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.
The prophet Ahijah had sent the child's mother home with a plain forecast. Her son would die the moment her feet reached the city. Israel would bury him and mourn. This verse records that it happened. It also raises a question. Why should this one boy, in a royal family marked for ruin, be the one given a grave and a nation's tears?
The word kept to the letter
This verse does more than report a funeral. The burial matched a word spoken beforehand. It also set this boy apart from everyone else in his family.
Eugene P. Vedder Jr.The Lord had found something good toward Himself in this boy. He took him home to Himself before the day of judgment burst upon the rest of the house of Jeroboam. This boy was the only member of Jeroboam's family to receive a proper burial and have Israel mourning his death. In His wrath against the ten-tribe kingdom, God still remembered mercy toward this boy. Yet how heavy his mother's burden must have been! For as soon as her feet entered the city her son died. God ever keeps His Word.
Some good thing in a house given over to ruin
Ahijah had given the reason for the boy's honourable end: God found something in him that pleased Him. The surprise is where that good thing grew — in the house of a man who had done terrible things against God.
William KellyWhat grace of God — to produce some good thing toward Jehovah, God of Israel, in the house of the man who had done such things against Jehovah! And what mercy He showed in taking the child away from the evil to come!
God's eye on one weak life
Even in a family marked for destruction, God had someone of His own. For the child, an early death was grace, not judgment.
H. L. RossierHe shall die! What a judgment upon Jeroboam! What grace for the child! He was one of the Lord's elect. "In him there is found something good toward Jehovah the God of Israel, in the house of Jeroboam." God's eyes and heart rested on this weak shoot of a family given up to destruction. There too God had a remnant according to the election of grace. The kingdom of heaven belongs to such a young child. He could not remain in Israel. God would take him out of the scene of judgment to have him with Himself.
The child's name and the hope beyond the grave
The boy had a name of his own: Abijah. One writer reads that name next to his death, and then looks past the grave.
C KnappDear child, Abijah (Jehovah is my Father) was his name; and his heavenly Father called him home. Here was one of "the righteous" taken away "from the evil to come." And Scripture says, "He enters into peace; they rest in their beds who walk in their uprightness" (Isaiah 57:1-2). We expect to meet and greet you, Jehovah's little child, on that bright morning. Then, for those who "have part in the first resurrection," there will be no more "evil to come."
Another writer turns the event into a rule that holds for other deaths too.
An Outline of Sound WordsWhen God takes away one of His own by death it is not always in judgment. We see this in the son of King Jeroboam. God took him "because in him there" was "found some good thing toward the Lord God of Israel." God, in His goodness, took away the lad from the evil to come. It was God's severity to the wicked Jeroboam, but His goodness towards his son.
A funeral that changed nothing in the king
All Israel mourned, but the king himself did not change.
J. N. DarbyDespite this testimony, Jeroboam keeps on in his sin. The only one of his sons who showed any godliness dies, and God pronounces judgment on his house.
This one grave was also a lesson in how far a man's choices travel.
Leslie M. GrantJeroboam was to learn that his disobedience to God did not affect only himself. It affected his whole family while he lived, and the welfare of his family after he died. It also affected the nation he ruled, both while he ruled and for many years afterward. This is surely a striking illustration of the truth that none of us lives to himself and none of us dies to himself. Our influence is a far more serious matter than we generally think.
Summary
- One word. God said it first, and the burial matched His word to the detail. "God ever keeps His Word."
- One good thing. God's grace produced something good for Him in the last house anyone would expect — Jeroboam's own.
- One rescue. The death was removal, not punishment: God took the child "out of the scene of judgment to have him with Himself."
- One grave. He alone of Jeroboam's family got a proper burial and a nation's tears. God remembered mercy in the middle of wrath.
- One warning. Jeroboam kept on in his sin anyway. A man's disobedience reaches his family, his nation, and years he never sees.