1 Kings 15:33

In the third year of Asa king of Judah began Baasha the son of Ahijah to reign over all Israel in Tirzah, twenty and four years.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

15:25-34 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.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

An exact repetition of 1 Kings 15:16. From the book before him 1 Kings 15:31 the writer extracts a passage which happens to correspond exactly with one which he has already extracted from the "Book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah." He does not object to repeating himself (compare 1 Kings 14:21, 1 Kings 14:31; 1 Kings 14:30; 1 Kings 15:6; 2 Kings 17:6; 2 Kings 18:11).

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

29. when he reigned, he smote all the house of Jeroboam—It was according to a barbarous practice too common in the East, for a usurper to extirpate all rival candidates for the throne; but it was an accomplishment of Ahijah's prophecy concerning Jeroboam (1Ki 14:10, 11).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

No text from Poole on this verse.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

In the third year of Asa king of Judah began Baasha the son of Ahijah to reign over all Israel in Tirzah,.... Which is repeated, partly to observe that the whole kingdom submitted to him, though an usurper and murderer, and the place where he kept his court, as also the time of his reign, as follows:

twenty four years; which were as long as both Jeroboam and his son reigned.

Geneva Study Bible

In the third year of Asa king of Judah began Baasha the son of Ahijah to reign over all Israel in {m} Tirzah, twenty and four years.

(m) Which was the place where the kings of Israel remained.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

33. in Tirzah, twenty and four years] To complete the sense the R.V. inserts in italics after ‘Tirzah’ the words ‘and reigned.’

Tirzah seems to have become by this time a more common royal residence than Shechem. Perhaps its extreme beauty attracted the kings and their families. Cf. Sol. Song of Solomon 6:4, ‘Thou art beautiful as Tirzah’.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 33. - In the third year of Asa king of Judah began Baasha the son of Ahijah to reign [Practically a repetition of ver. 28. These iterations are thoroughly in accord with Eastern usage (cf. vers. 26, 30, 34; 1 Kings 16:1, 7, etc.)] over all Israel in Tirzah, twenty and four years. 1 Kings 15:33

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The Reign of Baasha is described very briefly according to its duration (two years) and its spirit, namely, the attitude of Baasha towards the Lord (1 Kings 15:34); there then follow in 1 Kings 16:1-4 the words of the prophet Jehu, the son of Hanani (2 Chronicles 16:7), concerning the extermination of the family of Baasha; and lastly, in 1 Kings 16:5-7, his death is related with the standing allusion to the annals of the kings. The words of Jehu concerning Baasha (1 Kings 16:1-4) coincide exactly mutatis mutandis with the words of Ahijah concerning Jeroboam.

(Note: "There was something very strange in the perversity and stolidity of the kings of Israel, that when they saw that the families of preceding kings were evidently overthrown by the command of God on account of the worship of the calves, and they themselves had overturned them, they nevertheless worshipped the same calves, and placed them before the people for them to worship, that they might not return to the temple and to Asa, king of Jerusalem; though prophets denounced it and threatened their destruction. Truly the devil and the ambition of reigning blinded them and deprived them of their senses. Hence it came to pass, through the just judgment of God, that they all were executioners of one another in turn: Baasha was the executioner of the sons of Jeroboam; Zambri was the executioner of the sons of Baasha; and the executioner of Zambri was Omri." - _C. a Lapide.)

The expression "exalted thee out of the dust," instead of "from among the people" (1 Kings 14:7), leads to the conjecture that Baasha had risen to be king from a very low position. גּבוּרתו (his might) in 1 Kings 16:5 refers, as in the case of Asa (1 Kings 15:23), less to brave warlike deeds, than generally to the manifestation of strength and energy in his government.