15: 1 Now in the eighteenth year of king Jeroboam the son of Nebat began Abijam to reign over Judah. Three years reigned he in Jerusalem: and his mother’s name was Maacah the daughter of Abishalom. And

3 tween Abijah and Jeroboam. And Abijah joined battle with an army of valiant men of war, even four hundred thousand chosen men; and Jeroboam set the battle in array against him with eight hundred thousand chosen men, who were mighty men of val- 4 our. And Abijah stood up upon mount Zemaraim, which is in the hill country of Ephraim, and said, Hear me, O Jeroboam 5 and all Israel; ought ye not to know that the LORD, the God of Israel, gave the kingdom over Israel to David for ever, even to him and to his sons by a covenant of salt? 6 Yet Jeroboam the son of Nebat, the servant of Solomon the son of David, rose up, and 7 rebelled against his lord. And there were gathered unto him vain men, sons of Belial, which strengthened themselves against Rehoboam the son of Solomon, when Rehoboam was young and tender-hearted, and could 8 not withstand them. And now ye think to withstand the kingdom of the LORD in the hand of the sons of David; and ye be a great multitude, and there are with you the golden 9 calves which Jeroboam made you for gods. Have ye not driven out the priests of the LORD, the sons of Aaron, and the Levites, and have made you priests after the manner of the peoples of other lands? so that whosoever cometh to consecrate himself with a young bullock and 10 seven rams, the same may be a priest of them that are no gods. But as for us, the LORD is our God, and we have not forsaken him; and we have priests ministering unto the LORD, the 11 sons of Aaron, and the Levites in their work: and they burn unto the LORD every morning and every evening burnt offerings and sweet incense: the shew-bread also set they in order upon the pure table; and the candlestick of gold with the lamps thereof, to burn every even- 12 ing: for we keep the charge of the LORD our God; but ye have forsaken him. And, behold, God is with us at our head, and his priests with the trumpets of alarm to sound an alarm against you. O children of Israel, fight ye not against the LORD, the God of your fathers; 13 for ye shall not prosper. But Jeroboam caused an ambushment to come about behind them: 14 so they were before Judah, and the ambushment was behind them. And when Judah looked back, behold, the battle was before and behind them: and they cried unto the LORD, and the 15 priests sounded with the trumpets. Then the men of Judah gave a shout: and as the men of Judah shouted, it came to pass, that God smote Jeroboam and all Israel before Abijah and 16 Judah. And the children of Israel fled before Judah: and God delivered them into their 17 hand. And Abijah and his people slew them with a great slaughter: so there fell down 18 slain of Israel five hundred thousand chosen men. Thus the children of Israel were brought under at that time, and the children of Judah prevailed, because they relied upon the LORD, 19 the God of their fathers. And Abijah pursued after Jeroboam, and took cities from him, Beth-el with the towns thereof, and Jeshanah with the towns thereof, and Ephron with the 20 towns thereof. Neither did Jeroboam recover strength again in the days of Abijah: and the 21 LORD smote him, and he died. But Abijah waxed mighty, and took unto himself fourteen 22 wives, and begat twenty and two sons, and sixteen daughters. And the rest of the acts of Abijah, and his ways, and his sayings, are written in the commentary of the prophet Iddo.

REHOBOAM reigned seventeen years, B.C. 975- 958. His son Abijah (whose mother was Maachah, the granddaughter of Absalom) succeeded him in a reign of three years. With four hundred thousand men he utterly defeated Jeroboam, who had twice that number on the field. But it was not God’s will that the Ten

Tribes should be brought back to their allegiance to the throne of David. Nor did Abijah, though reproaching the Israelites with their rejection of Jehovah’s worship, himself do anything toward restoring that worship in Judah. The brief reign of Abijah, whose purpose was to reconquer Israel, may be thus accounted for in the controlling purposes of God. B.

Rehoboam’s affection for Maachah caused him not only to designate Abijah, her eldest son (2 Chron. 11: 20), as his successor, but to put him at a very early age in a position of authority over his brethren (verse 22), and to give him an establishment on a scale of Oriental magnificence. Abijah, we are told (verse 21), “waxed mighty, and married fourteen wives, and begat twenty and two sons, and sixteen daughters.” He was probably of full age at his father’s accession. G. R.

Jeroboam did not only survive Rehoboam, but he witnessed the accession of two other kings of Judah, Abijah and Asa. The reign of Abijah was very brief. Both in 1 K. 15: 2 and in 2 Chron. 13: 2 it is said to have lasted three years—an expression which must be understood according to this canon laid down by the rabbis, that the commencement of a year in the reign of a king is to be reckoned as a full year. Thus, as Abijah ascended the throne in the eighteenth (1 K. 15: 1) and Asa in the twentieth (verse 9) year of Jeroboam’s reign, it follows that the former actually reigned only somewhat over two years. It is stated that “he walked in all the sins of his father,” and that “his heart was not perfect with Jehovah his God.” These two statements are not explanatory of, but supplementary to, each other. We know that Rehoboam had not abolished the service of Jehovah, but that, by its side, a spurious worship had been tolerated, if not encouraged, which, in the view of Holy Scripture, was equal to idolatry. In this matter Rehoboam had not only followed the example of his father Solomon, during his later years, but greatly increased the evil which had then begun. A similar remark applies to the reign of Abijah, as compared with that of Rehoboam. That the idolatry of the reign of Rehoboam had grown both worse in character and more general in practice under that of Abijah, appears from the notices of the reformation instituted by his successor, Asa. The former circumstance is implied in the terms by which the idolatry of that period is described (2 Chron. 14: 3, 5), and by the circumstance that “the queen-mother” (Maachah, Abijah’s mother and Asa’s grandmother), who under Abijah held the official rank of Gevirah, “Queen” (the modern Sultana Valide), had made and set up “a horror for Asherah”—some horrible wooden representation, equally vile and idolatrous in its character. Again, that idolatry had become more widely spread, and that its hold was stronger, we infer from the fact that, despite Asa’s example, admonitions, and exertions (2 Chron. 14: 4, 5), “the high places did not cease” (1 K. 15: 14). This progressive spiritual decline under the reigns of Solomon, Rehoboam, and Abijah was so marked as to have deserved the removal of the family of David from the throne, had it not been for God’s faithfulness to His covenant promises (1 K. 15: 4, 5).

2. Chron. 13: 4-12. The two armies met at the boundary of the two kingdoms, though, as we judge, within the territory of Israel. They camped in close proximity, only separated by Mount Zemaraim, a height to the east of Bethel, and some distance north of Jericho, forming part of the ridge known as “Mount Ephraim,” which stretched from the plain of Esdraelon southward. From this height Abijah addressed the army of Israel just before the battle began, in the hope of securing their voluntary submission, or at least weakening their resistance. Ignoring all that told against himself, Abijah tried to impress on his opponents that right was wholly on his side. In language full of irony he set before them their weakness, as the necessary result of their apostasy from Jehovah, the God of their fathers, and of their adoption of a worship neither conformable to their ancient faith nor even respectable in the sight of men. Lastly, he loudly protested that, since Judah had gone to war under the leadership of Jehovah and in the manner appointed by Him, Israel was really fighting against Jehovah, the God of their fathers, and could not expect success. Whatever hollowness there may have been in this profession on the part of Abijah, it was at least the true war-ery of Israel which he raised. It found an echo in the hearts of his followers. A. E.

Jeroboam, wholly untouched by it, made the best disposition of his troops that was possible; his troops neither deserted nor relaxed in their efforts on account of the invitation addressed to them. Such was the Israelite preponderance in numbers, that it was found possible to send a large detachment to the rear of the Jewish camp, and then to make simultaneously a double attack, from the front and from behind (verses 13, 14). The men of Judah resisted bravely, but were in great distress, when the aid of God being implored with great earnestness amid the trumpet blasts of the priests, suddenly the tide of battle turned—Judah was successful, and Israel was put to flight (verses 15, 16). A terrible carnage followed. According to the existing text, the slain on the part of the Israelites amounted to five hundred thousand men; but it is generally agreed that the original reading in this place was probably fifty thousand. Even this was an enormous loss; and we can well understand its having led on to the conquest of several Israelite towns, as Bethel, Jeshanah, and Ephraim, which passed for a time under the dominion of Judah (verse 19). G. R.

