1 Kings 15:27

_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._ Baasha smote him at Gibbethon. This town, within the tribe of Dan, was given to the Levites (Joshua 19:44). It lay on the Philistine borders, and having been seized by that people, Nadab laid siege to recover it....

25-34 During the single reign of Asa in Judah, the government of Israel was in six or seven different hands. Observe the ruin of the family of Jeroboam; no word of God shall fall to the ground. Divine threatenings are not designed merely to terrify. Ungodly men execute the just judgments of God upon each other. But in the midst of dreadful sins and this apparent confusion, the Lord carries on his own plan: when it is fully completed, the glorious justice, wisdom, truth, and mercy therein displayed, shall be admired and adored through all the ages of eternity....

Verse 27. _SMOTE HIM AT GABBETHON_] This was a city in the tribe of Dan, and generally in the possession of the Philistines....

BAASHA ... OF THE HOUSE OF ISSACHAR - It is curious to find Issachar furnishing a king. Tola, its one very undistinguished Judge Judges 10:1, on obtaining office had at once settled himself in the territory of Ephraim. The tribe was as little famous as any that could be named. The “ass crouching between two burthens” was a true symbol of the patient, plodding cultivators of the plain of Esdraelon Genesis 49:14. Baasha probably owed his rise neither to his tribe nor to his social position, but simply to his audacity, and his known valor and skill as a soldier 1 Kings 16:2....

EXPOSITION THE REIGNS OF NADAB, BAASHA, ELAH, ZIMRI, AND OMRI, KINGS OF ISRAEL.—After bringing up the history of the kings of Judah, which has engaged his pen since 1 Kings 14:21, to the date of the death of Asa, our author goes back some forty years to record the contemporary history of the kingdom of Israel, with which the rest of this book, the last thirteen verses alone excepted, is occupied. On the other hand, none of these reigns are even noticed by the chronicler, who only refers to the history of Israel, so far as it is inextricably connected with the object of his work; in other words, so far as is necessary to explain or illustrate the reigns of the kings of Judah

AND BAASHA THE SON OF AHIJAH, OF THE HOUSE OF ISSACHAR,.... A man of that tribe; but who he was, or his father, is nowhere else said, very probably an officer in Nadab's army: CONSPIRED AGAINST HIM; laid a scheme to take away his life, and seize the kingdom: AND BAASHA SMOTE HIM AT GIBBETHON; a city in the tribe of Dan, Joshua 19:44 WHICH BELONGETH TO THE PHILISTINES; it was a city given to the Levites, Joshua 21:23 and they being driven from it by Jeroboam, the Philistines seized on it, or had heretofore made a conquest of it; and Nadab was desirous of getting it out of their hands, and therefore besieged it, as follows: FOR NADAB AND ALL ISRAEL LAID SIEGE TO GIBBETHON; and while he was besieging it, Baasha took the opportunity t

4. KINGS OF ISRAEL Chapter S 15:25-16 _ 1. Nadab, King of Israel (1 Kings 15:25)_ 2. Baasha, King of Israel (1 Kings 15:34; 1 Kings 16:1) 3. Elah, King of Israel (1 Kings 16:8) 4. Zimri, King of Israel (1 Kings 16:15) 5. Divisions (1 Kings 16:21) 6. Omri, King of Israel (1 Kings 16:23) 7. Ahab ...

ABIJAM AND ASA OF JUDAH, AND NADAB AND BAASHA OF ISRAEL. Abijam, called Abijah (2 Chronicles 13:1), had a short and evil reign. It would appear, notwithstanding 1 Kings 15:8, that he was succeeded by his brother Asa, as both are said to have had the same mother, Maacah, the daughter of Abishalom. Josephus says the granddaughter of Absalom; see 2 Chronicles 11:20). Except that Asa could not remove the high places he is said to have done right during his long reign of forty-one years. Asa deposed Maacah from the position of queen-mother for her idolatry. She had made (1 Kings 15:13) an abominable image (Heb. a horror o

_of the house of Issachar_ Jeroboam's family was of the tribe of Ephraim (1 Kings 11:26), and it may have been some tribal jealousy which led a man of Issachar to exterminate the whole family of Jeroboam, and to found a new dynasty. From the message of the prophet Jehu to Baasha (1 Kings 14:1-2) it would appear as if Baasha's attempt had been sanctioned by some divine message. But none the more did Baasha improve upon the conduct of the two kings of the previous house. _at Gibbethon, which_belongeth [R.V. BELONGED] _to the Philistines_ Scrivener's edition of 1611 reads _belongeth_. This was a town allotted originally to the tribe of Dan (Joshua 19:44), and was given as a Levitical city to th

AND BAASHA, THE SON OF AHIJAH— See note on 1 Kings 15:2 of the next chapter. REFLECTIONS.—1st, Asa succeeded to the throne of Israel in the twentieth year of Jeroboam, and reigned long and successfully over Judah. 1. His piety is recorded to his honour. He copied after the illustrious David in all that was excellent, and was constantly and zealously attached to the worship of God all his days. His heart was right with God, and therefore he laboured to suppress all wickedness, and to reform his deluded subjects. The men of unnatural propensities were removed: either they were put to death, or they fled out of the land for fear. Such abominations a good prince will never suffer among his subjects. The idols which his father made, he destroyed; and because his grandmother Maachah was the great patroness of idolatry, he spared not to put her and her idol to public shame. He b