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Expositions of Holy Scripture

A >> Alexander Maclaren >> Expositions of Holy Scripture




II. Another lesson taught here is the sin of degrading religion to be a
mere instrument for securing personal ends. Jeroboam has had many
followers among politicians, The average 'statesman' looks on all
religions as equally true or untrue, and is ready to be polite to any
of them, if he can carry his measures thereby. The long history of the
relations of Church and State in the Old World has been little else
than the State's hiring and muzzling the Church for its own advantage,
and the protests of a faithful few against the degradation of State
patronage and consequent control.

In England, Jeroboam and his calves used to be the favourite shocking
example of the sin of schism, with which High Church orators were fond
of pelting Nonconformists. The true lesson from him and them is
precisely the opposite one; namely, the weakening of religion, when it
is favoured and endowed by the civil power. The priests of Bethel, who
were the creatures of Jeroboam, were not likely to be his or his
successors rebukers. When Amos the prophet spoke bold words against a
king, it was Amaziah the priest who gave the shameful counsel, 'O thou
seer, flee into the land of Judah, and prophesy there; but prophesy no
more at Bethel: for it is the king's sanctuary.' Is there no such thing
known as a flaming profession of religion, because it is respectable,
or opens the way to some good position? Does nobody pose in public,
especially about election times, as a liberal supporter of Churches and
a devout Church-member, with an eye mainly to votes? Do political
parties think it a good thing to get the religious people to go for
their ticket? Or, to take less base instances, is there not a whole
school who estimate Christianity mainly as valuable as a social force,
and, without any deep personal recognition of its loftier aspects,
think it well that it should be generally accepted, especially by other
people, as it makes them easier to govern, and cements the social
fabric?

Christianity is something more than social cement. Jeroboam's policy
was a great success, as policy. It both united his kingdom and
definitively separated it from Judah. But it was a success purchased at
the price of degrading religion into the lackey of a court. Samson went
to sleep on Delilah's lap, and she cut off the clustering locks in
which his strength lay.

III. The true nature of idolatry is brought out in the incident.
Jeroboam did not draw Israel away to worship other gods. No charge of
that sort is ever made against the calf worship. The images were meant,
just as Aaron's, of which they were a reproduction, was meant, to be
symbols of Jehovah. The true object of worship was worshipped in a
false way. No matter though the image represented Him, its worship was
idol worship. There is no ground in the narrative for the surmise of
Stanley,--who in this, as usual, simply says ditto to Ewald,--that
Jeroboam's motive was the desire to prevent Israel's adopting false
gods, and that the calves were a compromise by which he hoped to stem
the tide of apostasy to Baal worship. The single motive stated in the
text is policy inspired by fear. Jeroboam did not care enough about the
worship of Jehovah to mould his statecraft with the view of conserving
it. If he had so cared, he could not have set up the calves. His doing
so is uniformly regarded in Scripture as idolatry pure and simple; and
though it is clearly distinguished from the worship of false gods, it
is none the less branded as rebellion against Jehovah.

A visible representation of Jehovah was as much an idol as a similar
one of Baal would have been. It necessarily degraded the conception of
Him. It brought sense into dangerous prominence as an aid to worship.
The symbol might at first, and to the more devout, be a mere symbol,
and transparent; but it would soon become opaque, and from symbol turn
embodiment, and thence pass to being the very deity represented. It is
a feat of abstraction impossible for the ordinary man, to worship
before an idol, and not to worship the idol. The strange, awful
fascination which idolatry exercised is perhaps gone now from the
civilised world. But the lesson remains ever in season, that it is
dangerous work to bring in sense as an ally of devotion, because
outward things, which at first may be only symbols and helps, are
almost certain to become something more.

IV. Jeroboam may stand, finally, as a type of the men who suppose
themselves to be worshipping God when they are only following their own
wills. All his ceremonial had this damning characteristic, that it was
'devised of his own heart'; and so it was himself that was enshrined in
his new house of the high places, and himself to whom the sacrifices
were offered. Absolute obedience to God's will, whatever perils may
seem to attend it, is true worship. Wherever apparent devotion to Him
is mingled with burning incense to our own net, the mixture ruins the
devotion. 'Obedience is better than sacrifice.' Temptations to take our
own way will often appear as the dictates of sound policy, and to
neglect them as culpable carelessness. But such paltering with plain
commandments is as ruinous as sinful, and is not to be atoned for by
outward worship.