17. Abijah and his people slew them with a great slaughter.** There is nothing in the original to indicate that this slaughter was all on one day. The writer is probably compressing into a few words the circumstances of the whole war. There fell down slain. The word translated “slain” means strictly “pierced,” and will include both the killed and the wounded. It is translated by “wounded” in Lam. 2: 12. B. C.

19. Notwithstanding this decisive success, Abijah was too well advised to pursue his original design of reducing the Ten Tribes, and was content to re-establish his authority over certain border towns and districts, which had originally belonged to Judah or Benjamin, but which Jeroboam had found means to include in his portion of the divided kingdom. Kitto.

1. K. 15: 1. Abijam.** The LXX adds “son of Rehoboam.” The name is Abijah in 2 Chron., and, comparing with other names of like formation, that appears the more correct. Lumby.

5. Many sins are registered of David, as well as this matter of Uriah; yet, as if all these were nothing in comparison of this one, this one alone is put in by the Holy Ghost, and so inserted as an exception in the testimony which we find given of him in the passage before us. “He turned not aside from any thing,” etc.—that is, he turned not aside so foully and so contemptuously, so presumptuously and so provokingly, in any other thing as he did in that business of Uriah. All his ignorances and negligences, inconsiderations and infirmities, are passed over in silence; only this great presumptuous sin standeth up as a pillar or monument erected to his perpetual shame in that particular, by which all succeeding generations might take warning and example. Bp. Sanderson.

21st of Jeroboam to 3d of Ahab, of Israel.

9. AND in the twentieth year of Jeroboam king of Israel began Asa to reign over Judah. And forty and one years reigned he in Jerusalem: and his mother’s name was 11 Maacah the daughter of Abishalom. And Asa did that which was right in the eyes of 12 the LORD, as did David his father. And he put away the sodomites out of the land, and removed all the idols that his fathers had 13 made. And also Maacah his mother he removed from being queen, because she had made an abominable image for an Asherah; and Asa cut down her image, and burnt it 14 at the brook Kidron. But the high places were not taken away: nevertheless the heart of Asa was perfect with the LORD all his 15 days. And he brought into the house of the LORD the things that his father had dedicated, and the things that himself had dedicated, silver, and gold, and vessels. And fore us, because we have sought the LORD our God; we have sought him, and he hath given us rest on every side. So they built and prospered. And Asa had an army that bare bucklers and spears, out of Judah three hundred thousand; and out of Benjamin, that bare shields and drew bows, two hundred and fourscore thousand: all these were mighty men of valour. And there came out against them Zerah the Ethiopian with an army of a thousand thousand, and three hundred chariots; and he came unto Mareshah. Then Asa went out to meet him, and they set the battle in array in the valley of Zephathah at Mareshah. And Asa cried unto the LORD his God, and said, LORD, there is none beside thee to help, between the mighty and him that hath no strength: help us, O LORD our God; for we rely on thee, and in thy name are we come against this multitude. O LORD, thou art our God; let not man prevail against thee. So the LORD smote the Ethiopians before Asa, and before Judah; and the Ethiopians fled. And Asa and the people that were with him pursued them unto Gerar: and there fell of the Ethiopians so many that they could not recover themselves; for they were destroyed before the LORD, and before his host; and they carried away very much booty. And they smote all the cities round about Gerar; for the fear of the LORD came upon them: and they spoiled all the cities; for there was much spoil in them. They smote also the tents of cattle, and carried away sheep in abundance and camels, and returned to Jerusalem.

15:1 And the spirit of God came upon

2. Azariah the son of Oded: and he went out to meet Asa, and said unto him, Hear ye me,

Asa, and all Judah and Benjamin: the LORD is with you, while ye be with him; and if ye

3 seek him, he will be found of you; but if ye forsake him, he will forsake you. Now for long seasons Israel hath been without the true God, and without a teaching priest, and with-

4 out law: but when in their distress they turned unto the LORD, the God of Israel, and sought

5 him, he was found of them. And in those times there was no peace to him that went out,

6 nor to him that came in, but great vexations were upon all the inhabitants of the lands. And they were broken in pieces, nation against nation, and city against city: for God did vex

7 them with all adversity. But be ye strong, and let not your hands be slack: for your work

8 shall be rewarded. And when Asa heard these words, and the prophecy of Oded the prophet, he took courage, and put away the abominations out of all the land of Judah and Benjamin, and out of the cities which he had taken from the hill country of Ephraim; and he renewed

9 the altar of the LORD, that was before the porch of the LORD. And he gathered all Judah and Benjamin, and them that sojourned with them out of Ephraim and Manasseh, and out of

Simeon: for they fell to him out of Israel, in abundance, when they saw that the LORD his God

10 was with him. So they gathered themselves together at Jerusalem in the third month, in the

11 fifteenth year of the reign of Asa. And they sacrificed unto the LORD in that day, of the spoil

12 which they had brought, seven hundred oxen and seven thousand sheep. And they entered there was war between Asa and Baasha king of Israel all their days. And Baasha king of Israel went up against Judah, and built Ramah, that he might not suffer any to go out or come in to Asa king of Judah. Then Asa took all the silver and the gold that were left in the treasures of the house of the LORD, and the treasures of the king’s house, and delivered them into the hand of his servants: and king Asa sent them to Benhadad, the son of Tabrimmon, the son of Hezion, king of Syria, that dwelt at Damascus, saying, There is a league between me and thee, between my father and thy father: behold, I have sent unto thee a present of silver and gold; go, break thy league with Baasha king of Israel, that he may depart from me. And Benhadad hearkened unto king Asa, and sent the captains of his armies against the cities of Israel, and smote Ijon, and Dan, and Abel-beth-maacah, and all Chinneroth, with all the land of Naphtali. And it came to pass, when Baasha heard thereof, that he left off building of Ramah, and dwelt in Tirzah. Then king Asa made a proclamation unto all Judah; none was exempted: and they carried away the stones of Ramah, and the timber thereof, wherewith Baasha had builded; and king Asa built therewith Geba of Benjamin, and Mizpah. Now the rest of all 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 chronicles of the kings of Judah? But in the time of his old age he was diseased in his feet. 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 stead.

into the covenant to seek the LORD, the God of their fathers, with all their heart and with all their soul; and that whosoever would not seek the LORD, the God of Israel, should be put to death, whether small or great, whether man or woman. And they swore unto the LORD with a loud voice, and with shouting, and with trumpets, and with cornets. And all Judah rejoiced at the oath: for they had sworn with all their heart, and sought him with their whole desire; and he was found of them: and the LORD gave them rest round about. And also Maacah the mother of Asa the king, he removed her from being queen, because she had made an abominable image for an Asherah; and Asa cut down her image, and made dust of it, and burnt it at the brook Kidron. But the high places were not taken away out of Israel: nevertheless the heart of Asa was perfect all his days. And he brought into the house of God the things that his father had dedicated, and that he himself had dedicated, silver, and gold, and vessels. And there was no more war unto the five and thirtieth year of the reign of Asa.

