Now in the eighteenth year of king Jeroboam... reigned Abijam over Judah. Three years reigned he in Jerusalem (vv. 1-2). From here Kings dates each king by the reign of his neighbour in the other kingdom, weaving the two histories together; the ancient reckoning of these years is complex, and the study does not convert them into dates. Chronicles calls him Abijah and tells of a battle against Jeroboam in which he spoke up for the house of David and the priests descended from Aaron (2 Chronicles 13:3-20). Kings gives a shorter verdict.

His heart was not perfect with the LORD his God, as the heart of David his father. Perfect means whole, undivided — the word of Solomon's charge in 8:61 and of his failure in 11:4. His mother is Maachah, the daughter of Abishalom (v. 2), perhaps Absalom; 2 Chronicles 11:20 has Maachah the daughter of Absalom, while 2 Chronicles 13:2 names his mother Michaiah the daughter of Uriel of Gibeah. Some suggest daughter there means granddaughter, or that a name was altered in copying; the study notes the question without settling it.

Nevertheless for David's sake did the LORD his God give him a lamp in Jerusalem. The thread of 11:13 and 11:36 — for David my servant's sake, that David my servant may have a light alway before me in Jerusalem — is picked up here. The king's heart is divided, yet the line continues. The reason lies not in Abijam but in the promise made to David (2 Samuel 7:15-16). Grace given for another's sake is the heart of the verse.

The lamp returns later in Judah's story: 2 Kings 8:19 says the LORD would not destroy Judah for David his servant's sake, as he promised him to give him alway a light, and Psalm 132:17 sings, I have ordained a lamp for mine anointed. Readers may see in this small word a flame kept burning through dark reigns: the house of David flickers but is not put out. The mercy is real, though it does not excuse the king; his sins are named in the verse before.

The narrator, praising David, does not pretend he was flawless. The great sin of 2 Samuel 11 is named even here: save only in the matter of Uriah the Hittite. Readers note that David had other failures too — the numbering of the people in 2 Samuel 24 among them — and many take the phrase to single out the gravest, a deliberate adultery covered by murder. Scripture neither hides the sin of its heroes nor lets one sin erase a life of faithfulness. Psalm 51, traditionally linked with that sin, shows the way back: Create in me a clean heart, O God (Psalm 51:10).

Verse 6 then says there was war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam all the days of his life — repeating 14:30, in a passage about Abijam. Some take his life as Abijam's, meaning the war of the fathers went on through the son's reign; others think a copyist wrote Rehoboam where Abijam was meant, as verse 7 goes on to say there was war between Abijam and Jeroboam. The study notes the puzzle. Either way, the border war that Shemaiah had stopped from becoming full civil war (12:24) never truly ended.

In the twentieth year of Jeroboam king of Israel reigned Asa over Judah. And forty and one years reigned he in Jerusalem (vv. 9-10). After two failing reigns comes a reforming king. Asa did that which was right in the eyes of the LORD, as did David his father. This is the highest praise Kings gives a king of Judah, and it will later be given in similar words to Hezekiah (2 Kings 18:3) and Josiah (2 Kings 22:2). David his father means his forefather; David was Asa's great-great-grandfather.

His mother is again named Maachah, the daughter of Abishalom (v. 10), the name given for Abijam's mother in verse 2. Many take her to be Asa's grandmother, who kept the rank of queen mother into her grandson's reign; in Hebrew mother can stretch to a forebear, as father does in verse 11. Chronicles adds that Asa sought the LORD and led Judah in renewing the covenant, and that the land had rest (2 Chronicles 14:2-7; 15:12-15). Kings gives the summary: a right heart, set against the drift of the two reigns before.

He took away the sodomites out of the land, and removed all the idols that his fathers had made (v. 12), undoing what 14:23-24 described. Yet Jehoshaphat would later remove the remnant of the sodomites, which remained in the days of his father Asa (22:46), so the reform reached far but not to the end. The Hebrew word behind idols here may carry scorn — some take it to mean something like dung-things or logs — and Ezekiel uses it often; the study offers the sense with caution.

