13 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 at the brook Kidron.
The altars that were on the roof of the upper chamber of Ahaz, which the kings of Judah had made, and the altars which Manasseh had made in the two courts of the house of Yahweh, did the king break down, and beat [them] down from there, and cast the dust of them into the brook Kidron. The high places that were before Jerusalem, which were on the right hand of the mountain of corruption, which Solomon the king of Israel had built for Ashtoreth the abomination of the Sidonians, and for Chemosh the abomination of Moab, and for Milcom the abomination of the children of Ammon, did the king defile. He broke in pieces the pillars, and cut down the Asherim, and filled their places with the bones of men. Moreover the altar that was at Bethel, and the high place which Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin, had made, even that altar and the high place he broke down; and he burned the high place and beat it to dust, and burned the Asherah.
to whom we gave no place in the way of subjection, not for an hour, that the truth of the Gospel might continue with you. But from those who were reputed to be important (whatever they were, it makes no difference to me; God doesn't show partiality to man)--they, I say, who were respected imparted nothing to me,
While he was yet speaking to the multitudes, behold, his mother and his brothers stood outside, seeking to speak to him. One said to him, "Behold, your mother and your brothers stand outside, seeking to speak to you." But he answered him who spoke to him, "Who is my mother? Who are my brothers?" He stretched out his hand towards his disciples, and said, "Behold, my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of my Father who is in heaven, he is my brother, and sister, and mother."
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 Yahweh gave them rest round about. Also Maacah, the mother of Asa the king, he removed 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. 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. There was no more war to the five and thirtieth year of the reign of Asa.
If your brother, the son of your mother, or your son, or your daughter, or the wife of your bosom, or your friend, who is as your own soul, entice you secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which you have not known, you, nor your fathers; of the gods of the peoples who are round about you, near to you, or far off from you, from the one end of the earth even to the other end of the earth; you shall not consent to him, nor listen to him; neither shall your eye pity him, neither shall you spare, neither shall you conceal him: but you shall surely kill him; your hand shall be first on him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people. You shall stone him to death with stones, because he has sought to draw you away from Yahweh your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. All Israel shall hear, and fear, and shall not do any more such wickedness as this is in the midst of you.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Keil & Delitzsch Commentary » Commentary on 1 Kings 15
Commentary on 1 Kings 15 Keil & Delitzsch Commentary
Reign of Abijam (cf., 2 Chron 13). - Abijam reigned three years, and his mother's name was Maacah , daughter (i.e., grand-daughter) of Absalom. We have the same in 2 Chronicles 11:20-21; but in 2 Chronicles 13:2 she is called Michajahu , daughter of Uriel of Gibeah. If אבישׁלום was without doubt Absalom, the well-known son of David, as we may infer from the fact that this name does not occur again in the Old Testament in connection with any other person, since Absalom had only one daughter, viz., Thamar (2 Samuel 14:27), who was fifty years old when Solomon died, Maacah must have been a daughter of this Thamar, who had married Uriel of Gibeah, and therefore a grand-daughter of Absalom. This is sustained by Josephus ( Ant . viii. 10, 1). The form of the name מיכיהוּ is probably an error in copying for מעכה , as the name is also written in 2 Chronicles 11:20, 2 Chronicles 11:21, and not a different name, which Maacah assumed as queen, as Caspari supposes ( Micha , p. 3, note 4).
Abijam walked as king in the footsteps of his father. Although he made presents to the temple (1 Kings 15:15), his heart was not שׁלם , wholly or undividedly given to the Lord, like the heart of David (cf., 1 Kings 11:4); but ( כּי , after a previous negative) for David's sake Jehovah had left him a light in Jerusalem, to set up his son after him and to let Jerusalem stand, because ( אשׁר ) David had done right in the eyes of God, etc., i.e., so that it was only for David's sake that Jehovah did not reject him, and allowed the throne to pass to his son. For the fact itself compare 1 Kings 11:13, 1 Kings 11:36; and for the words, “except in the matter of Uriah the Hittite,” see 2 Sam 11 and 12.
“And there was war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam all his life;” i.e., the state of hostility which had already existed between Rehoboam and Jeroboam continued “all the days of his life,” or so long as Abijam lived and reigned. If we take חיּיו כּל־ימי in this manner (not כּל־ימיהם , 1 Kings 15:16), the statement loses the strangeness which it has at first sight, and harmonizes very well with that in 1 Kings 15:7, that there was also war between Abijam and Jeroboam. Under Abijam it assumed the form of a serious war, in which Jeroboam sustained a great defeat (see 2 Chron 13:3-20). - The other notices concerning Abijam in 1 Kings 15:7, 1 Kings 15:8 are the same as in the case of Rehoboam in 1 Kings 14:29, 1 Kings 14:31.