16:1 In the six and thirtieth year of the reign of Asa, Baasha king of Israel went up against Judah, and built Ramah, that he might not suffer any to go out or come in to Asa king of Judah. Then Asa brought out silver and gold out of the treasures of the house of the LORD and of the king’s house, and sent to Ben-hadad king of Syria, that dwelt at Damascus, saying, There is a league between me and thee, as there was between my father and thy father: behold, I have sent thee silver and gold; go, break thy league with Baasha king of Israel, that he may depart from me. And Ben-hadad hearkened unto king Asa, and sent the captains of his armies against the cities of Israel; and they smote Ijon, and Dan, and Abel-maim, and all the store cities of Naphtali. And it came to pass, when Baasha heard thereof, that he left off building of Ramah, and let his work cease. Then Asa the king took all Judah; and they carried away the stones of Ramah, and the timber thereof, wherewith Baasha had builded; and he built therewith Geba and Mizpah. And at that time Hanani the seer came to Asa king of Judah, and said unto him, Because thou hast relied on the king of Syria, and hast not relied on the LORD thy God, therefore is the host of the king of Syria escaped out of thine hand. Were not the Ethiopians and the Lubim a huge host, with chariots and horsemen exceeding many? yet, because thou didst rely on the LORD, he delivered them into thine hand. For the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to shew himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him. Herein thou hast done foolishly; for from henceforth thou shalt have wars. Then Asa was wroth with the seer, and put him in the prison house; for he was in a rage with him because of this thing. And Asa oppressed some of the people the same time. And, behold, the acts of Asa, first and last, lo, they are written in the book of the kings of Judah and Israel. And in the thirty and ninth year of his reign Asa was diseased in his feet; his disease was exceeding great: yet in his disease he sought not to the LORD, but to the physicians. And Asa slept with his fathers, and died in the one and fortieth year of his reign. And they buried him in his own sepulchres, which he had hewn out for himself in the city of David, and laid him in the bed which was filled with sweet odours and divers kind of spices prepared by the apothecaries’ art: and they made a very great burning for him.

Forty-one Years, 21st of Jeroboam to 3d of Ahab, of Israel.

KING ABIJAH reigned but three years; but his son Asa, who succeeded him, reigned forty-one years, and beheld the close of the reign of Jeroboam in Israel, and the commencement of that of Ahab—so that this one reign in the house of David covered the entire reigns of five and parts of the reigns of two kings in Israel—seven in all, including four different families or dynasties. Jeroboam was on the throne of Israel when Asa succeeded to that of Judah.

His son Nadab then became king; and in the second year of his reign was put to death, with all his father’s house, by Baasha of Issachar, who then mounted the throne, and reigned twenty-four years. He fixed his residence at Tirzah, and was succeeded by his son Elah, who, in the second year of his reign, was murdered, with all his family, by Zimri. On hearing this, the army elected their general, Omri, as king, and marched to Tirzah against Zimri, who had there assumed the crown. He made no resistance, but fled to the harem, which he set on fire, and perished in the flames. In the mean time, some of the people had made Tibni king; but this party was at length put down, and Omri was generally recognized as king.

He built Samaria, which henceforth became the capital of Israel; and, after a reign of twelve years, left the throne to his son Ahab, whose reign fills a large portion of sacred history. There can be no doubt that Asa’s long and mainly prosperous reign, while Israel was torn by internal factions and revolutions, and stained with the blood of fallen princes massacred by the successful competitors for the perilous crown, tended much to consolidate the strength of Judah, and to raise it to that equality with the rival kingdom, which might not in the first instance have appeared feasible when the great disproportion of territory is considered. Kitto.

The first ten years of Asa’s reign were occupied with the reformation of worship, and the strengthening of defenced cities. Then followed the invasion of Judah by Zerah and the utter overthrow of the Egyptian, through the intervention of Jehovah in response to Asa’s trustful prayer. For twenty-five years king and people had the Lord’s blessing of “rest round about.” Then Asa was threatened by Baasha king of Israel. And then Asa’s long untried faith failed utterly. Like the failures of all the good or godly in both Testaments, Asa’s defection occurred at the very point of his previous excellence. He had trusted in God’s power only, when his kingdom was actually thronged by foes. Now, when merely threatened by the comparatively feeble power of Baasha, he deliberately turns away from his Divine deliverer. He forsakes God, and puts his trust in that heathen king who was now the natural enemy of both Israel and Judah, and the power most to be dreaded. And though the result of his humiliating appeal to Benhadad was successful, yet that success wrought only an increasing unbelief in Asa’s heart. So when God’s prophet came to him with God’s warning reproof, Asa dared to imprison the messenger for his fidelity. And this cloud seems to settle upon Asa’s faith in the six closing years of his reign. Instead of seeking from God the healing of his disease, he resorted to heathen healers. But with all these failures and frailties of his closing years, his character and reign still stand among the wisest and best in Judah’s history.

2. Chron. 14:1.** Asa succeeds Abijah. We meet for the first time the beautiful expression, slept with his fathers. The figure of sleep, as meaning death, is common to both Testaments, and is obviously suggestive of resurrection and another life. Somewhere about Mount Zion, the loftiest of three or four eminences included in Jerusalem (on the southwest), were the royal sepulchres. All the kings of Judah, save three (Ahaz, Jehoram and Joash), were buried here. Asa’s reign lasted forty-one years. For ten years from its commencement peace prevailed, and the people had rest and prosperity. And the reason is assigned in verses 2-5. B.

The land was quiet ten years. The great blow struck by Abijah, his alliance with Syria, and the rapid succession of sovereigns in Israel during the earlier part of Asa’s reign, would naturally prevent any disturbance of the peace on the part of the northern kingdom. B. C.

2-5. Asa destroys idol-altars, and restores the law and worship of Jehovah. The scriptural expressions commonly employed respecting both good and bad kings are to be interpreted by the recorded facts of their reigns. It is said: “Asa did what was good and right,” etc.; and (1 K. 15-14), “Asa’s heart was perfect with the Lord.” The meaning is, that, in the main, and as compared with others, he was loyal to Jehovah. Yet Asa failed in one vital matter that demanded reformation. He destroyed idol-altars, brake down idol-images of metal and stone, cut down the so-called sacred trees, and took away the high places (hill-tops) consecrated to idolatry. But he failed to take away the high places disobediently set apart for the worship of Jehovah. He did not require the people to make the Temple at Jerusalem their one place of worship, and so re-entrone Jehovah in His own dwelling-place. Yet he did everything beside; he “commanded Judah to seek the Lord, and to do the law and the commandment.” And God rewarded him and his complying people with quiet and prosperity.

Suggestions recurring at this point are: 1. That God only gives peace and prosperity. 2. That He notes and rewards even an imperfect service which proceeds from a heart in the main loyal. 3. That the loyal heart should honestly search out and prayerfully seek to have disclosed its own points of imperfection. B.

1. K. 15:13.** Maachah, the granddaughter of Absalom, had been the leading spirit of the court during two reigns. As his favorite wife, she had directed the religious policy of Rehoboam; and as his mother, she had exercised a complete domination over his successor, her son, Abijah. A devotee of the Syro-Phenician religion, she had established her own shrine of Astarte worship in Jerusalem, and had erected in it an idolatrous emblem, probably of a sensusistic character (1 K. 15:13). Asa “destroyed this idol and burnt it by the brook Kidron.” Maachah herself he deprived of all authority, perhaps removing her from the court over which she had so long exercised a baleful influence. He in this way got rid of a centre of religious corruption which, unless removed, would have vitiated all his efforts after reform, and have afforded a rallying-point for the heathenizing party, against which it would have been most difficult to struggle. G. R.

2. Chron. 14:6-8.** Asa rebuilds the walls of fenced cities, and organizes an army. He employs the “rest that the Lord had given” in strengthening the defences of the chief cities of Judah. These cities had been taken and rendered defenceless by the occupying hosts of Shishak. They were now open to attack on the north by Israel and on the south by Egypt. Asa’s act involved another attack from the latter; and the completion of his great work of defence was probably followed by the withholding of the tribute money to Egypt. This was doubtless done with the Divine approval. Besides this, while the land had rest through God’s favor, and while the fortifications were being constructed around the larger cities, the king had constructed a vast military organization of the entire people. This was to constitute a living breastwork of defence, when needed, in behalf of the nation. Of spearmen there were three hundred thousand in Judah; and of bowmen, two hundred and eighty thousand in Benjamin. This military preparation also seems to have been approved of God.

