Baasha and Ahab
by
Damien F. Mackey
Baasha of Israel is so Ahab-like that I feel it
necessary to return to an old theory of mine,
once written up but then discarded, due to
complications, that Baasha was Ahab.
Previously I had written on this:
What triggered this article was the apparent chronological problem
associated with the reign of King Baasha, thought to have been the third ruler
of Israel after Jeroboam I and his son, Nadab.
There is a definite problem with King Baasha of Israel, who bursts onto
the biblical scene during discussion in the First Book of Kings about Jeroboam
I’s wicked son, Nadab (15:27), and who, though he (Baasha) is said to have
reigned for 24 years (15:33), is actually found as king of Israel from Asa of
Judah’s 3rd to 36th years (cf. 15:33; 2 Chronicles 16:1), that is,
for 33 years.
Thus we have the headache for chronologists of their having to account
for how Baasha - although he should have been dead by about the 26th
year of King Asa - could have invaded Asa’s territory about a decade after
that, in Asa’s 36th year (2 Chronicles 16:1).
While some can offer no
explanation at all for this, P. Mauro, who has complete faith in the biblical
record (and with good reason, of course), has ingeniously tried to get around
the problem as follows (The Wonders of Bible Chronology, Reiner, p. 48):
Baasha's Invasion of Judah
In 2 Chron. 16: 1-3 it is
stated that "in the six and thirtieth year of the reign of Asa, Baasha,
king of Israel, came up against Judah." But the 36th year of Asa would
be nine
years after the death of Baasha, this being what Lightfoot referred to in speaking of
"Baasha fighting nine years after he was dead." The Hebrew text,
however, says, not that it was the 36th year of the reign of Asa, as in our A. V., but
that it was the 36th year of the kingdom of Asa. So it is evident that the reckoning here
is from the beginning of the separate kingdom of Judah. Hence the invasion of Judah by Baasha would be in
the 16th year of Asa, and the 13th of his own reign, as tabulated [in Mauro’s
lists].
[End of quote]
Whilst Mauro may be correct here - and I had initially accepted his
explanation as being the best way out of this dilemma - I now personally would favour
quite a different interpretation; one that is far more radical, greatly
affecting the early history of northern Israel. I now consider Mauro’s albeit
well-intentioned explanation to be splitting hairs: the ‘reign’ and ‘kingdom’
of Asa being surely one and the same thing, and so I think that it is not, as
he says, “evident that the reckoning here is
from the beginning of the separate kingdom of Judah”. It clearly
refers to Asa (a sub-set of Judah) and not to Judah. My explanation now would
be that Baasha of Israel was in fact reigning during the 36th year
of King Asa of Judah, and that Baasha and Ahab were one and the same king. I
came to this conclusion based on, firstly the distinct parallels between
Baasha and Ahab; and, secondly, the parallels between their supposed two
phases of the history of Israel, especially with Zimri, on the one hand, and
Jehu - whom Jezebel actually calls “Zimri” (2 Kings 9:31) - on the other; and, thirdly,
on the very similar words of a prophet in relation to the eventual fall of the
House of Baasha and to the House of Ahab (cf. 1 Kings 16:4; 21:24). I had
previously thought, as other commentators customarily do as well - and
necessarily, based on the standard chronology that has Zimri reigning some 40
years before Jehu - that Queen Jezebel was just being scornful when she had
called Jehu, ‘Zimri”, likening him to a former regicide; for Jehu was indeed a
regicide (2 Kings 9:23-28). But I have recently changed my mind on this and I
now believe that the queen was actually calling Jehu by his name, “Zimri”.
So, the basis for this article will be the likenesses of Baasha and his
house to Ahab and his house, and the reforming work of Jehu now as Zimri. But
also the words of a prophet in relation to the eventual fall of the House of
Baasha (the prophet Jehu son of Hanani), and of the House of Ahab (the prophet
Elijah). From this triple foundation, I shall arrive at a re-casted history of
early northern Israel that I think will actually throw some useful light on my
earlier revisions of this fascinating period.
It will mean that the scriptural narrative, as we currently have it,
presents us with more of a problem than merely that of aligning Baasha with the
36th year of Asa (which will now cease to be a problem).
This history must be significantly re-cast.
What has happened, I now believe, is that these were originally two
different accounts, presumably by different scribes using alternative
names for the central characters, of the same historical era. Since then,
translators and commentators have come to imagine that the narratives were
about two distinctly different periods of Israel’s history, and so they
presented them as such, even at times adjusting the information and dates to
fit their preconceived ideas. So, apparently (my interpretation), some of the
narrative has become displaced, with the result that we now appear to have two
historical series where there should be only one, causing a one-sided view of
things and with key characters emerging from virtually nowhere: thus Baasha, as
we commented above, but also the prophet Elijah, who springs up seemingly from
nowhere (in 17:1).
