The Impact of Apostasy on the North. 1 Kings 15:33-16:24

As we get into this chapter we are looking primarily at the northern kingdom. The northern kingdom has nothing but evil kings because they all fall in the footsteps of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, they all follow in his idolatry, and there are some who make it even worse. We are about to get to that point. We should look at this section in chapter 16 as a prelude to what happens at the end of the chapter, which sees the rise of Ahab to power in the northern kingdom, setting the stage for the prophet Elijah to come. The rest of 1 Kings deals with the ministry of Elijah. Everything we have seen up to now focused in a large way on Solomon, and then there were three or four chapters that focused on the transition, and then we slow down again when we get to Ahab and Elijah. And that tells us something: that this is where the Holy Spirit puts the emphasis and that we need to pay attention to these particular things. That doesn’t mean that what we have seen in the transition period where we have these vignettes and does not have as much spiritual value. There are always numerous lessons that we can and should learn from this study.

As we look at this we see that in the southern kingdom there have been three basic kings—Rehoboam, Abijah/Abijam, and Asa who was a good king and reigned for a little over 40 years, so Asa’s reign was going to be at the same time as several in the north.

1 Kings 15:33 ^NASB “In the third year of Asa king of Judah, Baasha the son of Ahijah became king over all Israel at Tirzah, {and reigned} twenty-four years.” God’s evaluation of his reign is in v. 34: “He did evil in the sight of the LORD, and walked in the way of Jeroboam and in his sin which he made Israel sin.” Evil as a term in the Scriptures is used in some places as a synonym for sin, but in other places it has a more restricted meaning and has to o with certain kinds of sin. Most fundamentally in the book of Kings it refers to idolatry, because idolatry is that ultimate act of spiritual treason that can be carried out in that theocratic kingdom of Israel. Even though once Israel gets a human king he is not the ultimate ruler. God is the ultimate ruler and the human king simply rules as a vice gerent from God. The problem is one of evil because it is that fundamental flaw of shifting away from obedience to God into idolatry, and that is foundational to any nation. What we are going to see when we get to the end of this section is that in the decline into degeneracy we see certain patterns emerge, and the initial shift that takes place has to do with how a person or a group or a nation views ultimate reality. This is in turn going to determine how they view themselves. How we view ourselves is related directly to how we understand God because man is either in the image of God, or God gets created in the image of man or other creatures. That is what Romans chapter one talks about. We are either worshipping God as a subordinate creature in His image or we are in rebellion against God and are replacing God with an image of something in His creation. In effect what that does it elevate man to a position where he becomes the centre focus of the universe, the measure by which everything else is evaluated. This is why the foundation of the Ten Commandments has to be through understanding who God is. How we understand God is going to affect everything else that flows out from God. It is going to affect creation, ethics, law, politics, society, etc.

So as we study threes kings in the north where each king takes us to a new level of degeneracy there is constant chaos that develops in the nation. The metaphor “walking in the way of Jeroboam” emphasizes the fact that his thinking is completely immersed in accord with the thinking of Jeroboam. His sin was the sin of idolatry. The worst sin, which is a particular type of idolatry—the worship of Baal and Asherah in the fertility religion, is yet to come. So this is only stage one in their religious degeneracy and stage two is coming by the end of the chapter.

1 Kings 16:1 ^NASB “Now the word of the LORD came to Jehu the son of Hanani against Baasha, saying.” The phrase “word of the LORD” is one that indicates a message, a content message from God; it is not just a non-verbal impression. [2] “Inasmuch as I exalted you from the dust and made you leader over My people Israel, and you have walked in the way of Jeroboam and have made My people Israel sin, provoking Me to anger with their sins, [3] behold, I will consume Baasha and his house, and I will make your house like the house of Jeroboam the son of Nebat.” That means his sin affects his wife or wives and children and grandchildren and everyone in the household. The principle is that when we sin our sin is not necessarily in isolation. So we can’t just sin in private where it involves only us; there is no such thing. It always has some kind of effect within the cosmic system. [4] “Anyone of Baasha who dies in the city the dogs will eat, and anyone of his who dies in the field the birds of the heavens will eat.” In the ancient world dogs were scavengers, not pets. If somebody died and their body was out in the street then what would normally happen was that the dogs would consume them. It was a sign of disrespect because with the Jews there was tremendous respect for the body as having value because God designed the body and therefore it has value. For a body to be left out it showed that no one cared, and it was one of the greatest forms of disrespect when this happened.

