Chapter Fifteen

1–8. The reign of Abijah of Judah. 9–24. The reign of Asa. 25–34. The kings of Israel: Nadab and Baasha.

1 Kings 15:1. In the eighteenth year of the reign of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, Abijah became king over Judah. 1 Kings 15:2. He reigned three years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Maacah, the daughter of Absalom. In v. 1, 7–8 the name of Abijah according to the Hebrew Massoretic text is read: Abijam (according to Gesenius, in the sense of common noun—vir maritimus), Vulg.: Abiam; meanwhile in (2 Chr 13:1) Slavonic: “Abijah,” in the LXX; in (1 Kgs 15:1) ´Αβιού, and in (2 Chr 13:1) ´Αβιά (the sense of the latter form is: “My Father is Jehovah”). The latter form should be recognized as correct, as formed on the model of other names with the name of Jehovah (Abijah is found in (1 Kgs 15:1) according to code 253 in Kennicott); the former form (in the Third Book of Kings) is probably an accidental error or a confusion of names, for example: Hiram, Miriam, and others; least of all can one see here (with Benzinger) an intentional removal of the name of Jehovah from the name of an ungodly king. Maacah, the mother of Abijah, according to Josephus (Jewish Antiquities VIII, 10, 1) was a granddaughter of Absalom (cf. 2 Sam 14:27), which, by the reckoning of the time elapsed since the death of Absalom and the birth of Rehoboam (1 Kgs 14:21), is more fitting to the circumstances, though it admits a forced interpretation of the Hebrew bat (not daughter, but granddaughter). In (2 Chr 13:2) instead of the name of Absalom stands the name of a certain Uriel, contradicting (2 Chr 11:20).

1 Kings 15:3. He walked in all the sins of his father which he had done before him, and his heart was not wholly devoted to the Lord his God, as the heart of David his father was. 1 Kings 15:4. But for David’s sake the Lord his God gave him a lamp in Jerusalem, setting up his son after him, and establishing Jerusalem, 1 Kings 15:5. Because David did what was right in the eyes of the Lord and did not turn aside from all that he commanded him, all the days of his life, except in the matter of Uriah the Hittite. The general character of Abijah’s reign was marked by unfaithfulness to the pure worship of Jehovah; this was already the third king who had turned away from the first principle of a theocratic king, whose example was forever set by David, and only for David’s sake was a lamp maintained for him in Jerusalem, namely his descendants on the throne (v. 4, cf. 1 Kgs 11:36). The sins of David with respect to the husband of Bathsheba (2 Sam 11:4-27) did not undermine the foundations of theocracy.

1 Kings 15:6. And there was war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam all the days of their lives. If in (1 Kgs 14:30) it was said of the war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam only in the sense of hostility between the two kings, then here—of actual war between Jeroboam and Rehoboam’s son Abijah (of which is told in detail in (2 Chr 13:2-20)). The name of Rehoboam here (v. 6) is supposed to stand instead of the name of Abijah (the latter, indeed, stands in the Hebrew text in v. 30, 70, 89, 100, 149, 158–246, etc., in Kennicott’s manuscripts). With the latter supposition, the second half of v. 7 is merely a somewhat altered, shortened repetition of v. 6. In the Vatican text of the LXX there is no v. 6.

1 Kings 15:7. Now the rest of the acts of Abijah and all that he did, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah? And there was war between Abijah and Jeroboam. 1 Kings 15:8. And Abijah slept with his fathers, and they buried him in the City of David. And Asa his son reigned in his place. According to (2 Chr 13:2) Abijah reigned three years; from the comparison of v. 1 and 9 of the given chapter it is evident that these were three incomplete years. According to (2 Chr 13:21) Abijah had fourteen wives, twenty-two sons, and sixteen daughters.