What did Jeroboam win by his intrusion of self-will into the region
which ought to be sacred to perfect obedience? A troubled reign and the
destruction of his house after one generation. One more thing he won;
namely, that terrible epithet, which becomes almost a part of his name,
'Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin.' What a title to
be branded on a man's forehead for ever! It is always a mistake to
disobey God. Every sin is a blunder as well as a crime. This only is
the safe motto for churches and individuals, in all the details of
worship and of life: 'Lo, I come to do Thy will, O Lord, and Thy law is
within my heart.'




THE RECORD OF TWO KINGS

'In the thirty and first year of Asa king of Judah began Omri to reign
over Israel, twelve years: six years reigned he in Tirzah. 24. And he
bought the hill Samaria of Shemer for two talents of silver, and built
on the hill, and called the name of the city which he built, after the
name of Shemer, owner of the hill, Samaria. 25. But Omri wrought evil
in the eyes of the Lord, and did worse than all that were before him.
26. For he walked in all the way of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, and in
his sin wherewith he made Israel to sin, to provoke the Lord God of
Israel to anger with their vanities. 27. Now the rest of the acts of
Omri which he did, and his might that he shewed, are they not written
in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel? 28. So Omri slept
with his fathers, and was buried in Samaria: and Ahab his son reigned
in his stead. 29. And in the thirty and eighth year of Asa king of
Judah began Ahab the son of Omri to reign over Israel: and Ahab the son
of Omri reigned over Israel in Samaria twenty and two years. 30. And
Ahab the son of Omri did evil in the sight of the Lord above all that
were before him. 31. And it came to pass, as if it had been a light
thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, that he
took to wife Jezebel the daughter of Ethibaal king of the Zidonians,
and went and served Baal, and worshipped him. 32. And he reared up an
altar for Baal in the house of Baal, which he had built in Samaria. 33.
And Ahab made a grove; and Ahab did more to provoke the Lord God of
Israel to anger than all the kings of Israel that were before him.'-1
KINGS xvi. 23-33.


Jeroboam's son and successor was killed by Baasha, Baasha's son and
successor was killed by Zimri, who reigned for a week, and then burned
the palace and died in the flames. A struggle for the throne followed
between Omri, the commander-in-chief, and Tibni, 'Tibni died, and Omri
reigned.' So, in fifty years, the kingdom that was to relieve Israel
from oppression staggered through seas of blood, and four kings, or
would-be kings, died by violence.

Omri's dynasty lasted about as long, namely, through the reigns of four
kings, and was then swept away like the others, in blood and fire. The
text gives a meagre outline of the reigns of himself and his son Ahab,
of which perhaps the meagreness is the most significant feature. The
only fact told of the father is that he built Samaria, and his whole
reign is summed up in the damning sentence that he 'walked in the way
of Jeroboam.' We learn from the Moabite stone that he waged successful
war against that country, and that it was tributary to Israel for forty
years. In Micah vi. 16, mention is made of the statutes of Omri, as if
he had given edicts for idolatry. The reign of Ahab is similarly
summarised. His marriage with Jezebel, and the flood of Baal worship
which that let loose over the land, are told with horror, in
preparation for Elijah's appearance like a dark background that throws
up a brilliant figure.

The lessons to be drawn from these severely condensed records, cut down
to the bone, as it were, are plain. The first of them is, that when a
life is over, the one thing which lasts, or is worth thinking about, is
the man's relation to God and His will. Here are twelve years' reign in
the one case, and twenty-two in the other, all boiled down, so to
speak, into half a dozen sentences, and estimated according to one
standard only. What has become of all the eager strife, the joys and
sorrows, the hopes and fears, that burned so fiercely for awhile? All
died down into a handful of grey ashes. And what lies in them like a
lump of solid metal that has been melted out of the huge heap of days
and deeds that fed the fire? The man's relation to God. That abides;
that is recorded; that determines everything else about him. Waving
forests that once had sunshine pouring down on their green fronds are
represented in a thin seam of coal. Our lives will all come down to
this at last. How did he stand towards God and His will is the final
question that will be asked about each of us, and the answer to it is
the only thing that concerns the dead--or the living either. Men write
voluminous biographies of each other. How little their judgments matter
to the dead men! Praise or blame are equally indifferent to them. But
what matters is, whether God will have to record of us what is recorded
of these two wretched kings, or whether He will recognise that the main
drift of our poor lives was to serve Him and do His will. He was a
great scholar; he made a huge fortune; he rose to be a peer; she was a
noted beauty, a leader of fashion, a queen of society--what will all
such epitaphs be worth, if God's finger carves silently below them, 'He
did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord'?