Observations:

1. God is the one who raises up and tears down leaders (v.2). Baasha was no one, yet God raised him up for a purpose. That purpose had to do with the continuing decline of Israel and bringing discipline on the house of Jeroboam. So often a nation gets the leaders it deserves. As God takes a nation through discipline God will give them leaders who will make bad decisions, and those decisions will intensify the collapse of that particular culture. God is the one who raises up leaders and He tears down the leaders, and nothing happens in human history that is outside of God’s sovereign control as he is shaping history and bringing it to its ultimate conclusion.

2. God raises up a rebel like Baasha—who was very likely an unbeliever—in order to bring about divine discipline upon the house of Jeroboam. But even when He does that, that doesn’t alleviate or remove the guilt of Baasha for the decisions that he has made. Baasha never does turn to the Lord and so he is also disciplined for his murderous response to Jeroboam.

3. Ultimately the cause of political chaos and instability in the north was the spiritual condition of the people. Just because the king was of a certain spiritual orientation didn’t mean that the people were, but the people followed their leader. All of this started with Solomon. If Solomon failed the prosperity test the people failed the prosperity test. And if Solomon began to build these idols and temples for his foreign wives the people just went right along with him and they went from a devotion to God to a devotion to these idols in a series of stages over a period of years, and the result was the spiritual collapse of the nation. But what we see is that the ultimate cause is this spiritual shift. They made a spiritual decision and that is what began the collapse.

4. We see that how culture views ultimate reality, then, shapes what happens to the culture. They move from a view of God as a personal, righteous, holy God that is totally distinct from creation to a God that is like all of the other gods. Jeroboam has the golden calves made and this involved historical revisionism, he said: “This is the God who brought you out of Egypt; this is the God that you should worship.” So the people in the north begin to worship that idol. That is a further stage of deterioration in the generation away from what Solomon had done. Once we change our view of ultimate reality it affects our view of knowledge and our view of truth, so that now truth is defined not by a creator God but by man. So truth moves from an absolute state to a state of relativism and truth can then be shaped by whoever is in political power. Once our view of knowledge is changed it is going to change our view of ethics, of what is right and wrong. Once relativism begins to dominate a culture the people become more and more divorced from reality. The reality is no longer what God says it is, reality is how man wants to shape his experience. Once man begins to shape his experience then before long he begins to act as if this shape that he has developed is, in fact, reality. He begins to operate on the basis of that and once he does that then when stiff winds blow everything collapses.

5. The punishment that is announced for Baasha is the same punishment that was announced against Jeroboam. None of his relations will survive so there can’t be any competition to the throne once he is dead.

1 Kings 16:5 ^NASB “Now the rest of the acts of Baasha and what he did and his might, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel? [6] And Baasha slept with his fathers [Sheol—in this case Torments] and was buried in Tirzah, and Elah his son became king in his place.” Elah is not going to survive very long. [7] “Moreover, the word of the LORD through the prophet Jehu the son of Hanani also came against Baasha and his household…” This is not the same Hanani that was the prophet who brought a message to Asa. This Jehu must be distinguished from another Jehu who becomes king in Israel some hundred years from now. This is the prophet Jehu and it is the only time we see him. “… both because of all the evil which he did in the sight of the LORD, provoking Him to anger with the work of his hands, in being like the house of Jeroboam, and because he struck it [killed them].” It is not only because of the idolatry, he is also punished and his dynasty is removed because he had killed all of the household of Jeroboam.

1 Kings 16:8 ^NASB “In the twenty-sixth year of Asa [According to the non-accession reckoning] king of Judah, Elah the son of Baasha became king over Israel at Tirzah, {and reigned} two years.” These are two official years, according to the non-accession year system used in the north. In the accession year system it would have been just one year. And there is a treasonous revolt against him by one of his generals. This is the shortest reign of all the kings of the north, a reign of one week.

1 Kings 16:9 ^NASB “His servant Zimri, commander of half his chariots, conspired against him. Now he {was} at Tirzah drinking himself drunk in the house of Arza, who {was} over the household at Tirzah. [10] Then Zimri went in and struck him and put him to death in the twenty-seventh year of Asa king of Judah, and became king in his place.” Note that this is in the 27^th year of Asa, which would be the 26^th year according to the accession year system. [11] It came about when he became king, as soon as he sat on his throne, that he killed all the household of Baasha; he did not leave a single male, neither of his relatives nor of his friends.” No one left who can be competition for the throne. [12] The application of the prophecy. “Thus Zimri destroyed all the household of Baasha, according to the word of the LORD, which He spoke against Baasha through Jehu the prophet, [13] for all the sins of Baasha and the sins of Elah his son, which they sinned and which they made Israel sin, provoking the LORD God of Israel to anger with their idols.” So the leaders are held accountable for leading the people into idolatry, even though the people go there willingly because of their volition. [14] “14 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?”

