Chapter 8—National Apostasy
From the time of Jeroboam’s death to Elijah’s appearance before
Ahab the people of Israel suffered a steady spiritual decline. Ruled by
men who did not fear Jehovah and who encouraged strange forms of
worship, the larger number of the people rapidly lost sight of their duty
to serve the living God and adopted many of the practices of idolatry.
Nadab, the son of Jeroboam, occupied the throne of Israel for
only a few months. His career of evil was suddenly stopped by a
conspiracy headed by Baasha, one of his generals, to gain control of
the government. Nadab was slain, with all his kindred in the line of
succession, “according unto the saying of the Lord, which He spake
by His servant Ahijah the Shilonite: because of the sins of Jeroboam
which he sinned, and which he made Israel sin.”
1 Kings 15:29, 30
.
Thus perished the house of Jeroboam. The idolatrous worship
introduced by him had brought upon the guilty offenders the retributive
judgments of Heaven; and yet the rulers who followed—Baasha, Elah,
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Zimri, and Omri—during a period of nearly forty years, continued in
the same fatal course of evil-doing.
During the greater part of this time of apostasy in Israel, Asa was
ruling in the kingdom of Judah. For many years “Asa did that which
was good and right in the eyes of the Lord his God: for he took away
the altars of the strange gods, and the high places, and brake down the
images, and cut down the groves: and commanded Judah to seek the
Lord God of their fathers, and to do the law and the commandment.
Also he took away out of all the cities of Judah the high places and
the sun [margin] images: and the kingdom was quiet before him.”
2
Chronicles 14:2-5
.
The faith of Asa was put to a severe test when “Zerah the Ethiopian
with an host of a thousand thousand, and three hundred chariots,”
invaded his kingdom.
Verse 9
. In this crisis Asa did not put his trust in
the “fenced cities in Judah” that he had built, with “walls, and towers,
gates, and bars,” nor in the “mighty men of valor” in his carefully
trained army.
Verses 6-8
. The king’s trust was in Jehovah of hosts, in
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