1 Kings 16:1

BAASHA; ELAH; ZIMRI; OMRI; AND AHAB - ALL MORE REPROBATE KINGS OF ISRAEL;

GOD'S REJECTION OF THE WICKED BAASHA

"And the word of Jehovah came to Jehu the son of Hanani against Baasha, saying, Forasmuch as I elevated 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; behold, I will utterly sweep away Baasha and his house; and I will make thy house like the house of Jeroboam the son of Nebat. Him that dieth of Baasha in the city shall the dogs eat; and him that dieth of his in the field shall the birds of the heavens eat."

"Jehu the son of Hanani" (1 Kings 16:1). Jehu, a prophet, was also the son of a prophet; and he is mentioned in 2 Chronicles 20:34 as being the author of a history which was "inserted into the book of the kings of Israel." The importance of this fact should be stressed. The sacred author of Kings, living long after some of the events recorded, had no need whatever to rely upon his imagination, nor upon the biased report of some imaginary Deuteronomist in order to produce the records which have come down to us. No indeed! There were available authentic, inspired records by true prophets of God such as Jehu and his father. No editor, compiler, redactor, interpolator or any other mythical person would have dared to contradict anything that such prophets said. The whole tradition of the people of Israel was adamantly set against such a thing.

This same prophet later moved to Jerusalem (2 Chronicles 16:7-10), "Where he prophesied under Jehoshaphat, whom he rebuked on one occasion; he must have lived to a great age, for he outlived Jehoshaphat and even wrote his life (2 Chronicles 20:34)."[1]

WHO ACTUALLY WROTE THE OLD TESTAMENT?

The books of the O.T. are founded upon the writings of the prophets of God, as stated by Josephus, who declared that, "After the death of Moses, the prophets that were after Moses wrote down what was done in their times in thirteen books (Josephus identified these as including all of the historical books)."[2]

Josephus also stressed the truth that no Jew who ever lived would have dared to change even a syllable of what the holy prophets had written. "During so many ages which have already passed, no one has been so bold as either to add anything to them, take anything from them, or to make any change in them."[3]

The O.T. is itself the incontrovertible proof of what Josephus wrote. If any Jew who ever lived could indeed have succeeded in changing a single line of the writings of the prophets, who can believe that the vulgar, sordid, unbelievably wicked deeds of even the most beloved of Jewish heroes would have remained in the full, stark, and ugly records as they stand? Such things as God's cursing the priesthood of Israel, that terrible chapter of Hosea (Hosea 9) in which God flatly declared that He would cease to love Israel, and half a thousand other derogatory and shameful records of Israel's apostasy stand in the O.T. as a perpetual embarrassment to Israel; and yet not a line of all that was ever edited, omitted, deleted or changed in any manner! If any such person as "the Deuteronomist" had ever existed, WHY were no changes ever made in things like these?

Where, on the face of the earth, were all of those imaginary editors, redactors, and compilers, who are alleged by critics to have done this or that to the text? And as for that imaginary angel of the critical scholars, "the Deuteronomist," why, for heaven's sake, did he not do something to improve the Biblical picture of Israel's reprobate priesthood (of which he was allegedly numbered), which was condemned and cursed by God himself (Malachi 2:2)? When an intelligent person seeks the answers to such questions as these, and hundreds of others just like them, he can at once see why the sacred text of the Holy Bible should be received, as is, without any regard whatever for the insinuations of evil men who would like to change it.

This writer appreciates true scholarship and is willing to honor the significant and helpful contributions to Biblical knowledge which have resulted, but we cannot, in true conscience, allow the crooked, unscientific, and ridiculous postulations of certain writers who do not believe the Bible, who deny any such things as predictive prophecy, miracles, Divine intervention in human history, the virgin birth of Christ, his resurrection from the dead or anything else that speaks of the supernatural - we cannot allow that kind of Biblical misinterpretation to stand unchallenged!

Regarding the Book of Kings, a vital part of the Bible, we remember the words of the apostle Peter, "Men spake from God, being moved by the Holy Spirit," (2 Peter 1:21), and he was not talking about "the Deuteronomist"!

"Him that dieth of Baasha in the city shall the dogs eat" (1 Kings 16:4). "Baasha, having chosen to share in the iniquity of the house of Jeroboam, likewise shared in the severe penalty thereof, even to being eaten by dogs."[4] "This prophecy is remarkably like that which Ahijah had spoken regarding Jeroboam (1 Kings 14:7-11); but that is not sufficient reason to reject either account."[5]