1 Kings 14:14-15

14 Moreover the LORD shall raise him up a king over Israel, who shall cut off the house of Jeroboam that day: but what? even now.

15 For the LORD shall smite Israel, as a reed is shaken in the water, and he shall root up Israel out of this good land, which he gave to their fathers, and shall scatter them beyond the river, because they have made their groves, provoking the LORD to anger.

1 Kin. 14:14, 15. It is God's manner in Scripture, when threatening the wicked for their sins, to pass from those judgments that are soon to be inflicted, and are the more immediate, and which are the occasion of God's sending a messenger to threaten them, to some great remote judgments, of which perhaps the judgments more immediately threatened are images or forerunners. Thus when God first sent Moses to Pharaoh, He sent him with a threatening of the last and greatest plague; and the other foregoing plagues are all omitted. (Exodus 4:22; Exodus 4:23). So in Exodus 9:15, God again threatens the last plague and Pharaoh's own destruction, that was accomplished in the Red Sea; though there was the plague of hail, and locusts and darkness afterwards, before the plague of pestilence. So here, when the wife of Jeroboam comes to the prophet to inquire whether her son shall live, the prophet passes from a threatening of his death and judgment suddenly to be inflicted on his family, to the captivity of the ten tribes, though it was to be long after Jeroboam's death. So also it is the manner of the prophets, when sent on some particular occasions to promise some mercy to God's people, to insist on some greater mercy that is remote, and that is to be bestowed on God's people in after generations. Thus when Isaiah was sent to Ahaz, when Rezin, king of Syria, and Pekah, son of Remaliah, were combined against him, to comfort him by foretelling the disappointment of their enemies and deliverance of Judah, he comes to Ahaz with Shear-jashub, his son, that signifies the "remnant shall return," to foretell the return from the captivity to Babylon, as in Isaiah 7. And it is very frequent with the prophets, when foretelling lesser mercies that God has to bestow on His people, to pass to and insist upon that greatest of all mercies, the coming of Christ. So did Isaiah, when he came to Ahaz on the forementioned occasion. (Isaiah 7:14). So the prophets, when foretelling the return from the Babylonish captivity, often insist on the redemption of Christ, of which this is a type. So do the prophets Haggai and Zechariah, when sent to encourage the people to build the Temple, with promises of mercies therein, insist chiefly on the prosperity that God will give the Church in the times of the gospel.

1 Kin. 16:34

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