And there was war between Asa and Baasha king of Israel all their days.
Asa ruled Judah in the south, and Baasha ruled Israel in the north, two halves of one nation. Their war ran the whole length of both reigns — so why did brothers fight each other for a lifetime, and what did it cost them?
Solomon's reign had ended in peace. What came next looked nothing like it, and one writer explains why.
This whole account is filled with wars and cruelty. It follows Solomon's reign of peace, which ended so quickly because the king and his people were unfaithful... This is one of the main symptoms of decline. War breaks out — relentless war between people of the same race. Next the kings of Israel are the ones who start the fighting. They feel their position threatened because Judah keeps up God's testimony. A nation that has turned to idols after knowing the true God cannot bear God's testimony so close by. It hates it and wages desperate war against it.
The problem was not just the war. It was who stood on each side of it.
War between Asa and Baasha (Judah and Israel) is a sad testimony to the weakness of both peoples, for they were brothers (v.32). Why was their time not spent rather in fighting the common enemies of Israel?
Baasha's method was a blockade. He fortified Ramah, a town on the border, to stop his own people crossing over. One writer explains what drove him, and where Asa gave him an opening.
This happens again and again. Those like Baasha still keep up a profession of true religion, though it is mixed with deadly errors. They cannot bear a testimony near them that attracts souls. Sadly, by tolerating evil in some measure, Asa himself gave an occasion for this hostility.
Another writer points out what was pulling Baasha's people toward Judah.
Baasha made a treaty with Ben-Hadad king of Syria. He also built up Ramah as a fortress on his southern border. He wanted to stop his people, as far as he could, from moving to Judah, where Asa's prosperity attracted them.
Constant pressure wears a man down. Asa had trusted God before. This time he paid Baasha's own ally to change sides.
When war threatened Asa from Baasha and Israel, the faith of Asa sadly faltered... Why did Asa not simply commit this matter to the Lord in prayer? But he failed badly by enlisting the help of the Lord's enemies against his own brothers the Israelites. He also took the silver and gold left in the treasuries of the house of the Lord to pay Syria for this help (v.18). God will not give His glory to another (Isaiah 42:8), but Asa in effect gave God's glory — the gold — to Ben-Hadad! So Asa made the fatal mistake of enlisting the world's help to fight against his own brothers, the children of Israel (v.19). Instead of making a treaty with Syria, how much better it would have been for Asa to seek the restoration of Israel! But in our day believers too often use shocking means to fight other believers who have offended them. They also use what belongs to God to serve their own selfish ends. Asa did the same with the gold and silver from the house of the Lord.
There was a better way, and a prophet had urged it from the start of the split.
Next came Shemaiah, the prophet to Rehoboam. He urged the king and his people not to fight against their brothers, the children of Israel (1 Kings 12:22; 2 Chronicles 11:2). That was the only fitting course for those who still kept the lamp of David. They were the Lord's witnesses. They ought to accept the division as the result of their own sin. And they ought to commit themselves to God, who would know how to put things right once His judgment had run its course and borne its fruit.
- Decline — Endless war between people of one nation is not just politics. It is a main symptom of decline, and it follows unfaithfulness.
- Division — Baasha attacks because he cannot bear a true testimony next door. He even fortifies the border to stop his people crossing over.
- Distraction — The war showed the weakness of both sides. Brothers fought each other while the real enemies went unopposed.
- Downfall — Long pressure exposed Asa. He hired the world's help against his own brothers and paid with gold from God's house. He never simply took the matter to God in prayer.
- Direction — The answer to division was never the sword. Accept the break as the fruit of sin. Seek the restoration of the other side. Leave the remedy with God.
And Baasha king of Israel came up against Judah, and built Ramah, in order to let none go out or come in to Asa king of Judah.
Baasha's answer to losing people was not an army but a wall: he fortified Ramah on the border to stop all movement between his kingdom and Asa's. Two questions follow — why did Israel's king fear that traffic so much, and why did Judah's king answer a wall by buying a foreign army?
Baasha's aim was to seal his own people in. One writer sees the same instinct at work long after his reign:
Baasha had lost several of his cities. So he built Ramah to cut off all contact from then on, "that he might permit no one to go out or come in to Asa king of Judah." He could not attack Asa without putting himself in danger. So he set out to stop his own subjects from leaving him and joining God's testimony... This pattern shows up again and again. People like Baasha still keep up a profession of true religion, though it is mixed with deadly errors — and they cannot bear a testimony near them that attracts souls.
Baasha picked Ramah for where it stood, on the main road between the two kingdoms. One writer also weighs the timing, since the thirty-sixth year does not fit the other dates given for Baasha:
Compare this verse with 1 Kings 15:33 and 16:8 and you meet a problem with the dates. By those references Baasha must have been dead ten years before the thirty-sixth year of Asa's reign... The only apparent way out is to date "the thirty-sixth year" from the beginning of Judah as a kingdom separate from Israel. That would place the event in the sixteenth year of Asa's actual reign... Ramah stood on the main road from the northern kingdom. It would be only natural for Baasha to move at once and fortify this key city on the border, and so stop any more of his people going over to Asa.
Commentators differ here. Rossier suggests the date "may be a simple copyist's error."
So what was pulling Israelites across the border? One writer names it:
Baasha and Asa king of Judah were at war all their days. Baasha made a treaty with Benhadad king of Syria, and he built up Ramah as a fort on his southern border. He wanted to stop, if he could, the flow of his own subjects into Judah, where the prosperity under Asa was drawing them.
The buffer zone paints a picture, and then the same writer turns the question on Asa:
Baasha, king of Israel, had become alarmed at the thought of some in Israel defecting to Judah. So he came and built Ramah as a buffer between the two companies. What a picture this is! Those who have left the Lord's center will do all they can to keep their followers from returning to the place the Lord has for them. This was not a direct attack on Judah, but Asa took it as an offense. Why then did he not appeal to God, as he did when the Ethiopians attacked?
Shut in by the new fortress, Asa bought foreign help. It worked, and it cost him:
Baasha, the king of Israel, comes up against Judah and starts to build Ramah. His goal is to shut Asa up in his kingdom so that he cannot get out. To block this, Asa leans on Ben-Hadad, the king of Syria. He sends him gifts, courts his alliance, and uses him to drive Baasha away. The plan looked like a success: the king of Israel abandoned Ramah... But what unfaithfulness in this godly king! He had defeated Zerah the Ethiopian and his army of a million men, yet he failed to commit his interests to the Lord. An alliance with the world may bring us advantages at first, but later we taste its bitter fruit.
The whole episode turns on fear. One writer names what God was looking for instead:
He was very afraid of Baasha... "The fear of man brings a snare." How this reveals the weakness of man! After all the proofs of the LORD's mercy and power, Asa could turn away from Him like this and enter an unholy alliance with a pagan king. He got what he was after, and Baasha had to give up his plan. But God had watched it all... "For the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong on behalf of those whose heart is perfect toward Him." The Lord looks for faith, for confidence.
- Wall — Baasha did not invade. He fortified Ramah as a buffer to stop all movement in and out of Judah.
- Motive — the wall stood against a pull. Asa's prosperity was drawing his own people south.
- Pattern — those who leave the Lord's center work to keep their followers from going back. They cannot bear a testimony nearby that attracts souls.
- Snare — Asa had beaten an army of a million men, yet he feared Baasha. The fear of man brought him the snare of a bought alliance.
- Eyes — the wall came down, but God had watched it all. His eyes search the earth for a heart that trusts Him, not for a king who can pay.
And Asa took all the silver and the gold that were left in the treasures of the house of Jehovah, and in the treasures of the king's house, and gave them into the hand of his servants; and king Asa sent them to Ben-Hadad, the son of Tabrimmon, the son of Hezion, king of Syria, who dwelt at Damascus, saying,
Asa had watched God destroy a huge invading army. Now a smaller enemy was walling up Ramah to shut Judah in, and Asa did not pray — he took the silver and gold from God's house and hired a foreign king.
