AS A REED SHAKEN IN THE WATER

How inconsistent and irrational we can be when trials come; Jeroboam believes the Lord’s prophet, like some fortune-teller, can see into the future (whether his sick son will live), possibly hopes he can influence the future, by healing his son, yet it does not seem to occur to him that he might equally penetrate his wife’s disguise and his own stratagem, vv. 2, 3. Ahijah may be physically blind; Jeroboam is so spiritually.

The prophet’s message shows that the Lord does ‘in wrath remember mercy’, Hab. 3. 2. Mercy: the child has regard for the Lord, so he will shortly die, to await ‘a better resurrection’; thus, he will be spared further suffering and the witnessing of his fam­ily’s violent deaths as God’s judgement, vv. 12, 13. This came true as the mother reached home, v. 17. Judgement: on Jeroboam, who sinned greatly, more than his predecessors. His house will be wiped out, their bodies left unburied for scavengers to eat, vv. 9-11; fulfilled at the hands of Baasha, vv. 14, 15. 29: on the house of Israel, the nation, which sinned grievously also, vv. 15-16. The judgement is in three stages, v. 15. All are what the Lord will do. The first one is expressed in a simile: ‘The Lord shall smite Israel as a reed is shaken in the water’. This visual image was a com­mon sight for those living near rivers, where reeds, helpless to resist, would be seen swaying to and fro at the mercy of winds and currents. This suggests what the Lord will bring upon the nation; disturbances and turmoil, completely beyond its control, such as civil war, political coups and foreign invasion, as we see when reading its lamentable history, for the sins of the people continued, 2 Kgs. 17. 7-18. The second stage is expressed in a tactile metaphor, ‘He shall root up Israel out of this good land’. This tells us that they will be forcibly taken captive, as a plant is uprooted from the ground; the words ‘this good land’ con­vey the thought of their ensuing miserable situation. The final stage is ‘scatter[ed] beyond the river’; exiled to distant lands beyond the Euphrates, no longer a nation, dispersed and forgotten, ‘removed out of sight’. This was fulfilled through the king of Assyria, 2 Kgs. 17. 6, 18. Imagine listening to this! Yet what impact did it have?