1 Kings 15.
ONLY a few verses are given about Abijam, who followed in the footsteps of his wicked father. For David’s sake he was allowed to reign, and he was king for only three years. We may learn more about this king of Judah if we turn to 2 Chronicles 13, where his name is spelled Abijah. The Books of Kings give the general history of God’s government in Israel, and after Solomon, chiefly the ten tribed kingdom of Israel, bringing in the two tribed kingdom of Judah, only as it is necessary in telling the history of the former kingdom until its end in the Assyrian captivity (2 Kings 17). The Books of Chronicles on the other hand consider the lives of the kings as objects of the grace and blessing of God, and chiefly deal with the house of Judah.
Asa, the third king of Judah, began in a much better way than his father and grandfather in whom so little of regard for God, and of ways suitable to Him was seen. He removed those who lived in wickedness, and took away all the idols his predecessors had made; he removed his mother (or grandmother) from the honored place of queen-mother, because she had made an idol in a grove, and he burned her idol. However, he let many of the high places remain, where idolatrous practices had been carried on, and when the third king of Israel, Baasha, came against him, he asked the help of the king of Syria, sending him all the silver and gold that were left of the treasures in the temple and in Solomon’s house. Asa was very angry with Hanani the seer when he came to him after this to tell him he had done wrong in seeking the help of the Syrians (2 Chronicles 16:1010Then Asa was wroth with the seer, and put him in a prison house; for he was in a rage with him because of this thing. And Asa oppressed some of the people the same time. (2 Chronicles 16:10)), and he put him in prison, also oppressing some of the people at the same time. From the same chapter we learn that when Asa’s feet were diseased, he sought not to the Lord, but to the physicians. Notwithstanding these things, Asa’s life as a whole was that of one who feared God, though he was not at all the godly man David had been.
Nadab, Jeroboam’s son, who had become king of the ten tribes of Israel when his father died, reigned but two years. He followed his father in wickedness, and Baasha of the tribe of Issachar killed him when Nadab was besieging the Philistine city of Gibbethon.
Baasha then became king and killed every member of Jeroboam’s family; he seems to have been as bad a man as Nadab or as Jeroboam. He was God’s instrument in punishing the guilty house of Jeroboam, but God never approved his crime.
It may be of interest to remark that Ramah (verse 17) was a city of Benjamin, a few miles northwest of Jerusalem; the places and districts named in verse 20 were all in the far north of Palestine, stretching as far south as the sea of Galilee; Tirzah (verse 21) was about 12 miles northeast of the then future capital city of Samaria, in northern central Palestine; Geba and Mizpeh were close to the site of Ramah, Gibbethon (verse 27) was a city of Dan 20 miles northwest of Jerusalem.
ML 07/24/1927