1 Reis 14

1 Reis 14

William MacDonald has an interesting note that Rehoboam "substituted bronze shields for gold, unwittingly illustrating that God’s presence and favor (gold) were being replaced by His judgment (bronze). Gold is widely recognized by Bible students as symbolic of deity, and bronze (KJV, brass) as symbolic of judgment. Knapp - Rehoboam made in their stead shields of bronze, and with these pathetically tried to keep up former appearances. It is like souls, who, when despoiled of their freshness and power by the enemy, laboriously endeavor to keep up an outward appearance of spiritual prosperity; or, like a fallen church, shorn of its strength, and robbed of its purity, seeking to hide its helplessness, and cover its nakedness, with the tinsel of ritualism, spurious revivalism, union, and anything that promises to give them some appearance.”