Another lesson from these two reigns is the certain widening of the
smallest departure from God. Jeroboam professed to retain the worship
of Jehovah, and to introduce only a small alteration in setting up a
symbol of Him. He would vehemently have asserted that he was no
idolater, and would have shuddered at the very notion of bowing down
to the gods of the nations, but in less than fifty years a temple to
the Sidonian Baal rose in Samaria, and his worship, with its foul
sensuality, was corrupting all Israel. However acute the angle of
departure, the line has only to be prolonged, and the distance between
it and that from which it diverged will be the distance between heaven
and hell, Let no one say: 'Thus far and no farther will I go.' There
is no stopping at will on that course, any more than a man sliding
down a steeply sloping sheet of smooth ice can pull himself up before
he plunges over the edge into the abyss below. That is true as to all
departures from God and His law, but it is eminently true as to every
tampering with the spirituality of worship. Jeroboam's symbolism led
straight to Ahab's unblushing pagan worship of the hideous Sidonian
Baal. The craving for symbolical and sensuous accessories of worship,
which is strong in most Churches in this aesthetic generation, is
perilous. Material aids to worship there must be, so long as we are in
the flesh, but the fewer and simpler they are the better, for they are
aids which very swiftly become hindrances.

Another lesson from Ahab's reign is the need of detachment from
entangling alliances, if we would keep ourselves right with God. It
was Israel's calling to be separate from the nations. It was Israel's
temptation either to mix with them, or to keep aloof from them in
contempt and hatred. Ahab's marriage with Jezebel was, no doubt,
thought by his father a clever stroke of policy, assuring them of an
ally. But it flooded the nation with the cruel and lustful cult of
Baal, and that finally ruined Ahab and his house. God's servants can
never mingle themselves with His enemies without harm, unless they
mingle with them for the purpose of turning them into His servants. If
we prefer the company of those who do not love Jesus, our love to Him
must be faint, and will soon be fainter. If Ahab takes Jezebel for his
wife, Ahab will soon take Jezebel's foul god for his god.




A PROPHET'S STRANGE PROVIDERS

'And Elijah the Tishbite, who was of the inhabitants of Gilead, said
unto Ahab, As the Lord God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand, there
shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word. 2. And
the word of the Lord came unto him, saying, 3. Get thee hence, and turn
thee eastward, and hide thyself by the brook Cherith, that is before
Jordan. 4. And it shall be, that thou shalt drink of the brook; and I
have commanded the ravens to feed thee there. 5. So he went and did
according unto the word of the Lord. for he went and dwelt by the brook
Cherith, that is before Jordan. 6. And the ravens brought him bread and
flesh in the morning, and bread and flesh in the evening; and he drank
of the brook. 7. And it came to pass after a while, that the brook
dried up, because there had been no rain in the land. 8. And the word
of the Lord came unto him, saying, 9. Arise, get thee to Zarephath,
which belongeth to Zidon, and dwell there: behold, I have commanded a
widow woman there to sustain thee. 10. So he arose and went to
Zarephath. And when he came to the gate of the city, behold, the widow
woman was there gathering of sticks: and he called to her, and said,
Fetch me, I pray thee, a little water in a vessel, that I may drink.
11. And as she was going to fetch it, he called to her, and said, Bring
me, I pray thee, a morsel of bread in thine hand. 12. And she said, As
the Lord thy God liveth, I have not a cake, but an handful of meal in a
barrel, and a little oil in a cruse: and, behold, I am gathering two
sticks, that I may go in and dress it for me and my son, that we may
eat it, and die. 13. And Elijah said unto her, Fear not; go and do as
thou hast said: but make me thereof a little cake first, and bring it
unto me, and after make for thee and for thy son. 14. For thus saith
the Lord God of Israel, The barrel of meal shall not waste, neither
shall the cruse of oil fail, until the day that the Lord sendeth rain
upon the earth. 15. And she went and did according to the saying of
Elijah: and she, and he, and her house, did eat many days. 16. And the
barrel of meal wasted not, neither did the cruse of oil fail, according
to the word of the Lord, which He spake by Elijah.'-1 KINGS xvii. 1-16.


