Глава 16

1–7. God's judgment on Baasha, king of Israel. 8–33. Other kings of Israel contemporary with Asa of Judah: Elah (8–10), Zimri (10–15), Tamni (21–22), Omri (23–28) and Ahab (29–33). 34. Restoration of Jericho, displeasing to Jehovah. 1 Kings 16:1. And the word of the Lord came to Juhu the son of Hanani concerning Baasha: 1 Kings 16:2. because I raised you from the dust and made you the leader of My people Israel, but you followed the path of Jeroboam and caused My people Israel to sin, so that they would anger Me with their sins, 1 Kings 16:3. Behold, I will reject the house of Baasha and the house of his descendants, and I will do to your house as I did to the house of Jeroboam the son of Nebat; 1 Kings 16:4. whoever dies in the city of Baasha will be eaten by dogs; and whoever dies in his field will be eaten by the birds of the air. 1 Kings 16:5. The rest of Baasha's deeds, everything he did, and his exploits are described in the chronicles of the kings of Israel. 1 Kings 16:6. And Baasha slept with his fathers, and was buried in Tirzah. And Ila his son reigned in his stead. 1 Kings 16:7. But through Juhu the son of Hanani, the word of the Lord had already been spoken about Baasha and about his house and about all the evil that he had done in the sight of the Lord, annoying Him with the works of his hands, imitating the house of Jeroboam, for which it was destroyed. For the first time after the division, a prophet appears here in the kingdom of Israel (the Elder Prophet of Bethel, Chapter XIII, does not act as a public figure and teacher): and the ten-tribe kingdom, despite the betrayal of Jehovah, remained the people of God, in which many members were connected by the closest ties of faith and love for the temple of Solomon with the kingdom of Judah, and moreover, in the future they had to form with the latter one people of God. The name of the prophet "Jehu" (Heb. Yehu, Vulg.: Iehu), identical with the name of one of the kings of Israel (2 Kings 9:2), is found only in this place and (2 Chronicles 19:2), cf. (2 Chronicles 20:34); Probably, the father of the prophet Jehu Hananiah (1 Kings 16:1) is the same person as the prophet Hananiah, who exposed Asa and was thrown into prison by him (2 Chronicles 16:7–10). Jehu's terrible prophecy against the house of Baasha (vv. 3–4) is stated in terms closely reminiscent of the prophecies: Ahijah - against the house of Jeroboam (1 Kings 14:10-11) and the prophet Elijah - against the house of Ahab (1 Kings 21:23-24). 1 Kings 16:8. In the twenty-sixth year of Asa king of Judah, Elah the son of Baasha reigned over Israel in Tirzah, and reigned for two years. 1 Kings 16:9. And his servant Zamri, who was in charge of half the chariots, conspired against him. When he got drunk in Tirzah in the house of Arsa, who was in charge of the palace in Tirzah, 1 Kings 16:10. Then Zimri entered, struck him and killed him, in the twenty-seventh year of Asa king of Judah, and reigned in his stead. The two years of the reign of the 4th king of Israel, Elah, were incomplete (cf. vv. 10, 15). The conspirator 3ambri, the commander of half the royal cavalry (cf. 1 Kings 9:19, 10.26), took advantage of the intoxication of Ila at a feast of a certain courtier Arsa, as well as (cf. I. Flav. Jude. Ancient. VIII, 12, 4) the absence of the royal commanders and troops sent for the siege of Gibethon (cf. v. 15) and (1 Kings 15:27). 1 Kings 16:11. When he became king and sat on his throne, he destroyed the entire house of Baasha, leaving him urinating against the wall, neither his relatives nor his friends. 1 Kings 16:12. And Zimri destroyed all the house of Baasha, according to the word of the Lord, which He spoke about Baasha through Jehu the prophet, 1 Kings 16:13. for all the sins of Baasha and for the sins of Elah his son, which they themselves did and with which they brought Israel into sin, annoying the Lord God of Israel with their idols. 1 Kings 16:14. The rest of Eli's deeds, all that he did, are written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel. 1 Kings 16:15. In the twenty-seventh year of Asa king of Judah, Zimri reigned and reigned for seven days in Tirzah, while the people were besieging Gibethon of the Philistines. During the second revolution in the kingdom of Israel, Zimri carried out an even more decisive extermination of the deposed dynasty of Baasha than what Baasha did in relation to the dynasty of Jeroboam (1 Kings 15:29). The reign of Zamri lasted only 7 days - until rumors of this reached the Israeli army besieging Gibethon, which immediately proclaimed the military leader Omri (Heb. Omri) king. 1 Kings 16:16. When the besieging people heard that Zimri had conspired and killed the king, all Israel made Omri, the military commander, king over Israel that same day in the camp. 1 Kings 16:17. And Omri and all Israel with him retreated from Gibethon and besieged Tirzah. 