One writer cannot explain the failure. He sets it beside the far greater danger Asa had already come through:
It is hard to explain this sudden failure in Asa's faith. Only recently, with God's help, he had completely destroyed the huge army of Zerah the Ethiopian. Now, facing an enemy not half as dangerous, his faith fails, and he leans on human strength to save him... It was the beginning of Asa's downfall. He got the rescue he wanted, but it cost him the rebuke of God and wars to the end of his reign.
The money Asa handed over had already been given to God. One writer follows his steps in order:
It is hard to know anything sadder than this account of Asa. No doubt he belonged to the Lord, but he had lost his closeness to God and leaned on his own resources. And he begins by robbing God. Then he asked a worldly man to do a plainly dishonourable thing — to break his treaty with Baasha king of Israel... If we lose that closeness with God, there is no telling what we may do. It is sad to think that our sinful nature has more room to work in a believer than in someone who is not saved.
Asa bought treachery with money given to God.
Baasha ruled Israel, the other half of God's own people. Asa hired an enemy of God to fight them, and one writer brings that home to believers today:
He failed badly by getting help from the Lord's enemies against his own brothers, the Israelites... God will not give His glory to another (Isa. 42:8), but Asa in effect gave God's glory (the gold) to Ben-Hadad!... How much better it would have been for Asa to seek Israel's restoration instead of a treaty with Syria! But too often, in our day, believers use shocking means to fight other believers who have offended them. They also use what belongs to God (as Asa used the gold and silver from the house of the Lord) to serve their own selfish ends.
Asa's offer leans on a treaty his father Abijam once made:
An alliance with the world may bring us advantages at first, but afterwards we taste its bitter fruits... How sad to hear these words from a godly king: "There is a treaty between me and you, as between my father and your father!" Abijam had walked "in all the sins of his father," and now Asa identifies himself with him. His father had allied himself with the enemies of God's people; Asa owns that alliance and seeks it out!
The plan worked. That is what makes it so costly:
Asa, instead of looking to the Lord, allies himself with Syria. The alliance produced the effect he wanted, but it stirred up the nations against Israel. And this was not all; alliance with the world prevents our overcoming the world. Had he not done this, the Syrians would have fallen into the hands of Asa... Hurt in his pride, and annoyed at missing such a good chance, Asa puts in prison the seer who brought him this word, and he oppresses the people.
This failure did not begin here. One writer traces it to an earlier compromise that changed how Asa saw the world:
Asa fears Baasha. Since he has given way on one point, he can no longer see the world as a system he must never compromise with and never ask help from. He knows he is weak, just as he was when the Ethiopian attacked. But he no longer has the same confidence that all his strength is in God.
Commentators differ: some see a sudden lapse, others an old compromise finally showing.
One writer weighs what this reign could have been:
He began well. His start was very bright indeed. Had he gone on in simplicity and in the energy of faith, what a different story he would have left behind. Instead of coming into port like a ship that had met a great hurricane — broken, with no mast or sail — he would have come in with flags flying and all sail set.
- Crack — one early compromise left Asa able to lean on the world he once refused.
- Collapse — the smaller threat broke the man the bigger one had not. Yesterday's rescue does not supply today's faith.
- Cost — Asa handed God's silver and gold to Ben-hadad, and paid him to break his word.
- Conquest lost — the plan worked, yet Syria slipped out of his hand. An alliance with the world stops you overcoming it.
- Close — Asa still reached port as the Lord's, but broken and stripped, not under full sail.
There is a league between me and thee, [as] between my father and thy father; behold, I send thee a present of silver and gold go, break thy league with Baasha king of Israel, that he may depart from me.
Asa of Judah had already watched God destroy a huge invading army. Yet when a smaller threat came from Baasha of Israel, he emptied God's house to hire the king of Syria to break his treaty with Israel. The plan worked — and that is exactly what makes the verse so searching.
Asa was afraid. The strange part is that God had already given him every reason not to be. One writer sets the two moments side by side and follows where buying Syria's help led.
It is hard to explain this sudden failure in Asa's faith. Not long before, with God's help, he had destroyed the huge army of Zerah the Ethiopian. Now he faces an enemy not half as dangerous, his faith fails, and he leans on human strength to rescue him. It was the beginning of Asa's downfall. He did get the rescue he wanted, but it cost him God's rebuke and wars to the end of his reign.
The silver and gold Asa sent were not his own. And what he asked for was that a foreign king break his sworn word.
No doubt he belonged to the Lord, but he was out of communion with God, and relied on his own resources. And he begins by robbing God. Then he asked a worldly man to do something plainly dishonourable. If we lose that communion, there is no telling what we may do. It is sad to think that the flesh has more room to work in a believer than in someone who is not converted.
Asa also aimed Syria's army at his own people.
God will not give His glory to another (Isaiah 42:8), but Asa in effect gave God's glory (the gold) to Ben Hadad! So Asa made the fatal mistake of using the world's help to fight his own brothers, the people of Israel. Instead of making a treaty with Syria, how much better it would have been for Asa to seek the restoration of Israel! But too often today, believers use shocking methods against other believers who have offended them. They also use what belongs to God to serve their own selfish ends.
Asa's opening line appeals to an old family arrangement. That appeal is the telling part, because of the kind of man his father was.
But how sad to hear a godly king say: "Let there be a covenant between me and you, as there was between my father and your father!" Abijam had walked "in all the sins of his father." Now Asa makes himself one with him. A league with the world at first may bring us advantages, but afterwards we taste its bitter fruits.
Ben-hadad took the money, and Asa got what he paid for. On the surface he had won.
By taking this path the king appears to escape a great disaster. But he loses all the blessing of a walk of faith, and he will prove that sadly. Oh, how much happier he was when he felt he had no strength of his own, and still stood against the countless army of Zerah!
The success came at a cost Asa could not see.
Instead of looking to the Lord, Asa makes an alliance with Syria. It produced the effect he wanted, but it stirred up the Gentile nations against Israel. And this was not all; alliance with the world prevents our overcoming the world. If he had not done this, the Syrians would have fallen into Asa's hands. For "the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to give strong support to those whose heart is blameless toward Him." A solemn and precious word! Asa's pride was wounded, and he was angry at having missed such a good opportunity. So he puts the prophet who gave this testimony in prison, and he oppresses the people. God disciplines him, and sadly he does not seek God in that discipline.
Asa's faith held through his years of rest. Trouble from Baasha is what broke him.
He set aside his mother because of her idolatry. But when Baasha brought trouble on him, he made an alliance with Ben-hadad. When hardship pulls a man off the path of righteousness, that is more serious than when prosperity tempts him away. Hardship usually drives a believer who has wandered back to God. It is one of the means grace employs.
- Pressure tests. A smaller threat than Zerah's army broke Asa. The test was never the size of the enemy, but where he looked first.
- Payment. He paid for the alliance out of God's house. He gave away what belonged to God to buy what God would have given free.
- Partnership. His appeal to his father's treaty tied him to a man who had walked in all his father's sins. A league with the world tastes sweet first and bitter later.
- Profit. It worked. Asa got the rescue he wanted, and in winning it he lost the whole blessing of a walk of faith.
- Price. Alliance with the world stops us overcoming the world. The Syrians God meant to hand over to Asa escaped, and wars followed to the end of his reign.
And Ben-Hadad hearkened to king Asa, and sent the captains of his forces against the cities of Israel, and smote Ijon, and Dan, and Abel-Beth-Maachah, and all Kinneroth, with all the land of Naphtali.
Asa paid the king of Syria to attack Israel, and the plan worked: Baasha had to abandon the fort he was building against Judah. Commentators ask who really won, and what Asa lost by winning this way.
One writer traces what Asa's money bought.
The wealth Asa offered bought Ben Hadad's help. So he attacked some cities of Israel — Ijon, Dan, Abel Beth Maacah, all Chinneroth, and the land of Naphtali (v.20). This accomplished what Asa desired, because Baasha had to give up the building of Ramah (v.21).
The soldiers Asa paid for attacked his own people. The money that hired them came from God's house.
