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Agape Bible Study
1 Kings 15 - 16
Chapters 15-16: The Reigns of the Kings of Israel and Judah from 913-853 BC
Rehoboam's son and successor is called Abijam in 2 Kings, but he is called Abijah in 1 Chronicles 3:8; 2 Chronicles 13:1-23 and in St. Matthew's genealogy in Matthew 1:7. Abijah was a common name in this period and means "Yahweh is my father." It was the name of a prophet (1 Kng 11:29-39; 14:1-18), the name of Rehoboam's successor (2 Chr 13:1), and the name of a leader of the tribe of Issachar (1 Kng 15:27). This king may be called Abijam in 1 Kings to avoid confusion with the prophet Abijah who figures prominently in the Book of 1 Kings.
The next two chapters cover and parallel two kings of Judah and four kings of Israel over a period of thirty years (911-883 BC). Their reigns are presented in a formula that is the same as that which summed up the reigns of Rehoboam and Jeroboam:
- The length of each king's reign
- The name of the king's mother, if he is a descendant of David
- A summary of the king's religious and moral conduct
- A concluding statement of his death and the name of his successor
- A reference to the Annals of the Kings of either Judah or Israel
In each account of the kings of Israel and Judah, the inspired writer is concerned with the moral and religious condition of these kings and their nations. He compares the kings of Judah with David and the kings of Israel with Jeroboam.
1 Kings 15:1-8 ~ The reign of King Abijam/Abijah in Judah (c. 913-911)
The Absalom referred to in verse 2 is probably King David's handsome, favorite son (2 Sam 14:25-27).
Question: What happened to Absalom? See 2 Sam 15:10-14; 18:9-15.
Answer: In his ambition to be king, he led a revolt against his father and was killed by his cousin, Joab, the commander of David's army.
Rehoboam was married to Absalom's grand-daughter or great-granddaughter (15:10). In Hebrew the words to define family relationships are very limited and "daughter" or "son" can also mean descendant (c.f., Mt 1:1) just as "brother" can mean full sibling, half-brother, or even kinsman or countryman. Abijam's mother is named after her ancestress, Absalom's mother, who was the daughter of the king of Geshur (2 Sam 3:3). 2 Chronicles 11:20 records that Rehoboam loved her more than all his other wives; a marriage between cousins was common. This woman was the new king's mother and therefore, she is the Kingdom of Judah's official "Queen Mother," in Hebrew, the Gebirah.
The "lamp" in Jerusalem is the continuing Davidic line in fulfillment of God's covenant promise to David that his royal line will endure forever (2 Sam 7:16, 29; 23:5; Sir 45:25; 47:11/13). In Scripture, David is continually held up as the model king because of his love for Yahweh and his obedience to his God's commandments, just as Jeroboam will be held up as an example of a bad king for his failures in obedience to the Law of Yahweh, especially the introduction of idol worship.
Asa Destroys the Idols
1 Kings 15:9-15 ~ The reign of King Asa in Judah (c. 911-870)
The parallel account of Asa's reign is found in 2 Chronicles chapters 14-16. He is named in the genealogies of 1 Chronicles 3:10 and Matthew 1:8. There is controversy concerning the names of several of the Davidic queens between Rehoboam and Asa:
- 2 Chronicles 11:20 ~ [Rehoboam] married Maacah daughter of Absalom, who bore him Abijah [Abijam]...
- 1 Kings 15:10b ~ His [Abijam son of Rehoboam] mother's name was Maacah descendant [daughter] of Absalom.
- 2 Chronicles 13:2 ~ In the eighteenth year of King Jeroboam, Abijah became king of Judah and reigned for three years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Micaiah daughter of Uriel of Gibeah.
- 1 Kings 15:10 ~ Asa became king of Judah and reigned for forty-one years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Maacah descendant [daughter] of Absalom.
- 2 Chronicles 15:15 ~ King Asa even deprived his mother Maacah of the dignity of Great Lady [Gebirah] for having made an obscenity for Asherah ...
