Chapter 16
God is angry at Baasha, and pronounces the same curse on Baasha's house as the one that was on Jeroboam's house. It is interesting here that it was Baasha, who was not of Jeroboam's lineage at all, that carried out God's curse on Jeroboam's house. Now he will reap what he sowed, even though what he did was at God's command. One other thing. In verse 2, God says he lifted Baasha out of the dust and made him leader over Israel. So even though Baasha's coup was against God's appointed, it was also God who appointed Baasha, and ordained the events that followed. As it says in Ecclesiastes and in several Proverbs, who can know what will happen in a man's life, and indeed, very often I fear we can't even recognize that all things work to make God's plans come to fruition. Whether we have a single clue or insight in any of what goes on. Eat, drink, and be merry takes on a new dimension.
Baasha dies and is buried with his fathers. The dogs do not eat him. His son Elah reigns in his place.
2021 - This curse was the same as Jeroboam's. The Kings died and were buried, but all their descendants and friends - the males - were murdered by their successor and left to rot in the streets and roads. This seems so misplaced to me. Why didn't the kings who were causing all this receive the ignominious end, and their followers the lesser punishment? Maybe it goes back to David refusing to kill the Lord's anointed even when he could? Jeroboam was chosen to rule the north, and anointed by a prophet. Baasha was also raised up. In some respects, both these men started according to God's command, but neither continued in God's service. Both came to depend only on themselves, and to worship false gods, and to turn the people further and further away from God. But they died king's deaths and received king's burials. And then their names - their complete progeny - were wiped off the earth. In that day, it was more ignoble to leave no heirs than to suffer yourself. Today, we don't really see it that way. We worry about ourselves, not the future that we're leaving the world.
Referencing back to the first paragraph, there is this long verse:
7 Moreover, the word of the LORD came by the prophet Jehu the son of Hanani against Baasha and his house, both because of all the evil that he did in the sight of the LORD, provoking him to anger with the work of his hands, in being like the house of Jeroboam, and also because he destroyed it. [1Ki 16:7 ESV]
Though Baasha's destruction of the house of Jeroboam was a fulfillment of God's curse on Jeroboam, Baasha did not do it for God. Baasha did it for himself, and this was a sin. His arrogance in destroying God's anointed was sin enough, but he also led Israel astray in the very same way that Jeroboam had. He knew the fate of Jeroboam and his family because he had caused it himself...then repeated the error that destroyed Jeroboam and his whole house.
2021 - Here's something I hadn't thought about...Zimri only reigned 7 days, and in that short time, wiped out all of Baasha's descendants and his male friends. A very bloody, cruel, and harsh 7 days indeed. Zimri's red week.
So Elah reigns for only two years. As Elah is getting drunk one night, Zimri, who is commander of half the chariots of Elah - so he is military - comes in and kills Elah, and then rules in his place. This is two coups in a row in Israel, ascension is not from father to son, or even within a reigning family. The office of King is going to whomever is big enough to take it. A very chaotic and upsetting way to run a country. Lawlessness likely abounded throughout, since the kings were busy preserving their positions and not looking after their subjects. There is no traditional succession going on in the north at all. Once Zimri is King, he kills every male of the house of Baasha, fulfilling this curse once again. And Zimri is no more innocent in it than Baasha was. Zimri not only kills all Baasha's male descendants, he kills all of his male friends. What a terrible place Israel must have been when the men they looked to for justice were doing things like this.
Zimri only reigns for seven days. In the army, which was again attacking Gibbethon, they declare the commander of the army, Omri, to be King over Israel. Omri marches on Tirzah, where Zimri is, and when Zimri sees that the city has fallen, he goes into the Kings house and burns it down around him, dying in the fire. So a third coup, and now Israel is in military hands for the second time. There is still controversy, and half of Israel wants Tibni to be king, not Omri. Omri's fans win out. Omri reigns twelve years. Six in Tirzah, the rest in a city he builds and names Samaria, after the man he bought the land from.
Omri was an evil king, more evil than any who had come before him. So Israel is getting worse and worse. Omri dies, and Ahab reigns in his place. This time, it is the King's own son who succeeds him. Ahab reigns 22 years. Further, as if the idol worship and such is not enough, Ahab marries Jezebel, the daughter of Ethbaal king of the Sidonians. She worshiped Baal, so Ahab does the same. Ahab sets the new record for most evil King of Israel. These verses:
32 He erected an altar for Baal in the house of Baal, which he built in Samaria. 33 And Ahab made an Asherah. Ahab did more to provoke the LORD, the God of Israel, to anger than all the kings of Israel who were before him. [1Ki 16:32-33 ESV]
This next verse is pretty interesting also:
34 In his days Hiel of Bethel built Jericho. He laid its foundation at the cost of Abiram his firstborn, and set up its gates at the cost of his youngest son Segub, according to the word of the LORD, which he spoke by Joshua the son of Nun. [1Ki 16:34 ESV]
God had forbidden the reconstruction of Jericho, since God himself had destroyed it. But Joshua predicted it would be rebuilt by a man and his sons. The wording above indicates that the two sons - Hiel's heirs - died in the reconstruction. In context, I would have thought it meant that Hiel sacrificed them to his god to bless the reconstruction. But MSB does not indicate that this was the case. Here is the curse Joshua pronounced:
26 Joshua laid an oath on them at that time, saying, "Cursed before the LORD be the man who rises up and rebuilds this city, Jericho. "At the cost of his firstborn shall he lay its foundation, and at the cost of his youngest son shall he set up its gates." [Jos 6:26 ESV]
2024 - So at this point, Israel, the Northern Kingdom, has had exactly zero God-fearing, God-following Kings. It was wrenched away from Rehoboam at Solomon's death and sank immediately and progressively into sin, evil, and idol worship. As Ahab becomes King, things go to the worst situation yet, as Ahab excels all his predecessors in evil.