Bible Strands
1 Kings 14:6
So when Ahijah heard the sound of her feet entering the door, he said, “Come in, wife of Jeroboam! Why are you disguised? For I have been sent to you with bad news.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Ahijah addresses Jeroboam’s wife as she crosses his threshold, recognizing her immediately despite her attempt to hide her identity. God had previously instructed the prophet to identify her by the sound of her footsteps and deliver a specific message.
The words — The Hebrew קֹל (kol) specifies the "sound" of her feet (רַגְלֶיהָ, ragleiha) entering the doorway (פֶּתַח, petach), highlighting auditory detection over visual confirmation. This precise wording operationalizes the divine signal that her approach would be known by noise alone.
The thread — The dynamic of a prophet instantly identifying a visitor and delivering an unvarnished divine word mirrors Samuel’s confrontations with Saul (1 Samuel 15:16, 28:18). In both narratives, prophetic authority strips away royal pretense to deliver a direct, unadorned message from God.
Why it lands — The passage requires the recipient to abandon reliance on outward appearances and confront the announced reality. Ahijah’s immediate recognition removes all cover and forces a direct confrontation with the judgment being delivered.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
And it was so, when Ahijah heard the sound of her feet, as she came in at the door, that he said, Come in, thou wife of Jeroboam; why feignest thou thyself to be another? for I am sent to thee with heavy tidings.
Cross-references
- 1 Samuel 15:16 “Stop!” exclaimed Samuel. “Let me tell you what the LORD said to me last night.” “Tell me,” Saul replied.
- 1 Samuel 15:26 “I will not return with you,” Samuel replied. “For you have rejected the word of the LORD, and He has rejected you as king over Israel.”
- 1 Samuel 28:18 Because you did not obey the LORD or carry out His burning anger against Amalek, the LORD has done this to you today.
- 1 Kings 13:20 While they were sitting at the table, the word of the LORD came to the prophet who had brought him back,
- 1 Kings 14:2 and Jeroboam said to his wife, “Now get up, disguise yourself so they will not recognize you as my wife, and go to Shiloh. For Ahijah the prophet is there; it was he who spoke about my kingship over this people.
- 1 Kings 14:5 But the LORD had said to Ahijah, “Behold, the wife of Jeroboam is coming to ask you about her son, for he is ill. You are to say such and such to her, because when she arrives, she will be disguised.”
- 1 Kings 14:10 Because of all this, behold, I am bringing disaster on the house of Jeroboam: I will cut off from Jeroboam every male, both slave and free, in Israel; I will burn up the house of Jeroboam as one burns up dung until it is gone!
- 1 Kings 20:42 And the prophet said to the king, “This is what the LORD says: ‘Because you have let slip from your hand the man I had devoted to destruction, your life will be exchanged for his life, and your people for his people.’”
- 1 Kings 21:18 “Get up and go down to meet Ahab king of Israel, who is in Samaria. See, he is in the vineyard of Naboth, where he has gone to take possession of it.
- 1 Kings 22:8 The king of Israel answered, “There is still one man through whom we can inquire of the LORD, but I hate him because he never prophesies anything good for me, but only bad. He is Micaiah son of Imlah.” “The king should not say that!” Jehoshaphat replied.