He failed badly by enlisting the help of the Lord's enemies against his own brothers the Israelites. Not only that — he took the silver and gold that was left in the treasuries of the house of the Lord to pay for this help from Syria (v.18). God will not give His glory to another (Isaiah 42:8), but in effect Asa gave God's glory (the gold) to Ben Hadad! So Asa made the fatal mistake of enlisting the world's help to fight against his own brothers, the children of Israel (v.19).
A prophet came to Asa with God's reading of the victory. One writer draws out the rule behind it.
At that time Hanani the seer came to Asa, king of Judah. He said to him, "Because you relied on the king of Syria, and did not rely on the LORD your God, the army of the king of Syria has escaped from your hand." How remarkable the government of God is. Whatever wrong step we take to reach a goal, it not only fails to reach it, but brings its own chastening with it. The very thing we least want comes upon us. God would have stopped not only Israel, but Syria too. Instead, the army of the king of Syria escaped out of his hands.
Asa had once faced a far larger army and trusted God alone.
It is difficult to account for this sudden defect in Asa's faith. Not long before, with God's help, he had wiped out the huge army of Zerah the Ethiopian. Now he faces an enemy not half as dangerous, and his faith fails. He depends for rescue on human strength. This was the beginning of Asa's downfall. He got the deliverance he wanted, but it cost him the rebuke of God and wars to the end of his reign.
The ally Asa hired kept a profit for himself. One writer weighs what the escape cost.
Ben-hadad breaks his alliance with Baasha. He uses the chance to strike the cities of Ephraim and make himself master of the store cities of Naphtali. Baasha stops building Ramah, and Asa and his people carry its stones away to build fortresses against Israel. The king seems to have escaped a great disaster by taking this path. But he loses all the blessing of a walk of faith, and he will give sad proof of this. How much happier he was when he felt himself to be without strength and yet stood against the vast army of Zerah!
Success feels like approval. One writer turns the warning toward us.
Asa would no doubt feel himself justified, as many do who consider that the end justifies the means. He gained his object through friendship with the world! Suppose he had instead asked the Lord for grace and guidance, to be freed from the threatened opposition of the ten tribes. God would surely have stepped in, in the best way possible. But we face the same danger. After we have found great blessing through depending on the Lord, we may start depending on our own ability to get what we want.
Help bought from the world comes with a bill.
If the church gives ground to the world, the world often helps the church — but the church ends up paying tribute to it. The sense of God's almighty power is gone, and the church falls.
- Reliance misplaced — Asa turned from the God who had wiped out a huge army and leaned on human strength instead. He met a smaller enemy with weaker faith.
- Reliance paid for — Asa paid Ben-hadad with gold from the Lord's house, handing God's glory to a foreign king to hire war on his own people.
- Reliance rewarded — the raid on Ijon, Dan and Naphtali worked; Baasha left Ramah, and Asa built its stones into his own fortresses.
- Reliance exposed — Hanani turned the success inside out. The Syrian army Asa hired was the army God would have handed him.
- Reliance costly — the bought peace brought war to the end of Asa's reign. Help from the world arrives, but you end up paying tribute for it.
And it came to pass when Baasha heard of it, that he left off building Ramah, and dwelt in Tirzah.
Ben-hadad's troops attack Israel's northern towns, so Baasha drops his building work at Ramah and goes home to Tirzah. Asa's plan worked on the surface, and that is what makes this verse so searching.
Baasha's fortress was not aimed at conquest. It was built to keep his own people in.
Baasha had lost several of his cities, so he built Ramah to cut off all contact from then on, to let no one go out or come in to Asa king of Judah. He could not attack Asa without putting himself in danger. So he wanted to stop his own people from leaving him and joining God's testimony. This happens again and again. Those who, like Baasha, still claim the true religion, though mixed with deadly errors, cannot bear a testimony near them that draws souls.
Asa's answer was to buy help. The stones of Ramah ended up in his own cities.
Ben Hadad agreed to be hired for the wealth Asa offered him, and so he attacked some cities of Israel... This did get Asa what he wanted, because Baasha had to give up the building of Ramah. Then Asa sent his people to take the building materials Baasha had collected at Ramah. He used them to build two other cities, Geba and Mizpah.
The result was real. It still settled nothing.
Baasha king of Israel builds Ramah to stop anyone going out or coming in to Asa king of Judah. But it was in vain. Ben-hadad, the king of Syria, listens to king Asa... Still, everything seems to go well for the moment, because God does not judge all at once.
Baasha stopped building. Asa lost something he could not buy back.
At first Asa's unfaithfulness seems to bear excellent fruit. Ben-hadad takes the silver and gold brought out of the house of the Lord, breaks his alliance with Baasha, and uses the moment to strike the cities of Ephraim. Baasha stops building Ramah, and Asa and his people carry its stones away to build fortresses against Israel. This path seems to have saved the king from a great disaster. But he loses all the blessing of a walk of faith, and he will soon give sad proof of it. Oh, how much happier he was when he felt he had no strength at all, and still stood against the countless army of Zerah!
Tirzah was the capital Baasha had chosen for himself. The choice says something about the man.
He was from the tribe of Issachar, and he had the family trait — an eye for whatever looked "pleasant." So he made the beautiful city of Tirzah his royal home during his reign. Some trace its name from ratzah, "pleasant." He may have known that God meant to cut off Jeroboam's family. Even so, his motive was not righteousness. He was no better than the men he murdered, and he kept walking in their sin.
So the loser goes home safe to a pleasant city.
Asa's success did not close the matter.
He got the object he wanted, and Baasha had to give up his plan. But God had watched it all. He sent Hanani to rebuke the king for what he had done. The LORD reminds him of the far greater army that had threatened him, and of the rescue He had worked... "For the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong on behalf of those whose heart is perfect toward Him." The Lord looks for faith, for confidence.
The pattern outlives Asa. Help bought from the world arrives, and then sends its bill.
God enters into alliance with us, and He wants us to break every alliance with the world, because the world stands judged. No one can belong to the world and to Jesus at the same time... If the church gives way to the world, the world often helps the church, but the church becomes the world's subject. There is no longer the sense of the almighty power of God.
- Fear built it. Baasha could not attack Asa, so he built Ramah to keep his own people from going south to where God was honoured.
- Fear answered it. Asa met the threat with money, not faith. He spent silver and gold from the house of the Lord to hire the king of Syria.
- Fear won. The stones came down and Baasha went home to pleasant Tirzah. Nothing looked wrong, because God does not judge all at once.
- Fear cost. Asa got the object he wanted and lost the blessing of faith. He had been happier facing a far bigger army with no strength at all.
- Faith sought. God's eyes range over the whole earth to show Himself strong for hearts that are wholly His. That is why Asa's victory ended in a rebuke.
And king Asa called together all Judah none was exempted; and they carried away the stones and the timber from Ramah, with which Baasha had been building; and king Asa built with them Geba of Benjamin, and Mizpah.
Asa calls out all Judah — no one exempt — to tear down Baasha's unfinished fortress at Ramah and carry off its stones and timber. It reads like a victory report, but Asa bought that victory from a foreign king instead of trusting God, which raises a hard question: what is such a win worth?
Baasha built Ramah to shut the road between the two kingdoms. One writer explains why he wanted that road closed:
Baasha had lost several of his cities. He built Ramah to cut off all contact from then on, "in order to let none go out or come in to Asa king of Judah." He could not attack Asa without putting himself in danger. So he wanted to stop his subjects from leaving him and joining God's testimony... This principle comes up again and again. People like Baasha still keep up a profession of true religion, though it is mixed with deadly errors. They cannot tolerate a testimony near them that attracts souls.
Asa did not win these stones in battle; he paid for them. One writer names what he paid with, and sees believers doing the same today:
When war threatened Asa from Baasha and Israel, Asa's faith sadly faltered... Why did Asa not simply bring this matter to the Lord in prayer? But he failed badly by enlisting the help of the Lord's enemies against his own brothers the Israelites. Not only this — he took the silver and gold left in the treasuries of the house of the Lord to pay for this help from Syria. God will not give His glory to another, but Asa in effect gave God's glory (the gold) to Ben Hadad! ... Too often in our day, believers use shocking means to fight other believers who have offended them. They also use things that belong to God — as Asa used the gold and silver from the house of the Lord — to reach their own selfish ends.