Reign of Asa (cf., 2 Chron 14-16). - As Asa ascended the throne in the twentieth year of the reign of Jeroboam, his father Abijam, who began to reign in the eighteenth year of Jeroboam (1 Kings 15:1), can only have reigned two years and a few months, and not three full years.
1 Kings 15:10
Asa reigned forty-one years. “The name of his mother was Maacah, the daughter of Absalom.” This notice, which agrees verbatim with 1 Kings 15:2, cannot mean that Abijam had his own mother for a wife; though Thenius finds this meaning in the passage, and then proceeds to build up conjectures concerning emendations of the text. We must rather explain it, as Ephr. Syr., the Rabbins, and others have done, as signifying that Maacah, the mother of Abijam, continued during Asa's reign to retain the post of queen-mother or הגּבירה , i.e., sultana valide, till Asa deposed her on account of her idolatry (1 Kings 15:13), probably because Asa's own mother had died at an early age.
1 Kings 15:11-14
As ruler Asa walked in the ways of his pious ancestor David: he banished the male prostitutes out of the land, abolished all the abominations of idolatry, which his fathers (Abijam and Rehoboam) had introduced, deposed his grandmother Maacah from the rank of a queen, because she had made herself an idol for the Ashera, and had the idol hewn in pieces and burned in the valley of the Kidron. גּלּלים is a contemptuous epithet applied to idols (Leviticus 26:30); it does not mean stercorei , however, as the Rabbins affirm, but logs, from גּלל , to roll, or masses of stone, after the Chaldee גּלל (Ezra 5:8; Ezra 6:4), generally connected with שׁקּצים . It is so in Deuteronomy 29:16. מפלצת , formido , from פּלץ , terrere , timere , hence an idol as an object of fear, and not pudendum , a shameful image, as Movers ( Phöniz . i. p. 571), who follows the Rabbins, explains it, understanding thereby a Phallus as a symbol of the generative and fructifying power of nature. With regard to the character of this idol, nothing further can be determined than that it was of wood, and possibly a wooden column like the אשׁרים (see at 1 Kings 14:23). “But the high places departed not,” i.e., were not abolished. By the בּמות we are not to understand, according to 1 Kings 15:12, altars of high places dedicated to idols, but unlawful altars to Jehovah. It is so in the other passages in which this formula recurs (1 Kings 22:24; 2 Kings 12:4; 2 Kings 14:4; 2 Kings 15:4; and the parallel passages 2 Chronicles 15:17; 2 Chronicles 20:33). The apparent discrepancy between the last-mentioned passages and 2 Chronicles 14:2, 2 Chronicles 14:4, and 2 Chronicles 17:6, may be solved very simply on the supposition that the kings (Asa and Jehoshaphat) did indeed abolish the altars on the high places, but did not carry their reforms in the nation thoroughly out; and not by distinguishing between the bamoth dedicated to Jehovah and those dedicated to idols, as Thenius, Bertheau, and Caspari, with many of the earlier commentators, suppose. For although 2 Chronicles 14:2 is very favourable to this solution, since both בּמות and הגּכר dna בּמו מזבּחות are mentioned there, it does not accord with 2 Chronicles 17:6, where הבּמות cannot be merely idolatrous altars dedicated to the Canaanitish Baal, but unquestionably refer to the unlawful altars of Jehovah, or at any rate include them. Moreover, the next clause in the passage before us, “nevertheless Asa's heart was wholly given to the Lord,” shows that the expression סרוּ לא סרוּ nois does not mean that the king allowed the unlawful Jehovah- bamoth to remain, but simply that, notwithstanding his fidelity to Jehovah, the bamoth did not depart, so that he was unable to carry the abolition of them thoroughly out.
1 Kings 15:15
He brought the sacred offerings of his father and his own sacred offerings into the house of Jehovah; probably the booty, in silver, gold, and vessels, which his father Abijam had gathered in the war with Jeroboam (2 Chronicles 13:16-17), and he himself on the conquest of the Cushites (2 Chronicles 14:12-13). The Keri וקדשׁי is a bad emendation of the correct reading in the Chethîb קדשׁו , i.e., קדשׁו ( קדשׁיו ); for יהוה בּית is an accusative, and is to be connected with ויּבא .
