1 Kings 16:2 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
1 Kings 16:2
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 hast made my people Israel to sin, to provoke me to anger with their sins;
an offence (sometimes habitual sinfulness) · preposition + noun, common feminine plural construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine plural
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
1 Kings 14:7 Go, tell Jeroboam, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, Forasmuch as I exalted thee from among the people, and made thee prince over my people…
1 Kings 15:34 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 Samuel 2:8 He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth up the beggar from the dunghill, to set them among princes, and to make them inherit the…
Psalms 113:7-8 He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth the needy out of the dunghill;
Exodus 32:21 And Moses said unto Aaron, What did this people unto thee, that thou hast brought so great a sin upon them?
1 Samuel 2:24 Nay, my sons; for it is no good report that I hear: ye make the LORD’s people to transgress.
1 Samuel 2:27-28 And there came a man of God unto Eli, and said unto him, Thus saith the LORD, Did I plainly appear unto the house of thy father, when they w…
1 Samuel 15:17-19 And Samuel said, When thou wast little in thine own sight, wast thou not made the head of the tribes of Israel, and the LORD anointed thee k…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on 1 Kings 16:1-14
Here is, I. The ruin of the family of Baasha foretold. He was a man likely enough to have raised and established his family - active, politic, and daring; but he was an idolater, and this brought destruction upon his family.
1. God sent him warning of it before. (1.) That, if he were thereby wrought upon to repent and reform, the ruin might be prevented; for God threatens, that he may not strike, as one that desires not the death of sinners. (2.) That, if not, it might appear that the destruction when it did come, whoever might be instruments of it, was the act of God's justice and the punishment of sin.
2. The warning was sent by Jehu the son of Hanani. The father was a seer, or prophet, at…
Forasmuch as I exalted thee--The doom he pronounced on Baasha was exactly the same as denounced against Jeroboam and his posterity. Though he had waded through slaughter to his throne, he owed his elevation to the appointment or permission of Him "by whom kings reign."
over my people Israel--With all their errors and lapses into idolatry, they were not wholly abandoned by God. He still showed His interest in them by sending prophets and working miracles in their favor, and possessed a multitude of faithful worshippers in the kingdom of Israel.
Adam Clarke on 1 Kings 16:2
Made thee prince over my people - That is, in the course of my providence, I suffered thee to become king; for it is impossible that God should make a rebel, a traitor, and a murderer, king over his people, or over any people. God is ever represented in Scripture as doing those things which, in the course of his providence, he permits to be done.
John Gill on 1 Kings 16:2
Forasmuch as I exalted thee out of the dust,.... From a very low estate, and mean family:
and made thee prince over my people Israel; as they were of right, and ought to have been; and though Baasha got the kingdom by treachery and murder, yet the translation of the kingdom to him was according to the appointment of God, and by his overruling providence; and even his act of killing Nadab was a fulfilment of a prophecy of his; and had he done it in obedience to the will of God, and in vengeance for his sin, would not have been blameworthy, since then he would have been an executioner of the, justice of God:
and thou hast walked in the way of Jeroboam, and hast made my people Israel to sin,…
The Church Fathers
"Since I exalted you out of the dust and made you leader over my people Israel, and you have walked in the way of Jeroboam and have caused my people Israel to sin, provoking me to anger with their sins, therefore, I will consume the past actions of Baasha and the past actions of his house, and I will make your house like the house of Jeroboam son of Nebat. Anyone belonging to Baasha who dies in the city the dogs shall eat; and anyone of his who dies in the field the birds of the air shall eat." These words were pronounced against all sinners, and especially against the pagans and the heretics. Indeed, those who always add new sins to their old sins and are depraved by the examples of evil become the greatest in their crimes. "I will cut off the past actions of Baasha," [the Lord] says, "and the past actions of his house, and I will make your house like the house of Jeroboam son of Nebat." The Lord cuts off the past actions of Baasha when he takes revenge on the sin of the wicked after the end of life. And he cuts off the past actions of his house when he condemns the inhabitants of that house to eternal torments. And he will make the house of Baasha like the house of Jeroboam son of Nabat when he gives the sinners who persevere in their iniquity to the torments of hell together with the devil and his angels. In fact, Baasha, as we have already said, is interpreted as "confusion" or "dryness," Jeroboam as "he who divides the people," and Nabat as "spontaneous." Therefore, when one follows the confusions of errors and sinners and neglects the possibility of having a wife of spiritual grace, then his past actions will be cut off as those of the devil.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Ahab — Father’s brother. (1.) The son of Omri, whom he succeeded as the seventh king of Israel. His history is recorded in 1 Kings 16-22. His wife was Jezebel (q.v.), who exercised a very evil influence…
Baasha — Bravery, the third king of the separate kingdom of Israel, and founder of its second dynasty (1 Kings 15; 16; 2 Chr. 16:1-6). He was the son of Ahijah of the tribe of Issachar. The city of Tirzah he…
Baasha · King of Israel — King of Israel
Ingratitude · 2:6,7; — 2:6,7;
Jeroboam · .Subverts the religion of Moses — .Subverts the religion of Moses
Jews, The · Often displeased God by their sins — Often displeased God by their sins
Promotion · .Baasha, “out of the dust” to the throne — .Baasha, “out of the dust” to the throne
Sin · God: Is provoked to anger by — God: Is provoked to anger by
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
The Lord charged Baasha with being a murderer (16:7) and with following Jeroboam’s idolatry. Because he perpetuated Jeroboam’s evil example, Baasha and his family would suffer the same consequences (see 14:11).