Asa got what he wanted. One writer weighs that gain against what it cost him:
At first Asa's unfaithfulness seems to bear excellent fruit. Ben-hadad accepts silver and gold brought out of the house of the Lord as tribute, breaks his alliance with Baasha... Baasha stops building Ramah; Asa and his people carry its stones away to build fortresses against Israel. By taking this path the king seems to have escaped a great disaster. But he loses all the blessing of a walk of faith, and he will soon give sad proof of it. Oh, how much happier he was when he felt himself to be without strength and yet stood against the countless army of Zerah!
Nothing in the verse looks like failure. That is the danger:
Very likely Asa thought he had made a wise move in what he did, for it worked out just as he planned. Many people will say that the end justifies the means, but this is far from the truth. At the judgment seat of Christ we may find that things which produced results that satisfied us were actually "wood, hay, straw." They will be burned up, because they were not the fruit of faith toward the Lord Jesus. Asa's lack of faith in this case did not honour God.
Another writer adds that Asa could have defeated Syria himself. Instead "he missed his opportunity," and the price was "wars to the end of his reign" (C Knapp).
The name Mizpah means watch-tower — a reminder of "the need for watchfulness against the enemy outside" (Hamilton Smith). Long after Asa died, the town he rebuilt became a refuge for the survivors of Judah:
Gedaliah lived at Mizpah, a strong city that Asa, king of Judah, had built with the stones of Ramah. Jeremiah went there. So did everyone from the surrounding regions who had escaped, along with the poor people who were left, all seeking Gedaliah's protection.
- Threat. Baasha walled off Ramah to stop his people crossing to Judah. The aim was to cut them off from God's testimony.
- Shortcut. Asa did not pray. He emptied the treasuries of the house of the Lord to hire Ben-hadad, handing God's gold to a foreign king to fight his own brothers.
- Stones. The building materials in this verse are the spoils of that bargain, reused for fortresses pointed back at Israel.
- Success. The plan worked just as Asa intended. That is the warning: results that satisfy us can still be "wood, hay, straw" at the judgment seat, if faith did not produce them.
- Loss. Asa escaped the crisis but lost the blessing of a walk of faith. He was happier facing Zerah's vast army with no strength of his own.
And the rest of all the acts of Asa, and all his might, and all that he did, and the cities that he built, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah? Only, in the time of his old age he was diseased in his feet.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
And Asa slept with his fathers, and was buried with his fathers in the city of David his father. And Jehoshaphat his son reigned in his stead.
Asa's reign ends with three plain facts: his death, his burial with the kings in the city of David, and his son Jehoshaphat on the throne. Behind that quiet summary lies a life that began bright and dimmed at the end. Commentators ask what God wants us to learn from the ending, and from the honour of his burial.
Scripture uses the phrase about sleeping with his fathers for good kings and bad kings alike. One writer warns against reading too much into it.
"Asa slept with his fathers" (v. 24) — the same words that are said of Jeroboam, of Rehoboam, and of so many others. It may be a special favour, for the opposite is said of certain wicked kings and of their descendants (compare 1 Kings 14:11). But this favour is far from showing that the Lord took pleasure in them. It does not show that beyond the grave they found the happiness their hearts had looked for in vain in the world. It is still the same everywhere here below. Sons are buried beside their fathers; they die what you might call a natural death, and that lets us draw no comforting conclusion about their eternal future.
The verse just before records the disease of Asa's old age. Commentators see where it struck as a picture of how he had been walking.
He was a relatively good king. Even so, his foot disease reminds us that his walk in his later years fell short. Sadly, 2 Chronicles 16:12 records that he did not seek the Lord about his disease, but the physicians. God does not object to physicians, for Luke was a "beloved physician" (Colossians 4:14). But to seek help from physicians, perhaps many of them, rather than from the Lord is a sad lack of faith. If a believer does need a physician, he should pray that the Lord will give that physician wisdom to treat his case.
Another writer turns the same picture into a question.
"You were running well. Who hindered you?" might be asked of many besides the Galatians and Asa. Important as a good beginning is, it is not all: we are called to run with endurance the race that is set before us. But when God's people become diseased in their feet, they stop running well. They may try one thing after another to recover — ritualism, revivalism, the union of churches, and so on. Every one of those is a "physician of no value." "Restore to me the joy of your salvation," wrote a notable backslider. It is the Lord who says through His prophet that He will heal their backsliding.
The same writer treats the illness as God's own dealing with a man dear to Him.
Asa is dear to God, and that is exactly why he himself becomes the object of God's discipline. Sad to say, this discipline did not produce fruit! He had lost communion with God. He had rejected His word. He was angry with the prophet and with those loyal to the prophet. So he falls into moral hardness: in his disease he did not seek the Lord, but the physicians. He turns what God sent to bring his heart closer into an excuse to move further away.
A detail in a much later book points back to where the trouble started.
Jeremiah 41:9 refers to a pit (or cistern) made by Asa "for fear of Baasha king of Israel." In this passing way, God uses this late and last note about king Asa to remind us how his decline began: the fear of man, which brings a snare.
The history records Asa's failures. God's own later words about him read differently.
Asa's history shows his weaknesses. Yet when God comments on his character, He gives no hint of them (2 Chronicles 20:32; 21:12). He loves to praise whatever is lovely in His servants' lives, and He exposes their failures and follies only when He must. May we in this, as in all things else, be "imitators of God" (Ephesians 5:1).
The verse does not end in darkness. The throne passes to Jehoshaphat.
The last days of Asa were evil, and the cloud hanging over Judah was darkening. Even so, there is a gleam of brightness during his son's reign. Under Jehoshaphat's rule the fear of the Lord fell on the surrounding nations. The Lord established his kingdom.
- Fear — the decline traces back to fear of a human enemy, remembered in a pit Asa dug long before he died.
- Feet — the disease that marked his old age matched a walk that had gone wrong; failing feet mean a race no longer run well.
- Physicians — seeing a doctor is not the fault. Going to doctors instead of the Lord is. Ask God to give the doctor wisdom.
- Discipline — the illness was God's dealing with a man dear to Him, meant to draw him back. Hardness turned the cure into an excuse to drift further.
- Grace — he still slept with his fathers, and God's later words about him name no failure. Then the throne passed to a son under whom brightness returned.
And Nadab the son of Jeroboam began to reign over Israel in the second year of Asa king of Judah; and he reigned over Israel two years.
Nadab takes the throne of the northern kingdom from his father Jeroboam, the king who led Israel into idol worship and away from the Lord. Scripture dates his reign by the years of Asa in Judah. It lasted only two years — long enough to show the man he was.
The verse tells us when Nadab reigned; the verse that follows tells us how. Commentators note that the record of his two years contains nothing else at all.
Nadab, the son of Jeroboam, reigned over the ten tribes of Israel only two years (v.25). He followed his father's example. He refused the Word of God and kept up the worship of idols, and so he made Israel sin as his father did (v.26). The record says nothing else about his two-year reign, so nothing in it stands to his credit.
He is also the first link in a chain that never breaks.
Nadab is the first of Jeroboam's 18 successors as kings of the northern kingdom of Israel. Every one of these kings did evil in God's sight. Each walked in the way of Jeroboam and in the sin he used to make Israel sin. What a sad, sad record!
Two years seem too short to judge a man. Yet the time God gave was enough to settle the question.
Nadab reigned over Israel two years. God gave him enough time to make plain whether he would follow his father Jeroboam's ways or follow the Lord. The judgment God pronounced on Jeroboam and his family fell on Nadab while he was leading his people in the siege of the Philistine city of Gibbethon.
Another writer points out why Nadab's reign appears at this spot in the chapter.
