of the people priests of the high places: whosoever would, he consecrated him, and he became [one] of the priests of the high places.

Ver. 33. After this thing Jeroboam returned not.] All these wonderful accidents, as God’s hammers, did but beat upon cold iron. Wicked men grow worse and worse, till they have filled up the measure of their sins, and so wrath come upon them to the utmost. See Popelings. {Rev 9:21; Rev 16:9; Rev 16:11}

Whosoever would, he consecrated him.] Heb., He filled his hand; that is, Jeroboam’s hand, as some sense it, they filled with money, to be made priests. Omnia Romae venalia. But it seemeth rather to allude to the custom of censecrating the Levitical priests, by filling their hands with sacrifices and gifts. {Exo 29:9-10} Faciunt et vespae favos; simiae imitantur homines: wasps also have their honeycombs; and apes, that scorn of nature, do imitate men.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1Ki_13:33-34

Jeroboam turned not from his way.

Jeroboam: a character study

Jeroboam had decidedly a fine start with a flattering prospect of success, a rare opportunity for excelling both temporally and spiritually. There was the promotion of the king, and by God the conditional promise of kingship, together with His guiding, protecting, and counselling presence. Permanent regnancy for himself and his children after him. Hence, having God to begin with, and Gods unfailing promise to rest on, provided he fulfilled the conditions, what could he have better, what more? A grand Start! A splendid chance to march to the coveted goal of success on the very threshold of an untried life enterprise. But every fair morning does not end in a cloudless eventide; neither does every such beginning as Jeroboam had culminate in continuance in well-doing. The start may be the best part in a mans life. It was so with Jeroboam.

1. There was manifest distrust of God. Evidently he had forgotten Gods promise to be with him and to establish his house and kingdom.

2. This distrust of God led to departure from God. Leaning to his own understanding, he resolved to build two altars and to make two golden calves, and place one of them at Bethel, and the other at Dan, the extreme points in his kingdom.

3. Another point which strikes us in this mans history is his despising Jehovahs warning and servant. These histories of the Bible repeat themselves in the lives around us to-day. There are many men to whom God has given a good start in life. They have been blessed with an auspicious entrance into the world, with social and religious environment most favourable and helpful, God-fearing parents, a religious training, a comfortable home, good education, business tact, common-sense views of life, and men, and things, and, above all, with Heavens call to fellowship and godliness. Each has started right, with high aims and noble purposes. Public favour has greeted them, success has blossomed in their path of enterprise and effort, until, by sweat of brain and brawn of muscle, and the smile of Providence, they have taken a steady and straight course to wealth and position. But, as in the case of Jeroboam, temporal prosperity has been followed by spiritual degeneracy. A going up in the world has resulted in a going down in grace. Such persons, however, are not left without warning. Gods ministers are commanded to prophesy against them. This is done, though it provokes anger and brings disfavour. Faithfulness ofttimes forfeits popularity and position, but it ensures the Well done of God. To rebuke sin in high places, to tear the mask from the face of the hypocrite, to denounce a mans pet idol--indifference, intemperance, or impurity--is like touching gunpowder with a lucifer. You must expect an explosion if not an expulsion. Persecution in some form will hound you; but fear not, for He who has said, Touch not My anointed and do My prophets no harm, covers you with His wings, and smites your persecutors with the rod of judgment.

He wastes their strength and withers their health.

1. Learn from this study of character the influence of one life.

2. Learn, too, the danger of attempting to injure Gods true servants. Whoso toucheth you, toucheth the apple of My eye.

3. Lastly, beware of the developing power of evil. The seedlings of sin finding congenial soil grow into a harvest of woe. The rill of evil first, the river of corruption at last. Jeroboam went from bad to worse. Slighting God grew into abandonment of God. Worship through the medium of symbols became rank idolatry. No man intends to become a drunkard when he lifts the first glass to his lips, but he takes the beginning step towards it. The possibilities of sin--the resources of wrong-doing pent up in every mans nature--no mind can gauge, no tongue can tell Safety alone lies in salvation from sin, salvation through the cross--full, free, eternal (J. O. Keen, D. D.)

