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Only two persons are in this picture, Jehovah and Jeroboam - all else is in the far
background. That is enough; and now once in full sight of those two persons, the wife,
the mother, must hear it all, though her ears tingle and her knees tremble. Not this child
only, but every child, nay, every descendant, down to the meanest, whether it be child
or adult^231 - swept away: "And I will sweep out after the house of Jeroboam, as one
sweepeth out dirt until it is quite gone" (1 Kings 14:10).^232
And not only this, but also horrible judgment; the carcasses of her children lying like
carrion in street and on field, their flesh torn and eaten by the wild, unclean dogs that
prowl about, or picked from their limbs by birds of prey who swoop round them with
hoarse croaking.^233
Thus far for Jeroboam. And now as for the child that lay sick in the palace of Tirzah - it
shall be in God's keeping, removed from the evil to come. As her feet touched the
threshold of her doomed home, it would die. As it were, such heavy tidings shall not be
brought within where he sleeps; its terrors shall not darken his bed. Before they can
reach him, he shall be beyond their shadow and in the light. But around that sole-
honored grave all Israel shall be the mourners, and God Himself wills to put this mark
of honor upon His one child in that now cursed family. Lastly, as for apostate Israel,
another king raised up to execute the judgment of God - nay, all this not merely in the
dim future, but the scene seems to shift, and the prophet sees it already in the
present.^234
Israel shaken as a reed in the water by wind and waves; Israel uprooted from their land,
- cast away and, scattered among the heathen beyond the river, and given up to be
trampled under foot. Such is the end of the sins of Jeroboam and of his people; such, in
the bold figure of Scripture, is the sequel of casting Jehovah "behind their back."^235 Of
the further course of this history we know no more. The queen and mother went back,
stricken, to her home; and it was as the prophet had told her from Jehovah. And this
literal fulfillment would be to her for ever afterwards the terrible pledge of what was
yet to come.
Nor do we read any more of Jeroboam. It almost seems as if Holy Scripture had
nothing further to say of him, not even concerning his later and disastrous war with the
son of Rehoboam (2 Chronicles 13:2-20). That is told in connection with the reign of
the second king of Judah. Of Jeroboam we only read that he "reigned two and twenty
years," that "he slept with his fathers," and that "Nadab his son reigned in his stead."^236
(^)