1 Kings 15:16-17
The state of hostility between Judah and Israel continued during the reign of Asa; and Baasha the king of Israel advanced, etc. These statements are completed and elucidated by the Chronicles. After the great victory obtained by Abijam over Jeroboam, the kingdom of Judah enjoyed rest for ten years (2 Chronicles 14:1). Asa employed this time in exterminating idolatry, fortifying different cities, and equipping his army (2 Chronicles 14:1-7). Then the Cushite Zerah invaded the land of Judah with an innumerable army (in the eleventh year of Asa), but was totally defeated by the help of the Lord (2 Chronicles 14:8-14); whereupon Asa, encouraged by the prophet Azariah, the son of Oded, proceeded with fresh zeal to the extermination of such traces of idolatry as still remained in the kingdom, then renewed the altar of burnt-offering in front of the temple-hall, and in the fifteenth year of his reign held, with the whole nation, a great festival of thanksgiving and rejoicing to the Lord at Jerusalem (2 Chronicles 15:1-15). The next year, the sixteenth of his reign and the thirty-sixth from the division of the kingdom (2 Chronicles 16:1), Baasha commenced hostilities, by advancing against Judah, taking possession of Ramah , the present er Râm (see at Joshua 18:25), which was only two hours and a quarter from Jerusalem, and fortifying it. The occupation of Ramah is not expressly mentioned indeed, but it is implied in יהוּדה על ויּעל על יה , which affirms the hostile invasion of Judah. For Ramah, from its very situation in the heart of the tribe of Benjamin and the immediate neighbourhood of Jerusalem, can neither have been a border city nor have belonged to the kingdom of Israel. The intention of Baasha, therefore, in fortifying Ramah cannot have been merely to restrain his own subjects from passing over into the kingdom of Judah, but was evidently to cut off from the kingdom of Judah all free communication with the north. וגו תּת לבלתּי , “that they might not give one going out or one coming in to Asa;” i.e., to cut off from the others all connection with Asa, and at the same time to cut off from those with Asa all connection with this side. The main road from Jerusalem to the north passed by Ramah, so that by shutting up this road the line of communication of the kingdom of Judah was of necessity greatly disturbed. Moreover, the fortification of Ramah by Baasha presupposes the reconquest of the cities which Abijam had taken from the kingdom of Israel (2 Chronicles 13:19), and which, according to 2 Chronicles 13:19, were still in the possession of Asa.
1 Kings 15:18-19
In order to avert the danger with which his kingdom was threatened, Asa endeavoured to induce the Syrian king, Benhadad of Damascus, to break the treaty which he had concluded with Baasha and to become his ally, by sending him such treasures as were left in the temple and palace.
(Note: Asa had sought help from the Lord and obtained it, when the powerful army of the Cushites invaded the land; but when an invasion of the Israelites took place, he sought help from the Syrians. This alteration in his conduct may probably be explained in part from the fact, that notwithstanding the victory, his army had been considerably weakened by the battle which he fought with the Cushites (2 Chronicles 14:9), although this by no means justified his want of confidence in the power of the Lord, and still less his harsh and unjust treatment of the prophet Hanani, whom he caused to be put in the house of the stocks on account of his condemnation of the confidence which he placed in the Syrians instead of Jehovah ( 2 Chronicles 16:7-10).)
הגּותרים may be explained from the face that the temple and palace treasures had been plundered by Shishak in the reign of Rehoboam (1 Kings 14:26); and therefore what Asa had replaced in the temple treasury (1 Kings 15:15), and had collected together for his palace, was only a remnant in comparison with the former state of these treasures. The name בּן־הדד , i.e., son of Hadad , the sun-god (according to Macrobius, i. 23; cf., Movers, Phöniz . i. p. 196), was borne by three kings of Damascus: the one here named, his son in the time of Ahab (1 Kings 20:1, 1 Kings 20:34), and the son of Hazael (2 Kings 13:24). The first was a son of Tabrimmon and grandson of Hezyon . According to 1 Kings 15:19, his father Tabrimmon (good is Rimmon ; see at 2 Kings 5:18) had also been king, and was the contemporary of Abijam. But that his grandfather Hezyon was also king, and the same person as the Rezon mentioned in 1 Kings 11:23, cannot be shown to be even probable, since there is no ground for the assumption that Hezyon also bore the name Rezon, and is called by the latter name here and by the former in 1 Kings 11:23.
1 Kings 15:20
Benhadad consented to Asa's request, and directed his captains to advance into the kingdom of Israel: they took several cities in the north of the land, whereby Baasha was compelled to give up fortifying Ramah and withdraw to Thirza. Ijon ( עיּון ) is to be sought for in all probability in Tell Dibbin , on the eastern border of Merj Ayun ; and in Ajun , although Ajun is written with Aleph , the name Ijon is probably preserved, since the situation of this Tell seems thoroughly adapted for a fortress on the northern border of Israel (vid., Robinson, Bibl. Res . p. 375, and Van de Velde, Mem . p. 322). Dan is the present Tell el Kadi ; see at Joshua 19:47. Abel-Beth-Maachah , the present Abil el Kamh , to the north-west of Lake Huleh (see at 2 Samuel 20:14). “All Chinneroth ” is the district of Chinnereth , the tract of land on the western shore of the Lake of Gennesareth (see at Joshua 19:35). כּל־ארץ נ על , together with all the land of Naphtali (for this meaning of על fo gninae m compare the Comm. on Genesis 32:12). The cities named were the principal fortresses of the land of Naphtali, with which the whole of the country round was also smitten, i.e., laid waste.
