Would you like to read James McNaught’s novel Sinking Sand”? click here: Sinking Sand
(The view expressed in this blog are my own and should not be taken as inspired in any way.)
1 Kings 15:9–24, “And in the twentieth year of Jeroboam king of Israel reigned Asa over Judah. And forty and one years reigned he in Jerusalem. And his mother’s name was Maachah, the daughter of Abishalom. And Asa did that which was right in the eyes of the LORD, as did David his father. And he took away the sodomites out of the land, and removed all the idols that his fathers had made. And also Maachah his mother, even her he removed from being queen, because she had made an idol in a grove; and Asa destroyed her idol, and burnt it by the brook Kidron. But the high places were not removed: nevertheless Asa’s heart was perfect with the LORD all his days. And he brought in the things which his father had dedicated, and the things which himself had dedicated, into the house of the LORD, silver, and gold, and vessels. And there was war between Asa and Baasha king of Israel all their days. And Baasha king of Israel went up against Judah, and built Ramah, that he might not suffer any to go out or come in to Asa king of Judah. Then Asa took all the silver and the gold that were left in the treasures of the house of the LORD, and the treasures of the king’s house, and delivered them into the hand of his servants: and king Asa sent them to Benhadad, the son of Tabrimon, the son of Hezion, king of Syria, that dwelt at Damascus, saying, There is a league between me and thee, and between my father and thy father: behold, I have sent unto thee a present of silver and gold; come and break thy league with Baasha king of Israel, that he may depart from me. So Benhadad hearkened unto king Asa, and sent the captains of the hosts which he had against the cities of Israel, and smote Ijon, and Dan, and Abelbethmaachah, and all Cinneroth, with all the land of Naphtali. And it came to pass, when Baasha heard thereof, that he left off building of Ramah, and dwelt in Tirzah. Then king Asa made a proclamation throughout all Judah; none was exempted: and they took away the stones of Ramah, and the timber thereof, wherewith Baasha had builded; and king Asa built with them Geba of Benjamin, and Mizpah. The rest of all the acts of Asa, and all his might, and all that he did, and the cities which he built, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah? Nevertheless in the time of his old age he was diseased in his feet. And Asa slept with his fathers, and was buried with his fathers in the city of David his father: and Jehoshaphat his son reigned in his stead.”
From the time of Jeroboam until the end of the northern kingdom of Israel there was a history of two competing nations in the region that had been the Promised Land. There was a king in the north and another king in the south. Asa followed Abijam his father as king of Judah. Unlike Asa, Abijam was a godly king who followed the Law of the Lord. The kings of Judah had the advantage of having the Temple in Jerusalem with it storehouses and memory of the Law. There were copies of the book of the Law kept in Jerusalem but none of the copies went to Israel in the north because Rehoboam established a new religion there so that the people wouldn’t be tempted to go back to Jerusalem and return the Lord and the house of David. Israel fought against Judah and, eventually, Asa paid the Syrians to attack Israel so that they wouldn’t have time to come down to Judah. The king of Israel had built a city as a base for his war against Judah so the people from Judah pulled the city down to make things easier for themselves.
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