1Ki 14:7-11
The saying was as follows: “Therefore, because thou hast exalted thyself from the people, and I have made thee prince over my people Israel (cf., 1Ki 11:31), ... but thou hast not been as my servant David, who kept my commandments...(cf., 1Ki 11:34), and hast done worse than all who were before thee (judices nimirum et duces Israelis - Cler.), and hast gone and hast made thyself other gods (contrary to the express command in Exo 20:2-3), ... and hast cast me behind thy back: therefore I bring misfortune upon the house of Jeroboam,” etc. The expression, to cast God behind the back, which only occurs here and in Eze 23:35, denotes the most scornful contempt of God, the strict opposite of “keeping God before the eyes and in the heart.” בּקיר משׁתּין, every male person; see at 1Sa 25:22. A synonymous expression is ועזוּב עצוּר, the fettered (i.e., probably the married) and the free (or single); see at Deu 32:36. “In Israel,” i.e., in the kingdom of the ten tribes. The threat is strengthened by the clause in 1Ki 14:10, “and I will sweep out after the house of Jeroboam, as one sweepeth out dung, even to the end,” which expresses shameful and utter extermination; and this threat is still further strengthened in 1Ki 14:11 by the threat added from Deu 28:26, that of those cut off not one is to come to the grave, but their bodies are to be devoured by the dogs and birds of prey, - the worst disgrace that could befall the dead. Instead of wild beasts (Deu 28:26) the dogs are mentioned here, because in the East they wander out in the streets without owners, and are so wild and ravenous that they even devour corpses (vid., Harmar, Beobachtungen, i. p. 198). לירבעם with ל of relationship, equivalent to of those related to Jeroboam. It is the same in 1Ki 14:13.