1 Kings 15:21
ויּשׁב , and remained at Thirza, his place of residence (see at 1 Kings 14:17).
1 Kings 15:22
Asa thereupon summoned all Judah נקי אין , nemine immuni , i.e., excepto , no one being free (cf., Ewald, §286, a .), and had the stones and the wood carried away from Ramah, and Geba and Mizpah in Benjamin built, i.e., fortified, with them. Geba must not be confounded with Gibeah of Benjamin or Saul, but is the present Jeba , three-quarters of an hour to the north-east of Ramah (see at Joshua 18:24). Mizpah , the present Nebi Samwil , about three-quarters of a geographical mile to the south-west of Ramah (see at Joshua 18:26).
1 Kings 15:23-24
Of the other acts of Asa, the building of cities refers to the building of fortifications mentioned in 2 Chronicles 14:5-6. The disease in his feet in the time of his old age commenced, according to 2 Chronicles 16:12, in the thirty-ninth year of his reign; and he sought help from the physicians, but not from the Lord; from which we may see, that the longer he lived the more he turned his heart away from the Lord (compare 2 Chronicles 16:10).
The Reign of Nadab lasted not quite two years, as he ascended the throne in the second year of Asa, and was slain in his third year.
1 Kings 15:26-31
He walked in the ways of his father (Jeroboam) and in his sin, i.e., in the calf-worship introduced by Jeroboam (1 Kings 12:28). When Nadab in the second year of his reign besieged Gibbethon, which the Philistines and occupied, Baasha the son of Ahijah, of the house, I the family or tribe, of Issachar, conspired against him and slew him, and after he became king exterminated the whole house of Jeroboam, without leaving a single soul, whereby the prediction of the prophet Ahijah (1 Kings 14:10.) was fulfilled. Gibbethon , which was allotted to the Danites (Joshua 19:44), has not yet been discovered. It probably stood close to the Philistian border, and was taken by the Philistines, from whom the Israelites attempted to wrest it by siege under both Nadab and Baasha (1 Kings 16:16), though apparently without success. לא השׁאיר כּל־נשׁמה as in Joshua 11:14 (see the Comm. on Deuteronomy 20:16).
1 Kings 15:32
1 Kings 15:32 is simply a repetition of 1 Kings 15:16; and the remark concerning Baasha's attitude towards Asa of Judah immediately after his entrance upon the government precedes the account of his reign, for the purpose of indicating at the very outset, that the overthrow of the dynasty of Jeroboam and the rise of a new dynasty did not alter the hostile relation between the kingdom of Israel and the kingdom of Judah.
The Reign of Baasha is described very briefly according to its duration (two years) and its spirit, namely, the attitude of Baasha towards the Lord (1 Kings 15:34); there then follow in 1 Kings 16:1-4 the words of the prophet Jehu, the son of Hanani (2 Chronicles 16:7), concerning the extermination of the family of Baasha; and lastly, in 1 Kings 16:5-7, his death is related with the standing allusion to the annals of the kings. The words of Jehu concerning Baasha (1 Kings 16:1-4) coincide exactly mutatis mutandis with the words of Ahijah concerning Jeroboam.
(Note: “ There was something very strange in the perversity and stolidity of the kings of Israel, that when they saw that the families of preceding kings were evidently overthrown by the command of God on account of the worship of the calves, and they themselves had overturned them, they nevertheless worshipped the same calves, and placed them before the people for them to worship, that they might not return to the temple and to Asa, king of Jerusalem; though prophets denounced it and threatened their destruction. Truly the devil and the ambition of reigning blinded them and deprived them of their senses. Hence it came to pass, through the just judgment of God, that they all were executioners of one another in turn: Baasha was the executioner of the sons of Jeroboam; Zambri was the executioner of the sons of Baasha; and the executioner of Zambri was Omri. ” - _C. a Lapide.)
The expression “exalted thee out of the dust,” instead of “from among the people” (1 Kings 14:7), leads to the conjecture that Baasha had risen to be king from a very low position. גּבוּרתו (his might) in 1 Kings 16:5 refers, as in the case of Asa (1 Kings 15:23), less to brave warlike deeds, than generally to the manifestation of strength and energy in his government.