An Intresting Thought
Our Heavenly Father is merciful yet this word seems harsh after being told this why would you as mother go on and enter the city knowing that when you do your child will die .....would not a better response be to repent and send a messenger instead
1 Kings 14:12–13Complete Jewish Bible
So get up and go home; when your feet enter the city, the boy will die. All Isra’el will mourn him, and they will bury him; he is the only one of Yarov‘am’s line who will lie in a grave, because he alone in the house of Yarov‘am has in him an element of good toward ADONAI the God of Isra’el.
- Good thoughts! I'm sure they thought it a more powerful plea and less offensive to send the wife of the king rather than just a messenger. And as we see, the messenger probably wouldn't have gotten the message back in time before the child would die, if he would die as soon as even the messenger entered the city. Maybe she obeyed the prophet out of fear for herself if she disobeyed, or that she hoped she could somehow get back in time to change it, or also even that if the child would die no matter what, she would rather he die and be buried as the prophet said than to risk that he die like the others and be eaten by dogs or birds as the prophet said. Interesting indeed!
- Maybe she went on knowing that the child would die, links more to obedience than to her own person feeling or fears. Just as Abraham obeyed God to sacrifice his son Isaac, out of sure obedience to the Almighty God.
- James, I think you are right. The Prophet of God told her to go home. When a prophet speaks, he speaks the word of the Lord. To feign repentance and decide her own path would be disobedience.