1 Kings 16:18. When Zamri saw that the city had been taken, he entered the inner room of the royal house and lit the royal house on fire behind him and died 1 Kings 16:19. for his sins, in which he sinned, doing what was evil in the sight of the Lord, walking in the way of Jeroboam and in his sins, which he committed to cause Israel to sin. 1 Kings 16:20. The other deeds of Zimri and the conspiracy he formed are described in the chronicles of the kings of Israel. 1 Kings 16:21. Then the people of Israel were divided in two: half of the people stood for Tamni the son of Gonath to make him king, and half for Omri. Now the interregnum has begun. Besieged by the army that returned with Omri, Zamri commits suicide as soon as the city was taken: he burned himself and the royal palace, going into its inner and elevated room (Heb. armon, elevated palace 17; LXX: ἄντπον, Vulg.: palatium). “And we learn through this,” says Blessed Theodoret (question 48), “that the Lord God punishes those who live viciously through others, and betrays one vicious person to another more vicious one, using the latter, as it were, instead of an executioner.” During the 7 days of his reign (verse 15), Zimri, of course, could not declare himself an ardent follower of Jeroboam (v. 19), but he could demonstrate his commitment to the cult of the latter even before his revolutionary step. 1 Kings 16:22. And the people who were for Omri prevailed over the people who were for Tamni the son of Gonath, and Tamni died, and Omri reigned. 1 Kings 16:23. In the thirty-first year of Asa king of Judah, Omri reigned over Israel and reigned for twelve years. He reigned in Tirzah for six years. For four years, from the 27th year of the reign of Asa (v. 15) to the 31st year of this reign (v. 23), the joint reign of Omri and his enemy, Tamnia, the son of Gonath, continued; and only after the death of the latter (and, according to LXX, his brother Joram: καὶ ἀπέθανε Θαβνί) καὶ Ιωρἀμ ο ἀδελφός αὐτοῦ ᾿εν τῶ καιρῶ ἐκέινω; glor.: “Tamni and Joram his brother died at the time of it” - a remark that could belong to the original, although it was not preserved in the Masor. i.e., Omri became the sole ruler of the ten-tribe kingdom. The 12 years of his reign are undoubtedly not complete (according to Art. 15–16, Omri was enthroned by the army in the 27th year of the reign of Asa, and according to Art. 29, Omri’s son Ahab reigned in the 38th year of Asa, following which 11 years and months fall on the reign of Omri), break down as follows: half of this time, 6 years, Omri lived in Tirzah (v. 23), and for the first 4 years of them he reigned simultaneously with Tamni, and for the last 6 years he reigned, already living in Samaria (v. 24). 1 Kings 16:24. And Omri bought Mount Semeron from Semir for two talents of silver, and built up the mountain, and called the city he built Samaria, after Semir, the owner of the mountain. Wanting to have, perhaps, a capital that was more fortified and impregnable by its very physical position, Omri bought a mountain from a certain Semir and built on it the city of Samaria (Heb. Shomeron), which has since become the permanent capital of the Kingdom of Israel, known in Assyrian wedge-shaped inscriptions under the name Samerina (Aramaic Shamerain, (1 Ezra 4:10,17); Greek Σαμάρεια, lat. Samaria; cf. Herod the Great subsequently rebuilt this city, calling it Augusta, in Greek, in honor of the Emperor. Sebastia (Σεβαστή). (I. Flav. Jude. Ancient. XV, 7, 7; Robinson. Palastin., III, 365 ff.). “So, from Semir the mountain was named Semirin, and from the mountain the city was named Samaria. Samaria is a city now called Sebastia. The kings of the ten tribes had a house in it. And when the ten tribes were taken into captivity, and that land became empty, the Assyrian kings resettled inhabitants from the eastern countries to these cities. And from Samaria they began to be called Samaritans” (Blessed Theodoret, question 48). Mount Semeron and the city of Samaria were located not far east of the former Israeli capital of Tirzah and northeast of the very first capital of the Kingdom of Israel - Shechem. The royal palace that burned down in Tirzah (v. 18), apparently, was not restored, and Omri, in choosing a place for the new capital, naturally settled on Semeron - Samaria, which was in no way inferior in beauty to the former capital of Tirzah (cf. Isa. 28: 1-4): located on a beautiful round hill, Samaria rose (100 meters - 46 fathoms) over a fertile, cauldron-shaped plain, with hills and villages, and the elevated position of the city made it possible to properly fortify it, two talents of silver in our money amount to over 4,000 rubles. 