161 The word of God came to Jehu son of Hanani with this message for Baasha: 2 "I took you from nothing - a complete nobody - and set you up as the leader of my people Israel, but you plodded along in the rut of Jeroboam, making my people Israel sin and making me seethe over their sin. 3 And now the consequences - I will burn Baasha and his regime to cinders, the identical fate of Jeroboam son of Nebat. 4 Baasha's people who die in the city will be eaten by scavenger dogs; carrion crows will eat the ones who die in the country." 5 The rest of Baasha's life, the record of his regime, is written in The Chronicles of the Kings of Israel. 6 Baasha died and was buried with his ancestors in Tirzah. His son Elah was king after him. 7 That's the way it was with Baasha: Through the prophet Jehu son of Hanani, God's word came to him and his regime because of his life of open evil before God and his making God so angry - a chip off the block of Jeroboam, even though God had destroyed him.
8 In the twenty-sixth year of Asa king of Judah, Elah son of Baasha began his rule. He was king in Tirzah only two years. 9 One day when he was at the house of Arza the palace manager, drinking himself drunk, Zimri, captain of half his chariot-force, conspired against him. 10 Zimri slipped in, knocked Elah to the ground, and killed him. This happened in the twenty-seventh year of Asa king of Judah. Zimri then became the king. 11 Zimri had no sooner become king than he killed everyone connected with Baasha, got rid of them all like so many stray dogs - relatives and friends alike. 12 Zimri totally wiped out the family of Baasha, just as God's word delivered by the prophet Jehu had said 13 - wages for the sins of Baasha and his son Elah; not only for their sins but for dragging Israel into their sins and making the God of Israel angry with their stupid idols. 14 The rest of Elah's life, what he said and did, is written in The Chronicles of the Kings of Israel.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on 1 Kings 16:1-14
Commentary on 1 Kings 16:1-14
(Read 1 Kings 16:1-14)
This chapter relates wholly to the kingdom of Israel, and the revolutions of that kingdom. God calls Israel his people still, though wretchedly corrupted. Jehu foretells the same destruction to come upon Baasha's family, which that king had been employed to bring upon the family of Jeroboam. Those who resemble others in their sins, may expect to resemble them in the plagues they suffer, especially those who seem zealous against such sins in others as they allow in themselves. Baasha himself dies in peace, and is buried with honour. Herein plainly appears that there are punishments after death, which are most to be dreaded. Let Elah be a warning to drunkards, who know not but death may surprise them. Death easily comes upon men when they are drunk. Besides the diseases which men bring themselves into by drinking, when in that state, men are easily overcome by an enemy, and liable to bad accidents. Death comes terribly upon men in such a state, finding them in the act of sin, and unfitted for any act of devotion; that day comes upon them unawares. The word of God was fulfilled, and the sins of Baasha and Elah were reckoned for, with which they provoked God. Their idols are called their vanities, for idols cannot profit nor help; miserable are those whose gods are vanities.