Question: How does Asa stand out in the Davidic family line?
Answer: He is the first righteous king of Judah since David.
Asa's stand against pagan worship came about after an encounter with the prophet Azariah who told Asa: "Listen to me, Asa, and all you in Judah and in Benjamin: Yahweh will be with you so long as your are with him. If you seek him, he will let you find him; but if you desert him, he will desert you ..." (see 2 Chr 15:1-7). Asa believed the words of the prophet; he took courage and began a series of religious reforms.
Question: What were his accomplishments?
Answer:
- He drove out the male cult prostitutes.
- He destroyed the idols of false gods in Judah.
- He deposed his mother/grandmother from her role as the Gebirah because she promoted idol worship.
- He made gifts of silver and gold to the Temple of Yahweh.
1 Kings 15:16-22 ~ The wars and accomplishments of King Asa of Judah
Baasha, king of Israel, became a serious threat to Jerusalem when he captured and fortified Ramah, a Benjaminite city in Judahite territory about 5 miles north of Jerusalem on the border between Israel and Judah.
Question: What desperate measure did King Asa of Judah take to save his kingdom?
Answer: He paid tribute to the Aramean king of Damascus in order to form an alliance with him and gain the support of his army to break the blockade on Jerusalem and the power of Baasha's army.
1 Kings 15:23-24 ~ Summary statement of King Asa's reign
Asa died in c. 870 BC after ruling for 41 years. The disease of his feet may have been a circulation problem or nerve damage caused by diabetics. "The City" in verse 24 is Jerusalem. The three times repeat of the word "ancestors" emphasizes that Asa had an honorable death and received an honorable burial. He was succeeded by his son Jehoshaphat, whose name means "Yahweh establishes justice." Jehoshaphat is named in the genealogy of David's descendants in 1 Chronicles 3:10 and St. Matthew's genealogy of Jesus in Matthew 1:8.
1 Kings 15:25-32 ~ The reign of King Nadab in Israel (c. 910-909)
Question: How is the direction of Nadab's life in verse 26 a warning to parents today?
Answer: It is a warning that the sins of parents and other family members can influence the lives of children. The parental example for good or for evil can become a blueprint for the direction of the lives of their offspring. In the case of Nadab, he followed his father's evil example of promoting idol worship in Israel.
1 Kings 15:33-16:7 ~ The reign of Baasha in Israel (c. 909-886)
Baasha is now the third king of the Northern Kingdom of Israel. He continues the evil practices of his predecessors in promoting idol worship. In response, God sent His prophet Jehu to warn the king of God's divine judgment against him.
Question: Verse 3 is a curse judgment against the House of Baasha; what is Yahweh's two part judgment?
Answer:
- Baasha's family will suffer the same fate as that to which he condemned Jeroboam's family—to be annihilated.
- The dead of his family will be denied a proper burial.
To be denied a proper burial was one of the greatest disasters for a person and his family.
Question: How is the judgment of the prophet Jehu on Baasha's family in verse 4 related to the prophet Abijah's judgment on Jeroboam's family in 1 Kings 14:11?
Answer: It is the same judgment worded in exactly the same way.
1 Kings 16:5-7 ~ Summary statement of Baasha's reign
God will use people and nations in delivering His judgments against sinners and evil nations who commit crimes against the innocent and oppressed, but when the instrument of His justice commits the same or greater unjust and evil acts, the instrument of His divine judgment will also fall under His judgment. The children of Israel were God's instrument of justice against the Canaanites for their evil acts, but God warned them that they must only participate in holy war and must not repeat the sins of the people they were sent to conquer. If they did, they were doomed to suffer the same fate (Lev 18:26-30; Dt 6:14-19; 7:1-6; Josh 2:1-5; also see Is 13-21 for the prophecy of the judgment against Babylon and the pagan nations). God is merciful but He is also just.