The worst times need the best men. The reign of Ahab brought a great
outburst of Baal worship, imported by his Phoenician wife, which
threatened to sweep away every trace of the worship of Jehovah. The
feeble king was absolutely ruled by the strongwilled Jezebel, and
everything seemed rushing down to ruin. One man arrests the downward
movement, and with no weapon but his word, and no support but his own
dauntless courage, which was the child of his faith, works a revolution
in Israel. 'Among them that are born of women there hath not arisen a
greater than' Elijah the Tishbite. Bugged, stern, solitary, he has no
commission to reveal new truth. He is not a 'prophet,' like later ones
whose words were revelation.

Little is preserved of his sayings. His task was to reform and restore,
not to advance; and his endowments of 'spirit and power' corresponded
to his work. The striking peculiarities of this heroic figure will
appear as we go on with his history. For the present, we have to
consider the three points of this narrative.

I. The Prophet and the King.--The startling suddenness of Elijah's leap
into the arena, where he appears without preface or explanation, helps
the impression of extraordinary force which his whole career makes. He
crashes into the midst of Ahab's court like a thunderbolt. What did
Jezebel think of this wild man from the other side of Jordan, with his
long hair and his loose mantle, who thus fronted Ahab and her? Nothing
is told us of his descent; it is even questionable whether the reading
which calls him 'the Tishbite' is correct. We only know that he was of
Gilead, and therefore used to a ruder, freer, simpler life than that in
kings' palaces.

The natural conclusion from the narrative is that the prophet and the
king had never met before; and, if so, the stern brevity of the threat
is even more remarkable. In any case, the absence of explanation of
reasons for the drought, or of credentials of Elijah, or of offers of
mercy on condition of repentance, give a peculiarly grim aspect to the
message, and make it a dangerous one to carry to such a hearer as Ahab,
stirred up by Jezebel. When God commands us to speak, no thought of
peril must make us dumb. If the 'word of the Lord' is to sound from our
lips with power, it must first have absolute sway over ourselves. One
man with God at his back, who fears nothing, can work marvels.

God's servant is men's master. The vision of God's Presence paled the
splendour, and blunted the perils, of the court of Samaria. Ahab was
but a poor puppet in the sight of eyes that 'saw the Lord sitting on
His throne, high and lifted up.' So the very first words of Elijah lay
bare the secret spring of his fiery energy and courage. 'Before whom I
stand,'--that is the thought to put nerve, daring, and disregard of
earth into a man.

James's comment on this incident assumes that the declaration to Ahab
followed earnest prayer that it might not rain, and that the 'word'
which should end the drought was also prayer. The truest lover of his
country or of any men may sometimes have to wish for losses and
sorrows. Elijah did not open and shut the heavens, but his prayer had
power to move the Hand that 'openeth and no man shutteth.'

II. The Prophet and the Ravens.--One would like to know how Elijah made
his escape from Ahab; but the whole story is marked by sudden
appearances and disappearances. He flashes into sight and flames for a
moment, and then is swallowed up in the dark again. The exact position
of the brook Cherith is doubtful. It would seem most natural to look
for it across Jordan, as safer and more familiar ground to Elijah than
any of the tributaries on the western side. At all events, somewhere
among the savage rocks in some wady with a trickle of water down it,
and rank vegetation that would help to hide him, he lurked for an
indefinite period, alone with God.

Why did he flee? Not only for safety, but that the period of the
drought might be prolonged till it had done its work, and that the
prophet might learn more lessons for his calling. Good Obadiah would
have made a place for the chief of the prophets in his caves; but the
man who is to do work like Elijah's must live in solitude. Cherith was
part of the training for Carmel. The flight thither was as much an act
of obedient faith as was the appearance before the king. However the
necessity of flight was impressed on the prophet, it _was_
impressed on him as manifestly not his own plan, but God's command; and
though the journey was a weary one, and the appointed place of refuge
inhospitable, the command was unhesitatingly obeyed. He was not left to
wonder how he was to be fed when he got there, but God gave him, what
He seldom gives--a previous assurance of miraculous provision, which
obviously met some unspoken thought. We do not usually know how we are
to be fed in the solitude till we get there; but if our doubting hearts
object, 'But, Lord, there is nothing at Cherith but a brook and some
ravens,' He sometimes gives us assurance that these will be enough.
Whether or no, the duty is the same,--to follow God's voice, whether it
take us face to face with Ahab and Jezebel or into the wild gorge.