So as not to interrupt the account of Asa's reign, verse 17 mentioned Baasha's attack, though it came much later. The Word turns back in verse 25 and tells us of Nadab, the son of Jeroboam, who began to reign over Israel in the second year of Asa. His reign lasted two years. That short time was enough to prove his wickedness.
Nadab's name carries a sense that cuts against him. He was willing — but willing for the wrong thing.
So ended the first of the nine royal families that ruled (or misruled) the kingdom of Israel for two hundred and fifty years. Nadab's name means willing, and he seems to have been all too willing to keep up his wicked father's sin and pass it on. He is not once mentioned in the book of Chronicles.
Nadab's death at Gibbethon was more than a military coup. The prophet Ahijah had already said what would come on Jeroboam's family. Nadab's two years brought that word to its end.
His reign was cut short by a revolt. Baasha, of the house of Issachar, struck Nadab down at Gibbethon (Josh. 19:44; 21:23). Baasha then struck down the whole house of Jeroboam. This fulfilled what Ahijah, the prophet of Shiloh, had predicted, because of the sins Jeroboam committed and made Israel commit, provoking the LORD God of Israel to anger. God's predicted judgments never fail in the end.
The same chapter sets Judah beside Israel. Judah's kings also failed, yet the throne there was held together by a promise made to David.
"He walked," it is said, "in all the sins of his father, which he had done before him: and his heart was not perfect with the LORD his God, as the heart of David his father. Nevertheless for David's sake did the LORD his God give him a lamp in Jerusalem, to set up his son after him, and to establish Jerusalem: because David did that which was right in the eyes of the LORD." And God forgets it never.
Nadab's sin did not stop with himself. He pulled a whole nation into it, and that makes such sin heavier.
A person's sin becomes far more serious when it makes others stumble. Its results count against those who lead the ignorant and the unsettled along the path of their own disobedience.
Yet a father's record does not settle a son's. We can break the pattern, and there is a better one to copy.
We cannot excuse our own sin by blaming it on the pattern others set for us... But when we accepted Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, we became partakers of the divine nature, escaping the corruption that is in the world through sinful desire (2 Pet. 1:4). The Lord Jesus Himself is the perfect pattern for our lives.
- Pattern — Nadab walked his father's road, and the record of his reign holds nothing to his credit.
- Test — two years were enough time to show which road he would take.
- Willing — his name means willing, and he proved willing to carry his father's sin forward instead of ending it.
- Word — that road ended at Gibbethon, just as Ahijah had said it would. God's announced judgments arrive.
- Choice — an inherited road is no excuse. Christ Himself is the perfect pattern to follow instead.
And he did evil in the sight of Jehovah, and walked in the way of his father, and in his sin with which he made Israel sin.
Nadab took over the northern kingdom from his father Jeroboam. Scripture sums up his whole two-year reign in one line: he copied his father, including the sin that pulled a whole nation down.
Commentators notice an irony in his name:
Nadab's name means willing. He seems to have been all too willing to continue and pass on the sin of his wicked father.
He inherited more than a throne:
Nadab, the son of Jeroboam, reigned over the ten tribes of Israel only two years. He followed his father's example. He refused the Word of God and kept up the worship of idols, and so made Israel sin as his father did. The record says nothing else about his two-year reign, so there is no hint of anything that was a credit to him.
"His sin" points back to one act of Jeroboam's:
Jeroboam was worried about Jerusalem, God's centre. If the Israelites went there to offer sacrifices, they might want to return and accept the rule of Rehoboam. Jeroboam had no real faith in the living God. So, on the advice of his officers, he followed what seemed convenient. He set up not one centre for Israel's worship but two, and both of them stood against God's one centre. To do this he had two golden calves made, one set in Bethel in the south of the land, and the other in Dan in the north. Did he not know about God's judgment on Israel for making a golden calf while Moses was receiving the law at Mount Sinai?
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One writer names what that worship really was:
The godless Jeroboam dared to interfere with the divine order for his own selfish political ends, and set up his calves at Bethel and Dan. But the worship offered there went to demons and not to God.
The verse does not only say Nadab sinned. His sin was one "which he made Israel to sin," and that phrase becomes the verdict on the whole northern line:
Jeroboam was brave and hard-working, yet he turned the people away from God's appointed centre. Of those who followed him the record solemnly repeats that they "walked in the way of Jeroboam and in his sin which he made Israel to sin." But of David's successors who walked after his example, it says they walked in the ways of David and turned neither to the right hand nor to the left. The one who did not walk in God's statutes sinned himself and turned others out of the way. The one who walked in them turned nobody away from the established Centre, the place where the Lord had put His name.
Even a short reign gave time for a test:
Nadab reigned over Israel two years. God gave him enough time to make plain which way he would go: his father Jeroboam's ways, or the Lord's.
Nadab ran straight into a judgment already spoken against his family:
Baasha then destroyed all the house of Jeroboam. So the prediction of Ahijah, the prophet of Shiloh, came true: "because of the sins of Jeroboam which he sinned, and which he made Israel sin, and because he provoked the LORD God of Israel to anger." God's predicted judgments never fail in the end.
The question turns to us:
What pattern do we set for our children? For others at our place of employment? For the next generation? For whoever comes after us? Just as water by nature runs downhill, so it is easier and more natural to set a bad example than a good one.
Yet a bad example is not the last word:
However, we cannot excuse our sin by blaming it on the pattern that has been set for us... But when we accepted Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord, we were made "partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire." The Lord Jesus Himself is the perfect pattern for our lives.
- Willing — His name means "willing." He proved willing for the wrong thing: he carried on his father's sin instead of turning from it.
- Way — Jeroboam's sin was the calves at Bethel and Dan. Fear and convenience set up two rival centres against God's one appointed place.
- Wider — The verdict is not "he sinned" but "he made Israel to sin." A leader out of step turns others out of the way, and that verdict follows every king of the northern line.
- Window — Two years were enough. God gave him time to show whether he would follow his father or follow the Lord.
- Word — Ahijah's prophecy against Jeroboam's house came true. God's predicted judgments never fail in the end.
And Baasha the son of Ahijah, of the house of Issachar, conspired against him; and Baasha smote him at Gibbethon, which [belonged] to the Philistines, when Nadab and all Israel were besieging Gibbethon.
Nadab, son of Jeroboam, is two years into his reign. He is camped outside a Philistine-held town when one of his own men turns on him. It looks like ordinary political violence. Commentators ask a harder question: whose word came true at Gibbethon?
Gibbethon was not neutral ground. Nadab died trying to take it back.
Gibbethon was a town in Dan, allotted to the Levites of the family of Korah (Joshua 19:44; 21:23). It bordered on Philistine land, and the Philistines probably seized it when the Levites moved away to Judah. The name means "lofty place". Nadab was trying to win it back for the crown when he was killed by treachery.
Baasha was not an enemy outside the walls.
Another man, Baasha, of the tribe of Issachar, conspired against Nadab. He killed him at Gibbethon, a Philistine city that Nadab was besieging (v.27). Baasha was on the side of the besiegers, but used the occasion to murder his own king! Then he took Nadab's place as king. In all of this the weakness of the people of Israel is apparent. They accept the authority of a murderer. Perhaps they thought his authority was better than Nadab's, but both men were rebellious against the authority of God.
The people raise no objection, and that is the deeper failure here.
Two years is a short reign. It was still long enough to settle the question about him.
The Word turns back in verse 25 and tells us of Nadab, the son of Jeroboam. He began to reign over Israel in the second year of Asa. His reign lasted two years; this short period of time was enough to prove his iniquity. The Lord fulfils His word against Jeroboam in his son and all his family (cf. 1 Kings 14:14).
His death ended more than his own reign, and his name carries an irony.
So ended the first of the nine dynasties that ruled, or misruled, the kingdom of Israel for two hundred and fifty years. Nadab's name means willing. He seems to have been too willing to continue his wicked father's sin and pass it on.
Ahijah had spoken against Jeroboam's house long before this. The word looked forgotten. Then Nadab's death outside Gibbethon settled the account.
