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We will answer two main questions: Was King Zimri of the southern kingdom of Yehudah (Judah) worse than King Omri? What is God’s purpose to replace one king with another?
King Zimri’s reign was only seven days long. Zimri’s was a commander of half of the army and conspired against Baasha and his entire family. He even killed all of Baasha’s allies to ensure there would be no further revenge conspiracies. Zimri breaks this pattern.
All of Israel knew who God was, they simply put His name on their golden calves. The only line that Zimri, Omri and his predecessors drew is that they did not worship the Ba’al. Ahab is the one who brought the Ba’al into Israel, which is a new level of rebellion against God into the nation of Israel.
From Ahab on, the religion of Israel was heavily polluted with pagan influences, including sacramental prostitution and child sacrifice.
How much corruption could have committed in the span of a week that he deserved to die the same way that Jeroboam and Baasha had done? Zimri did not have the time to be able to set a pattern of pagan or syncretistic worship that his predecessors had done. Omri was worse than Zimri, yet Omri was not killed the way that Zimri was. What was the increase of sin that Zimri brought into Israel that God decreed his death?
What put Zimri did that was beyond the pale is that Zimri did not just kill Baasha’s family line but he killed all of Baasha’s allies, which is beyond the words of the prophet of God. Zimri was worse than his predecessors. Zimri did not have any divine sanction to kill Baasha’s allies and their families.
God said, “Omri did evil in the sight of the LORD, and acted more wickedly than all who were before him” (1st Kings 16:25). How is it that Omri was worse than all his predecessors, yet God did not prophesy Omri’s death? God has a new measuring stick or threshold with Omri. The reason is that at this point, no one is still alive who remembers Solomon or David anymore, other than a few prophets. Now that all of those who would remember who God was and what He was like as in the days of Solomon and the Temple. From this generation on, the people of Israel are basically a blank slate as far as their knowledge of God.
The people literally know nothing of God now. Continuing to execute the leadership will no longer help bring the people back to God and rediscover Him. They have to learn from scratch now.
This is when God has to start raising up prophets like Elijah to speak to the people of Israel to try to re-teach them who He is.
An example of how ignorant the children of Israel had become about God and His laws:
“In his days (Ahab) Hiel the Bethelite built Jericho; he laid its foundations with the loss of Abiram his firstborn, and set up its gates with the loss of his youngest son Segub, according to the word of the LORD, which He spoke by Joshua the son of Nun.” (1st Kings 16:34)
We have to go back to the beginning of the conquest by Yehoshua (Joshua) of Canaan after Moses’ death to understand the context of this sad story:
“Then Joshua made them take an oath at that time, saying, ‘Cursed before the LORD is the man who rises up and builds this city Jericho; with the loss of his firstborn he shall lay its foundation, and with the loss of his youngest son he shall set up its gates.’ So the LORD was with Joshua, and his fame was in all the land.” (Joshua 6:26-27)
Men usually build a city to proclaim their own fame. The question is was it worth it for Hiel to rebuild Jericho at the expense of all his sons. Hiel died with no sons to carry his line in the future.
God conquered Jericho and put a permanent ban against Jericho. By the time of Ahab, the children of Israel were so ignorant of who God was and what God did that they had no idea that Jericho should not be rebuilt.
God’s patience with the children of Israel actually increases after this point because the children of Israel have slipped into such ignorance of Him, that they were little different than the nations around them. It’s time to learn all over again from scratch.
Elijah is a very important prophet. His life holds a lot of messianic significance. He lives out a lot of Messiah will later do.
Speaker: Daniel Agee. Summary: Tammy.