1 Kings 15:9. In the twentieth year of Jeroboam, king of Israel, Asa began to reign over Judah. 1 Kings 15:10. And he reigned forty-one years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Ana, the daughter of Absalom. According to the Hebrew text in v. 10, the name of Asa’s mother was the same as that of Abijah (v. 2)—Maacah, and also the daughter of Absalom. Such a succession of two queens with the same name and patronymic is doubtful, and it is supposed that in v. 10 the name of Abijah’s mother is repeated, while the name of Asa’s mother was different, not preserved in the Hebrew text. According to the LXX—´Ανὰ (but many manuscripts in Holmes, for example, 52, 92, 120, 121, 123, 134, 153, have Maacah), which probably represents a later correction. According to the rabbis, the mother here is the grandmother, but if the mother of the king, who held a very honorable position, is often mentioned (1 Kgs 2:19; 2 Kgs 10:13), then the grandmother of the king is nowhere mentioned.

1 Kings 15:11. And Asa did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, as David his father had done. 1 Kings 15:12. He put away the male cult prostitutes from the land, and removed all the idols that his fathers had made. 1 Kings 15:13. He also removed his mother Ana from being queen, because she had made an abominable image for Asherah; and Asa cut down her image and burned it at the brook Kidron. 1 Kings 15:14. But the high places were not removed. Nevertheless the heart of Asa was wholly true to the Lord all his days. 1 Kings 15:15. And he brought into the house of the Lord the votive gifts of his father and his own votive gifts: silver, gold, and vessels. From the theocratic point of view, Asa’s reign was almost flawless. Using the ten years of peace in the land upon his accession to the throne (2 Chr 14:1), Asa devoted himself to religious reforms in the direction of bringing worship to purity and centralizing it: he drove out the hierodules—sacred prostitutes—who appeared in Judah under Rehoboam (1 Kgs 14:24); he everywhere destroyed idols and all other objects of idol worship (cf. 2 Chr 14:2-4); he did so with the idol of Astarte (Heb.: miphletset la-asherah, Vulg.: in sacris Priapi—the idol of a phallic cult, most abominable to the Hebrews) of his mother: he cut it to pieces and burned it at the Brook Kidron, and removed his mother from being queen (Heb. geberah—the usual title of the queen, the mother of the king), cf. (2 Kgs 10:13), Slavonic: “dismissed her from not having dominion.” Kidron—a valley and winter stream to the northeast and east of Jerusalem (2 Sam 15:23) and others). Onomast. 610, now Wadi en-Nar. “The stream Kidron dried up in summer, and therefore its bed could be chosen as the place for burning an idol, so that after the first autumn flood, no trace of the detested image would remain” (Prof. Gulyaev). Only the high places dedicated to the True God (blessed Theodoret, question 47) and having from of old received sacred significance (1 Kgs 3:2) were not abolished by Asa (v. 14; 2 Chr 15:17), the high places of other gods Asa destroyed (2 Chr 14:2), though the high places of Solomon were left and existed until Josiah (2 Kgs 23:13). On the whole, by his religious convictions Asa was faithful to Jehovah all his life, though separate acts revealed a lack of lively, undivided faith in Jehovah and complete piety (Sir 49:5-6) does not count Asa among the best kings: David, Hezekiah, and Josiah). The zeal he showed for Jehovah in the first, peaceful years of his reign (during which Asa greatly strengthened many cities of his kingdom and organized a strong military force) (2 Chr 14:4-8) was rewarded with a magnificent victory over a million-strong army of a certain Zerah the Ethiopian (Heb. Zerah (hak) Kushi), usually understood as the Egyptian Pharaoh Osorkon, the successor of Sheshonk (Egyptian Sheshonq) or Shishak (2 Chr 14:9-14), and Asa captured rich spoils, much of which he brought to the treasury of the temple, as well as from the treasures of his father (1 Kgs 15:15; 2 Chr 15:18) and from his own conquests (2 Chr 14:14). However, despite the instructions of the prophet Azariah and the new uprising of religious zeal they caused in Asa (2 Chr 15:1-15), Asa subsequently stained himself with an unworthy act of cowardice and lack of faith. This was during the war with Baasha of Israel.

