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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comAdam Clarke Commentary - 1 Kings 15:16 - 15:16
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There was war - That is, there was continual enmity; see on 1Ki 15:6 (note). But there was no open war till the thirty-sixth year of Asa, when Baasha, king of Israel, began to build Ramah, that he might prevent all communication between Israel and Judah; see 2Ch 15:19; 2Ch 16:1. But this does not agree with what is said here, 1Ki 16:8, 1Ki 16:9, that Elah, the son and successor of Baasha, was killed by Zimri, in the twenty-sixth year of the reign of Asa. Chronologers endeavor to reconcile this by saying that the years should be reckoned, not from the beginning of the reign of Asa, but from the separation of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. It is most certain that Baasha could not make war upon Asa in the thirty-sixth year of his reign, when it is evident from this chapter that he was dead in the twenty-sixth year of that king. We must either adopt the mode of solution given by chronologists, or grant that there is a mistake in some of the numbers; most likely in the parallel places in Chronicles, but which we have no direct means of correcting. But the reader may compare 2Ch 14:1, with 2Ch 15:10, 2Ch 15:19; 2Ch 16:1.