Baasha, of the house of Issachar, rose up and cut his reign short. He struck down Nadab at Gibbethon (Josh. 19:44; 21:23). Baasha then struck down all the house of Jeroboam. So the prediction of Ahijah, the prophet of Shiloh, came true. God's predicted judgments never fail in the end. He carried out every judgment He threatened against Israel. One day He will do the same with the judgments written against our own age, this evil age.
Being used by God is not the same as pleasing Him. The instruments of His anger came under judgment themselves.
God might use Jeroboam to discipline Solomon and his house. He might use the kings of Assyria to discipline Jeroboam's subjects. He might use Nebuchadnezzar to discipline Judah and its kings. But God was obliged to judge each of them in turn. These rods of His anger (Isa. 10:5) were no more faithful to God than the people He used them against.
Baasha is the clearest case. He destroyed one house, then went the same way himself.
The Lord had said through the prophet Ahijah that Jeroboam's descendants would be completely destroyed, because of his wickedness. But Baasha was no better, and his own descendants fell under the same judgement.
Step back from one murder to the whole period.
This whole account is filled with wars and cruelty. It follows Solomon's reign of peace, which ended so quickly because the king and his people were unfaithful... This is one of the main symptoms of decline. War is declared, relentless war between people of the same race.
- Sin sown. Jeroboam's wickedness is the root. Everything at Gibbethon is its harvest.
- Word spoken. Ahijah announced the end of Jeroboam's house long before. Nadab's death is that word coming due, not politics running its course.
- Willing wrongly. Nadab's name means willing, and two years were enough to show what he was willing to continue.
- Rod used. God can use a murderer to carry out His word. He still judges that murderer, whose own line fell the same way.
- Judgment certain. Delay is not cancellation. God's predicted judgments never fail, including those written against our own age.
And Baasha slew him in the third year of Asa king of Judah, and reigned in his stead.
Nadab, son of Jeroboam, had reigned over Israel only two years when one of his own soldiers killed him and took his throne. Behind that murder stood a judgment God had already passed on Jeroboam's family.
Two years on the throne was a test, and Nadab failed it.
Nadab reigned over Israel two years. God gave him enough time to make plain whether he would follow his father Jeroboam's ways or follow the Lord. God had pronounced judgment on Jeroboam and his family. That judgment fell on Nadab while he led his people in the siege of the Philistine city Gibbethon.
Nadab's death ends the first ruling family of Israel, and his name matched his choices.
So ended the first of the nine dynasties that ruled — or misruled — the kingdom of Israel for two hundred and fifty years. Nadab's name means willing. He seems to have been all too willing to continue his wicked father's sin and to pass it on. He is not mentioned once in the book of Chronicles.
Nadab died at a place with its own sad history — a town meant for God's servants that had slipped into enemy hands.
Jeroboam and his sons had thrown out the priesthood God had appointed, and stopped them from serving the Lord as priests. So Nadab followed in his father's ways, but God did not allow him to continue long in his wickedness... Gibbethon was a town in Dan, allotted to the Levites of the family of Korah. It bordered on the land of the Philistines, and the Philistines probably seized it when the Levites moved to Judah. The name means lofty place. Nadab was trying to win the town back for the crown when Baasha killed him by treachery. But this happened in fulfilment of the prophecy of Ahijah.
The same deed can be a crime in the man's hand and a fulfilment in God's.
Baasha made sure that none of Jeroboam's descendants would challenge him. He killed them all. On his part this was vicious cruelty. Yet by killing them he fulfilled the Word of the Lord spoken by Ahijah the prophet. Ahijah had given the message of judgment to Jeroboam's wife, for her to pass on to Jeroboam.
Baasha ends the verse on the throne he stole. The people around him are the other half of the story.
Another man, Baasha, of the tribe of Issachar, conspired against Nadab. He killed him at Gibbethon, a Philistine city that Nadab was besieging. Baasha was on the side of the besiegers, but used the occasion to murder his own king! Then he took Nadab's place as king. In all of this the weakness of the people of Israel is clear. They accept the authority of a murderer. Perhaps they thought his authority was better than Nadab's. But both men were in rebellion against the authority of God.
Baasha wiped out one royal line and started another. His own ended the same way.
He conspired against Nadab king of Israel, killed him and all the royal family, and reigned in his place... The word of the Lord through the prophet Ahijah had said that every descendant of Jeroboam would be destroyed, because of his wickedness. But Baasha was no better, and his own descendants fell under a similar judgment.
What God says He will do, He does — and the principle reaches past Israel.
Baasha then struck down all the house of Jeroboam. So he fulfilled the prediction of Ahijah, the prophet of Shiloh. This judgment came because of the sins Jeroboam committed and led Israel into, provoking the LORD God of Israel to anger. God's predicted judgments never fail in the end. Judgments stand written against our own age, this evil age. The Lord will one day carry them out, just as He carried out every judgment He had threatened against Israel.
- Word spoken. Ahijah had already told Jeroboam's family what was coming; verse 28 is the date that word came due.
- Word tested. God gave Nadab two years — enough time to show whether he would turn to the Lord or walk in his father's way.
- Word fulfilled. Baasha's act was vicious cruelty on his part, and at the same time it carried out what God had said.
- Word repeated. Baasha was no better than the house he destroyed, and his own descendants fell under a similar judgment.
- Word certain. God's predicted judgments never fail in the end — including those written against our own age.
And it came to pass when he was king, he smote all the house of Jeroboam; he left to Jeroboam none that breathed; until he had destroyed him, according to the word of Jehovah which he spoke by his servant Ahijah the Shilonite,
Baasha seizes the throne of Israel and wipes out every descendant of Jeroboam. It looks like ordinary palace violence, but Ahijah had announced this sentence years earlier — so how can a murderer's ambition carry out God's own word?
Ahijah spoke this word long before Baasha acted, and the years in between weakened nothing. What God said would happen, happened — and judgments still ahead work the same way:
Baasha then struck down all the house of Jeroboam. This fulfilled the prediction of Ahijah, the prophet of Shiloh. God's predicted judgments never fail in the end. One day the Lord will carry out the judgments written against our own age, this evil age, just as He carried out every judgment He threatened against Israel.
Behind the slaughter lies a charge: Jeroboam sinned, and he made Israel sin. Scripture will not let his name stand without that line attached.
Jeroboam stands out in the Old Testament as the great division maker. Under him the great mass of God's people, ten of the twelve tribes, broke away from God's centre at that time. Like a death knell, the words the Spirit uses to mark out this man come again and again: "Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin."
The same phrase follows king after king. Making others sin carries a weight of its own:
A person's sin becomes much more serious when it turns into a stumbling block for others. Those who drag the ignorant and the unsteady into their own disobedience must answer for its consequences.
The verse says Baasha left "not one that breathed." He wiped out the family to secure his own throne, and the same act carried out what God had said.
Baasha made sure that none of Jeroboam's descendants would challenge him. He killed them all. On his part this was vicious cruelty. Yet in killing them he fulfilled the Word of the Lord spoken through Ahijah the prophet (v.29). Ahijah had given the message of judgment to Jeroboam's wife (ch.14:10-11) to carry to Jeroboam.
Carrying out God's word changed nothing in Baasha himself.
He may have known something of God's purpose to cut off Jeroboam's house. Even so, his motive was not righteousness, as Jehu's was later. He was no better than the men he murdered, and he went on walking in their sin.
Later, God passed sentence on Baasha's own house. The killing that carried out God's word still counted against the man who did it:
One more verse is added, to emphasise that God judged Baasha and his family because of his idolatries and his murder of the house of Jeroboam. God, who looks on the heart, sees him only as an assassin serving his own ambitious designs, killing king Nadab and the entire house of Jeroboam.
Baasha was not a special case. God has often put power in guilty hands to discipline others:
God might use Jeroboam to discipline Solomon and his house. He might use the kings of Assyria to discipline Jeroboam's subjects. He might use Nebuchadnezzar to discipline Judah and its kings. But God had to judge every one of them in turn. These rods of His anger (Isaiah 10:5) were no more faithful to God than the people He used them against.