1 Kings 15:16. And there was war between Asa and Baasha, king of Israel, all their days. 1 Kings 15:17. And Baasha, king of Israel, came up against Judah, and began to build Ramah, that he might not permit anyone to go out or come in to Asa, king of Judah. 1 Kings 15:18. Then Asa took all the silver and the gold that were left in the treasuries of the house of the Lord and the treasuries of the king’s house, and gave them into the hands of his servants; and King Asa sent them to Ben-Hadad, the son of Tabrimmon, son of Hezion, the king of Syria, who dwelt in Damascus, and said: 1 Kings 15:19. Let there be a covenant between me and you, as there was between my father and your father; behold, I am sending you a present of silver and gold; go, break your covenant with Baasha, king of Israel, that he may withdraw from me. 1 Kings 15:20. And Ben-Hadad listened to King Asa, and sent the commanders of his armies against the cities of Israel, and smote Ijon, and Dan, and Abel-Beth-Maacah, and all Kinneroth, with all the land of Naphtali. 1 Kings 15:21. When Baasha heard of it, he stopped building Ramah, and dwelt in Tirzah. 1 Kings 15:22. Then King Asa made a proclamation throughout all Judah; none was exempt; and they carried away the stones of Ramah and its timber, with which Baasha had been building; and with them King Asa built Geba of Benjamin and Mizpah. Chronological data of the war described here; there exists the following difficulty. According to v. 16, there was war between Asa and Baasha, the third king of Israel, all their days. According to v. 33, Baasha became king in the third year of Asa and reigned twenty-four years, that is, until the twenty-sixth (twenty-seventh) year of Asa’s reign (which lasted, according to v. 10—forty-one years). But according to (2 Chr 14:1), in the first ten years of Asa’s reign his land had rest (that is, no war); and according to (2 Chr 15:19), Asa’s war with Baasha began only in the thirty-sixth year of the former’s reign. Since the latter decisively contradicts the indication of the Third Book of Kings that Baasha had already died in the twenty-sixth year of Asa’s reign, nothing better can be offered in explanation than the conjecture of old commentators and Keil that the date of (2 Chr 16:1)—thirty-six years—denotes the time elapsed from the division of the kingdoms under Rehoboam; as for the figure of ten years of rest (2 Chr 14:1), one can say that this rest was, first, possibly shorter (including three years of Asa’s reign before Baasha’s accession and some years after this event), and secondly, it was most likely as relative as the war “all their days.” The occasion for the clash—the fortifying of Ramah by Baasha to stop communications between Asa and the north. Ramah—the name of many cities and places in ancient Palestine, but here, obviously, a city in the tribe of Benjamin (Josh 18:25; Judg 4:5), mentioned in the well-known passage in the book of the prophet Jeremiah (Jer 31:15; cf. (Hos 5:8) and others), two hours’ journey or, according to Eusebius—Jerome, six Roman miles north of Jerusalem (Onomast. 769), now Er-Rama (Robinson, Palest. II, s. 566 ff.). The fears of Baasha, which prompted him to fortify Ramah to prevent emigration from his realm to the Judahite dominion, had a factual basis: after Asa’s brilliant victory over Zerah, many from the tribes of Ephraim, Manasseh, and Simeon moved to Asa’s possessions (2 Chr 15:9). Should Baasha fortify Ramah (v. 16), Asa faced a future blockade of Jerusalem. Fearing this, Asa basely and criminally sought help against his own kinsmen of the Israelite kingdom through an alliance with the king of Syria (Aram), “Ben-Hadad,” Heb. Ben-Hadad (“son of the sun”), Vulg.: Benadad; otherwise LXX: υἱὸς Αδερ, Slavonic: “son of Ader” (in favor of the