Also Maachah his mother, even her he removed from being queen, because she had made an idol in a grove. The Hebrew is obscure; it seems to describe an object made for Asherah, the goddess linked with the groves, and the study does not guess its form. Asa destroyed her idol, and burnt it by the brook Kidron — the valley beside Jerusalem where Josiah would later burn the grove brought out of the temple (2 Kings 23:6). The reform reached into the king's own family, at personal cost. Jesus would speak of loving Him more than father or mother (Matthew 10:37).

But the high places were not removed. The high places were local hilltop shrines; some were used for the worship of the LORD Himself, outside the one place He had chosen (Deuteronomy 12:13-14), others for other gods. Asa removed idols but left the shrines. The same but will be said of other good kings (22:43; 2 Kings 12:3; 15:4) until Hezekiah removed the high places (2 Kings 18:4). Reform can be real and still incomplete.

Readers ask how this fits 2 Chronicles 14:3-5, which says Asa took away... the high places; yet Chronicles also says the high places were not taken away out of Israel (2 Chronicles 15:17). Many suggest he removed the shrines of foreign gods but not those where the LORD was worshipped, or that what he removed in one season returned; the study notes the question. Nevertheless Asa's heart was perfect with the LORD all his days is a generous verdict: God weighs the heart, and Asa's was whole toward Him, though his work was unfinished and, as Chronicles shows, his later years were not without failure.

Baasha king of Israel went up against Judah, and built Ramah, that he might not suffer any to go out or come in to Asa (v. 17). Ramah lay a short way north of Jerusalem on the main road; fortifying it would choke traffic into Judah — perhaps also the northerners who were going over to Asa (2 Chronicles 15:9). Asa's answer was all the silver and the gold that were left in the treasures of the house of the LORD (v. 18), sent to Benhadad... king of Syria, that dwelt at Damascus, with this plea: break thy league with Baasha king of Israel, that he may depart from me.

It worked. Benhadad struck Ijon, and Dan and all the land of Naphtali (v. 20), and Baasha left off building of Ramah (v. 21). Kings gives no comment. Chronicles gives the prophet's verdict: Hanani the seer told Asa, Because thou hast relied on the king of Syria, and not relied on the LORD thy God, the Syrian host had escaped him, for the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth (2 Chronicles 16:7, 9). A good king bought safety with the LORD's treasure — and invited a foreign power into Israel's affairs.

Asa made a proclamation throughout all Judah; none was exempted (v. 22): all Judah carried off the stones of Ramah, and the timber thereof, and with them Asa built Geba of Benjamin, and Mizpah. The enemy's fort became Judah's defences. Jeremiah 41:9 later mentions a pit at Mizpah which Asa the king had made for fear of Baasha king of Israel, a distant echo of this border struggle. There was war between Asa and Baasha king of Israel all their days (v. 16).

Nevertheless in the time of his old age he was diseased in his feet. Kings adds nothing more. 2 Chronicles 16:12 says his disease became exceeding great: yet in his disease he sought not to the LORD, but to the physicians. Many take the point there to be where he put his trust, not that medicine is wrong; Scripture elsewhere speaks warmly of the beloved physician (Colossians 4:14) and of a remedy applied at God's word (Isaiah 38:21). Readers may hear a gentle warning: the king who began by relying on the LORD seems in later years to have looked first to other help.

Nadab the son of Jeroboam began to reign over Israel in the second year of Asa... and reigned over Israel two years (v. 25). He walked in the way of his father (v. 26). While Israel besieged Gibbethon, which belonged to the Philistines, Baasha the son of Ahijah, of the house of Issachar, conspired against him (v. 27) and killed him in the third year of Asa (v. 28). Second year to third year makes two years if, as many think, part-years were counted as whole. This Ahijah is not the prophet of Shiloh.

He smote all the house of Jeroboam; he left not to Jeroboam any that breathed... according unto the saying of the LORD, which he spake by his servant Ahijah the Shilonite. The word of 14:10-14 is fulfilled. Yet the next chapter will show Baasha himself judged, in part because he killed him (16:7). God's word is fulfilled through human violence without that violence being approved. Because of the sins of Jeroboam which he sinned, and which he made Israel sin (v. 30): the house once offered a sure house (11:38) ends with its founder's son.