Judah’s bad king Abijah
15
📚Now in the eighteenth year of King Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, Abijam became king over Judah. 2 📚He reigned three years 📖 in Jerusalem. And his mother’s name was Maachah. She was the daughter of Abishalom 📖. 3 📚And he walked in all the sins of his father, which he had done before him, and his heart 📖 was not perfect with the LORD his God, like the heart of David his father 📖. 4 📚Nevertheless for David’s sake the LORD his God gave him a lamp 📖 in Jerusalem, to set up his son after him, and to establish Jerusalem, 5 📚because David did what was right in the eyes of the LORD, and did not turn aside from anything that he commanded him all the days of his life, except in the matter of Uriah the Hittite 📖.
6 📚And there was war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam all the days of his life. 7 📚Now the rest of the acts of Abijam and all that he did, are they not written in the book of The Annals 📖 of the Kings of Judah? And there was war between Abijam and Jeroboam. 8 📚And Abijam slept 📖 with his ancestors, and they buried him in the city of David; and Asa his son reigned in his place.
Judah’s good king Asa
9 And in the twentieth year of Jeroboam, king of Israel, Asa became king over Judah. 10 📚And he reigned forty-one years in Jerusalem. And his mother’s name was Maachah. She was the daughter of Abishalom.
11 📚And Asa 📖 did what was right in the eyes of the LORD, like David his father had done. 12 📚And he took away the male shrine prostitutes from the land, and removed all the idols that his fathers had made. 13 📚And he also removed his mother Maachah from being queen, because she had made an idol in a grove 📖; and Asa destroyed her idol, and burned it by the brook Kidron.
15:12-13 Asa dealt with the sin in his own home also. This is where obedience to the Lord and our witness must always begin. Compare Jud 6:24-27; Josh 24:15; Gen 35:1-4. And this is often where failure is most evident – 1 Sam 8:1-5; 2 Sam 13:21, 39; 1 Kings 1:6.⚜
14 📚But the high places were not removed. Nevertheless Asa’s heart was perfect with the LORD all his days. 15 📚And he brought into the house of the LORD the things which his father had dedicated, and the things which he himself had dedicated, silver and gold and utensils.
16 📚And there was war between Asa and Baasha, king of Israel, all their days.
15:16 The division of Israel into two parts was a source of continual trouble to both of them.⚜
17 📚And Baasha, king of Israel, went up against Judah, and built Ramah 📖, not allowing anyone to go out or come in to Asa, king of Judah.
18 📚Then Asa took all the silver and the gold that were left in the treasures of the house of the LORD and the treasuries of the king’s house, and entrusted them into the hands of his servants; and king Asa sent them to Ben-Hadad, the son of Tabrimon, the son of Hezion, king of Syria, who lived at Damascus, saying, 19 📚“There is a treaty between me and you, and between my father and your father. See, I have sent you a present of silver and gold. Come and break your treaty 📖 with Baasha, king of Israel, so that he will leave me”.
20 📚So Ben-Hadad listened to king Asa, and sent the commanders of the armies which he had against the cities of Israel and attacked Ijon and Dan and Abel-Beth-Maachah, and all Kinneroth, with all the land of Naphtali. 21 📚And it came about, when Baasha heard this, that he stopped the building of Ramah, and lived in Tirzah 📖. 22 📚Then king Asa made a proclamation throughout all Judah. No one was exempt; and they took away the stones of Ramah and its timber, with which Baasha had built, and with them king Asa built Geba of Benjamin and Mizpah.
23 📚All the rest of the acts of Asa, and all his might, and all that he did, and the cities which he built, are they not written in the book of The Annals 📖 of the Kings of Judah? Nevertheless, in the time of his old age he was diseased 📖 in his feet. 24 📚And Asa slept 📖 with his ancestors, and was buried among his ancestors in the city of his father David. And Jehoshaphat his son reigned in his place.
Israel’s evil king Nadab
25 📚And Nadab, the son of Jeroboam, began to reign over Israel in the second year of Asa, king of Judah, and reigned over Israel two years. 26 📚And he did evil in the sight of the LORD, and walked in the way of his father and in his sin with which he made Israel to sin.
27 📚And Baasha, the son of Ahijah, of the house of Issachar, conspired against him and Baasha struck him down at Gibbethon, which belonged to the Philistines; for Nadab and all Israel laid siege to Gibbethon. 28 📚And in the third year of Asa, king of Judah, Baasha killed him and reigned in his place.
29 📚And this happened when he became king: he struck down all the house of Jeroboam. He did not leave to Jeroboam any who breathed, until he had destroyed him, in accordance with the word of the LORD, which he spoke by his servant Ahijah the Shilonite, 30 📚because of the sins of Jeroboam which he committed, and which he caused Israel to commit, because of his provocation with which he provoked the LORD God of Israel to anger.
31 📚Now the rest of the acts of Nadab, and all that he did, are they not written in the book of The Annals 📖 of the Kings of Israel? 32 📚And there was war between Asa and Baasha, king of Israel, all their days.
Israel’s evil king Baasha
33 📚In the third year of Asa, king of Judah, Baasha, the son of Ahijah, began to reign over all Israel in Tirzah, and he reigned twenty-four years. 34 📚And he did evil in the sight of the LORD and walked in the way of Jeroboam, and in his sin with which he caused Israel to sin.