- Word spoken. Ahijah named the end of Jeroboam's house long before Baasha rose. The sentence stood on record, waiting.
- Word delayed. The quiet years changed nothing. God's predicted judgments never fail, including those written against our own age.
- Word fulfilled. Baasha's massacre was vicious cruelty. It also carried out the prophecy. Both are true at once.
- Word returned. God looks on the heart. He saw an assassin serving his own ambition, and He judged Baasha's house for the same killing.
- Word to us. Jeroboam is remembered for making Israel sin, not just for his own sin. Guilt grows heavier when your sin becomes a stumbling block for others.
because of the sins of Jeroboam which he sinned, and wherewith he made Israel to sin; by his provocation with which he provoked Jehovah the God of Israel to anger.
Baasha had just wiped out Jeroboam's whole family. This verse stops to say why: two charges stand against Jeroboam — what he did himself, and what he drew Israel into — and together they provoked God to anger.
The verse looks back. Baasha's move looks like a soldier's power grab. In fact it carried out a sentence God had already announced through the prophet Ahijah.
Baasha made sure that none of Jeroboam's descendants would challenge him. He killed them all. On his part this was vicious cruelty. But by killing them he fulfilled the word of the Lord spoken through Ahijah the prophet (v.29). Ahijah had given the message of judgment to Jeroboam's wife (ch.14:10-11) to pass on to Jeroboam. Verse 30 is a reminder that this judgment was because of Jeroboam's many sins by which he made Israel sin, provoking the Lord God of Israel to anger.
It is the second charge — that he made Israel sin — which follows Jeroboam through the rest of the Bible.
Jeroboam stands out in the Old Testament as the great division maker. Under him the great mass of God's people, ten of the twelve tribes, broke away from God's centre at that time. Like a death knell, the Spirit describes this man again and again with the same sad words: "Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin." One chapter alone repeats it four times (2 Kings 15:9, 18, 24, 28). There is something appalling about it. This special way of speaking marks out how terrible this man's sin is in God's sight. Every true heart feels how awful it is. Personal sins are bad enough, but to turn away God's people from the centre which He has set up — what could be worse?
His name became a byword for the worst kind of evil.
Scripture charges Jeroboam with doing evil above all who had been before him, and his doings became a proverb. For Israel to sin "as Jeroboam the son of Nebat" was a mark of complete wickedness.
Jeroboam's new worship came from human advice, and people still defend the same thing today.
Instead of asking God, Jeroboam "took counsel," clearly from men, and the result was the setting up of the two golden calves, one at Dan in the far north, and the other at Bethel. Some argue that Jeroboam was really worshipping the Lord, but with the help of visible images. People urge this today to excuse blatant idolatry. The Bible does not support this. It says plainly: "Then this thing became a sin." God does not need an image to enable men to worship Him. In fact, Scripture condemns the very idea from start to finish.
Killing his family did not end the damage. What one man started became the settled pattern of a nation.
What Jeroboam introduced was a lasting dishonour to the Lord until He removed Israel from the land. Eighteen kings sat on Israel's throne after Jeroboam. Of almost every one the record says the same thing: he followed, or did not turn from, the ways of Jeroboam, who made Israel to sin.
Scripture ties responsibility to position. That is why Jeroboam answers not only for what he did, but for whom he took with him.
Position and privilege increase responsibility. If a priest or a ruler sinned, he had to bring a larger sacrifice than one of the common people (Leviticus 4)... Whenever leaders go astray, the results are more serious. Leaders have more influence, both for good and for evil... A private Christian who falls into error or immorality influences only his own circle. But if a well-known teacher in the Church leaves the way of truth, he often draws thousands after him into his own evil path.
Baasha carried out the sentence. That gave him no protection. He went on to repeat the very sin he had punished.
Baasha was God's instrument of judgment to wipe out the house of Jeroboam. Now he had to face the same judgment he had handed out. It is easy, we find, to condemn others and deal harshly with them for their sins. How solemn when we then go ahead and repeat the same sins ourselves! This is no trifling matter before God.
- Sinned. Jeroboam's own idolatry was real sin, not a harmless shortcut. Scripture refuses the excuse that images just help people worship the true God.
- Spread. The charge that follows him through the whole record is that he made Israel sin, turning God's people away from the centre God had set up.
- Provoked. Both charges together stirred God's anger, and the verse gives them as the reason his family fell.
- Outlived. The sin outlasted the sinner. Eighteen later kings walked in his way, and in the end God removed the nation from the land.
- Repeated. Baasha carried out the sentence, then copied the sin and came under the same judgment. Condemning another man's sin is no protection against doing it.
And the rest of the acts of Nadab, and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel?
Nadab ruled Israel for two years, and the record of his reign closes with a question asked over king after king. Two things are worth asking here. What was that book of records? And why does Scripture say so little about a king's life and so much about his sin?
Nadab was the son of Jeroboam. His father's family was the first royal line of Israel, and it ended with Nadab. One writer marks how little the inspired record says about him.
So ended the first of the nine dynasties that for two hundred and fifty years ruled (or misruled) the kingdom of Israel. Nadab's name means willing, and he seems to have been too willing to continue and carry on the sin of his wicked father. He is not mentioned even once in the book of Chronicles… The inspired record of his uninteresting reign ends with the usual formula used in Kings.
Two years is a short reign. One writer says God measured that time out for a purpose.
Nadab reigned over Israel two years. God gave him enough time to make plain whether he would follow his father Jeroboam's ways or whether he would follow the Lord.
A second writer names who ended that reign, and points back to a word already spoken:
The Lord's word against Jeroboam is fulfilled concerning his son and all his family… Baasha conspires against him. He strikes him and kills him at Gibbethon. Then he reigns in his place, in the third year of Asa, king of Judah.
The book named here is not the Bible's own books of Chronicles. It was a state register, and it no longer exists.
These chronicles were drawn up during the reigns of all the rulers of those times, whether Jewish or Gentile. They have nothing to do with the Word of God. There you find what it has not pleased the Lord to record or to explain. These chronicles have been lost. The believer has no need of any of them; he has God's Word. There in God's account he finds all that is necessary for him, as well as the divine estimate of people, events, and things. Writings that are not inspired may record deeds, and even record them very accurately. But such deeds never carry more than human judgment.
The same writer weighs what has been lost against what stands:
While they still existed, they testified to the divine character of this Word and to the reality of the facts recorded in it. Now that they have disappeared, they have no other witness than the mention of them in the sacred writings. These things fell into ruin and vanished. The Word of God remains — the only monument, the only document that cannot be shaken.
Kings points back to such registers again and again. One writer shows that Chronicles works from other papers.
These two interesting books differ in another clear way. Their writers got their material from different sources. In Kings it is always plainly taken from state records: "the book of the acts of Solomon" (1 Kings 11:41), "the book of the Chronicles of the kings of Judah" (1 Kings 14:29), "the book of the Chronicles of the kings of Israel" (1 Kings 14:19), and so on. Chronicles takes in more of the writings of particular people, or selections from them — "Samuel the seer," "Nathan the prophet," "Gad the seer," "the prophecy of Ahijah the Shilonite," "the visions of Iddo the seer."
One writer meets this same closing question elsewhere in Kings, and answers it:
Yes, and they, along with the wicked acts recorded here, are written in God's books above — not merely in "the chronicles of the kings of Israel," but in the record of the deeds and doings of every man's life, whether good or evil. Solemn facts for us all!
- Recorded — Nadab's other acts went into Israel's royal registers, papers kept by the state. The Bible's books of Chronicles never mention him.
- Lost — those registers have vanished. The Word of God stands as the one document that cannot be shaken. The believer needs nothing else.
- Selected — Kings draws on state records. Chronicles draws on the writings of prophets and seers. What Scripture leaves out, God chose to leave out.
- Weighed — human records can be accurate, yet they carry only human judgment. God's account gives His own estimate of people and events.