1 Kings 16:15 ^NASB “In the twenty-seventh year of Asa king of Judah, Zimri reigned seven days at Tirzah. Now the people were camped against Gibbethon, which belonged to the Philistines.” The army is prepared for battle and as soon as the people hear that Zimri has assassinated Elah, Omri who is the commander of the army takes charge. There seems to have been a military coup and Omri was declared king over Israel that day. 1 Kings 16:17 ^NASB “Then Omri and all Israel with him went up from Gibbethon and besieged Tirzah. [18] When Zimri saw that the city was taken, he went into the citadel of the king’s house and burned the king’s house over him with fire, and died” [suicide]. So this is God’s judgment upon him. [19] “because of his sins which he sinned, doing evil in the sight of the LORD, walking in the way of Jeroboam, and in his sin which he did, making Israel sin. [20] Now the rest of the acts of Zimri and his conspiracy which he carried out, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel?”

That brings us down to Omri, the last of the kings before we get to Ahab. He is the first in a new dynasty. He establishes the fourth ruling dynasty only fifty years after the northern kingdom has split from the southern kingdom. The point that we learn from that is that spiritual instability leads to political and social instability. This is because once you get away from God in any sense of true absolutes that works itself out in every area of culture. So their political chaos is a direct result of their spiritual chaos.

But there is a further deterioration in the north where a civil war sets in between Omri and another contender for the throne named Tibni the son of Ginath. 1 Kings 16:21 ^NASB “Then the people of Israel were divided into two parts: half of the people followed Tibni the son of Ginath, to make him king; the {other} half followed Omri.” This state of civil war n the north goes on for about five years. [22] “But the people who followed Omri prevailed over the people who followed Tibni the son of Ginath. And Tibni died and Omri became king.”

1 Kings 16:23 ^NASB “In the thirty-first year of Asa king of Judah, Omri became king over Israel {and reigned} twelve years; he reigned six years at Tirzah.” He is noted for his building. [24] “He bought the hill Samaria from Shemer for two talents of silver; and he built on the hill, and named the city which he built Samaria, after the name of Shemer, the owner of the hill.” He levelled the top of the hill and built a palace compound on it that was 160 feet square with a 33-feet thick wall for defence. At this time Assyria is also beginning to come together further to the east and beginning to solidify itself. Omri is going to establish alliances with the Phoenicians and also the Assyrians to some degree but he sets the stage for the spiritual collapse that comes under Ahab.

Observations:

1. We see that the nation has been promised blessing for obedience and judgment for disobedience—Leviticus 26:13ff. What we see here is the outworking of those cycles of discipline.

2. The nation has become so unstable because it has gotten away from God. Once it changes its orientation to truth then the nation begins to collapse from the inside. It fragments; it isn’t falling apart because of external enemies but because of the internal shift that has taken place. This reveals to us a particular pattern that we can apply across the board in examining individuals as well as nation. The pattern of degeneracy begins with a response to some situation in life. In this case it was prosperity. In prosperity people become complaisant; they think they have it made; they relax their vigilance spiritually and begin to enjoy a lot of pleasures in life that are legitimate but because of the attraction to sin the boundaries begin to get pushed. People begin to rationalise and before long they begin to compromise in smaller areas and this leads to a greater compromise in other areas. In the New Testament there are numerous exhortations related to the believer’s watchfulness. The key word in the Greek is the imperative of blepo [blepw] which is translated in different ways in the English: Be careful how you walk, or, Watch out for. In all these verses believers are commanded to be alert, be watchful, to keep a guard up spiritually and not to become complaisant.

3. As arrogance and self-absorption intensify what goes along with that is self-justification. So there is a shift from a covert idolatry to overt idolatry. That doesn’t necessarily mean worshipping idols of wood and stone but idols of the mind, looking to the details of life to find meaning and purpose in life. So there is this continuous degeneration where we are looking to the creation itself to find some source of happiness, purpose or meaning in life.

Illustrations