The Pulpit Commentary — 1 Kings — Section 262

" Our deeds still travel with us from afar, And what we have been makes us what we are"- so in the line ?f su_cceeding gener'!-tions. Germs_of evil sown by the fathers spring up among theu: children. There 1S a conservation of moral forces as of material Let a corrupting power be once set in motion, and, though hidden for awhile it is sure to appear again in some riper and more extended form. The nation r:tains its visible unity under Solomon, but when the charm of his personal reign is over, the disintegrating work that has been going on beneath the surface is made manifest. (2) The danger there is in following the prompting of foolish inexperience and headstrong self-will Rehoboam was wise in taking counsel of his ad,isers in this emergency. His folly lay in listening to those who flattered his ,anity, rather than those whose prudence was a safer guide; and in supposing that, whether the discontent that urged the plea of oppression was reasonable or not, hearier oppression would cure it. It is a, familiar picture of human life that we have here. " Days should speak, and multitude of years teach wisdom'' (Job =xii 7); but how often is the counsel of youthful incompetence followed because it is more agreeable. There is a time to resist as well a.s to yield; but experience shows that the pride that refuses a.ll reasona.ble concession, and perhaps adds insnlt to wrong, defeats its own end. To stoop is often to conquer. To hum.Lie one's self is the way to be exalted. Imperious self-will rushes blindly to its own rnin. Kindly human sympathy and generous self-abandonment win honour and po-wer. "He that would be great among you," &c. (Matt. xx. 26, 27). II. THE DIVINE ELEMENT. This is seen in two respects. (1) So far as these e'l'ents were the result of the wrong-doing of men, God ordains the laws by virtue of -which that result comes to pa.ss. All sin is a defiance of the Divine Autholity. But the sovereignty of God is proclaimed in the very disasters that follow it and avenge it. Wbat is the punishment of sin but an assertion, in a form that cannot be arnided, of the authority against which it is a rebellion? We can no more avert the penalty that treads on the heels of trangression than we can escape from our own shadow, or change the course of nature, and that because we cannot get beyond the reach of God. The law that governs it is backed by all the forces of Omnipotence. It is but a, phase of the Will that is " holy and just and good." Learn to look through all the wayward and uncertain forms of human action to the majesty of that Eternal Righteousness that " cannot be mocked," but will vindicate itself in unfailing sequences of 1·eward and punishment. (2) Evil as the,;e events and doings may be, God works out through them His own all-wise purposes. The principle involved in this may be profoundly mysterious to us, but the fact is too manifest to be denied. Jeroboam may have been utterly wrong in the spirit that moved him, taking advantage of tribal jealousy for the purposes of bis own ambition ; and yet he did but ful.nl the Divine decree expressed through Ahljah the Shilonite (eh. xi. 29 seq.), and even through the prediction of the patriarch Jacob, which gave to Joseph the ascendancy and declared that the seed of Ephraim should " become a multitude of nations." Rehoboam's high-handed policy was without excuse, and yet he and his foolish counsellors were but ministers of the Divine purpose, maintaining God's choice of the house of David, and help- ing to fulfil the prophecy that the "sceptre should not depart from Judah until Shiloh come." All llistory is full of illustrations of the way in which God mnkes the evil of the world, in itself essentially at vanance wiLh His will, to serve Him. .All streams of human foU. 11,nd wrong, wandermg a.nd tonuous as they may be, CII XU, 1-24.] THE FIRST BOOK OF KINGS. 265