Verse-by-Verse Bible Commentary

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Whole Bible

For I am sent to thee - Rather, “I also am sent to thee.” As thou hast a message to me from thy husband, so have I a message to thee from the Lord.

The Biblical Illustrator

1 Kings 14:6

Why feignest thou thyself to be another?

A cheat exposed

I. Wickedness involves others, trying to make them its dupes, its allies, and its scapegoats. Jeroboam proposed to hoodwink the Lord’s prophet. Iniquity is a brag, but it is a great coward. It lays the plan, gets some one else to execute it--puts down the gunpowder train, gets some one else to touch it off--contrives mischief, gets some one else to work it--starts the lie, gets some one else to circulate it. Jeroboam plots the lie, contrives the imposition, and gets his wife to execute it. Stand off from all imposition and chicanery. Do not consent to be anybody’s dupe, anybody’s ally in wickedness, anybody’s scapegoat.

II. Royalty sometimes passes in disguise. The frock, the veil, the hood of the peasant woman hid the queenly character of this woman of Tirzah. Nobody suspected that she was a queen or a princess as she passed by; but she was just as much a queen as though she stood in the palace, her robes encrusted with diamonds. Glory veiled. Affluence hidden. A queen in mask. A princess in disguise. When you think of a queen you do not think of Catharine of Russia, or Maria Theresa of Germany, or Mary Queen of Scots. When you think of a queen you think of a plain woman who sat opposite your father at the table, or winked with him down the path of life arm in arm--sometimes to the thanksgiving banquet, sometimes to the grave, but always side by side, soothing your little sorrows and adjusting your little quarrels. “Mother, mother!” Ah! she was the queen. Your father knew it. You knew it. She was the queen, but the queen in disguise. The world did not recognise it.

III. How people put on masks, and how the Lord tears them off. It was a terrible moment in the history of this woman of Tirzah when the prophet accosted her, practically saying, “I know who you are; you cannot cheat me; you cannot impose upon me; why feignest thou thyself to be another?” She had a right to ask for the restoration of her son: she had no right to practise that falsehood. It is never right to do wrong.

IV. How precise, and accurate, and particular, are God’s providences. Just at the moment that woman entered the city the child died. Just as it was prophesied, so it turned out, so it always turns out. The sickness comes, the death occurs; the nation is born, the despotism is overthrown at the appointed time. God drives the universe with a stiff rein. Events do not just happen so. Things do not go slipshod. In all the book of God’s providences there is not one “if.” God’s providences are never caught in deshabille. To God there are no surprises, no disappointments, and no accidents. The most insignificant event flung out in the ages is the connecting link between two great chains--the chain of eternity past and the chain of eternity to come. (T. De Witt Talmage, D. D.)

A hearer in disguise

I. We have before us the occasional hearer. Jeroboam and his wife did not often go to hear Ahijah. They were not people who went to worship Jehovah; they neither feared God nor regarded His prophet.

1. This occasional hearer was totally destitute of all true piety. Most occasional hearers are. Those who have true religion are not occasional hearers.

2. The second remark about these occasional hearers is, that when they do come, they very generally come because they are in trouble. When Jeroboam’s wife came and spoke to the prophet, it was because the dear child was ill at home.

3. This woman would not have come but that her husband sent her on the ground that he had heard Ahijah preach before. It was this prophet who took Jeroboam’s mantle and rent it in pieces, and told him he was to be king over the ten tribes. That message proved true; therefore Jeroboam had confidence in Ahijah.

4. They had one godly member of their family, and that brought them to see the prophet. Their child was sick and ill, and it was that which led them to inquire at the hands of the Lord.

5. But there is one sad reflection which should alarm the occasional hearer. Though Jeroboam’s wife did come to the prophet that once, and heard tidings, yet she and her husband perished after all.

II. The useless disguise. Jeroboam’s wife thought to herself, “If I go to see Ahijah, as he knows me to be the wife of Jeroboam, he is sure to speak angrily, and give me very bad news.” Strange to tell, though the poor old gentleman was blind, she thought it necessary to put on a disguise. There was a Judas among the twelve; there was a Demas among the early disciples; and we must always expect to find chaff on God’s floor mingled with the wheat. After the most searching ministry, there are still some who will wrap themselves about with a mantle of deception.

