Willing
1 Kings 15:25-31
The house of the wicked shall be overthrown: but the tabernacle of the upright shall flourish. Prov. 14:11
“And Nadab the son of Jeroboam began to reign over Israel in the second year of Asa king of Judah, and reigned over Israel two years. And he did evil in the sight of the Lord and walked in the way of his father, and in his sin wherewith he made Israel to sin.”
The sons of Jeroboam, together with their father, had rejected God’s ordained priesthood, and had “cast them off from executing the priest’s office unto the Lord” (2 Chron. 11:14). So Nadab followed in his father’s ways; but God did not permit him to continue long in his wickedness. “And Baasha the son of Ahijah, of the house of Issachar, conspired against him; and Baasha smote him at Gibbethon, which belonged to the Philistines; for Nadab and all Israel laid siege to Gibbethon” (1 Kings 15:27).
Gibbethon was a town in Dan, allotted to the Levites of the family of Korah (Josh. 19:44; 21:23). It bordered on the land of the Philistines, and was probably seized by them on the emigration of the Levites to Judah. Gibbethon means “lofty place,” and it was while seeking to recover it to the crown, that Nadab was treacherously slain. But it was in fulfillment of the prophecy of Ahijah, “The Lord shall raise him up a king over Israel, who shall cut off the house of Jeroboam that day: but what? even now” (1 Kings 14:14).
“In the third year of Asa king of Judah did Baasha slay him, and reigned in his stead” (1 Kings 15:28). Once on the throne, Baasha began to execute the judgment of Jehovah against the remaining members of the house of Jeroboam, according to the aged Ahijah’s word.
And it came to pass, when he reigned, that he smote all the house of Jeroboam; he left not to Jeroboam any that breathed, until he had destroyed him, according unto the saying of the Lord, which he spake by his servant Ahijah the Shilonite: because of the sins of Jeroboam which he sinned, and which he made Israel sin, by his provocation wherewith he provoked the Lord God of Israel to anger.
So ended the first of the nine dynasties that for 250 years ruled (or misruled) the kingdom of Israel. Nadab’s name means “willing,” and he appears to have been too willing to continue in and perpetuate the sin of his iniquitous father. He is not once mentioned in the book of Chronicles, nor is there any record in that book of his father’s lifting up his hand against king Solomon, as in the Kings. The inspired record of his uninteresting reign ends with the usual formula used in Kings: “Now the rest of the acts of Nadab, and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel?”