Kings of Judah and Israel

Abijam sinned in all the ways his father had sinned before him. He did not give his whole heart to the Lord his God, as David his ancestor had. Even so, for David’s sake, the Lord gave him a lamp in Jerusalem: he set up Abijam’s son to reign after him and made Jerusalem secure. David had done what was right in the Lord’s eyes, and never in his life turned away from anything the Lord commanded him, except in the matter of Uriah the Hittite.

Rehoboam and Jeroboam had been at war all his life, and now Abijam and Jeroboam were at war. 2 Chronicles tells of one battle. Abijam went into it with four hundred thousand chosen men, brave soldiers. Jeroboam lined up against him with eight hundred thousand chosen men, strong and brave. Abijam stood up on Mount Zemaraim, which is in the hill country of Ephraim, and called out, “Listen to me, Jeroboam and all Israel!

“Shouldn’t you know that the Lord, the God of Israel, gave the kingdom of Israel to David and his sons forever, by a covenant of salt? Yet Jeroboam the son of Nebat, the servant of David’s son Solomon, rose up and rebelled against his master. Worthless men, wicked men, joined him and made themselves strong against Solomon’s son Rehoboam, while Rehoboam was young and timid and couldn’t hold out against them.

“And now you mean to stand against the Lord’s own kingdom, ruled by David’s sons. You are a great crowd, and you have with you the golden calves Jeroboam made to be your gods. Haven’t you driven out the Lord’s priests, the sons of Aaron, and the Levites, and made priests for yourselves, as other peoples do? Anyone who comes with a young bull and seven rams to dedicate himself can be a priest of things that are not gods at all.

“But as for us, the Lord is our God, and we have not left him. Our priests, the sons of Aaron, serve the Lord, and the Levites do their work. Every morning and evening they offer the Lord burnt offerings and sweet incense. They set out the bread of the presence on the pure table, and they tend the gold lamp stand, lighting its lamps every evening. We keep what the Lord our God has told us to do, but you have left him. Look! God is with us, at our head, and his priests stand ready with their trumpets to sound the alarm against you. Israelites, don’t fight the Lord, the God of your ancestors. It will not go well for you.”

Then the men of Judah gave a shout, and as they shouted, God struck Jeroboam and all Israel in front of Abijam and Judah. The Israelites ran from Judah, and God put them in Judah’s power. Abijam and his men killed great numbers of them: five hundred thousand of Israel’s chosen men fell dead.

So the Israelites were beaten that day, and the people of Judah won, because they had relied on the Lord, the God of their ancestors. Abijam chased Jeroboam and took towns from him: Bethel, Jeshanah and Ephron, each with its villages. Jeroboam never got his strength back while Abijam lived. The Lord struck Jeroboam, and he died.

But Abijam grew strong. He took fourteen wives for himself and became the father of twenty-two sons and sixteen daughters. The rest of what he did is written in the records of the kings of Judah. 2 Chronicles says his ways and his sayings are in the writings of the prophet Iddo. Abijam died and joined his ancestors, and they buried him in David’s city. His son Asa became king in his place.

He drove the male shrine prostitutes out of the land, and he removed every idol his ancestors had made. 2 Chronicles says he took away the foreign altars, broke down the stone pillars, cut down the Asherah poles, and removed the high places and the sun images from every town in Judah. He told the people of Judah that they must seek the Lord, the God of their ancestors, and keep his law and his commandments. While he ruled, the kingdom was at peace.

Because the land was at peace and the Lord had given him rest, with no war in those years, Asa built walled towns in Judah. “Let’s build these towns,” he told the people, “and make walls around them, with towers and gates and bars. The land still lies open before us, because we have sought the Lord our God. We have sought him, and he has given us rest on every side.” So they built, and they prospered.

Asa’s army had three hundred thousand men of Judah, who carried shields and spears, and two hundred eighty thousand men of Benjamin, who carried shields and shot with bows. Every one of them was a strong, brave warrior.

Asa called on the Lord his God. “Lord,” he said, “there is no one besides you to help, between the mighty and the one who has no strength. Help us, Lord our God, because we rely on you, and in your name we have come against this great crowd. Lord, you are our God. Don’t let any man win against you.”

So the Lord struck the Ethiopians in front of Asa and Judah, and the Ethiopians ran. Asa and his army chased them as far as Gerar. So many Ethiopians fell that they could not recover, because the Lord and his army destroyed them. Judah’s army carried off a great deal of plunder.