LXX reading apparently speaks the spelling of this name as Bir-idri in the Damascus inscription 654–846 BC: likewise code 246 of Kennicott and codices 174, 627 of Rossi have: Hodar). Three kings of Damascus, Syria, bore this name in the Bible (1 Kgs 15:18); cf. (2 Chr 16:2; 1 Kgs 20:1-34; 2 Kgs 6:24), and this, of course, does not give the right to consider this as a title of the Syrian king (contrary to Keil). Asa’s proposal to Ben-Hadad to break his alliance with the Israelite king and make one with him, bolstered by gifts from the “remaining” (that is, after Shishak’s plundering) (1 Kgs 14:26) silver and gold “in the treasuries of the house of the Lord and the king’s house,” witnesses to Asa’s deep confusion and lack of faith in the help of that very Jehovah who recently had miraculously given him to defeat Zerah (2 Chr 14:9-12). An alliance with unbelievers against kinsmen was impious, and its impiety was not lessened by the fact that it was caused by an earlier covenant between the Israelite king and the Syrian: clearly, after the division of the Hebrew kingdom, the Syrian kingdom became extremely powerful (its growth began with Rezon: (1 Kgs 11:23-25)), and each of the Hebrew kingdoms sought its alliance for support against the other Hebrew kingdom (even Abijah apparently was allied with Ben-Hadad’s father, v. 19). When the prophet Hanani rebuked Asa because he had abandoned God and his help and sought support from the Syrians, Asa not only did not acknowledge his sin, but, angered at him, threw him in prison, and also oppressed “some of the people,” perhaps those who thought as the prophet (2 Chr 16:7-10). Cf. blessed Theodoret, question 47). Outward success, though achieved by wicked means, was attained by Asa: the troops of Ben-Hadad invaded from the north into the territories of the Israelite kingdom and thus stopped Baasha’s further conquest: threatened by the Syrian king, he abandoned the fortification of Ramah and withdrew to Tirzah (v. 21). The cities ravaged by the Syrian troops (v. 20), later completely taken from the Israelite kingdom by the Assyrian king Tiglath-Pileser (2 Kgs 15:29), were almost all located in the tribe of Naphtali: “Ijon” (Heb.: Iyon, LXX: Αιν, Slavonic: “Ain,” Vulg.: Ahion, Onomast. 41), according to Robinson (Palest. III, s. 611), was on the northern border of Palestine, in a region abundant with water, Merg-ajjun near the sources of the Jordan, the present settlement Tell-Dibbin. About Dan see note to (1 Kgs 12:29). “Abel-Beth-Maacah” (cf. 2 Sam 20:14-18)—on the extreme north of Israel, near Dan, probably the present Abil-el-Kamh, probably in antiquity at a stream flowing into the upper Jordan, hence in (2 Chr 16:4) is called: Abel-maim (Abel the watery); LXX: ´Αβὲλ οἴκου Μααχὰ, Vulg.: Abel-domum-Maacha, Slavonic: “Abel, house of Maacah.” “Kinneroth” (Heb. Kinnerot, singular: Kinnerot, in the Talmud: Ginnosar, in Josephus Jewish Wars III, 10, 7), Greek: Γεννησάρ, in the Gospel Γεννησαρέτ (Luke 5:1): the area and city (Josh 19:35) of this name lay in the most fertile region west of the Galilee (later Genesaret, Tiberias) lake. —The devastation of these border cities of Israel, which forced Baasha to cease the construction of the fortress at Ramah, gave Asa the opportunity to use the building material gathered by Baasha for fortifying Ramah—for the construction of fortresses in two Judahite border cities: Geba or Gibe of Benjamin (cf. (Josh 18:24; 1 Sam 14:5; Isa 10:29); Onomast. 312), now Dscheba (Badeker, Palest, s. 116), and Mizpah or Massife—also in the tribe of Benjamin (Josh 18:26; 1 Sam 7:5); cf. (2 Kgs 25:23); Onomast 689, now Hebi Sanwil (Robinson, Palastina, II, 361 ff.); both cities were at a distance of an hour and less from Ramah, an hour’s two hours’ journey from Jerusalem.

