1 Kings 13:33-14:11:
After this thing Jeroboam returned not from his evil way, but made again of the lowest of the people priests of the high places: whosoever would, he consecrated him, and he became one of the priests of the high places.
And this thing became sin unto the house of Jeroboam, even to cut it off, and to destroy it from off the face of the earth.
At that time Abijah the son of Jeroboam fell sick.
And Jeroboam said to his wife, Arise, I pray thee, and disguise thyself, that thou be not known to be the wife of Jeroboam; and get thee to Shiloh: behold, there is Ahijah the prophet, which told me that I should be king over this people.
And take with thee ten loaves, and cracknels, and a cruse of honey, and go to him: he shall tell thee what shall become of the child.
And Jeroboam's wife did so, and arose, and went to Shiloh, and came to the house of Ahijah. But Ahijah could not see; for his eyes were set by reason of his age.
And the LORD said unto Ahijah, Behold, the wife of Jeroboam cometh to ask a thing of thee for her son; for he is sick: thus and thus shalt thou say unto her: for it shall be, when she cometh in, that she shall feign herself to be another woman.
And it was so, when Ahijah heard the sound of her feet, as she came in at the door, that he said, Come in, thou wife of Jeroboam; why feignest thou thyself to be another? for I am sent to thee with heavy tidings.
Go, tell Jeroboam, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, Forasmuch as I exalted thee from among the people, and made thee prince over my people Israel,
And rent the kingdom away from the house of David, and gave it thee: and yet thou hast not been as my servant David, who kept my commandments, and who followed me with all his heart, to do that only which was right in mine eyes;
But hast done evil above all that were before thee: for thou hast gone and made thee other gods, and molten images, to provoke me to anger, and hast cast me behind thy back:
Therefore, behold, I will bring evil upon the house of Jeroboam, and will cut off from Jeroboam him that pisseth against the wall, and him that is shut up and left in Israel, and will take away the remnant of the house of Jeroboam, as a man taketh away dung, till it be all gone.
Him that dieth of Jeroboam in the city shall the dogs eat; and him that dieth in the field shall the fowls of the air eat: for the LORD hath spoken it.
Notes on 1 Kings 13:33-14:11:
Jeroboam attempted to cheapen the things of God by doing the equivalent of setting up a modern mail-order ordination mill. Whoever wanted to be a priest would be installed as one, despite the Law’s insistence that only the Levites were to perform priestly duties. This brought judgment on Jeroboam in the form of sickness on his son.
Let’s clarify the term “him that pisseth against the wall.” This MAY refer to a young boy, as a grown man might be more discreet than to do that in public, though there are some places where the men aren’t that discreet to this day. This was a prophecy directly from God, so if you have a problem with God’s word choice, you would have to take it up with him. The King James is the only major translation to word the passage the way it is above. Most others say “males” or “male descendants” while Young’s Literal Translation, for reasons I can’t fathom, says “those sitting on the wall.” Thus, most translations assume that ALL men would urinate against walls. It is certain from the Hebrew that the literal words male or male descendants are nowhere to be found; the King James is the only translation to literally and correctly express the Hebrew verb for urinate, which IS definitely in the verse. My assumption is that the other translators knew this, but they wanted to avoid having parents flinch and kids snicker when this and similar passages are read aloud from the pulpit. References to excrement and being eaten by dogs and birds may not seem very nice either, but God wanted these truths to be communicated bluntly. There is no point in trying to “nicen up” the Word of God.
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