Final thoughts on 1 Kings 13 -- Mimetic Theory and Literary Study

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Date Posted: 20:14:47 04/07/08 Mon
Author: Betsy Peters
Subject: Final thoughts on 1 Kings 13

So, we must conclude the consideration of Jeroboam's sin by considering why God would show mercy to Jeroboam when he imitates such wickedness so willfully? Both of the sins he committed deserved death only a few generations before. Moses would have killed Jeroboam. Phinehas would have killed Jeroboam. Why did God extended his hand of gracious mercy to a wicked king who had spurred the gift of the kingdom as soon as he got it? (Remember, God gave him the 10 tribes as a gift. Jeroboam, in God's eyes, was a legitimate king when he started.) Perhaps it is because Jeroboam, will imitating the sin of two previous narratives starts the precedent for the rest of the chronicles of the Kings. In the north, God's forbearance with rebellious Israel repeats as the continuing saga. God suffers long with a people who choose sins that are charged with historical meaning. God's people love to sin against him in a way that will defy God doubly: for the actual act of sin, and because it is a historical sin reborn. And God waits patiently. Perhaps Jeroboam plays the double's advocate in his sin in order to establish a secondary pattern of God's forebearance.

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