A fourth suggestion: That the period of health and prosperity is the fit time to prepare for sickness and adversity—emphatically the period of preparation for the end of life, and for that which follows, the fixed estate of the enduring life to come.

9, 10. The host of Zerah set in array against the army of Asa. In the tenth year of Asa’s reign the expected invasion from Egypt took place. By a long career of prosperity had God prepared His people for the conflict, which He Himself had delayed. Zerah’s host of a million men and three hundred chariots mainly consisted of mercenaries of adjacent nations or conscripts taken from tributary peoples—the largest collected force of which we read in Scripture. Mareshah was one of the cities fortified by Rehoboam and refortified by Asa. It lay twenty-five to thirty miles southwest from Jerusalem, in the low country of Judah. B.

The Egyptian monuments enable us to picture the general disposition of Zerah’s army. The chariots formed the first corps, in a single or double line; behind them, massed in phalanxes, were heavy armed troops; probably on the flanks stood archers and horsemen in lighter formations. Zerah retired from before Mareshah toward the plain, that he might use his chariots and horsemen with effect, instead of entangling them in the narrow valleys leading toward Jerusalem. From the prayer of Asa we may judge that when he came upon the invading army he saw its hugeness, and so that as he descended through a valley it lay spread out beneath him. Asa marching down a valley must have attacked in heavy column. His spearmen of Judah must have formed this column. Each bank of the valley would have been occupied by the Benjamite archers. No doubt the Ethiopian, confident in his numbers, disdained to attack the Hebrews, or clear the heights, but waited in the broad valley. R. S. Pool.

9. Zerah the Ethiopian.** Zerah the Ethiopian is probably Usarken (Osorkon) II., the third king of Egypt after Shishak, according to the Egyptian monuments. The three root letters of the Hebrew name Zerah, z, r, and ch, represent fairly enough the three main consonants of the Egyptian word Usarken. And Osorkon II. may have been by birth an Ethiopian, for he was the son-in-law, not the son, of the preceding monarch, and reigned in right of his wife. B. C.

11. The trustful prayer of Asa. This is a wonderful prayer—wonderful for its comprehensiveness and completeness, its boldness and simplicity—under the circumstances in which it was uttered. In it God is everything and man nothing. Resting implicitly upon this fact, its twofold plea shows a most absolute faith that His omnipotence is with them and for them. “Help us, for in Thy name, resting on thee, we go against this multitude!” Help us, for “Thou art our God! Let not man prevail against THEE!” Against Thee, not against us, boldly assuming that God’s honor is involved. Nothing but honest, invincible faith would conceive or dare to express such an appeal. And that it was faith, and that its conclusions were authorized, is proven by the issue. The appeal was heard and answered. And the very record in its terms seems to respond to the great fact of the prayer. Not Asa’s army, but “the Lord smote the Ethiopians before Asa and before Judah.” The fleeing host were pursued, and vast spoil scattered in their flight, for full twenty miles. For three centuries Egypt (the southern power of Old Testament history and prophecy) attempted no further invasion into the country of Jehovah’s people.

This wonderful prayer and its wonderful success supremely magnifies God’s power. It exemplifies a supremely and utterly appropriating faith in God’s willingness to use His power for those that, doing their utmost, still wholly rest on Him. And the result pledges God’s help and a successful issue in every earnest conflict with spiritual foes to such implicit faith, to such absolute casting upon Him, as the one whose honor is chiefly involved, the actual issue. B.

Asa knew he was in himself helpless, and he knew where to seek an all-sufficient Helper, and he desired to know no more. In this he rested—“We rest on Thee.” This resting on God was both a cause and an effect. That he was enabled so to rest with undisturbed mind on God was one of the grounds on which he expected help—“for we rest on Thee;” and so far it was a cause. But the capacity of enjoying this rest, in leaning so entirely upon the Lord, was an inevitable effect of the previous convictions which he had reached of his own helplessness, and of the boundless sufficiency of his Helper. These things belong to the life of faith, and are essentially the same, whether they have regard to our defence against the innumerable adversaries who disturb or threaten our bodily repose, or the spiritual enemies, within us and without us, that bring danger to our souls. In either case, perfect love to God and perfect trust in Him, which trust is essential to love, gives rest—casts out all fear and doubt. Because Asa had attained to the state of “rest on God,” by which all these privileges became his—he could say, “In Thy name we go against this multitude.” This was his might. In this might he went, and he overcame. And it was because, feeling his own weakness, knowing where help was to be found, relying, resting upon that help and in that reliance, and in no other, going forth to oppose the Cushean host, that he was entitled and authorized to regard the cause as the Lord’s own, and to say, “O Lord, Thou art our God, let not man prevail against Thee.” Kitto.

A model of prayer in an emergency. It is made up of four fragments, each of which teaches us a fundamental element in the spirit of prayer in such an exigency. First, prayer in emergencies should be founded on a strong faith in God’s independence of human resources and methods of judgment. Hear the stricken monarch, as he kneels beneath the weight of a kingdom: “Lord, it is nothing to Thee to help, whether with many or with them that have no power.” This goes to the heart of the case. Nothing else equals the situation. Are there not, in the lives of us all, emergencies in which our deliverance may depend on our realizing to our faith the principle that God is independent of the resources which decide human judgment? In certain extreme hours, very much may depend on the depth of our faith in this. Our own courage may depend on it. Our power to energize others may depend on it. Our power with God may depend on it. We need to feel that prayer may command improbable results, because it commands supernatural resources.

The example before us suggests, as a second element in believing prayer in emergencies, a profound sense of the inadequacy of all other sources of relief but God. We need to feel that we are shut in to God, and God only. “Help us, O Lord our God, for we rest in Thee.” We are shut up to the arm of God. Help, Lord, or we perish. This familiar element in the spirit of prayer, emergencies force upon our thought. Often Divine providence seems to second the procedure of Divine grace by leaving us in a great emergency till we feel this. Deliverance is slow in coming. Prayer is not answered in a breath. The trial gathers intensity. The crisis deepens. The fire waxes hot. The object seems to be to quicken in the soul the sense of God as a reality because He is felt to be a necessity. Ruin here, ruin there, ruin everywhere except in the one thought that there is a God. Intense conceptions of the reality of God come to some minds in no other way than through this secret alliance of providence and grace in the discipline. The needed convictions have to be burned in by fiery trial. But when the end is gained, when God becomes an infinite fact, when we become content to go fearless into solitude with God, to cast everything upon God, to rest in God, then believing prayer wells up sweet and fresh from the heart, and flows out in glad assurance from the lips. Then relief, success, conquest, is not far off.

Prayer in emergencies involves a third element. It is a profound identification with God. “In Thy name we go against this multitude.” The battle is not ours, but God’s. Our interests are lost in God’s interests. This is the province of believing prayer in emergencies, to lift us up and out from our petty selves, and so unite us with God that our interests are His because His interests have become ours. Our will is His because His will has been accepted as ours. Then prayer becomes but a prophecy of His decree. Its success is a foregone conclusion. While we are speaking, the answer is on our own lips. One design, doubtless, of great and crushing emergencies, is to help us up to this summit of identification with God, by driving us up the rocky steep that leads thither.

One other phase of prayer in such emergencies, suggested by the fragment of biography before us, is a hearty recognition of God’s ownership of us. “O Lord, Thou art our God; let not man prevail against Thee.” This conception of prayer in critical exigencies fills up the Christian idea of it to the brim. We belong to God. Whatever concerns us concerns Him. Our sorrow is His sorrow. Our joy is His joy. If it is best for us that we be delivered, it is as much to God as to us that He shall send deliverance. No wedge can be driven between, to separate Him from us, His interests from ours. The sacredness and eternity of Divine ownership are pledged to our success. By the right of creation we belong to God. By the right of faithful and undying friendship we belong to God. By the right of eternal redemption we belong to God. By the right of purchase with the blood of Christ we belong to God. Will God desert His own with such rights as these? Phelps.

