1 Kings 15

The TorahRooted Bible (TRB), translated directly from the Hebrew and Greek.

Abijam king of Judah

¹ In the eighteenth year of King Jeroboam the son of Nebat, Abijam began to reign over Judah. ² He reigned three years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Maacah the daughter of Abishalom. ³ He walked in all the sins of his father which he had done before him, and his heart was not wholly true to Yahweh his Elohim, as was the heart of David his father. ⁴ Nevertheless, for David's sake Yahweh his Elohim gave him a lamp in Jerusalem, raising up his son after him and establishing Jerusalem, ⁵ because David did what was right in the sight of Yahweh and did not turn aside from anything that He commanded him all the days of his life, except in the matter of Uriah the Hittite. ⁶ Now there was war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam all the days of his life. ⁷ Now the rest of the acts of Abijam, and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah? And there was war between Abijam and Jeroboam. ⁸ And Abijam lay down with his fathers, and they buried him in the City of David; and Asa his son reigned in his place.

Asa king of Judah

⁹ In the twentieth year of Jeroboam king of Israel, Asa began to reign over Judah. ¹⁰ He reigned forty-one years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Maacah the daughter of Abishalom. ¹¹ And Asa did what was right in the sight of Yahweh, as David his father had done. ¹² He put away the shrine prostitutes out of the land and removed all the idols that his fathers had made. ¹³ He also removed Maacah his mother from being queen mother, because she had made an abominable image for Asherah. Asa cut down her abominable image and burned it at the brook Kidron. ¹⁴ But the high places were not removed. Nevertheless the heart of Asa was wholly true to Yahweh all his days. ¹⁵ He brought into the house of Yahweh the things his father had dedicated and the things he himself had dedicated: silver, gold and vessels.

¹⁶ There was war between Asa and Baasha king of Israel all their days. ¹⁷ Baasha king of Israel went up against Judah and built Ramah, so as not to allow anyone to go out or come in to Asa king of Judah. ¹⁸ Then Asa took all the silver and the gold that were left in the treasuries of the house of Yahweh and the treasuries of the king's house, and gave them into the hands of his servants. And King Asa sent them to Ben-hadad the son of Tabrimmon, the son of Hezion, king of Aram, who lived in Damascus, saying, ¹⁹ "Let there be a covenant between me and you, as there was between my father and your father. See, I have sent you a present of silver and gold. Go, break your covenant with Baasha king of Israel, so that he will withdraw from me." ²⁰ So Ben-hadad listened to King Asa and sent the commanders of his armies against the cities of Israel, and struck Ijon, Dan, Abel-beth-maacah and all Chinneroth, with all the land of Naphtali. ²¹ When Baasha heard of it, he stopped building Ramah and stayed in Tirzah. ²² Then King Asa made a proclamation to all Judah, none was exempt, and they carried away the stones of Ramah and its timber with which Baasha had been building; and with them King Asa built Geba of Benjamin and Mizpah. ²³ Now the rest of all the acts of Asa, and all his might, and all that he did, and the cities that he built, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah? But in the time of his old age he was diseased in his feet. ²⁴ And Asa lay down with his fathers and was buried with his fathers in the City of David his father; and Jehoshaphat his son reigned in his place.

Nadab king of Israel

²⁵ Now Nadab the son of Jeroboam began to reign over Israel in the second year of Asa king of Judah, and he reigned over Israel two years. ²⁶ He did evil in the sight of Yahweh and walked in the way of his father and in his sin, by which he made Israel sin. ²⁷ Then Baasha the son of Ahijah, of the house of Issachar, conspired against him; and Baasha struck him down at Gibbethon, which belonged to the Philistines, while Nadab and all Israel were besieging Gibbethon. ²⁸ Baasha killed him in the third year of Asa king of Judah and reigned in his place. ²⁹ And as soon as he was king, he struck down all the house of Jeroboam; he did not leave to Jeroboam anyone that breathed, until he had destroyed them, according to the word of Yahweh which He spoke by His servant Ahijah the Shilonite, ³⁰ because of the sins of Jeroboam which he sinned and by which he made Israel sin, because of the provocation with which he provoked Yahweh, the Elohim of Israel, to anger. ³¹ 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? ³² There was war between Asa and Baasha king of Israel all their days.

Baasha king of Israel

³³ In the third year of Asa king of Judah, Baasha the son of Ahijah began to reign over all Israel in Tirzah, and he reigned twenty-four years. ³⁴ He did evil in the sight of Yahweh and walked in the way of Jeroboam and in his sin, by which he made Israel sin.

Notes

• 15:2 Chronicles calls this king Abijah, "my father is Yah" (2 Chronicles 13:1); the reason for the two forms of his name is not known. Abishalom is a fuller spelling of Absalom, and many think Maacah was a granddaughter of David through Absalom (2 Chronicles 11:20-21). Because she is named again as the mother of Asa, Abijam's son (verse 10), "mother" there probably means grandmother: she kept her place as queen mother into Asa's reign (verse 13).
• 15:5 David is the measure for the kings of Judah in these books (verses 3 and 11). The one exception named is Uriah the Hittite: the text does not hide David's sin with Bathsheba and the killing of her husband (2 Samuel 11-12), yet it holds that David's heart remained with Yahweh, who forgave him when he confessed (2 Samuel 12:13). Matthew's genealogy remembers the same story, naming Solomon's mother as the wife of Uriah (Matthew 1:6).
• 15:12 "Shrine prostitutes" is qedeshim, the masculine plural of the word in Deuteronomy 23:17, persons "consecrated" to the service of a pagan shrine (14:24). "Idols" is gillulim, a word of contempt that many connect with gelalim, "dung pellets"; Ezekiel uses it often for Israel's idols (Ezekiel 6:4-6).
• 15:13 "Queen mother" is gevirah, "great lady," the title of the king's mother, who held honor and real influence at court (2:19; Jeremiah 13:18). "Abominable image" is mifletset, from a root meaning "to shudder": something to shudder at. Here "Asherah" is the goddess herself; Asa burned her image in the Kidron valley, where King Josiah would later burn the Asherah taken out of the house of Yahweh (2 Kings 23:6).
• 15:19 Asa empties the treasuries of the temple, already plundered by Shishak (14:26), to buy the help of a foreign king against Israel. "Present" is shochad, the word the Torah uses for a bribe (Exodus 23:8; Deuteronomy 16:19), and in Chronicles the seer Hanani rebukes Asa for relying on the king of Aram rather than on Yahweh (2 Chronicles 16:7-9). Ben-hadad, "son of Hadad," bears the name of Aram's storm god; this alliance opened the long Aramean wars against Israel (chapters 20 and 22).
• 15:29 Baasha's coup fulfills Ahijah's word against Jeroboam's house (14:10-11), but fulfilling a prophecy did not make Baasha righteous: he walked in the same way (verse 34), and the same judgment was soon spoken against his own house (16:1-4, 7). This Ahijah, the prophet from Shiloh, is not Baasha's father, who bore the same common name (verse 27). "Anyone that breathed" (neshamah) is the language of total destruction in Joshua (Joshua 10:40; 11:11).

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