Matthew Henry on 1 Kings 14:21–end
Judah's story and Israel's are intermixed in this book. Jeroboam out-lived Rehoboam, four or five years, yet his history is despatched first, that the account of Rehoboam's reign may be laid together; and a sad account it is.
I. Here is no good said of the king. All the account we have of him here is, 1. That he was forty-one years old when he began to reign, by which reckoning he was born in the last year of David, and had his education, and the forming of his mind, in the best days of Solomon; yet he lived not up to these advantages. Solomon's defection at last did more to corrupt him than his wisdom and devotion had done to give him good principles. 2. That he reigned seventeen years in J…
Read the whole note in the consoleJamieson-Fausset-Brown on 1 Kings 14:25
SHISHAK SPOILS JERUSALEM. (Kg1 14:25-31)
Shishak king of Egypt came up--He was the instrument in the hand of Providence for punishing the national defection. Even though this king had been Solomon's father-in-law, he was no relation of Rehoboam's; but there is a strong probability that he belonged to another dynasty (see on Ch2 12:2). He was the Sheshonk of the Egyptian monuments, who is depicted on a bas-relief at Karnak, as dragging captives, who, from their peculiar physiognomy, are universally admitted to be Jews.
Adam Clarke on 1 Kings 14:28
The guard bare them - The guard probably were just three hundred, answering to the number of the shields.
John Gill on 1 Kings 14:28
And it was so, when the king went into the house of the Lord,.... The temple; for though he had fallen into idolatry, he had not wholly forsaken the worship of God in the temple, and perhaps by the late humbling providence he might be stirred up to attend there more frequently:
that the guard bare them: before him, partly for pomp and grandeur, and partly to keep in awe such as were inclined to mutiny and sedition:
and brought them back into the guard chamber; when the king returned, the place where the guard lodged and slept by turns.