12. The Ethiopians fled. The defeat of Zerah is one of the most remarkable events in the history of the Jews. On no other occasion did they meet in the field and overcome the forces of either of the two great monarchies between which they were placed. It was seldom that they ventured to resist, unless behind walls. Shishak, Sennacherib, Esarhaddon, Nebuchadnezzar, Alexander, Ptolemy I., were either unopposed or only opposed in this way. On the one other occasion on which they took the field—which was under Josiah against Necho—their boldness issued in a most disastrous defeat. Now, however, under Asa, they appear to have gained a complete and most glorious victory over the entire force of Egypt, or of Ethiopia wielding the power of Egypt. The results which follow are most striking. The southern power cannot rally from the blow, but rapidly declines, and for above three centuries makes no further effort in this direction. Assyria grows in strength, continually pushes her arms further, and finally, under Sargon and Sennacherib, penetrates to Egypt itself. All fear of Egypt as an aggressive power ceases; and the Israelites learn instead to lean upon the Pharaohs for support (2 K. 17:4; 18:21). Friendly ties alone connect the two countries; and it is not till B.C. 609 that an Egyptian force again enters Palestine with a hostile intention. B. C.

13. Such an appeal could not be in vain. In the significant language of Holy Scripture it was “Jehovah” who “smote” the Ethiopians, and “Asa and the people that were with him” only “pursued them.” Far away to Gerar, three hours southeast from the border-city, Gaza, continued the chase amid unnumbered slain, and still the destroying sword of Jehovah was before His host, and His fear fell upon all the cities round about. To wrest the hostile cities of the Philistines and to carry away much spoil was only one sequence. Henceforth Egypt ceased to be a source of terror or of danger, and full three hundred and thirty years passed before its army was again arrayed against Judah. A. E.

15:1-15. These events followed immediately upon the great victory of Asa’s army over Zerah and the Ethiopian invaders. As that victory had been preceded by prayerful trust in God, so it is now followed by the obedient consecration of the people to Jehovah, who had answered their prayer with so complete a deliverance. But in order to secure their renewed consecration, God had inspired the prophet Azariah to meet the returning victorious king and army with His earnest exhortation. In Jehovah’s name the prophet had recalled their neglect of His worship, and the consequent distress and calamities which He had suffered to come upon the nation. But he assures them that the Lord would return with abundant favors if they would return to Him with sincere worship and faithful service. The result of this Divine exhortation with promise is here recounted. B.

Ch. 16, 1-7. The Spirit of God came upon the prophet (verse 1), both to instruct him what he should say, and to enable him to say it with clearness and boldness. The Lord is with you, while you be with Him. This is both a word of comfort, that those who keep close to God shall always have His presence with them, and also a word of caution, “He is with you, while you be with Him, but no longer; you have now a signal token of His favorable presence with you, but the continuance of it depends upon your perseverance in the way of your duty.” “If ye seek Him, He will be found of you. Sincerely desire His favor and aim at it, and you shall obtain it. Pray, and you shall prevail. He never said, nor ever will, Seek ye Me in vain.” But if you forsake Him and His ordinances, He will certainly forsake you. Upon this He grounded His exhortation to prosecute the work of reformation with vigor (verse 7); Be strong, for your work shall be rewarded. H.

8. Removal of idols and restoration of the Temple worship.** In the previous chapter we have an account of Asa’s endeavor to take away idolatry by the removal of images and high places. Afterward, during Asa’s reign, we read of idolatrous worship as still continued; while his successors also renewed from time to time this same work of endeavoring to extirpate the worship of idols. The fact is, and it needs to be remembered throughout this history, that idolatry was already so deeply rooted in the habits of the people and so strongly intrenched in an ignorant conviction and an instinctive feeling, that it kept springing up afresh all over the land, in spite of all efforts of the best of Judah’s kings to extirpate it. It never was destroyed out of Israel or Judah until the captivities. But after the Return from Babylon, idolatry was never known among the Jews. That severe discipline of Jehovah, the exile and the bondage of seventy years, avowedly visited upon His people because they would have other gods beside Him, fully accomplished its design.

Asa now adds to his fresh endeavor to “put away the abominable idols of Judah and Benjamin,” the repair of the great altar of burnt-offering, and the renewal of worship to Jehovah by the appointed sacrifices upon it. This altar, made by Solomon sixty years before, stood before the Temple proper, immediately in front of the lofty porch. And this double act of Asa suggests a point of personal instruction—viz., that the fitting and necessary condition of return and right approach to God is the casting down of all idolatry, of self, of the world, or of the creature; and the preparation of the heart, God’s altar, for every demanded sacrifice and service. But all this, in us, demands the joint-working of the Almighty Spirit, always ready to work in those who seek to work out their salvation. B.

Words and prophecy. Carefully examined, verses 2-7 contain alike an address and a prophecy. For it were a mistake to suppose that the picture which Azariah drew of Israel’s sin and its consequence in verses 3, 5 and 6 was only that of the far past in the time of the Judges, of the religious decline under Jeroboam and Abijah, or even of their future apostasy and its punishment. All these were included in what the prophet set before the people. And not only so, but his words extended beyond Judah and applied to all Israel, as if the whole people were viewed as still united and ideally one in their relation to the Lord. Accordingly, it deserves special notice, that neither in verse 3 nor in verse 5 any verb is used, as if to indicate the general application of the “prophecy.” But its present bearing, alike as regarded Judah’s sin and repentance, and God’s judgment and mercy, was an earnest call to carry on and complete the good work which had already been begun (verse 7). And king and people hearkened to the voice of God through His prophet. Again and more energetically than before, the religious reformation was taken in hand. The idol “abominations” were removed, not only from Judah and Benjamin, but from the conquered cities of the north, and the great altar of burnt-offering in the Temple was repaired. The earnestness of this movement attracted the pious laity from the neighboring tribes (verse 9), and even led those of Simeon (in the far south) who, apparently, had hitherto sympathized with the northern kingdom, as they shared their idolatry (cf. Amos 4:4; 5:5; 8:14), to join the ranks of Judah. A. E.

9,10. Gathering of Judah and Benjamin at Jerusalem.** Asa had taken courage from the words of Divine promise spoken by the prophet of Jehovah, following as they did so marvelous an interposition of deliverance from the Egyptian host. He had decreed and sought to accomplish the overthrow of idol worship, and restored the great altar, worn by long disuse and neglect. Now he gathers a great assembly of the two tribes, and of many besides from the adjoining tribes of the kingdom of Israel, around the Temple of God in Jerusalem. In this massing of the people came representatives from every family and household. As the whole history informs us, these assemblages, originally commanded by Moses in connection with the three great Feasts, were specially ordered by the kings in periods of national interest or exigency. They were a means of uniting the whole people with king and nobles in any form of national expression or action that was desirable or necessary. In the mention of the “strangers out of Ephraim, Manasseh, and Simeon” (the adjacent tribes under Jeroboam’s rule), who comprised a fresh and “abundant” migration from the other kingdom, the reason of their coming is assigned. They saw that the Lord was with Asa! A second practical suggestion here: that God’s manifest favor with His people has a strangely attractive power with observant, thoughtful men of the world.

