7 Go, say to Jeroboam, Thus said Jehovah, God of Israel, Because that I have made thee high out of the midst of the people, and appoint thee leader over my people Israel, 8 and rend the kingdom from the house of David, and give it to thee,—and thou hast not been as My servant David who kept My commands, and who walked after Me with all his heart, to do only that which 'is' right in Mine eyes, 9 and thou dost evil above all who have been before thee, and goest, and makest to thee other gods and molten images to provoke Me to anger, and Me thou hast cast behind thy back: 10 'Therefore, lo, I am bringing in evil unto the house of Jeroboam, and have cut off to Jeroboam those sitting on the wall—shut up and left—in Israel, and have put away the posterity of the house of Jeroboam, as one putteth away the dung till its consumption; 11 him who dieth of Jeroboam in a city do the dogs eat, and him who dieth in a field do fowl of the heavens eat, for Jehovah hath spoken.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on 1 Kings 14:7-11
Commentary on 1 Kings 14:7-20
(Read 1 Kings 14:7-20)
Whether we keep an account of God's mercies to us or not, he does; and he will set them in order before us, if we are ungrateful, to our greater confusion. Ahijah foretells the speedy death of the child then sick, in mercy to him. He only in the house of Jeroboam had affection for the true worship of God, and disliked the worship of the calves. To show the power and sovereignty of his grace, God saves some out of the worst families, in whom there is some good thing towards the Lord God of Israel. The righteous are removed from the evil to come in this world, to the good to come in a better world. It is often a bad sign for a family, when the best in it are buried out of it. Yet their death never can be a loss to themselves. It was a present affliction to the family and kingdom, by which both ought to have been instructed. God also tells the judgments which should come upon the people of Israel, for conforming to the worship Jeroboam established. After they left the house of David, the government never continued long in one family, but one undermined and destroyed another. Families and kingdoms are ruined by sin. If great men do wickedly, they draw many others, both into the guilt and punishment. The condemnation of those will be severest, who must answer, not only for their own sins, but for sins others have been drawn into, and kept in, by them.