THE KINGS OF ISRAEL AND JUDAH. George Rawlinson

      Baasha

       Table of Contents

      BAASHA, the third Israelite monarch, had a reign of twenty-four years (1 Kings xv. 33). He was the son of a certain Ahijah, of whom nothing more is known, and belonged to the very undistinguished and unimportant tribe of Issachar—the “ass crouching down between two burdens” of Jacob’s prophecy (Gen. xlix. 14). It would seem that he was originally of very humble rank (1 Kings xvi. 2); and, at the siege of Gibbethon, where he conceived the design of murdering his master, Nadab, and seating himself upon his throne, he was perhaps no more than a common soldier. But he was “a man of distinguished bravery,” ambitious to excess, and of extraordinary audacity. Without, so far as appears, any prophetic encouragement, without claim of any kind to the kingly office, he ventured to organize a conspiracy, against the reigning sovereign, the son of a valiant sire, who must have had the support of many powerful interests. What circumstances favoured his attempt we do not know. It is a mere conjecture of Ewald’s that Nadab’s war with the Philistines was proving unsuccessful, and that therefore dissatisfaction had arisen among the soldiers engaged in besieging Gibbethon, who were thus ripe for revolt, and ready to accept for sovereign any one whom they regarded as a more competent leader. No doubt the conjecture is plausible, but it is only one out of a thousand possibilities; and it may be questioned whether it is the historian’s business to indulge in conjectures where he possesses no data. All that we know is, that Baasha succeeded in his enterprise, that he slew Nadab at Gibbethon, and was accepted as king in his stead (1 Kings xv. 28), obtaining the throne, as it would seem, without any civil war or long struggle. The nation, which the house of Jeroboam had in no way attached to itself, acquiesced in his rule, probably preferring the firm hand that had seized the reins of government to the feeble one from which they had slipped.

      In firmly establishing himself upon the throne, and consolidating his power, Baasha showed the same vigour and unscrupulousness that he had exhibited in making himself king. Unmoved by any stir of compassion or pity, he relentlessly exterminated the entire house of Jeroboam. In thus acting he could claim, to a certain extent, prophetic sanction; since Ahijah the Shilonite, who had originally designated Jeroboam for his kingly office (1 Kings xi. 29-39), had also at a later date declared that God would bring evil on the house of Jeroboam, and take away all that should remain of it, with the special curse attached, that

      “Whoso of Jeroboam died in the city should the dogs eat;

      And whoso died in the city should the fowls of the air eat.”

      Baasha is distinctly said to have accomplished this prophecy (1 Kings XV. 29), so that we must regard him as not only putting the entire seed of Jeroboam to death, but as doing so with all those circumstances of ignominy which especially impress Orientals, and which are usually reserved for the worst grade of malefactors.

      It might perhaps have been expected that the new king, having shown himself inimical in the highest degree to the royal house which had preceded him upon the throne, would have headed a reaction against the religious innovations which Jeroboam had introduced; innovations which must have been extremely distasteful to the Prophetical order, as well as to a considerable section of the nation. But in this direction he appears to have made not the slightest change or improvement. Baasha, we are told, “did evil in the sight of the Lord, and walked in the way of Jeroboam, and in his sin wherewith he made Israel to sin” (1 Kings xv. 34). He “provoked God to anger with the work of his hands in being like the house of Jeroboam” (ibid, xvi. 7). Religious feeling therefore was in no sense the motive of his usurpation, and religion profited nothing by the change of dynasty. The worship of the calves remained unchanged at Dan and Bethel; the unauthorized priesthood was maintained in office; Jehovistic Israelites were hindered from carrying their offerings to Jerusalem or participating in the Temple worship (2 Chron. xvi. 1); Jeroboam’s system was, in fact, continued without the slightest modification, and the Prophetical order can have been no better pleased with the rule of the house of Ahijah than with that of the house of Nebat.

      It is in military, rather than in religious, matters that a difference can be traced between the policy of the first, and that of the second, Israelite dynasty. The house of Nebat had been, on the whole, content to stand on the defensive against Judah; to seek to repel attack rather than to make it; and to look to self-protection rather than to self-aggrandisement. It had even submitted under Jeroboam to the loss of territory (2 Chron. xiii. 19), and had subsequently made no effort to recover the captured cities. Baasha’s military policy was the exact opposite of this. Having strengthened himself by an alliance with his northern neighbour, Benhadad, king of Damascus (ibid. xvi. 3), he challenged Judah to the combat; he collected an army, marched southward, crossed the Judæan border, reconquered the territory taken from Israel by Abijah in the reign of Jeroboam, and pursuing his victorious march seized and occupied a position of the utmost importance in Judæa itself, which he endeavoured rapidly to convert into a fortress of the first class. The object, as Ewald sees, was to “annihilate” Judah. If it could have been maintained for a few years in the hands of Judah’s bitter foes, Jerusalem must have succumbed, and with the loss of Jerusalem the Judæan state must have collapsed. It has been already related how Asa met the daring plan of his adversary, how he bribed Benhadad to change sides and turn against Baasha, with the consequent failure of Baasha’s plan, and the recovery by Asa of the fortress which had threatened