III. The heavy tidings. Sinner, unrepenting sinner, I have heavy tidings for thee. The wrath of God abideth on thee. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Coffman Commentaries on the Bible

GOD'S MESSAGE TO JEROBOAM AND TO ISRAEL (1 Kings 14:6-16)

"And it was so, when Ahijah heard the sound of her feet, as she came in at the door, that he said, Come in, thou wife of Jeroboam; why feignest thou thyself to be another? for I am sent to thee with heavy tidings."

The disguise did not work. It is always so. Adam and Eve in the garden; Jonah on the ship, bound for Tarshish; Ahab in the battle; and the Christian who quits the church - all people, sooner or later, find that God indeed sees and knows!

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible

And it was so, when Ahijah heard the sound of her feet, as she came in at the door,.... Of the room where the prophet was:

that he said, come in, thou wife of Jeroboam, why feignest thou thyself to be another? which must greatly surprise and confound her, as well as lay open to her the folly of her and her husband to imagine that she could be secreted from God, and a prophet of his; or that a prophet could tell her what was future, and yet not know her that was present; and this might serve to assure her, and so her husband, that what the prophet after delivered would certainly come to pass:

for I am sent to thee with heavy tidings; or hard things, such as would be very disagreeable to her and her husband.

Geneva Study Bible

(d) For God often discloses to his own the craft and subtilty of the wicked.

Wesley's Explanatory Notes

And it was so, when Ahijah heard the sound of her feet, as she came in at the door, that he said, Come in, thou wife of Jeroboam; why feignest thou thyself to be another? for I am sent to thee with heavy tidings.

Thou wife — By which discovery he both reproves their folly, who thought to conceal themselves from God, and withal gives her assurance of the truth, and certainty of that message which he was to deliver.

John Trapp Complete Commentary

1 Kings 14:6 And it was [so], when Ahijah heard the sound of her feet, as she came in at the door, that he said, Come in, thou wife of Jeroboam; why feignest thou thyself [to be] another? for I [am] sent to thee [with] heavy [tidings].

Ver. 6. Come in, thou wife of Jeroboam.] How God laughs in heaven at the frivolous fetches of crafty politicians and double-minded dissemblers! Surely when they think themselves most sure, he shameth them with a defeat. What an idleness is it for foolish hypocrites to hope that they can dance: in a net unseen of Heaven!

For I am sent to thee with heavy tidings.] Heb., Hard. Jeroboam was hard-hearted and refractory: a hard and heavy message is therefore sent unto him, that a hard knot may have a hard wedge. Neither is the voice of God’s word ever any better to the guilty, if impenitent. It is as the knuckles of a man’s hand were to Belshazzar, to write them their destiny, or as Daniel was to him, to read it unto them.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

By this discovery he both reproves their folly, who thought to conceal themselves or their designs from that God from whom they expected and desired the discovery of the most secret things; and withal gives her assurance of the truth and certainty of that message which he was to deliver.

Joseph Benson's Commentary of the Old and New Testaments

1 Kings 14:6. Come in, thou wife of Jeroboam — He called her aloud by her name before she entered the house, doubtless to her great surprise, and thus not only showed that he knew her, notwithstanding the disguise in which she had come, but discovered to all about him who she was. By which discovery he both reproved their folly, who thought to conceal themselves from God, and withal gave her assurance of the truth and certainty of that message which he was to deliver, that she might give the greater credit to his words.

George Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary

Tidings. Hebrew, "I am a hard messenger to thee." (Calmet)

E.W. Bullinger's Companion Bible Notes

door = entrance.

Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

thou wife

Job 5:13; Psalms 33:10

why feignest

2,5; Ezekiel 14:3-5,7,8; Luke 20:20-23; Acts 5:3-5,9,10; Hebrews 4:13

for I am

10,11; 13:20-22; 20:42; 21:18-24; 22:8; 1 Samuel 15:16,26; 28:18; Jeremiah 21:2-7; Ezekiel 2:4,5; Daniel 4:19-25; 4:19-25; 5:17-28; Mark 14:21

heavy tidings

Heb. hard tidings.