- Remembered — two years were enough to show which way Nadab would go. His deeds stand written in God's books above, as every life's deeds do.
And there was war between Asa and Baasha king of Israel all their days.
The chapter has already said this once about the same two kings (v. 16), and now it closes with the same words. Two parts of one nation, brothers by blood, spent their whole reigns at war with each other.
This war did not start with Asa. One writer lines up the earlier verses that say the same thing.
This whole account is full of wars and cruelty. It follows Solomon's reign of peace, which ended so quickly because the king and his people were unfaithful. "And there had been war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam all the days of his life" (v. 6). "And there was war between Asa and Baasha king of Israel all their days" (v. 16), and verse 32 repeats the very same thing. This is one of the principal symptoms of decline.
The same writer says who kept the fighting going, and why.
War is declared, relentless war between people of the same race... The kings of Israel are the ones who start the fighting, for they feel their position threatened by God's testimony being kept up in Judah. A nation which has turned to idols after having known the true God cannot bear God's testimony so near by. It hates this and wages desperate war against it.
The tragedy is not that Judah had enemies. It is who the enemy was.
War between Asa and Baasha (Judah and Israel) is a sad testimony to the weakness of both peoples, for they were brothers (v. 32). Why was their time not spent rather in fighting the common enemies of Israel?
Baasha's building project shows what he feared most: not Judah's army, but Judah's appeal.
He made a treaty with Ben-hadad king of Syria. He built, or fortified, Ramah on his southern border. He wanted, if possible, to stop the flow of his subjects to Judah, where the prosperity under Asa was drawing them.
Asa met the pressure by hiring outside help, paid for from God's house.
Why did Asa not simply commit this matter to the Lord in prayer? But he failed badly by enlisting the help of the Lord's enemies against his own brothers the Israelites. Nor only this, for he took the silver and gold that was left in the treasuries of the house of the Lord to pay for this help of Syria (v. 18). God will not give His glory to another (Isaiah 42:8), but Asa in effect gave God's glory — the gold — to Ben-hadad!... Instead of making a treaty with Syria, how much better it would have been for Asa to seek the restoration of Israel!
God sent the prophet Hanani to Asa. What he said explains the "all their days" of this verse.
The alliance looked like a success. Even so, Hanani tells the king that from then on he would have wars — not the rest he had hoped for from his alliance with the world. Pious Asa, angered at the divine reproof, sets himself against the Lord by throwing His prophet into prison!
Another writer measures the failure against what Asa had already seen God do.
It is difficult to account for this sudden collapse in Asa's faith. Not long before, with God's help, he had wiped out the immense army of Zerah the Ethiopian. Now he faces an enemy not half so strong, his faith fails, and he leans on human strength for deliverance. It was the beginning of Asa's downfall. He did get the deliverance he wanted... but it cost him the rebuke of God and wars to the end of his reign.
Writers apply this to divisions among God's people today.
Do we not find the same thing among God's people today? Our unfaithfulness has brought division among God's people. Instead of standing together against the common enemy, God's people are so often busy opposing each other. Instead of fighting with brothers, we should listen to God's word to Rehoboam when the division happened: "You shall not go up or fight against your relatives the people of Israel... for this thing is from me" (1 Kings 12:24).
The ban on fighting was not a ban on seeking peace.
God did not forbid His people to seek a righteous way of reconciliation, to find out why the break had happened, or to confess their failure together. But He did forbid them to fight with their brothers... Where there has been general failure, it is better to drop the sword and for all to go to their knees.
- Repeated: The chapter records this war twice. Writers read the repeat as a mark of decline.
- Brothers: Judah and Israel were brothers. Every blow spent on each other was a blow not spent on Israel's real enemies.
- Borrowed: Asa bought Syrian help with gold from the Lord's house. He turned the world's strength against his own brothers.
- Prolonged: Hanani's word explains the "all their days". One quick success cost Asa lifelong war, and he jailed the prophet instead of repenting.
- Applied: When God's people divide, the call is not to win the fight. It is to lay down the sword, confess the failure, and seek restoration.
In the third year of Asa king of Judah began Baasha the son of Ahijah to reign over all Israel in Tirzah, for twenty-four years.
This verse opens a fresh line of kings in the northern kingdom of Israel, and Baasha holds the throne for twenty-four years. A new king raises an obvious hope — and the next verse answers it.
Baasha had wiped out the family of Jeroboam, the first king of the ten northern tribes. Coming to power over that wreckage, he had every reason to break with the past.
A new dynasty had begun, and the history of the one before him was sad. One might hope that Baasha would take a different course and turn to the LORD. Sadly, we read: "And he did evil in the sight of the LORD, and walked in the way of Jeroboam, and in the sin by which he made Israel sin."
Baasha of all people should have learned from Jeroboam's fall.
He sinned as Jeroboam did. Yet he had been the one who carried out God's judgment on the descendants of the wicked king. He had not heard the LORD's voice speaking in the events of the past. Now the fate of Jeroboam's house would fall on his own house too. Such is divine justice.
Baasha took the crown by murder, but God's message to him told the story differently.
The history records that Baasha had murdered his master to take his place as king. Yet God tells Baasha that He had lifted him out of the dust to make him ruler over Israel. We may be sure Baasha had not considered God at all in taking the kingdom. But now he must face this: God had given him the place of rule, so God required something of him. But Baasha had walked in the same way Jeroboam had walked — the man whose descendants he killed.
His low beginnings were no cure for what he was, and commentators read his very name as a description of his rule.
"Out of the dust" implies his lowly origin. How often do revolutionaries think this way! The ruler they hate is of noble birth or royal line, so the cure must be to put one of their own class in power. And how soon they learn that "a servant when he rules" is the very worst kind of tyrant known. No, it is not a question of natural birth, high or low, but of new birth and "ruling in the fear of God"... Baasha was of common stock, yet his name, he who lays waste, tells only too accurately what kind of ruler he proved to be.
Baasha's choice of Tirzah as his capital fits both his tribe and the meaning of the city's name.
He was of Issachar, and had the tribal trait — an eye for what appeared "pleasant" (Gen. 49:15). So he made beautiful Tirzah the royal residence during his reign. Some trace the name to ratzah, "pleasant" (see Song of Solomon 6:4). He may have known something of God's purpose in cutting off Jeroboam's house. Even so, his motive was not righteousness. He was no better than those he murdered, and he went on walking in their sin.
In the Song of Solomon the bridegroom praises his bride by naming two cities.
He says she is beautiful as "Tirzah, lovely as Jerusalem." Tirzah signifies pleasantness. It was the royal residence of the kings of Israel before Samaria was built, as Jerusalem was of the king of Judah... Tirzah was the capital of the revolted tribes. But the two kingdoms, Israel and Judah, shall be united under one Head in the coming day of glory, to be separated no more for ever.
The length of the reign is not a small detail. It measures how long God waited.
Despite the evil life of Baasha, the LORD allowed him to reign 24 years (v.33). So he was given much time to repent and change his ways, but he followed the ways of Jeroboam who made Israel sin (v.34).
Israel's kings kept turning away from God. That did not end God's dealings with the nation.
Israel had turned away from the LORD. But the LORD did not write them off. Though rebellious and wayward, they were still His people. Many years later He uses the prophet Hosea to express His feelings. In a touching way He describes His dealings with them. "How can I give you up, O Ephraim? How can I hand you over, O Israel?" He laments (Hosea 11:8)... Again and again He had been provoked to anger by His people's sins. Yet they were His people. He still loved them.
- Given a throne — Baasha seized power by murder. But God's word said He had lifted him out of the dust. The place of rule was a gift, and it carried a demand.
- Given a capital — he settled in Tirzah, the "pleasant" city. His own name means he who lays waste. The throne was beautiful; the reign was not.
- Given time — twenty-four years of reign were twenty-four years of room to repent.
- Given nothing back — he carried out God's judgment on Jeroboam's house, then walked in Jeroboam's way. A new dynasty did not produce a new heart.
- Given love anyway — Israel stayed God's people. He still loved them, and He still spoke to them through His prophet Hosea.