Admittedly, one can appreciate how such a mistake might have been made.
The use of different names can be confusing, retrospectively, for those who did
not live in, or near to, those early times. It will be my task here to attempt
to merge the main characters with whom I now consider to be their alter
egos, in order to begin to put the whole thing properly together again - at
least in a basic fashion, to pave the way for a more complete synthesis in the
future.
My new explanation will have the advantage, too, of taking the pressure
off the required length of the life of Ben-hadad I, a known contemporary of
Ahab’s, who must also be involved in a treaty with king Asa of Judah against
(the presumedly earlier than Ahab) king Baasha of Israel (1 Kings 15:18-21).
The same Ben-hadad I will later be forced to make a treaty with Ahab, after the
latter had defeated him in war (20:34).
Whilst my explanation will manage to do away with one apparent
contradiction, Baasha still reigning in Asa’s 36th year when it
seems, mathematically, that he could not have been, my theory does encounter a
new contradiction from 1 Kings 21:22, where the prophet Elijah tells Ahab that
his house will become “like the house of Jeroboam son of Nebat, and like the
house of Baasha son of Ahijah”, as if the house of Baasha and Ahab were
quite distinct and separated in time. My bold explanation for this is that the
original text (21:22) would have simply threatened the house of Ahab with the
same fate as that of Jeroboam’s house, but that an editor, basing himself on
Jehu’s denunciation of Baasha in 16:4, thought that this too needed to be
included in 21:22 as a separate issue, not realising that Baasha’s house was
Ahab’s house. The way the narrative reads, with Baasha’s early arrival on the
scene, he is not recorded as having done sufficient evil deeds, one might
think, to have warranted so severe a condemnation from the prophet Jehu son of
Hanani – until, that is, Baasha is ‘filled out’ with the wicked deeds of his alter
ego, king Ahab.
But with Baasha now (in my scheme) completely removed from roughly the
first half of king Asa of Judah’s long reign of 41 years (15:10), what will now
fill that apparent void?
….
Baasha’s sudden irruption onto the scene has its later
‘justification’,
I would suggest, in the far more detailed biography of
Ahab.
As to reign length, we have almost a perfect match in that Baasha
reigned for 24 years (I King 15:33) and Ahab for 22 (16:29).
But that becomes quite a perfect match when we further realise that
Baasha reigned for 2 years at Tirzah.
Though, in conventional terms, Samaria (at the time of Baasha) was not
yet a capital city, according to my revision it would already have been. And king
Ahab of Israel is said specifically to have reigned for 22 years “in
Samaria”.
Putting it all together, we get Baasha’s 2 years at Tirzah, and then a
further 22 years (making his total 24 years); 22 years being the length of
Ahab’s reign.
In other words, Baasha-Ahab (if it is the same person) reigned for 2
years at Tirzah, and then for 22 years at Samaria, a total of 24 years of reign.
This must have been after Ahab’s presumed father, Omri, had built
Samaria (16:24).
I say ‘presumed’, because I have, in my related articles:
Great
King Jeroboam II missing from Chronicles
https://www.academia.edu/41047903/Great_King_Jeroboam_II_missing_from_Chronicles
and:
Great
King Omri missing from Chronicles
and:
Omri
and Tibni
followed T. Ishida in his view that the Bible does not mention a House
of Omri, but does refer to one of Ahab, thereby allowing for me to make the
tentative suggestion that Ahab was probably related to Omri only though
marriage.
And that would further allow now for Ahab’s direct father to be, not
Omri, but - as Baasha’s father: “Ahaziah of the house of Issachar” (1
Kings 15:27). In “Omri and Tibni” I had noted (T. Ishida’s view) the
possibility of Ahab’s connection to Issachar:
Tomoo Ishida instead suggested that the narrative
of dynastic instability in the Kingdom of Israel suggests an underlying rivalry
between tribes for its throne.[1] In the biblical narrative, the House of Jeroboam was from the Tribe of Ephraim, while the House of Baasha was from the Tribe of Issachar.[1] The Omrides are connected in this narrative with the city of Jezreel, where they maintained a second palace. According
to the Book of
Joshua, Jezreel was
controlled by the Tribe of Issachar. Ishida views the narrative as suggesting
that the Omrides themselves were members of the Tribe of Issachar.[1] ....
I would modify this, though, to say instead, not “the Omrides”, but the
Ahabites “were members of the Tribe of Issachar”.
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