- 105-
CHAPTER 13 : Reign of Nadab — his murder by Baasha — war between
Judah and Israel — Baasha’s alliance with Syria — Asa gains over Ben-
Hadad — prophetic message to Asa — resentment of the king — Asa’s
religious decline — death of Asa, death of Baasha, reign of Elah — his
murder by Zimri — Omri dethrones Zimri —war between Omri and Tibni
— rebuilding of Samaria. 1 KINGS 15:16-16:28; 2 CHRONICLES 16
WHILE these things were going on in Judah, the judgment, which the LORD had,
through Ahijah, pronounced upon Jeroboam and his house, was rapidly preparing.
After an apparently uneventful reign of only two years, Nadab, the son and successor
of Jeroboam, was murdered while engaged in the siege of Gibbethon (the Gabatha and
Gabothane of Josephus). This border-city, on the edge of the plain of Esdraelon (not
many miles southwest of Nazareth, and originally in the possession of Dan, Joshua
19:44), must have been of great importance as a defense against incursions from the
west - to judge from the circumstance that not only Nadab but his successors sought,
although in vain, to wrest it from the Philistines (comp. 1 Kings 16:15). No other event
in the reign of Nadab is recorded.
"He walked in the way of his father, and in his sin," and sudden destruction overtook
him. Baasha - probably the leader of a military revolution - murdered him, and usurped
his throne. The first measure of the new king was, in true Oriental fashion, to kill the
whole family of his predecessor. Although the judgment of God upon Jeroboam and
his house, as announced by the prophet, was thus fulfilled, it must not for a moment be
thought that the foul deed of Baasha was thereby lessened in guilt. On the contrary,
Holy Scripture expressly marks this crime as one of the grounds of Baasha's later
judgments (1 Kings 16:7). It is perhaps not easy, and yet it is of supreme importance
for the understanding of the Old Testament, to distinguish in these events the action of
man from the overruling direction of God. Thus when, after his accession, the prophet
Jehu, the son of Hanani,^262 was commissioned to denounce the sin, and to announce
the judgment of Baasha, these two points were clearly put forward in his message. The
sin of Baasha in the murder of Jeroboam's house, and the fact that his exaltation was
due to the LORD (1 Kings 16:7; comp. ver. 2).^263
Baasha had sprung from a tribe wholly undistinguished by warlike achievements,^264
and from a family apparently ignoble and unknown (1 Kings 16:2). His only claim to
the crown lay in his military prowess, which the neighboring kingdom of Judah was
soon to experience.
Under his reign the state of chronic warfare between the two countries once more
changed into one of active hostility. From the concordant accounts in the Books of
Kings and Chronicles (1 Kings 15:16-22; 2 Chronicles 16:1-6), we gather what was
(^)