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The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1Ki 13:33. After this — That is, after all these things; the singular number being put for the plural; after so many evident and successive miracles; Jeroboam returned not from his evil ways — He was not at all changed in his principles or practice, but continued in his idolatry. Made again of the lowest of the people, &c. — He abated not so much as a circumstance in his idolatrous worship. Whosoever would he consecrated him, &c. — Without any respect to tribe, or family, or integrity of body, or mind, or life; all which things were to be regarded in the priesthood.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

HOMILETICS OF 1Ki_13:33-34

AN INVETERATE SINNER

I. That an inveterate sinner is indifferent alike to entreaty and warning. “After this thing Jeroboam returned not from his evil way.” There is something exceedingly obstinate and perverse, as well as blinding and infatuating, in idolatry. The gracious overtures of Jehovah through the prophet Ahijah (chap. 1Ki_11:37-38), the prediction against the altar and the miraculous and awe-inspiring events in connection with it, sent as much in mercy as in anger, were surely sufficient to have affected and alarmed any heart not wholly and incorrigibly hardened: and yet they had no effect on Jeroboam! “All these wonderful accidents, as God’s hammers, did but beat upon cold iron.” This state of mind is not acquired all at once. It is the result of repeated rejections of God’s grace, of stifled convictions, and a love of sin for its own sake. An inveterate sinner is an occasion of sorrow to ministers, to angels, to God!

II. That an inveterate sinner adds to his guilt by a stolid persistency in the same course of iniquity. “But made again of the lowest of the people priests of the high places.” Among the worst of heathens, the priesthood was filled with respectable men: but Jeroboam made no discrimination. Any strolling vagrant who offered himself was accepted, irrespective of moral or intellectual fitness. The king became more and more careless as to the character and motives of the men he appointed. The spiritual office is put to shame if borne by men who make a traffic of religion, and are intent only on filling their own hands. Wicked men grow worse and worse, till they have filled up the measure of their sins, and so wrath come upon them to the uttermost (Rev_9:21; Rev_16:9; Rev_16:11).

III. That an inveterate sinner will not escape the most complete punishment. “And this thing became sin unto the house of Jeroboam—even to destroy it from the face of the earth.” Sin will not always triumph. Its glaring abominations cry to heaven for vengeance; and that vengeance, though long delayed, will fall with terrible and desolating power. When neither the severity nor the patient long-suffering of his God brings to repentance a man who walks in evil ways, he is brought by his own sin under the sentence for the obdurate, namely, temporal and eternal ruin (2Ti_3:13; Joh_8:34).

LESSONS:—

1. Unrepented sin hardens the heart.

2. The goodness of God will not leave the most inveterate unwarned.

3. Though hand join in hand, the wicked shall not go unpunished.

GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES

1Ki_13:33-34. Apparently the witness which the man of God bore, and the death which he died, were in vain. The destruction of an altar, and the withering of a hand which was cured again, were lessons soon forgotten. A law once broken, there must be continual new transgressions to justify the first. A superstition once established will go on increasing and multiplying itself. At last the sense of being under any authority will vanish almost wholly from the mind of the rebellious ruler. He will say—using the words in precisely the opposite sense to that in which they are used in the parable—“May I not do what I will with mine own?” As the necessary retribution for such a state of mind, he will become more and more a slave. The priests whom he has made will insist on ever higher prizes for their ignominious work. To soothe the fears which haunt him after the fear of a Righteous Being has been cast aside, he will ask those whom he has put in the place of his conscience what acts he must do that he may seem a religious man to them, possibly at last to himself.—Maurice.

—The means to strengthen or ruin the civil power is either to establish or destroy the right worship of God. The way to destroy religion is to embase the dispensers of it. This is to give the royal stamp to a piece of lead. It is a sad thing when all other employments shall empty themselves into the ministry; when men shall repair to it not for preferment, but refuge, like malefactors flying to the altars only to save their lives, or like those of Eli’s race (1Sa_2:36), that should come crouching and seeking to be put into the priest’s office that they may eat a piece of bread.—R. South.

1Ki_13:33. Idolatry. I. An evil way. II. Delusive. III. Dangerous. IV. Corrupting. V. Leads to destruction.

—He exercised no discretion, but allowed anyone to become a priest, without regard to birth, character, or social position. We may suspect from this that the office was not greatly sought, since no civil governor who cared to set up a priesthood would wish to degrade it in public estimation. Jeroboam did impose one limitation, which would have excluded the very poorest class. The candidate for consecration was obliged to make an offering of one young bullock and seven rams (2Ch_13:9).—Speaker’s Comm.