Note that the same words are employed about the ravens and the widow:
'I have commanded the... to feed thee.' God has ways of reaching the
mysterious animal instinct and the mysterious human will, and each, in
its own way, obeys. It is needless to try to pare down the miracle by
saying that, of course, ravens would haunt the water-courses in
drought, and that the food which they brought might be for their young,
and so on. The daily regularity of the supply takes it out of the
natural category, to say nothing of the remarkable breed which the
ravens must have been of, if they brought their young ones' food within
reach and let the prophet take it.

People take offence at the abundance of miracles in the lives of Elijah
and Elisha, and assert that some of them, this among the rest, are for
unworthily trivial occasions. But the grave crisis in Israel is to be
taken into account, which involved the necessity for unusual
manifestations of divine power, and very evident credentials for the
prophets; and the preparation of Elijah for his tremendous struggle
was, even to our eyes, surely an adequate end for miracle. How could he
doubt that God had sent him and would care for him, with such memories
as those of his winged purveyors? How could he doubt future words which
should come to him, when he recalled how marvellously this one had been
fulfilled? The silence of the ravine, the long days and nights of
solitude, the punctual arrival of his food, would all tend to weld his
faith into yet more close-knit strength. If we may so say, it was worth
God's while to work miracles, to make Elijah. The highest end of
creation is the production of God-fearing men. All things serve the
soul that serves God.

III. The Prophet and the Widow.--The little stream that came down the
wady dried up 'after a while'; and Elijah, no doubt, would wonder what
was to be done next, as he saw it daily sending a thinner thread to
Jordan. But he was not told till the channel was dry, and the pebbles
in its bed bleaching in the sun. God makes us sometimes wait on beside
a diminishing rivulet, and keeps us ignorant of the next step, till it
is dry. Patience is an element in strength. It was a far cry from
Cherith to Zarephath, right across the kingdom of Ahab; and to run for
refuge to a dependency of Zidon, Jezebel's country, looked like putting
his head in the lion's mouth. But the same 'command' which the ravens
had obeyed had smoothed his way.

So he girded up his loins, and left, no doubt reluctantly, the brook
for a city. How his heart would bow in adoring thankfulness, when the
first person he saw outside the little 'city' was 'the widow'! He knew
her; did she know him? The natural interpretation of verse 9 is that,
at the time when God spoke to Elijah, he had already 'commanded' the
woman. But the despondent tone of her answer seems against that idea;
and perhaps we are to suppose that, just as the ravens were commanded
and knew not by whom, so this woman received the command, when she saw
the travel-stained and gaunt stranger, through her womanly impulses of
compassion, not knowing who moved them nor what she did when she
sheltered the man whose life was, at that moment, the most important in
the world. The motions of pity and charity are of God, and He commands
us to help when He sets before us those who need help.

The whole incident was a lesson to the prophet. He might well have
thought that God had sent him to a strange helper in this poor widow
with her empty cupboard; and it must have taken some faith on his part
to reassure her with his cheery 'Fear not!' The prediction of the
undiminishing stores demanded as much faith from its speaker as from
its hearer.

It was a lesson in faith for the woman too. Her use of the phrase 'the
Lord thy God' may imply some inclination to the worship of Jehovah, and
so there may have been a little glimmer of faith in her; but she was
full of sorrow and despair, and yet willing to help the stranger with
the 'little water in a vessel,' though the 'morsel of bread in thine
hand' was beyond her power. Elijah's apparently selfish demand that his
wants should be looked after first was a test of her faith. Sometimes
self-denying duty is made clearly imperative on us, before we hear the
promise which, believed, will make it easy. They who have ears to hear
the command, and hearts to obey, even if it seem to strip them of all,
will soon hear the assurance that secures abundance. The barrel would
have been empty by nightfall, if the meal in it had been used for the
woman and her son. The continuance of supply depended on her obedience,
which, in its turn, depended on faith in the prophet as a messenger of
God. 'There is that scattereth, and yet increaseth.' The use of earthly
goods for God's service may not be rewarded with the increase of them;
but, if the barrel is not kept full of meal, the heart will be kept
full of peace, which is better. No sacrifice for God is ever thrown
away. He remains in no man's debt.

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