1 Kings 16:25. And Omri did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, and did worse than all that were before him. 1 Kings 16:26. He walked in everything the way of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, and in his sins, with which he caused the Israelites to sin, in order to anger the Lord God of Israel with his idols. In religious and moral terms, the reign of Omri was not only a repetition of the sins of previous reigns, starting with Jeroboam, but was somehow worse than all the previous ones: perhaps Omri not only by example attracted his subjects to the ungodly cult of the calves (called in v. 26, as in 13, idols, Hebrew gavalim, LXX: μάταια, Vulg.: vanitates, slav.: “vain”), but also tried to strengthen this cult with legislative measures: “you have preserved the customs (from Hebrew hukkot, laws, institutions) of Omri, and all the affairs of the house of Ahab,” the prophet Micah (Micah 6:16) reproached the Israelites more than 150 years later. 1 Kings 16:27. The rest of the things Omri did and the courage he showed are written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel. 1 Kings 16:28. And Omri slept with his fathers and was buried in Samaria. And Ahab his son reigned in his stead. In civil and political terms, Omri, the founder of the strong Omrid dynasty, was known not only as a builder and administrator of the state, but also a courageous, warlike leader and conqueror: the biblical text (v. 27) ascribes to him a special “courage” (Heb. geburah), revealed, of course, in military exploits, which is acquired by few kings (Baasha, v. 5; Jehoshaphat, (1 Kings 22:45); to Joash of Israel, (2 Kings 13:12)). Wedge-shaped Assyrian inscriptions know about Omri and his dynasty; the famous inscription of the Moabite king Mesha speaks about his aggressive actions against the Moabites (pp. 4, 7). 1 Kings 16:29. Ahab the son of Omri reigned over Israel in the thirty-eighth year of Asa king of Judah, and Ahab the son of Omri reigned over Israel in Samaria for twenty-two years. 1 Kings 16:30. And Ahab the son of Omri did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord more than all that were before him. 1 Kings 16:31. It was not enough for him to fall into the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat; he took as his wife Jezebel, the daughter of Ephbaal the king of Sidon, and began to serve and worship Baal. 1 Kings 16:32. And he built an altar to Baal in the church of Baal, which he built in Samaria. 1 Kings 16:33. And Ahab made an oak grove, and more than all the kings of Israel that were before him, Ahab did that which provoked the Lord God of Israel, [and he destroyed his soul]. A general view of the reign of the 8th king of Israel, the son of Omri, Ahab: (LXX: Αχαάβ, glav.: “Ahaav”) the extreme wickedness of this king. Selected events of his reign are outlined below: Ch. XVII – XXII; here (1 Kings 16:30–33) a general introduction is made to the narrative of the reign of Ahab and a religious-theocratic point of view is established on the activities of Ahab, his religious syncretism. From the point of view of the political interests of the country of Israel, the rapprochement of Ahab with the Phoenician king could be just as beneficial in a cultural sense for the kingdom of Israel as the relationship of Solomon with Hiram was for the kingdom of Israel. For Ahab, moreover, there may have been a special incentive to turn to Phenicia for help and alliance: a prudent politician should have opposed the threatening force of conquering Syria and Assyria from the east with a cohesive alliance of Israel and Phenicia. But the alliance of Ahab with Phenicia, which was useful in political and economic terms, turned out to be extremely harmful in religious and moral terms: not content with the close to pagan worship of Jehovah in the form of golden calves, Ahab, as a result of his marriage with Jezebel, the daughter of the Phoenician king Ethbaal (Heb. Ethbaal, in I. Fla. Jude. Ancient. VIII, 13, 1-2; prot. Apion 1 – εἰθώβαλος), who was a priest of Baal and Ashtoreth, introduced the formal worship of Baal into the kingdom of Israel 18 (Heb. (Gab.) Baal, lord, ruler). Baal was originally (like the Babylonian Bel) a general Semitic name for a deity, but then specifically the proper name of