—The authoritative source of the ministry. I. Is not the will of the aspirant. II. Not the exigencies of a false religious system. III. Not the appointment of the crown. IV. But the call of God.

1Ki_13:34. This persistence in wrong, after the warning given him, was such a sin as to bring a judgment, not only on Jeroboam himself, but on his family. Jeroboam’s departure from the path of right forfeited the crown (chap. 1Ki_11:38), and in that forfeiture was involved naturally the destruction of his family, for in the East, when one dynasty supplants another, the ordinary practice is for the new king to destroy all the males belonging to the house of his predecessor.

—Diminution, disquiet, and desolation of families, is the fruit of sin. He promised himself that the calves would secure the crown to his family, but it proved they lost it and sunk his family. Those betray themselves that think by any sin to support themselves.—M. Henry.

The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.

13:33-34 Apparently, Jeroboam knew what had happened to the man of God, but it did nothing to change his spiritual outlook. Jeroboam’s persistently apostate religion, despite God’s denunciation of it, doomed his dynasty to destruction (14:7-11, 15-16; 15:27-30). As succeeding Israelite kings perpetuated his sin, it brought about the complete demise of the northern kingdom (2 Kgs 17:20-23).

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

So the wicked profit not by God’s threatenings, but go backward, and become worse and worse, 2 Tim. 3:13.

Hebrew, fill his hand.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

Verse 33. Jeroboam returned not from his evil way] There is something exceedingly obstinate and perverse, as well as blinding and infatuating, in idolatry. The prediction lately delivered at Beth-el, and the miracles wrought in confirmation of it, were surely sufficient to have affected and alarmed any heart, not wholly and incorrigibly hardened; and yet they had no effect on Jeroboam!

Made-the lowest of the people priests] So hardy was this bad man in his idolatry that he did not even attempt to form any thing according to the model of God's true worship: he would have nothing like God and truth. In his calves, or rather oxen, he copied the manner of Egypt; and in the formation of his priesthood, he seems to have gone aside from all models. Amongst the worst of heathens, the priesthood was filled with respectable men; but Jeroboam took of the lowest of the people, and put them in that office.

Whosoever would, he consecrated him] He made no discrimination: any vagabond that offered was accepted even of those who had no character, who were too idle to work, and too stupid to learn.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

(33) Whosoever would.—See 1Ki_12:32. The emphatic tone of the words, “whosoever would, he consecrated him,” possibly indicates that, in spite of all that Jeroboam and his prophet could do, there was some difficulty in securing candidates for his unauthorised priesthood.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

33–34. Jeroboam goes on in his evil way (Not in Chronicles)

33. made again of the lowest of the people] R.V. made again from among all the people. See note on 1Ki_12:31 above.

he consecrated him] The Hebrew expression is ‘he filled his hand.’ See margin of A.V. The idea is ‘he intrusted this solemn office to his charge.’

and he became one of the priests of the high places] The insertion of the italic ‘one of’ shews that the construction is irregular. The R.V. gives, that there might be priests of the high places. But the awkwardness of the Hebrew which has the verb in the singular and the noun in the plural is not removed thereby. It can be explained but not imitated in a translation. ‘Whosoever would’ in the previous clause is singular in form but plural in notion. Hence the latter portion of the verse says ‘whosoever would he became,’ but as there were many who did so, the result was not one priest but many ‘priests of the high places.’

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Whosoever would, he consecrated him - i. e., he exercised no discretion, but allowed anyone to become a priest, without regard to birth, character, or social position. We may suspect from this that the office was not greatly sought, since no civil governor who cared to set up a priesthood would wish to degrade it in public estimation. Jeroboam did impose one limitation, which would have excluded the very poorest class. The candidate for consecration was obliged to make an offering consisting of one young bullock and seven rams 2Ch 13:9.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

CHAPTER XIII.

Way. Every thing promotes the salvation of the just, while the wicked pervert the most gracious designs of Providence to their own ruin. The king concluded that the prediction deserved no regard, ver. 18. (Calmet) --- Meanest. Chap. xii. 31. Thus he wished to eradicate all sense of religion. (Haydock) --- His, suam, "own." Any person who brought the oil and the necessary victims, might assume the office of priest. See Exodus xxviii. 41. (Haydock)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

After this thing, i.e. after all these things; the singular number put for the plural; after so many, and evident, and successive miracles; which is noted to aggravate his infidelity and apostacy.

