Knox Bible

1

Abiam, coming to the throne of Juda in the eighteenth year of Jeroboam,

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reigned three years at Jerusalem. (His mother was called Maacha, daughter of Abessalom.✻ )

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Everywhere he followed the sinful example his father had set him, unworthy heir of David, that ever kept faith with the Lord his God.

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Yet, for David’s sake, the Lord suffered him to keep the lamp of the royal dynasty burning at Jerusalem; a son he must have to follow him, for the city’s preservation.

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Such reward David had for doing the Lord’s will, nor ever swerving, while life lasted, from his decrees, except in the matter of Urias the Hethite.

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While Roboam lived, he was at war with Jeroboam,

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and there was war, too, between Jeroboam and Abiam. What else Abiam did, all the history of his reign, is to be found in the Annals of the kings of Juda.

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So Abiam was laid to rest with his fathers, with the Keep of David for his burying-place, and the throne passed to his son Asa.

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Asa, coming to the throne of Juda in the twentieth year of Jeroboam, reigned as king at Jerusalem for forty-one years.

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His mother was called Maacha, daughter of Abessalom.

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And Asa did the Lord’s will, like king David, his ancestor,

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ridding the land of shrine-prostitutes, and sweeping away all the filth of idolatry his fathers had brought in with them.

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He even deprived his mother Maacha of her queenly rank, for her worship of Priapus and for dedicating a forest shrine to him; the grotto she had made he overthrew, broke the image and burnt the fragments of it and cast the ashes into the river Cedron.

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He did not abolish the hill-shrines; but all his days his heart was true to the Lord;

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and he enriched the Lord’s house with gold and silver and other offerings for its use, some dedicated by his father and some in performance of his own vows.

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This Asa and Baasa king of Israel were at war continually.

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Baasa would not be content with his own Israelite territory; he invaded Juda and began making a fortified city of Rama, so as to deny Asa’s subjects free passage.

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Whereupon Asa took out all the silver and gold that was left in the treasure-chambers of temple and palace; this was to be conveyed by his messengers to Damascus, to Benadad, son of Tabremon, son of Hezion, king of Syria.

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There is an alliance between us, he said, inherited from thy father and mine; witness these gifts of silver and gold I send thee. Do thou annul the treaty thou hast made with Baasa, king of Israel, and help me drive him out of my country.

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Benadad, falling in with the request, sent out his generals with orders to attack the cities of Israel; Ahion they overcame, and Dan, and Abel Beth-Maacha, and all Cenneroth, till Nephthali had no land remaining.

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So Baasa, when the news reached him, went back to Thersa, leaving the defences of Rama half finished;

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and the men of Juda, summoned by a royal decree which admitted of no denial, carried off all the stones and woodwork he had erected there; Asa made use of it to fortify Gabaa in Benjamin, and Maspha.

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What else Asa did, the power he wielded, all his history, and the record of the cities he built, are to be found in the Annals of the kings of Juda. At last old age came upon him, and with old age, disease attacked his feet.

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So he was laid to rest with his fathers, in the Keep of his ancestor David, and the throne passed to his son Josaphat.

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It was in the second year of Asa that Jeroboam’s son Nadab came to the throne of Israel, and his reign over Israel lasted two years;

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he defied the Lord’s will, following the evil example of his father, that sinned and taught Israel to sin.

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Then, while he was laying siege to the Philistine city of Gebbethon, at the head of the Israelite army, Baasa son of Ahias, a man of Issachar, conspired against him and killed him there.

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So, in the third year of Asa, Baasa succeeded Nadab as king.

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And he, on coming to the throne, put all Jeroboam’s kindred to death; not a man did he spare, so that the whole race perished, as the Lord’s servant, Ahias the Silonite, had prophesied in his name.

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So deep was Jeroboam’s guilt, that sinned and taught Israel to sin; so was he punished for defying the Lord God of Israel.

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What else Nadab did, all his history, is to be found in the Annals of the kings of Israel.

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It was this Baasa that was at war with Asa continually;

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Baasa, son of Ahias, who came to the throne in Asa’s third year, and for twenty-four years reigned over Israel at Thersa.

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He too defied the Lord’s will, and followed the sinful ways by which Jeroboam taught Israel to sin.