Short-Lived Thrones and a Deepening Breach

Jehu’s father Hanani was the seer who rebuked Asa of Judah for buying Syrian help (2 Chronicles 16:7), and Jehu himself will later rebuke Jehoshaphat (2 Chronicles 19:2). A family of prophets speaks to kings in both kingdoms.

“Out of the dust” is the phrase of Hannah’s song: the LORD “raiseth up the poor out of the dust ... to set them among princes” (1 Samuel 2:8). Baasha is reminded that he started with nothing, as Jeroboam was in 14:7.

“Take away” is ba‘ar, to burn out or sweep clean, the verb Deuteronomy uses for purging evil from Israel (13:5). “Posterity” is literally “those after him”: the line is to have no afterward.

The curse is Ahijah’s sentence on Jeroboam (14:11) with one name changed. The man who carried out the first sentence now receives it word for word, which is precisely the point of verse 3: his house will be like Jeroboam’s.

The only concrete deed of Baasha’s “might” the book records is the fortification of Ramah, which he abandoned half built when Damascus attacked (15:21). Whatever else the annals held is lost.

Like Jeroboam, Baasha dies in his bed and the sentence falls on his son. Burial in Tirzah makes him the first king laid to rest in the northern capital.

The “also” marks a second report of Jehu’s oracle, placed after the death notice as if from another source. “The work of his hands” is Deuteronomy’s phrase for idols, gods that people make (Deuteronomy 4:28).

Elah means “terebinth”, the same word as the “oak” under which the man of God sat in 13:14. He comes to the throne in Asa’s twenty sixth year and is dead in the twenty seventh.

Israel’s chariotry was organised in two divisions, and Zimri commanded one of them, the elite arm of the army. Arza’s title, “over the house”, was the palace chief minister’s, a title that also appears on seals from the period.

Baasha’s dynasty ends as Jeroboam’s did: two kings, the second killed within about two years of taking the throne, and the killer a man from the army.

“Kinsfolks” is go’alim, the redeemers, the relatives whose duty was to avenge a murdered kinsman. Killing them along with the family removes anyone who could pursue blood vengeance. Friends are included, probably meaning the king’s political allies.

The sentence was spoken in Baasha’s lifetime and carried out within two years of his death. As with Jeroboam, the prophecy waits for the son.

“Vanities” is hebel, breath or vapour, the word Ecclesiastes uses for “vanity of vanities”. Idols are called puffs of air, things with no substance, and this is the first time the book uses the word for them.

Elah’s only recorded act is getting drunk in a steward’s house while his army was in the field. The formula still refers the reader to the annals for “all that he did”.

Seven days is the shortest reign recorded for any king of Israel. A generation later Jezebel will greet Jehu, another army officer who killed his master, with “Had Zimri peace?” (2 Kings 9:31): the name had become a byword.

Omri is introduced with no father’s name, which in a royal notice suggests a man without a known family, possibly not even an Israelite. “Captain of the host” means commander of the whole army, outranking a chariot officer like Zimri.

The army abandons a Philistine siege to besiege its own capital. Gibbethon is never taken in the book; Israel’s soldiers keep leaving it to make kings.

“Palace” is ’armon, the fortified inner keep of the royal house. Zimri burns it with himself inside. Omri’s later move to a new capital may owe something to the ruin he inherited at Tirzah, though that is an inference.

What sins a man could commit in seven days is not said. The verdict may cover his career as an officer of Jeroboam’s system, or treat taking the northern throne at all as joining that system; the text does not specify.

Zimri’s summary notice mentions “his treason”, qesher, conspiracy, instead of the usual “his might”. It is the same word Athaliah will scream when her own coup is overturned (2 Kings 11:14).

The people split “into two parts”, a civil war inside the northern kingdom barely a generation after the kingdom itself split. Tibni son of Ginath is otherwise unknown.

The Greek adds “and Joram his brother at that time”, suggesting Tibni’s brother died with him. How Tibni died is not stated; “prevailed” implies a fight.

Zimri died in Asa’s twenty seventh year, but Omri’s reign is counted from the thirty first, so the war with Tibni lasted about four years. The twelve years run from the army’s acclamation, and six of them are spent at Tirzah.

Omri was a major figure beyond Israel. Assyrian records called the northern kingdom “the house of Omri” for more than a century, and even Jehu, who wiped out Omri’s dynasty, is called “son of Omri” on the Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III.

Micah, prophesying over a century later, rebukes Jerusalem because “the statutes of Omri are kept” (Micah 6:16). The king who gets six verses here gave his name to a whole way of governing.

The phrase about making Israel sin has now been applied to Jeroboam, Nadab, Baasha, Elah, Zimri and Omri, six kings in three chapters. The dynasties change and the charge does not.

The Moabite Stone, set up by King Mesha, confirms this “might”: “Omri was king of Israel, and he oppressed Moab many days”, and his son after him. The book leaves Omri’s conquests to the annals and says little of them.

Omri is the first king buried in Samaria. Ahab’s name is usually read as “father’s brother”, meaning that God is as close as a kinsman, a pious name for the king who will do the most to promote Baal.

Ahab is named “son of Omri” twice in one verse, the dynasty stressed. Outside the Bible, an Assyrian inscription, the Kurkh Monolith, names “Ahab the Israelite” among the kings who fought Shalmaneser III at Qarqar.

“Son of Omri” comes a third time. The book will later sum him up more sharply still: “there was none like unto Ahab, which did sell himself to work wickedness” (21:25).

Ethbaal is the Ittobaal whom Josephus, quoting a Tyrian historian, describes as a priest of Astarte who seized the throne of Tyre. Jezebel’s name may echo a Baal liturgy cry, “Where is the prince?”, reshaped by Hebrew scribes to suggest “dung”.

“Baal” means lord or master; at Tyre he was Melqart or Baal Shamem. Jehu will later destroy this very temple and turn it into a latrine (2 Kings 10:27).

The grove is an Asherah pole. Asherah will have four hundred prophets of her own eating at Jezebel’s table (18:19), so this is an established cult with salaried staff, not a private shrine.

Jericho had not been empty since Joshua; Eglon seized “the city of palm trees” (Judges 3:13) and David’s envoys waited there (2 Samuel 10:5). What Joshua 6:26 forbade was rebuilding it as a walled city with gates. Hiel came from Bethel, Jeroboam’s shrine town.