They struck all the towns around Gerar, because the fear of the Lord had come on those towns. There was plenty in them to take, and they plundered them all. They also struck the tents of the people who kept livestock, and carried off sheep and camels in great numbers. Then they went back to Jerusalem.

“For a long time Israel was without the true God, without a teaching priest, and without law. But in their trouble they turned to the Lord, Israel’s God. They sought him, and he was found by them. Back then no one who went out or came in had any peace. Great troubles fell on all who lived in those lands. They were broken to pieces, nation against nation and city against city, because God troubled them with every kind of hardship.

“But you, be strong! Don’t give up, because your work will be rewarded.”

When Asa heard these words, the prophecy of Oded the prophet, he took courage. He cleared the disgusting idols out of all the land of Judah and Benjamin, and out of the towns he had taken from the hill country of Ephraim. He also restored the Lord’s altar in front of the porch of the Lord’s house.

Then he gathered all Judah and Benjamin, with the people from Ephraim, Manasseh and Simeon who were living among them. Many from Israel had come over to Asa, seeing that the Lord his God was with him. They gathered at Jerusalem in the third month, in the fifteenth year of Asa’s reign. That day they sacrificed seven hundred head of cattle and seven thousand sheep to the Lord, from the plunder they had brought.

They entered into the covenant: with all their heart and all their soul, they would seek the Lord, the God of their ancestors. And anyone who would not seek the Lord, Israel’s God, should be put to death, whether small or great, whether man or woman.

They swore to the Lord with a loud voice, with shouting, with trumpets and with horns. All Judah was glad about the oath, because they had sworn it with all their heart and sought him with all their desire, and he was found by them. Then the Lord gave them rest all around.

Asa also put his mother, Maacah, out of her place as queen mother, because she had made a disgusting image for an Asherah. He cut the image down and burned it by the Kidron brook. 2 Chronicles adds that he ground it to dust. The high places were not taken away; 2 Chronicles says they were not taken out of Israel. Even so, Asa gave his whole heart to the Lord all his life. He took into the Lord’s house the things his father had dedicated and the things he himself had dedicated: silver, gold and utensils.

There was no more war until Asa’s thirty-fifth year as king.

Then Asa took all the silver and gold still left in the treasuries of the Lord’s house and of the palace. He sent his officials with it to Damascus, to Ben Hadad king of Syria, the son of Tabrimmon, the son of Hezion, to tell him: “Let there be a treaty between me and you, like the one between my father and your father. Here is a present of silver and gold. Go, break your treaty with Baasha king of Israel, so that he will go away from me.”

Ben Hadad did what King Asa asked. He sent his army commanders against Israel’s towns, and they struck Ijon, Dan, Abel Beth Maacah, all Chinneroth and all the land of Naphtali. 2 Chronicles names Ijon, Dan, Abel Maim and all the storage cities of Naphtali. When Baasha heard of it, he stopped building Ramah and gave up the work. He lived in Tirzah.

Then King Asa sent word to all Judah, and no one was excused. They carried off Ramah’s stones and timber that Baasha had been building with, and King Asa used them to build Geba of Benjamin, and Mizpah.

At that time Hanani the seer came to Asa king of Judah. “You relied on the king of Syria,” he said, “and didn’t rely on the Lord your God. Because of that, the army of the king of Syria has escaped from your power.

“Weren’t the Ethiopians and the Lubim a huge army, with chariots and very many horsemen? Yet because you relied on the Lord, he put them in your power. The Lord’s eyes run back and forth across the whole earth, so that he can show his strength on behalf of those whose hearts are wholly given to him. You have acted foolishly in this. From now on you will have wars.”

Asa was angry with the seer. He was in a rage with Hanani over this, and he put him in prison. Asa also treated some of the people harshly at that time.

The rest of what Asa did, all his strength and the towns he built, is written in the records of the kings of Judah. When he was old, he had a disease in his feet. 2 Chronicles says this was in the thirty-ninth year of his reign. It says the disease was very bad, yet even in his sickness he didn’t seek the Lord, only the doctors.

Asa died and joined his ancestors, and he was buried with them in David’s city. His son Jehoshaphat became king in his place. 2 Chronicles says Asa died in the forty-first year of his reign, and that he was buried in the tomb he had dug out for himself in David’s city. He was laid on a bed filled with sweet spices of every kind, prepared by perfumers, and they made a very great fire for him.

