The kings of Israel and Judah

King Baasha

The kingdom of Israel (the north) · Reigned twenty-four years (1 Kings 15:33) · Evil before God · 1 Kings 15:27 to 16:7

Baasha seized the throne of Israel by killing Nadab and wiping out the house of Jeroboam, then reigned twenty-four years. Though he had been God's instrument to end Jeroboam's dynasty, he did evil in the sight of the LORD and walked in the very way of Jeroboam that he had destroyed. The prophet Jehu pronounced the same doom on his house that had fallen on Jeroboam's, and it too was swept away after his son.

And he 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 15:34 (KJV)

A usurper who repeated the old sin

Baasha came to power by conspiracy and slaughter, destroying every heir of Jeroboam. Yet having removed one idolatrous dynasty, he founded another just like it. He 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. He had seen God's judgment fall on the house he replaced, and he walked straight into the same guilt.

During his long reign there was war between Baasha and Asa king of Judah all their days. Baasha fortified Ramah to blockade Judah, until Asa hired the Syrians to attack Israel from the north and force Baasha to withdraw.

The word of judgment through Jehu

The prophet Jehu, son of Hanani, came to Baasha with the word of the LORD: Forasmuch as I exalted thee out of the dust, and made thee prince over my people Israel, and thou hast walked in the way of Jeroboam, and made my people to sin, behold, I will take away the posterity of Baasha, and make thy house like the house of Jeroboam.

The charge was pointed: God himself had raised Baasha from the dust, and Baasha had repaid him by leading Israel deeper into the sin that provoked him. The same ruin he had brought on Jeroboam's house was now decreed for his own.

The biblical verdict and where it points

Baasha is judged evil, a man who was used by God to execute judgment and yet became guilty of the very thing he had punished. He shows how easily one who overthrows corruption can simply reinstall it under a new name, and how being an instrument of God is no substitute for obeying him.

His reign deepens the northern kingdom's tragic pattern: dynasty after dynasty rising by violence, sinning like Jeroboam, and falling under the same word of judgment. Each collapse underlined the instability of a kingdom founded on false worship, and quietly pressed the hope of God's people toward a King and a kingdom that could not be shaken.

A note on the record: everything here is drawn from the books of Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles. Kings and Chronicles sometimes tell a reign differently, Chronicles often adding a king's repentance or building works, and where they differ this is said plainly rather than smoothed over. The exact lengths and overlaps of the reigns are genuinely complex, because kings often shared the throne with a son for a time, so the totals in Scripture do not always add up in a simple line. The verdict good or evil is the Bible's own assessment, whether a king did right or evil in the sight of the LORD.

Related: Nadab · Elah · All the kings of Israel and Judah