the main Phoenician sun god, primarily as the bearer of both the principle of physical life and the productive force of nature, conceived as an outflow from the being of Baal. As the sun god, Baal was dedicated to: 1) the so-called. hammanim, solar or fiery pillars or cone-shaped statues (Isa.17:8; 2Chron.34:4) - made of gold, emerald (in the church of Tire Baal - Melqart there were two such statues - one of gold, the other of emerald. Herodot, II, 44); 2) matzebot - statues or generally monuments made of stones, as well as wooden steles (Lev. 26:1, etc.): Ahab made such a stele (Heb. matzeba) for Baal in Samaria, and only his son Joram removed it (2 Kings 3:2); subsequently many statues of Baal were destroyed and burned by Jehu (2 Kings 10:26–27); 3) finally, temples and temples were dedicated to Baal, as the main pagan deity (Judges 9:4,46; 1 Kings 16:32; 2 Kings 10:21,25, 11:18; 2 Chronicles 23:17). Ahab also built such a church to Baal in Samaria (v. 32), probably under the influence of his fanatically devoted wife Jezebel, who in the Bible became synonymous with wickedness and depravity (Rev. 2:20). Next to the male deity Baal, Ahab also introduced the female Astarte - Asherah (cf. 1 Kings 14:15), to whom he dedicated a special statue with a grove next to it (v. 33). How widely developed and how complexly organized the cult of Baal and Asherah was, introduced into the kingdom of Israel by Ahab, can be seen from the fact that under Ahab there were 450 prophets of Baal, 400 prophets of Asherah - Asherah (1 Kings 18:19). 1 Kings 16:34. In his days Ahiel the Bethelite built Jericho: on his firstborn Abiram he laid the foundation thereof, and on his youngest son Segub he erected the gates thereof, according to the word of the Lord, which he spake by Joshua the son of Nun. An indicator of the wickedness of the people in the kingdom of Israel was the ungodly, contrary to the curse of Joshua (Joshua 6:25), the restoration or actual strengthening (cf. 1 Kings 11:27, 12:25) of Jericho (it was not uninhabited before, for example, under David), (2 Samuel 10:5), by a certain Achiel from Bethel, and over this oath breaker, the formidable word of Joshua about the death of the builder’s firstborn and his youngest son came true in all accuracy. Jericho (Heb. jericho, LXX: ᾿Ιεριχώ, Vulg.: Iericho), lying not far from the Jordan on its right bank, near the Dead Sea, in the region of the tribe of Benjamin (Joshua 18:21), but now belonging to the kingdom of Israel (2 Kings 2:5,18), was famous for its fertility, balsam, roses, palm trees (which is why it was called ir gatamarim, the city of palm trees) (Deut. 34:3; Judges 1:16, 3:13). By its position, Jericho was the key of the holy land, the occupation of which gave all of Palestine into the hands of the Jews (Joshua 2:1,24,6:1) and together was the beginning of the victory of religion and the true God over Canaanite paganism. Now, under Ahab, Israel took a sharp turn towards this very paganism (the cults of Baal and Asherah, v. 31–33), and the reconstruction of Jericho, this ancient stronghold of the Canaanite pagan population, was now a sad sign of the times: Israel, in the person of Ahab, now denied the true God, and also denied His saving, miraculous leadership of Israel, thanks to which Jericho had once fallen 19. Thus, the remark of Art. 34, having a close connection with Art. 31–33, together forms a transition to the story of Ahab’s accuser, the prophet Elijah, (1 Kings 17:1) et seq. This was the name given to the part in large houses that rose above the general level of the building. Women were placed in the houses of rich civilians in this part, as the safest; in houses that could be attacked, this part constituted a fortified place, the last refuge (Prof. Gulyaev, p. 258). Wed. Fr. Botrther, Neue exegetisch – kritische Aerenlese zum Alten Testament Leipzig. 1864, II, s. 100. R Kittel. Die Bucher der Konige. Gottingen. 1900, s. 131. I Benzinger. Die Bucher der Konige. Tubingen. 1899, s. 103 On the cult of Baal, see Movers, Religion der Phonic., s. 184. Keil, Guide to Biblical Archaeology, Russian. translation (Kyiv 1871), part I. p. 571 words M. Palmov, Idolatry among the ancient Jews. St. Petersburg 1897, p. 217–234. About hammanim and mazzebot - from prof. A. A Olesnitsky, Megalithic monuments of the Holy Land, St. Petersburg, 1895, p. 60–78 According to Eusebius and Blessed. Jerome (Onomast. 553), Jericho, again destroyed by the Romans, was rebuilt again, and this 3rd city existed in their time, and the remains of the first two cities were preserved. 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