Then Baasha the son of Ahijah, a man of the tribe of Issachar, plotted against Nadab. Nadab and all Israel were besieging Gibbethon, a town that belonged to the Philistines. Baasha killed him there in Asa’s third year as king of Judah, and took his place as king.

As soon as he was king, Baasha struck down Jeroboam’s whole family. He did not leave Jeroboam anyone alive. This was just what the Lord had said through his servant Ahijah of Shiloh. Ahijah had warned that the Lord would sweep Jeroboam’s family away and raise up a king who would wipe it out. It happened because of the sins Jeroboam committed and led Israel into, and because he had made the Lord, the God of Israel, angry.

The rest of what Nadab did is written in the records of the kings of Israel. Asa and Baasha were at war all their lives. Baasha the son of Ahijah began to reign over all Israel in Tirzah in Asa’s third year, and he reigned for twenty-four years. He did evil in the Lord’s eyes, following the ways of Jeroboam and the sin he had led Israel into.

Then the Lord’s word came to Jehu son of Hanani against Baasha: “I raised you up out of the dust, and I made you ruler over my people Israel. Yet you have gone the way of Jeroboam and made my people Israel sin, and their sins anger me.

“So I will sweep Baasha and his family away completely. I will make your family like the family of Jeroboam son of Nebat. When anyone in Baasha’s family dies in the city, the dogs will eat him. When one of them dies out in the fields, the birds will eat him.”

The rest of what Baasha did, and his strength, is written in the records of the kings of Israel. Baasha died and joined his ancestors. He was buried in Tirzah, and his son Elah reigned in his place. The Lord’s word had come through the prophet Jehu against Baasha and his family for two reasons. The first was all the evil Baasha did in the Lord’s eyes, angering him with the work of his hands and becoming like Jeroboam’s family. The second was that he struck him.

Zimri went in, struck him and killed him. This was in Asa’s twenty-seventh year as king of Judah. Then Zimri became king in his place.

As soon as he sat on his throne, Zimri attacked Baasha’s whole family, leaving Baasha not one male among his relatives or his friends. So Zimri destroyed Baasha’s family, as the Lord had said against Baasha through Jehu the prophet. It was for all the sins of Baasha and his son Elah, the sins they committed and led Israel into. They angered the Lord, the God of Israel, with their empty idols.

The rest of what Elah did is written in the records of the kings of Israel. Zimri reigned seven days in Tirzah, in that same twenty-seventh year of Asa. The army was camped against Gibbethon, the Philistine town. When the troops heard that Zimri had plotted and had also killed the king, all Israel made Omri, the captain of the army, king of Israel that same day, there in the camp.

Omri marched up from Gibbethon with all Israel, and they surrounded Tirzah. When Zimri saw that the city was taken, he went into the fortified part of the palace, set the palace on fire over himself, and died.

He died for his sins: he had done what was evil in the Lord’s eyes, following the ways of Jeroboam and the sin he had led Israel into. The rest of what Zimri did, and the plot he carried out, is written in the records of the kings of Israel.

Omri began to reign over Israel in the thirty-first year of Asa king of Judah, and he reigned twelve years. Six of those years were in Tirzah. He paid Shemer two talents of silver, about 130 pounds, for the hill of Samaria. He built a city there and named it Samaria, after Shemer, who had owned the hill.

Omri did what was evil in the Lord’s eyes, and he was more wicked than all who came before him. He followed all the ways of Jeroboam son of Nebat and the sins he had led Israel into, angering the Lord, the God of Israel, with their empty idols.

The rest of what Omri did, and the strength he showed, is written in the records of the kings of Israel. Omri died and joined his ancestors. He was buried in Samaria, and his son Ahab reigned in his place.

As if it were a small thing to follow the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, he married Jezebel, whose father was Ethbaal king of the Sidonians, and he went and served Baal and worshiped him.

He built a temple of Baal in Samaria and set up an altar for Baal in it. Ahab also made the Asherah pole. He did more than all the kings of Israel before him to anger the Lord, the God of Israel.

In Ahab’s time Hiel of Bethel rebuilt Jericho. His firstborn son, Abiram, died when he laid its foundation, and his youngest son, Segub, died when he set up its gates. It happened just as the Lord had said through Joshua son of Nun.

Long before, when Jericho fell, Joshua had given the people a command, with an oath: “Cursed in the Lord’s presence is the man who sets out to build this city, Jericho. He will lose his firstborn when he lays its foundation, and his youngest son when he sets up its gates.”