11-14. The offerings of the people, and their covenant renewed with Jehovah.** The burntofferings, like all other ceremonials of worship, were symbolic. The meaning of each was declared in the law of Moses. The partial burnt-offering, where the fat only was burned and the rest used for food, represented thanksgiving on the offerer’s part. The whole burnt-offering, while including the ideas of substitution and propitiation for sin, also represented complete self-consecration. In both aspects, the offerings now presented were specially appropriate. By each of its families, represented in these thousands of offerings, the nation symbolically expressed its gratitude for deliverance and its purpose of consecration; at the same time recognizing the sovereign mercy of Jehovah. Very naturally followed a formal renewal of covenant with “the Lord God of their fathers.” With all the mass of ceremonial observances commanded under that old covenant, the fact ought to be always borne in mind by us that the comprehensive, sublime demand of supreme love and heart-obedience to God is declared in the simplest, clearest words, upon constantly recurring pages of the history. No candid, true-hearted Israelite could fail to understand that this personal love and obedience was the principle which underlaid all outward ordinances and ceremonies. So we read, in this renewal of covenant with God, that the people pledged themselves, not to perform required ceremonials, but to seek the Lord God with all their heart and with all their soul.

Two personal suggestions are to be noted here. 1. Under the new covenant, not outward and ceremonial, but only inward and spiritual sacrifices are demanded. Yet the substance of those old symbolic offerings is identical in all particulars with the new worship. Both comprise as their essential elements thanksgiving and praise, and penitent trust in the sacrifice of the Lamb of God’s appointment, as the substitute for the sinner’s death, the propitiation for his sin, and the means of his purification. 2. The clear recognition of God’s covenant proffered through Christ’s sacrifice and intercession and the hearty acceptance of it will prompt a true response to it. This response consists in a continuous self-consecration of the whole heart and life to Christ and His service.

15. The result of a renewed covenant: gladness and prosperity.** Their oath was heartfelt and sincere, and was followed by honest and true endeavor; and God gave them rest, and enriched them by years of uninterrupted prosperity. An old lesson we here read again, yet one that is hardest to learn: that His favor and

our unbroken prosperity go with the loving heart and obedient life. While there are exceptions, like the blind man of Jerusalem (John 9), where special trials are permitted in order to emphasize more manifestly the glory of God, yet the law of God’s dealing is, that the outward life of the Christian is prospered in proportion to his truth, his trust, and his obedience, toward God! B.

No joy is equal to that which accompanies this transaction of engaging ourselves to God. We have never any true joy, joy of a pure and elevated nature, till we know what it is to enter into covenant with God by the sacrifice of Christ. Men may have pleasure before, but not joy. They may have the satisfactions of the world, transient and unholy; but the mind is not blessed, the heart is not filled with intellectual, moral, substantial joy. Those who engage themselves to Him have a pledge of all future blessings. He is pleased to pledge Himself to them, as their protector, and rest, and peace, and portion. Asa and his people, in the case before us, had a pledge of the serene possession of their own land. “The Lord gave them rest round about,” says the text. They had the secure continuance of good laws and government, and the assurance of being free from plagues and judgments. But this engagement must be sincere and hearty, cordial and affectionate. The Christian renounces all other masters, and cheerfully devotes himself to one Master, even Christ. He is a volunteer in His service, made willing in the day of Christ’s power, and presented to Him in the beauty of holiness. R. Hall.

17. The heart of Asa was perfect all his days.** It is not meant that Asa was sinless, for the writer soon afterward records some grievous transgressions of this king’s; but only that he was free from the sin of idolatry, and continued faithful to Jehovah all his life.

16:1-6. This passage runs parallel with 1 K. 15:17-22, and contains nothing additional, except the date in verse 1, and the mention, in verse 4, of the “store cities” of Naphtali. B. C.—This general defection to Asa of the worshippers of Jehovah throughout the kingdom of Israel must have added great strength, especially moral strength, to Judah. It alarmed Baasha, the king of Israel, who renewed the war with all his forces, and fortified Ramah, as a sort of blockading station on the frontier of Judah, to prevent his subjects from going over to Asa. It was then that the good king of Judah committed the one great error of his life. He not only resorted to the heathen king of Damascus, Benhadad I., but he took the treasures of the house of God to purchase his alliance. P. S.—Benhadad was only too ready to entertain Asa’s proposals. On receiving the rich bribe, which made Judah virtually tributary to him, he broke his league with Baasha, and immediately invaded Israel, overrunning the northern territory, penetrating as far as the district of Chinneroth—which gave its name to the lake of Gennesaret—and occupying the land of Naphtali. This threatening danger in the north of his dominions obliged Baasha hastily to quit Ramah. Asa now summoned all Judah. The materials accumulated for the fortress of Ramah were removed, and used for building two new forts: Geba (“the height”) and Mizpah (“the outlook”) (cf. Josh. 18:24, 26; also Jer. 41:5-9). Both these cities lay within the territory of Benjamin, about three miles to the north of Ramah, in very strong positions, and commanded the two roads to Jerusalem. A. E.

2. Asa repaired Shishak’s plunder of the Temple by rich offerings of gold and silver, in addition to those dedicated by his father, probably in the early part of his reign, but since transferred to the heathen shrines. It is indeed curious to observe how soon the treasures, of which the Temple was repeatedly stripped—by Shishak, by Asa himself at a later time, and by other kings—were again supplied. The commerce established by Solomon with Arabia and the East, and with the silver-producing regions of Western Europe, must have continued to flourish. P. S.

7-10. But however successful it seemed in its immediate object, the thing that Asa had done displeased the Lord. It was a want of that reliance upon the Lord, which once, in a really more urgent strait, had won him so much honor; it was the tempting of another to do a dishonorable breach of faith; and it was the bringing of a heathen destroyer into that land which was still the Lord’s heritage, though it belonged not to Judah; and upon that people who were still His, although they had strayed from Him. For this—but especially for his relying upon the king of Syria more than upon the King of Heaven—a prophet was sent to rebuke and threaten him. It was intimated that for this he had not only lost a great victory over the Syrians which the Lord would have given to him, but his future reign should be troubled with wars. To be thus rebuked in the moment when his diplomatic stroke seemed to have fulfilled its purpose so well, was more than one so little used to contradiction could bear; and in his rage he sent the faithful prophet to prison—adding to his original fault the grievous sin of persecuting an inspired messenger of Jehovah. Here we have the melancholy spectacle of a prophet of God imprisoned—not by an idolatrous or notoriously wicked king, but by one who has hitherto borne a noble character and whose heart was substantially right with God. Not so did David receive Nathan’s more stern rebuke. This descendant of his does that, for only attempting to do which Jeroboam had his arm palsied. But, as Bishop Hall charitably remarks: “It were a pity that the best man should be judged by each of his actions, and not by all; the course of our life must either allow or condemn us, not these sudden exceptions.” Kitto.

8. The many experiences we have had of the goodness of God to us aggravate our distrust of Him. Has He not helped us in six troubles? And have we any reason to suspect Him in the seventh? But see how deceitful our hearts are! We trust in God when we have nothing else to trust to, when need drives us to Him; but when we have other things to stay on we are apt to stay too much on them, and to lean to our own understanding as long as that has anything to offer; but a believing confidence will be in God only when a smiling world courts it most. H.

9. Let this sentence be remembered, and stay by you always, even from this hour till your last—“For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro, through the whole earth, to show Himself strong in behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward Him.” This “perfect heart” means a right conscience, a clean, simple intent. And the substance of the declaration is, that God is on the lookout always for an honest man—Him to help, with Him and for Him to be strong; and if there be one, that God will not miss of him; for His desiring, all-searching eyes are running the world through always to find him. And when He finds him He will show Himself to him in the discovery even of His strength. Many a skeptic has He flooded with light, because He saw him willing at last to be right, and hungering for something true. This perfect heart, this soul of integrity, oh, if we had but this, what else could we fail of? Ponder then this word, put it down to be with you in your struggles with sin, your sickness, your poverty, your Christian defects and drynesses, all the mind-clouds, all the guilt-clouds, of your mortal state—“For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro through the whole earth to show Himself strong in behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward Him.” Bushnell.