1 Kings 15:23. Now the rest of 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? But in his old age he was diseased in his feet. 1 Kings 15:24. 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 place. In the ordinary conclusion concerning Asa’s reign, attention is drawn to the remark: “the acts of Asa... are written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah, except that” (Heb.: rak) “in his old age he was diseased in his feet.” Apparently this means that the account of Asa’s illness was taken by the author not from the general source—“the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah,” but from some other source (thus thinks Prof. Gulyaev, p. 255). But it is possible that there is here a contrast like the following: all of Asa’s reign was fortunate, only the last years (two years according to (2 Chr 16:12)) were darkened by foot disease (some say gout or rheumatism. Schenkel, Bibel-lexikon, vol. III, pp. 589–590. T. Popov. Biblical data on various diseases. Kiev, 1904, p. 84); or the contrast concerns Asa’s piety throughout his life and lack of faith in his illness: according to (2 Chr 16:12): “but in his disease he sought not the Lord, but the physicians” (cf. blessed Theodoret, question 48).

1 Kings 15:25. And Nadab, the son of Jeroboam, became king over Israel in the second year of Asa, king of Judah, and he reigned over Israel two years. 1 Kings 15:26. He did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, and walked in the way of his father and in his sins which he made Israel to sin. Nadab—Heb.: Nadav, see note to (1 Kgs 14:20). The second king of Israel reigned, apparently, incomplete two years, for he became king in the second year of Asa (v. 25) and was killed by Baasha in the third year of that same reign (v. 28–33), as is general in the reckoning of years of reigns: incomplete years are usually counted as full years (Jeroboam, v. 9; Abijah, v. 1–2, 9). The general character of the rule of the second king of Israel was identical with the direction of his father, Jeroboam.

1 Kings 15:27. And Baasha, the son of Ahijah, of the house of Issachar, made a conspiracy against him and struck him down at Gibbethon, which belonged to the Philistines, while Nadab and all Israel were besieging Gibbethon; 1 Kings 15:28. So Baasha killed him in the third year of Asa, king of Judah, and reigned in his place. 1 Kings 15:29. When he became king, he struck down the entire house of Jeroboam. He left to Jeroboam not one person alive until he had destroyed it, according to the word of the Lord which he spoke by his servant Ahijah the Shilonite, 1 Kings 15:30. Because of the sins of Jeroboam which he sinned and which he made Israel to sin, and because of the irritation with which he provoked the Lord, the God of Israel, to anger. 1 Kings 15:31. Now 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? 1 Kings 15:32. And there was war between Asa and Baasha, king of Israel, all their days. 1 Kings 15:33. In the third year of Asa, king of Judah, Baasha, the son of Ahijah, began to reign over all Israel in Tirzah and reigned twenty-four years. 1 Kings 15:34. And he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, and walked in the way of Jeroboam and in his sins which he made Israel to sin. The murderer and successor of Nadab, Baasha was not from the tribe of Ephraim but from the tribe of Issachar. Baasha made his conspiracy and murder of Nadab during the siege by the latter of the Philistine city of Gibbethon (Heb.: Gibethon), cf. (1 Kgs 16:15), which lay in the territory of the tribe of Dan (Josh 21:23). Baasha destroyed the entire line of Jeroboam, so that the prophecy of Ahijah concerning it was fulfilled (v. 29, 30) cf. (1 Kgs 14:10-16), but he himself acted entirely in the spirit of Jeroboam and his first successor (v. 34), and therefore brought upon himself and his house the terrible judgment of God (1 Kgs 16:3). Cf. blessed Theodoret, question 48. * * * According to Metropolitan Filaret, Zerah the Ethiopian was a king of Midian. But Heb. Kush, Kushim, having the necessary connection with the name of the son of Ham—Cush (Gen 10:6; 1 Chr 1:8), means in the Bible, as in science, only the Cushite or Semitenumerousble tribes, usually: Ethiopians, Egyptians, and peoples close to them (Ps 67:32; Isa 20:3-5; Jer 46:9 and others), whereas Ethiopia sometimes takes the place of Egypt (2 Kgs 19:9). The Midianites, however, were Semites, descendants of Abraham through Keturah (Gen 25:4); Onomast. 660 On the salvation of Ramah as a border post between the northern (Israelite) and southern (Judahite) kingdoms, very thoroughly and with complete geographic accuracy, Prof. F. Ya. Pokrovsky speaks, cited work pp. 25, 31–46