1 Kings 14:27

And king Rehoboam made in their stead brasen shields, and committed them unto the hands of the chief of the guard, which kept the door of the king's house.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(27) In their stead.—The notice of this substitution is not only a curious point of accurate detail, but perhaps intended as a symbolic representation of the change which had passed upon Judah, by which only the semblance of its old glory remained, and its “fine gold had become brass.”

Benson Commentary

1 Kings 14:27. Rehoboam made in their stead brazen shields — This was an emblem of the diminution of his glory. Sin makes the gold become dim: it changes the most fine gold, and turns it into brass. And committed them into the hands of the chief of the guard — Hebrew, שׂרי הרצים, saree haratsim, the rulers, or chiefs, of the runners, so called, because they ran, some before and others behind the king, and were what we now call a body-guard.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

14:21-31 Here is no good said of Rehoboam, and much said to the disadvantage of his subjects. The abounding of the worst crimes, of the worst of the heathen, in Jerusalem, the city the Lord had chosen for his temple and his worship, shows that nothing can mend the hearts of fallen men but the sanctifying grace of the Holy Spirit. On this alone may we depend; for this let us daily pray, in behalf of ourselves and all around us. The splendour of their temple, the pomp of their priesthood, and all the advantages with which their religion was attended, could not prevail to keep them close to it; nothing less than the pouring out the Spirit will keep God's Israel in their allegiance to him. Sin exposes, makes poor, and weakens any people. Shishak, king of Egypt, came and took away the treasures. Sin makes the gold become dim, changes the most fine gold, and turns it into brass.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The circumstances of Shishak's invasion, related here with extreme brevity, are given with some fulness by the author of Chronicles (marginal reference). It is still a question whether the submission of the Jewish king is or is not expressly recorded in the Karnak inscription. Midway in the list of cities and tribes occurs the entry "YUDeH-MALK" which it has been proposed to translate "Judah, king." Others regard it as the name of a Palestinian town not otherwise known to us.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

1Ki 14:25-31. Shishak Spoils Jerusalem.

25, 26. 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 [313]2Ch 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.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Whereas the golden shields, as being more precious, were kept in a certain place.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And King Rehoboam made in their stead brazen shields,.... For the king of Egypt had so stripped him of his gold, that he was not able to replace golden ones:

and committed them into the hands of the chief of the guard; or "runners" (p), that went before the king, or attended him as his bodyguard when he went abroad:

which kept the door of the king's house; which kept guard night and day in their turns.

(p) "cursorum", Pagninus, Montanus, &c.

Geneva Study Bible

And king Rehoboam made in their stead brazen shields, and committed them unto the hands of the chief of the guard, which kept the door of the king's house.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

27. brasen shields] R.V. ‘shields of brass’ (or, rather, ‘bronze’) which is the form in 2 Chronicles 12:10, and which represents the original more precisely.

chief of the guard] The margin of A.V. gives Heb. runners. We see from this that the Cherethites (or Cretans) and Pelethites, of David and Solomon, had disappeared, and that Rehoboam had only native troops, and those much more meanly armed.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 27. - And king Rehoboam made in their stead brazen shields [lit., shields of brass or copper; a striking token of the decadence of the kingdom; cf. 1 Kings 9:28; 1 Kings 10:22. "He changed his father's religion, as his shields, from gold to brass" (Hall) I, and comttted [Heb. appointed] them unto the hands of the chief of the guard [Heb. commanders of the runners (see on 1 Kings 1:38)], which kept the door of the king's house. [Cf. 2 Kings 11:6. The functions of the bodyguard were very varied. A primary duty was, obviously, to supply sentinels and attendants for the palace.] 1 Kings 14:27

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

King Shishak of Egypt invaded the land with a powerful army, conquered all the fortified cities, penetrated to Jerusalem, and would probably have put an end to the kingdom of Judah, if God had not had compassion upon him, and saved him from destruction, in consequence of the humiliation of the king and of the chiefs of the nation, caused by the admonition of the prophet Shemaiah, so that after the conquest of Jerusalem Shishak contented himself with withdrawing, taking with him the treasures of the temple and of the royal palace. Compare the fuller account of this expedition in 2 Chronicles 12:2-9. Shishak (שׁישׁק) was the first king of the twenty-second (or Bubastitic) dynasty, called Sesonchis in Jul. Afric., Sesonchosis in Eusebius, and upon the monuments on which Champollion first deciphered his name, Sheshonk or Sheshenk. Shishak has celebrated his expedition against Judah by a bas-relief on the outer wall of the pillar-hall erected by him in the first palace at Karnak, in which more than 130 figures are led in cords by Ammon and the goddess Muth with their hands bound upon their backs. The lower portion of the figures of this long row of prisoners is covered by escutcheons, the border of which being provided with battlements, shows that the prisoners are symbols of conquered cities. About a hundred of these escutcheons are still legible, and in the names upon them a large number of the names of cities in the kingdom of Judah have been deciphered with tolerable certainty.

(Note: Compare Max Duncker, Gesch. des Alterthums, Bd. i. p. 909, ed. 3, and for the different copies of this bas-relief in the more recent works upon Egypt, Reutschi in Herzog's Cycl. (art. Rehoboam). The latest attempts at deciphering are those by Brugsch, Geogr. Inschriften in den gypt. Denkmltern, ii. p. 56ff., and O. Blau, Sisaqs Zug gegen Juda aus dem Denkmale bei Karnak erlutert, in the Deutsch. morgenl. Ztschr. xv. p. 233ff. Champollion's interpretation of one of these escutcheons, in his Prcis du systme hierogl. p. 204, viz., Juda hammalek, "the king of Judah," has been rejected by Lepsius and Brugsch as philologically inadmissible. Brugsch writes the name thus: Judh malk or Joud-hamalok, and identifies Judh with Jehudijeh, which Robinson (Pal. iii. p. 45) supposes to be the ancient Jehud (Joshua 19:45). This Jehud in the tribe of Dan, Blau (p. 238) therefore also finds in the name; and it will not mislead any one that this city is reckoned as belonging to the tribe of Dan, since in the very same chapter (Joshua 19:42) Ajalon is assigned to Dan, though it was nevertheless a fortress of Rehoboam (2 Chronicles 11:10). But Blau has not given any explanation of the addition malk or malok, whereas Gust. Roesch takes it to be מלך, and supposes it to mean "Jehud of the king, namely, of Rehoboam or of Judah, on account of its being situated in Dan, which belonged to the northern kingdom." But this is certainly incorrect. For where could the Egyptians have obtained this exact knowledge of the relation in which the tribes of the nation of Israel stood to one another?)

Shishak was probably bent chiefly upon the conquest and plundering of the cities. But from Jerusalem, beside other treasures of the temple and palace, he also carried off the golden shields that had been made by Solomon (1 Kings 10:16), in the place of which Rehoboam had copper ones made for his body-guard. The guard, רצים, runners, are still further described as המּלך בּית פּתח בּית ה השּׁמרים, "who kept the door of the king's house," i.e., supplied the sentinels for the gate of the royal palace.