10. Hanani had spoken as all the prophets of Jehovah, fearlessly, faithfully, and only too truly. It was probably conviction of this which, in the unhumbled state of the king, kindled his anger against “the seer.” Once more it might seem to Asa as not implying rebellion against God, only a necessary precaution against disunion and dissatisfaction among his own subjects, threatening to upset his political calculations and combinations, to use measures of severity against the prophet from which he would have shrunk at a former period of his reign. All the more requisite might these appear, since his unwelcome monitor evidently commanded the sympathies of an influential part of the community. But it was an unheard-of proceeding, which happily found imitation only in the worst times of Israel, to put the prophet of the Lord “in the house of stocks” on account of his faithfulness, and by a series of persecutions to oppress, and, if possible, crush those who sympathized with him.

12. The fatal tendency which had showed itself in the Syrian alliance, and still more in the measures against Hanani and his sympathizers, continued and increased with the lapse of years. Two years before his death Asa was attacked by some disease in his feet. In this “also” “he sought not Jehovah but in (by) the physicians.” He trusted not in the supernatural, but applied to the natural: and in the natural course of events his disease ended in death. It was not wrong to employ means, indeed such were used in the miraculous cure of Hezekiah (2 K. 20: 7), just as in the miraculous rescue of St. Paul’s companions from shipwreck (Acts 27: 23, 24, 43, 44). And if one lesson more than another has been impressed on our minds in the course of this history, it is that of the use of natural means, in the ordinary and rational succession of events, for the accomplishment of supernatural and divinely announced purposes. But the error and sin of Asa consisted in seeking an object, however lawful and even desirable, in, by, and through secondary means, without first seeking Jehovah. Such conduct carried with it its natural result. A. E.

There is a most remarkable passage in the Apocrypha, which has been much overlooked in the consideration of the question. It is in Ecclesiasticus: “Honor a physician with the honor due unto him, for the uses which ye may have of him: for the Lord hath created him. For of the Most High cometh healing, and he shall receive honor of the king. The skill of the physician shall lift up his head [i.e., raise him to honor]: and in the sight of great men he shall be in admiration. The Lord hath created medicines out of the earth: and he that is wise will not abhor them. Was not the water made sweet with wood, that the virtue thereof might be known? And he giveth men skill, that He might be honored in His marvellous works. With such doth He heal [men], and taketh away their pains. Of such doth the apothecary make a confection; and of His works there is no end; and from Him is peace over all the earth. My son, in thy sickness be not negligent: but pray unto the Lord, and He will make thee whole. Leave off from sin, and order thine hands aright, and cleanse thine heart from all wickedness. Give a sweet savor; and a memorial of fine flour; and make a fat offering, as not being. Then give place to the physician, for the Lord hath created him: let him not go from thee, for thou hast need of him. There is a time when in their hands there is good success: for they shall also pray unto the Lord, that He would prosper that which they give for ease and remedy to prolong life.” It appears to us that this passage very exactly defines the position of the physician. It allows him honor, and gives due weight to his skill and the real use of the means he employs, but admirably refers all to God. The skill of the physician is His; the medicaments are His; and the cure is His. Even the skill of the physician is proportioned to the faculty he possesses of rendering God honor, by his knowledge and employment of the healing properties which He has imparted to various productions of the earth. Kitto.

4th of Ahab to 5th of Jehoram, of Israel.

15 : 25 AND Nadab the son of Jeroboam began to reign over Israel in the second year of 26 Asa king of Judah, and he reigned over Israel two years. And he did that which was evil in 27 the sight of the LORD, and walked in the way of his father, and in his sin wherewith he made Israel to sin. And Baasha the son of Ahijah, of the house of Issachar, conspired against 28 him; and Baasha smote him at Gibbethon, which belonged to the Philistines; for Nadab and all Israel were laying siege to Gibbethon. Even in the third year of Asa king of Judah 29 did Baasha slay him, and reigned in his stead. And it came to pass that, as soon as he was 30 king, he smote all the house of Jeroboam; he left not to Jeroboam any that breathed, until 31 he had destroyed him; according unto the saying of the LORD, which he spake by the hand 32 of his servant Ahijah the Shilonite: for the sins of Jeroboam which he sinned, and where- 33 with he made Israel to sin; because of his provocation wherewith he provoked the LORD, 34 the God of Israel, to anger. Now the rest of the acts of Nadab, and all that he did, are they 35 not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel? And there was war between 36 Asa and Baasha king of Israel all their days. 37 In the third year of Asa king of Judah began Baasha the son of Ahijah to reign over all 38 Israel in Tirzah, and reigned twenty and four years. And he did that which was evil in the 39 sight of the LORD, and walked in the way of Jeroboam, and in his sin wherewith he made 16 : 1 Israel to sin. And the word of the LORD came to Jehu the son of Hanani against Baasha, 2 saying, Forasmuch as I exalted thee out of the dust, and made thee prince over my people Israel; and thou hast walked in the way of Jeroboam, and hast made my people Israel to 3 sin, to provoke me to anger with their sins; behold, I will utterly sweep away Baasha and 4 his house; and I will make thy house like the house of Jeroboam the son of Nebat. Him 5 that dieth of Baasha in the city shall the dogs eat; and him that dieth of his in the field shall 6 the fowls of the air eat. Now the rest of the acts of Baasha, and what he did, and his might, 7 are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel? And Baasha slept 8 with his fathers, and was buried in Tirzah; and Elah his son reigned in his stead. And more- 9 over by the hand of the prophet Jehu the son of Hanani came the word of the LORD against 10 Baasha, and against his house, both because of all the evil that he did in the sight of the LORD, to provoke him to anger with the work of his hands, in being like the house of Jeroboam, and because he smote him. 8 In the twenty and sixth year of Asa king of Judah began Elah the son of Baasha to reign 9 over Israel in Tirzah, and reigned two years. And his servant Zimri, captain of half his chariots, conspired against him: now he was in Tirzah, drinking himself drunk in the house 10 of Arza, which was over the household in Tirzah: and Zimri went in and smote him, and killed him, in the twenty and seventh year of Asa king of Judah, and reigned in his stead.

11. And it came to pass, when he began to reign, as soon as he sat on his throne, that he smote all the house of Baasha: he left him not a single man child, neither of his kinsfolks, nor of his friends. Thus did Zimri destroy all the house of Baasha, according to the word of the LORD, which he spake against Baasha by Jehu the prophet, for all the sins of Baasha, and the sins of Elah his son, which they sinned, and wherewith they made Israel to sin, to provoke the LORD, the God of Israel, to anger with their vanities. Now the rest of the acts of Elah, and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel? In the twenty and seventh year of Asa king of Judah did Zimri reign seven days in Tirzah. Now the people were encamped against Gibbethon, which belonged to the Philistines. And the people that were encamped heard say, Zimri hath conspired, and hath also smitten the king; wherefore all Israel made Omri, the captain of the host, king over Israel that day in the camp. And Omri went up from Gibbethon, and all Israel with him, and they besieged Tirzah. And it came to pass, when Zimri saw that the city was taken, that he went into the castle of the king’s house, and burnt the king’s house over him with fire, and died, for his sins which he sinned in doing that which was evil in the sight of the LORD, in walking in the way of Jeroboam, and in his sin which he did, to make Israel to sin. Now the rest of the acts of Zimri, and his treason that he wrought, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel?

Two Years, 2d and 3d of Asa, of Judah.

OF Nadab, the son and successor of Jeroboam, nothing is recorded except that he ascended the throne of Israel in the second year of Asa, king of Judah, and was murdered in the year following by Baasha the son of Ahijah, of the tribe of Issachar, at Gibbethon, a Philistine town which the Israelites were besieging. No particulars are given of his age or actions. It is merely said, in the most general way, that “he did evil in the sight of the Lord, and walked in the way of his father, and in his sin wherewith he made Israel to sin.”