1 Kings 16:8-14 ~ The reign of Elah in Israel (c. 886-885)
Question: What is ironic concerning the end of Baasha's dynasty?
Answer: His son and his dynasty suffered the same fate as what Baasha had done to the previous ruling family:
- His son was killed by a treacherous servant
- His family was destroyed by his killer
1 Kings 16:15-20 ~ The reign of Zimri in Israel (c. 885)
Zimri's act of betrayal and his brutality in murdering the royal family initiates a counter revolt. The people immediately proclaim the army commander, Omri, king of Israel. When Omri and the army marched on the capital city and captured it, Zimri committed suicide. Once again, his fate is described as Yahweh's divine punishment for his sins and he is also compared to Jeroboam, the image of a sinful king who brought a cascading cycle of sin to his people.
1 Kings 16:21-28 ~ The reign of Omri in Israel (c. 885-874)
The revolt of Zimri and the counter revolt of Omri threw the nation into a state of civil war as rival factions attempted to gain the throne. Omri was able to conquer the competition, and he became the sixth king of the Northern Kingdom of Israel and the founder of the kingdom's third dynasty. He ruled for six years from Tirzah and then moved the nation's capital to a new city he founded which he named "Samaria," ruling the Northern Kingdom for a total of twelve years. Although Omri is only mentioned in this passage from 1 Kings, we know from ancient secular documents that he was a very successful ruler. He brought political stability and prosperity to Israel. He normalized relations to some extent with the Southern Kingdom of Judah, and he made alliances with neighboring states; for example, he married his son and heir, Ahab, to the daughter of the Phoenician King of Sidon, the infamous Jezebel.
Omri is one of the few ancient kings of Israel for which we have documented historical evidence. The name "Omri" became an established term in Assyrian documents to indicate the Israelite kings even after his death, and tablets discovered in the Assyrian archives continued to refer to Israel as the "land of Omri" a hundred years after the end of his dynasty. For example, Shalmanesar III, king of Assyria, in a royal document referred to Jehu, who founded a new dynasty in Israel, as "the son of Omri." The stele of Mesha, king of Moab, names Omri as gaining possession of Madaba in Transjordan.
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CHALLENGE: “The Catholic Church hid God’s commandment against idolatry by removing it from the Ten Commandments.”
DEFENSE: The Church didn’t try to hide the commandment against idolatry. In fact, it condemns idolatry.
The Ten Commandments are in Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5. If you look in a Catholic Bible, the prohibition is right there: “You shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them or serve them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God” (Exod. 20:4–5; Deut. 5:8–9). The Catechism also forcefully condemns idolatry (CCC 2112–2114).
What the Church does—like every Christian community—is provide short summaries of the commandments for memorization. The full text of the Ten Commandments is between 300 and 400 words long (varying by translation), so every group uses a brief, memorizable list instead.
In Catholic and Lutheran lists, the prohibition of idolatry is subsumed under the broader commandment “You shall have no other gods before me” (Exod. 20:3; Deut. 5:7). Some communities treat these as separate commandments, but this is a matter of choice. We are told that there are “Ten Commandments” (Exod. 34:28), but the text contains more than ten requirements and prohibitions. Interpreters must group some of them together to make the total come out to ten, but there is no single way to do this.
“The division and numbering of the Commandments have varied in the course of history. The present catechism follows the division of the Commandments established by St. Augustine, which has become traditional in the Catholic Church. It is also that of the Lutheran confessions. The Greek Fathers worked out a slightly different division, which is found in the Orthodox Churches and Reformed communities” (CCC 2066).
In the ancient world, having other gods meant worshipping idols, so it makes sense to see the prohibitions on both as bringing out different aspects of the same commandment. The common way of numbering the Ten Commandments in Jewish circles agrees and groups the prohibitions on polytheism and idolatry together in a single commandment.
Jimmy Akin, A Daily Defense: 365 Days (Plus One) to Becoming a Better Apologist
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