16
📚Then the word of the LORD came to Jehu 📖, the son of Hanani, against Baasha, saying, 2 📚“Because I exalted you from the dust and made you ruler over my people Israel, and you have walked in the way of Jeroboam and have caused my people Israel to sin, to provoke me to anger with their sins, 3 📚look, I will consume Baasha and his house, and will make your house like the house of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat. 4 📚Those who belong to Baasha who die in the city will be eaten by the dogs, and those of his who die in the fields will be eaten by the birds of the air”.5 📚Now the rest of the acts of Baasha, and what he did, and his might, are they not written in the book of The Annals 📖 of the Kings of Israel? 6 📚So Baasha slept 📖 with his ancestors and was buried in Tirzah, and Elah his son reigned in his place.
7 📚And also the word of the LORD had come through the prophet Jehu, the son of Hanani, against Baasha and against his house, because of all the evil that he did in the sight of the LORD, in provoking him to anger with the work of his hands, in being like the house of Jeroboam, and because he killed him.
16:7 Baasha was the instrument of God’s judgment on Jeroboam’s house, but was guilty of sin in what he did.⚜
Israel’s evil king Elah
8 In the twenty-sixth year of Asa, king of Judah, Elah, the son of Baasha, began to reign over Israel in Tirzah, and he reigned two years.
9 📚And his servant Zimri, commander of half his chariots, conspired against him while he was in Tirzah, drinking himself drunk in the house of Arza, the steward of his house in Tirzah. 10 📚And Zimri went in and struck him and killed him in the twenty-seventh year of Asa, king of Judah, and reigned in his place.
11 📚And it happened when he began to reign, as soon as he sat on his throne, that he killed all the house of Baasha. He did not leave him a single male person, none of his relatives or of his friends. 12 📚Thus did Zimri destroy all the house of Baasha, in accordance with the word of the LORD, which he spoke against Baasha by Jehu the prophet, 13 📚because of all the sins of Baasha, and the sins of his son Elah, which they committed and which they made Israel commit, in provoking the LORD God of Israel to anger 📖 with their worthless idols. 📖
14 Now the rest of the acts of Elah and all that he did, are they not written in the book of The Annals of the Kings of Israel?
Israel’s evil king Zimri
15 📚In the twenty-seventh year of Asa, king of Judah, Zimri reigned seven days in Tirzah. And the people were camped against Gibbethon, which belonged to the Philistines. 16 📚And the people who were camped heard this said: “Zimri has conspired, and has also killed the king”. Therefore that day all Israel made Omri, the commander of the army, king over Israel in the camp. 17 📚And Omri went up from Gibbethon, and all Israel with him, and they besieged Tirzah. 18 📚And it happened that when Zimri saw that the city was taken, he went into the citadel of the king’s house, and burned down the king’s house over himself with fire, and died, 19 📚because of his sins which he committed in doing evil in the sight of the LORD, in walking in the way of Jeroboam, and in his sin which he committed, to cause Israel to sin. 20 📚Now the rest of the acts of Zimri, and his plot which he carried out, are they not written in the book of The Annals 📖 of the Kings of Israel?
Israel’s evil king Omri
21 📚Then the people of Israel were divided into two parts. Half of the people followed Tibni, the son of Ginath, to make him King, and half followed Omri. 22 But the people who followed Omri prevailed against the people who followed Tibni, the son of Ginath. So Tibni died, and Omri reigned.
23 📚In the thirty-first year of Asa, king of Judah, Omri began to reign over Israel, and he reigned twelve years. He reigned six years in Tirzah 📖.
16:15-23 Factions split the kingdom and caused havoc. Zimri, Omri and Tibni were all rivals for the throne. It all came about because of sin, disobedience, and lust for power. Selfish struggles for position and power in Christian circles can be just as disastrous. Wise men will avoid them.⚜
24 📚And he bought the hill of Samaria from Shemer for two talents 📖 of silver, and built on the hill, and called the name of the city which he built, Samaria, after the name of Shemer, owner of the hill.
16:24 Omri built Samaria and established it as the new capital of the northern kingdom of Israel. The northern kingdom was even called “Samaria” at times (1 Kings 21:1; Isa 10:10; Amos 6:1).⚜
25 📚But Omri did evil in the eyes of the LORD, doing more evil than all who were before him.
16:25 To say he was worse than Jeroboam was to condemn him utterly.⚜
26 📚For he walked in all the way of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, and in his sin with which he caused Israel to sin, to provoke the LORD God of Israel to anger with their worthless idols.
27 📚Now the rest of the deeds of Omri which he did, and his might that he showed, are they not written in the book of The Annals of the Kings of Israel? 28 So Omri slept with his ancestors and was buried in Samaria, and his son Ahab reigned in his place.
16:25-28 From a secular point of view Omri was one of the northern kingdoms most successful kings. But the writer dismisses him with a few verses. God’s standards are different from man’s. Omri denied God’s covenant and followed Jeroboam. In God’s sight he was an evil failure. Compare Luke 16:15.⚜
Israel’s evil king Ahab, Jezebel
29 And in the thirty-eighth year of Asa, king of Judah, Ahab, the son of Omri, began to reign over Israel, and Ahab, the son of Omri, reigned over Israel in Samaria twenty-two years. 30 📚And Ahab, the son of Omri, did more evil in the sight of the LORD than all who were before him.
16:30 Jeroboam was bad, Omri was worse, Ahab the worst of all. Why did God permit such kings to rule His people? He was justly giving them the rulers they deserved because of their own evil behavior. Is there not here a principle in God’s dealings with the nations of earth? Usually does He not let come to power the kind of leaders and rulers that the people as a whole deserve? Sometimes, in mercy, He may give them better ones than they deserve, but never worse ones.⚜
31 📚And it came about, as if it were a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, that he took Jezebel, the daughter of Ethbaal, king of the Sidonians, as his wife, and went and served Baal 📖 and worshipped him.
16:31 Jezebel was one of the most wicked women recorded in history (1 Kings 18:4, 13, 19; 1 Kings 19:2-3; 1 Kings 21:5-15, 25). This marriage of Ahab was in contempt of God’s law – Deut 7:1-5.⚜
32 📚And he set up an altar for Baal in the house of Baal, which he had built in Samaria.
16:32 We read of no temple he built for Jehovah the one true God.⚜
33 📚And Ahab made an idolatrous grove 📖, and Ahab did more to provoke the LORD God of Israel to anger 📖 than all the kings of Israel who were before him.
34 📚In his days Hiel, the Bethelite, built Jericho. He laid its foundation at the cost of his firstborn Abiram, and set up its gates at the cost of his youngest son Segub, in accordance with the word of the LORD, which he spoke by Joshua the son of Nun.
16:34 Josh 6:26. Jericho had continued in existence as a village without walls and gates (Josh 18:21; Jud 1:16; 3:13; 2 Sam 10:5). Hiel decided to rebuild it as a city with walls and gates.⚜