25. A reign of “two years” is assigned to him; but the writer counts any part of a year as “a year;” and all that we can distinctly gather from him is, that Nadab began to reign in some part of Asa’s second year, and was murdered in some part of his third. G. R.

28. Even in the third year of Asa.** We have here (as in chap. 16:8, 23) a conspicuous instance of the Hebrew habit of counting parts of years as entire years. It is obvious that if Nadab succeeded to the throne in the second (verse 25) and died in the third year of Asa, he cannot have reigned two full years.

29. By his servant Ahijah the Shilonite (chap. 14:10). It is not implied that it was because of this prophecy that Baasha exterminated the house of Jeroboam. It is probable that, so far from setting himself to fulfil it, he knew nothing about it, and, as he thought, merely took effectual measures for his own security. His seat could never be safe so long as one of Jeroboam’s house survived. Hammond.

We have here a signal fulfilment of the curse denounced upon Jeroboam in the utter extinction of his family. There was not left to him any that breathed. T. C.

30. It is clear to the most cursory reader that a daring impiety characterizes the whole period from Jeroboam to Hoshea, and for this “the sin of Jeroboam” is mainly responsible. Of each of the kings of Israel do we read that he “walked in the way of Jeroboam, and in his sin which he did.” Not one of these nineteen kings, sprung as many of them were from different lineages, had the courage and the piety to retrace his steps, and revert to the primitive faith and mode of worship. For Jeroboam had made the calf-worship an integral part of the national life. It was so intertwined with the existence of Israel as a separate people, that to abandon it would be to repudiate all the traditions of the kingdom, and tacitly to acknowledge the superiority of Judah. Any king attempting such a reformation would appear to be a traitor to his country. The attempt would have provoked a second schism. It was clear to each monarch at his accession, if he reflected on the subject at all, that the calf-worship must go on. Ahab and Jezebel are not wholly responsible for the abominations of Baal and Ashtaroth. The daring innovations of Jeroboam had prepared the minds of men for this last and greatest violation of the law. The plunge into wholesale idolatry would have been impossible, had not the deep descent to the calf-worship been traversed first. Hammond.

33. Tirzah.** A little to the north of Shechem, in the mountain district, twelve miles from Samaria, on the road from Nablous to Beisan, in a well-wooded country, lies Teiasir, the ancient Tirzah. It was an old Canaanite city, whose king fell before Joshua (chap. 12 : 24). Its remarkable beauty—“Thou art beautiful, O my love, as Tirzah” (Cant. 6 : 4)—caused it to be selected as the royal residence by Jeroboam. His successors, Nadab, Baasha, Elah, and Zimri, also resided at Tirzah, where Baasha and probably the others were buried. Here was matured the conspiracy of Zimri, and, in retribution, he in his turn was here besieged by Omri, who, after the capture of the place, resided here for six years, till he removed the capital to the new city of Samaria. Several generations later, at Tirzah, Menahem organized his rebellion against Shallum; but so soon as he was successful he established his government in Samaria. There are numerous cave-sepulchres north of the village, among which may be the tombs of the first four kings of Israel, who were buried here. Tristram.

Twenty-four Years, 3d to 26th of Asa, of Judah.

BAASHA, the third Israelite monarch, had a reign of twenty-four years (15 : 33). He was the son of a certain Ahijah, of whom nothing more is known, and belonged to the undistinguished and unimportant tribe of Issachar. It would seem that he was originally of very humble rank (16 : 2) ; and at the siege of Gibbethon, where he conceived the design of murdering Nadab and seating himself upon his throne, he was perhaps no more than a common soldier. But he was “a man of distinguished bravery,” ambitious to excess, and of extraordinary audacity. Without, so far as appears, any prophetic encouragement, without claim of any kind to the kingly office, he ventured to organize a conspiracy against the reigning sovereign, the son of a valiant sire, who must have had the support of many powerful interests. All that we know is, that Baasha succeeded in his enterprise, that he slew Nadab at Gibbethon, and was accepted as king in his stead, obtaining the throne, as it would seem, without any civil war or long struggle. The nation, which the house of Jeroboam had in no way attached to itself, acquiesced in his rule, probably preferring the firm hand that had seized the reins of government to the feeble one from which they had slipped. In firmly establishing himself upon the throne and consolidating his power, Baasha showed the same vigor and unscrupulousness that he had exhibited in making himself king. Unmoved by any stir of compassion or pity, he relentlessly exterminated the entire house of Jeroboam. Religion profited nothing by the change of dynasty. The worship of the calves remained unchanged at Dan and Bethel; the unauthorized priesthood was maintained in office; Jehovistic Israelites were hindered from carrying their offerings to Jerusalem or participating in the Temple worship (2 Chron. 16 : 1) ; Jeroboam’s system was, in fact, continued without the slightest modification, and the prophetic order can have been no better pleased with the rule of the house of Ahijah than with that of the house of Nebat. It is in military matters that a difference can be traced between the policy of the first and the second Israelite dynasty. The house of Nebat had been content to stand on the defensive against Judah, to seek to repel attack rather than to make it, and to look to self-protection rather than to self-aggrandizement. It had even submitted under Jeroboam to the loss of territory, and had subsequently made no effort to recover the captured cities. Baasha’s military policy was the exact opposite of this. Having strengthened himself by an alliance with his northern neighbor, Benhadad, king of Damascus (2 Chron. 16 : 3), he challenged Judah to the combat; he collected an army, marched southward, crossed the Judean border, reconquered the territory taken from Israel by Ahijah in the reign of Jeroboam, and pursuing his victorious march seized and occupied Ramah, a position of the utmost importance in Judea itself, which he endeavored rapidly to convert into a fortress of the first class. The object, as Ewald sees, was to “annihilate” Judah. If it could have been maintained for a few years in the hands of Judah’s bitter foes, Jerusalem must have succumbed, and with the loss of Jerusalem the Judean state must have collapsed. In Judah’s history we learn how Asa met the daring plan of his adversary, how he bribed Benhadad to change sides and turn against Baasha, with the consequent failure of Baasha’s plan, and the recovery by Asa of the fortress which had threatened him with ruin. Thus Baasha’s attempt to re-establish the unity of the monarchy by absorbing Judea into his own territories came to nought. The invasion of Israel on the north by Benhadad and the speedy capture not only of the towns of Dan, Ijon, and Abel-beth-maachah, but of “all Cinneroth, with all the land of Naphtali” (1 K. 15 : 20), revealed the weakness of the Israelite kingdom in respect of its northern frontier, which was dominated by the more elevated tracts about Lebanon and Hermon that never formed any part of the actual territory of the chosen people, excepting under the brief dominion of David and Solomon. This weakness showed itself at other periods of Israelite history besides the present one, and must have caused Baasha some alarm. He seems to have hurriedly granted all the demands which Benhadad preferred, and to have thenceforth carefully abstained from provoking his hostility. A necessary result was the complete relinquishment of his aggressive designs against the kingdom of Judah, and a resumption of the defensive attitude toward it, which had been maintained by Jeroboam and Nadab. Thus Baasha found himself no whit further advanced on the path of military success than his predecessors. The honor and power of the kingdom would indeed seem to have “sunk lower under the new dynasty than under its predecessor.” Discontent consequently showed itself. A prophet (Jehu) denounced the murder by which Baasha had attained the throne (1 K. 16 : 7), reproached him for his slavish adherence to the sins of Jeroboam, and prophesied for him and his house the very same fate which, a quarter of a century earlier, had been prophesied for the house of the son of Nebat. Baasha, however, maintained his power, like Jeroboam, till his death, and left his crown to his son Elah, who at once and without difficulty mounted the throne. The scene of Baasha’s death was Tirzah, which Jeroboam had made the capital (1 K. 14 : 17); and there he was laid to rest with the customary honors. G. R.

1. Because he smote him.** 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 here expressly marks this crime as one of the grounds of Baasha’s later judgment. 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, 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. A. E.

About One Year, 27th of Asa, of Judah.