Made again of the lowest of the people priests; he abated not so much as a circumstance in his idolatrous worship.

Whosoever would; without any respect to tribe or family, or integrity of body, or mind, or life; all which were to be regarded in the priesthood.

He consecrated him, Heb. he filled his hand; of which phrase see Exo 28:41; 29:9,33.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

33. Made again — See note on 1Ki_12:31.

Whosoever would — The mere desire of the one who offered himself for the priesthood was the sufficient call to the holy service.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

After this thing calculated though it was to make a deep impression and to furnish a solemn warning Jeroboam turned not from his evil way. "Some hand was found that durst repair the altar God had rent" (Matthew Henry). According to Josephus, the old prophet now explained away the miracles of the prophet of Judah, alleging that the altar had fallen because it was new and the king"s hand had become powerless from fatigue (Ant., 8:9, but made again Heb. returned and made." The tautology is significant. He returned not from his sin, but returned to it of the lowest (see on 1Ki_12:11) of the people priests of the high places: whosoever would Heb. pleased, he consecrated Heb. filled his hand. In the consecration of Aaron and his sons, and possibly of their successors also, the portions of the victim which were usually burned upon the altar, together with the right shoulder or leg, which was the priest"s portion, and three cakes of unleavened Bread, were put into the hands of the candidates for the priesthood, and waved before the Lord before they were offered on the altar (Exo_29:22-26; Lev_8:25-28) To "fill the hand" consequently Became a synonym for consecration him It would almost appear, from the extreme readiness with which Jeroboam ordained his priests, that few candidates offered themselves for the office. In one respect, however, he exacted more from the candidate than did the law. For whereas the latter required "one bullock and two rams", (Exo_29:1, etc.) he demanded one Bullock and seven rams as the offering on consecration, (2Ch_13:9) and he became one of the priests Heb. and he became priests, etc. So the Chaldee. LXX kaineto iJereuv of the high places.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

After this - That is, after all these things: the singular number put for the plural; after so many, and evident, and successive miracles. Made again - He abated not so much as a circumstance in his idolatrous worship. Whosoever - Without any respect to tribe or family, or integrity of body, or mind, or life; all which were to be regarded in the priesthood.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

But this did not lead Jeroboam to conversion. He turned not from his evil way, but continued to make high priests from the mass of the people. ויּעשׂ ויּשׁב, "he returned and made," i.e., he made again or continued to make. For the fact itself compare Kg1 12:31. "Whoever had pleasure (החפץ, cf., Ges. 109), he filled his hand, that he might become a priest of the high places." מלּא את־ידו, to fill the hand, is the technical expression for investing with the priesthood, according to the rite prescribed for the consecration of the priests, namely, to place sacrificial gifts in the hands of the persons to be consecrated (see at Lev 7:37 and Lev 8:25.). The plural בּמות כּהני is used with indefinite generality: that he might be ranked among the priests of high places.

Kg1 13:34

"And it became in (with) this thing the sin of the house of Jeroboam, and the destroying and cutting off from the earth;" that is to say, this obstinate persistence in ungodly conduct was the guilt which had as its natural consequence the destroying of his house from the face of the earth. הזּה בּדּבר is not a mistake for הזּה הדּבר, but בּ is used, as in Ch1 9:33; Ch1 7:23, to express the idea of being and persisting in a thing (for this use of בּ compare Ewald, 295, f.).

Keil & Delitzsch — Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament (1861–1891) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API. (Old Testament only.)

This matter became sin to the family of Jeroboam

This can be stated in active form. AT: "Jeroboam's family sinned by doing this thing" (See: Active or Passive)

This matter

This phrase refers to Jeroboam's setting up shrines and appointing priests.

caused his family to be destroyed and to be exterminated

This can be stated in active form. AT: "because of this God destroyed and exterminated Jeroboam's family" (See: Active or Passive)

to be destroyed and to be exterminated

These mean nearly the same thing. AT: "to be completely destroyed" (See: Doublet)

translationWords

Jeroboam

turn

evil

priest

people group

servant

consecrate

sin

family

face

earth

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

[Even] after all that transpired. That he saw this wonder and heard the words of the prophet, and he, nevertheless, did not repent. And our Rabbis expounded, “After the Holy One Blessed Is He, grasped him by his garment and said to him, ‘Repent, and I and you and the son of Yishay will stroll in the Garden of Eden.’”

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.