War With Israel

 “Then we climbed the Mount of Olives, and not only did we find a superb view of the city, but we also found a pleasant place to buy some snacks and sit in the shade.”  These are the words that a traveler in ancient times might have said to other travelers about Jerusalem.  That’s if my fictional story of the generations of an Israelite family on the Mount of Olives was true.  And who knows, maybe there was a family who ran such a store in ancient times.  But we don’t know it for certain, because there are no surviving historical records of ordinary people from that far back.  So my story must be considered fictional, a product of my imagination, as I try to figure out how ordinary people might have reacted to the events as depicted in the historical books of the Bible.    

I have looked at the generations of this family, starting with the people who moved to Jerusalem when King David conquered the city and made it his home.  I have traced the following generations, through the glories of King Solomon, the dishonor of King Rehoboam, and the renewed military victories of King Asa.  I refer to the father of the family in each generation by letter, rather than by name, to keep track of the generations.  The man who moved his family to Jerusalem is known as “A.”  He started a shop on the Mount of Olives, and passed the business on to his son, who passed it on to his son, until we come to old man E in the days of King Asa.  In order to keep things simple (though probably not accurate), when each man turns twenty years old, his son and heir is born to him, and each man dies around the age of sixty.  Thus the generations are born, grow up to take over, raise up the next generation, and die.   

In a previous chapter (“A Traveler’s Report”), we looked at how King Asa led the army of Judah to victory over the Egyptians (or Ethiopians), and how the people probably rejoiced and celebrated at E’s shop.  It was probably in the following year that war broke out between King Asa of Judah and King Baasha of the northern kingdom of Israel.  The Bible says that this war started in the 36^th year of King Asa’s reign, but the problem with this is that King Baasha of Israel was already dead in the 36^th year of King Asa’s reign.  However, if we take the Bible to mean the 36^th year of the kingdom of Judah (which was created when the northern tribes broke away from King Rehoboam), then the war would have started in the 15^th year of King Asa’s reign, very soon after he made his covenant with the people.   

The Bible says that King Baasha and the Israelite army built a fortress north of Jerusalem, at a place called Ramah.  This fort stopped all traffic from coming in or going out of Jerusalem (see 1 Kings 15:17) and threatened to strangle the economic life of Judah.  King Asa had to remove the Israelites from Ramah, but rather than attacking the fortress directly, he made an alliance with the Aramean king.  King Asa brought out the treasures from the Temple and gave them to the Aramean king, so he would attack the northern kingdom of Israel.  The Arameans, by the way, controlled territory northeast of Israel, centered on Damascus (the present-day nation of Syria).  The plan worked – Baasha abandoned Ramaha and headed north to face the threat of Aramean attack.  Then the people of Judah went up to Ramah, dismantled the fort, and used the material to build other forts.

Here’s how a traveler to Jerusalem might have reported this war: “Then I went out through the gate of the city and climbed the Mount of Olives. I’ve always enjoyed looking out over Jerusalem from up here, and I’ve always enjoyed meeting with my friend who runs a small shop. When I arrived, I noticed that the houses here were just as empty as they were in the city. My old friend greeted me, but he was the only one at home, except for a few young girls and old women. Everybody else in the family had left, along with all the others in Jerusalem, to dismantle the fort at Ramah.

“I sat with my friend and enjoyed some dried fruit and wine in the shade of a large tree. He talked with glee about how the king’s plan had worked perfectly. He cackled and giggled as he said, ‘I wish I could have seen the look on that jackal Baasha’s face when he got news that he was being attacked by the Arameans. Hoo, I’ll bet he messed his pants! And probably even more when he found out that our King Asa was behind the whole thing!’ I pointed out to him that some people felt that it wasn’t right for the king to take treasures from the Temple and give them to a pagan king. ‘Oh, don’t worry about that,’ he said. ‘There’s plenty more treasure for this king to get.’ Then he slapped my knee. ‘We’ll probably get that back and more when we finally take over that damned pagan kingdom to the north!’

“The old man had lived a long time. He had been a young man when the northern tribes broke off to form their own kingdom. He had also seen the disgrace of Egyptian soldiers taking away treasures from the king’s palace- the golden shields that King Solomon had collected. He probably believed that it was better for the king of Judah to give away the treasures than to have them taken by force.

“The old man had also watched Egyptian soldiers ransack his family’s shop. He stood by and could not do anything to stop it. This happened in the days when King Rehoboam encouraged his people to offer worship to foreign gods. King Asa, of course, had put a stop to that, especially with the covenant that he made with the people last year (under the terms of this covenant, anybody who was found worshiping a foreign idol could be put to death). The way the old man saw it, they knew defeat and disgrace when they worshiped other gods. Under King Asa, they worshiped only the Lord at the Temple, and they knew victory and prosperity.

“… a few days later, I returned to the Mount of Olives. This time, all of the old man’s sons and grandsons had returned from the adventure to Ramah. Even the women had gone on the journey. They showed me some of the treasures they brought back- the young children had found arrowheads, the girls found polished stones that they wanted to make into necklaces, the women brought back some dishes and utensils, and the men took back some weapons like arrows, some daggers, even an Israelite helmet. It had been a marvelous adventure. Most of the people in the family had never traveled outside of Jerusalem.

“I sat and talked with the old man’s son, who ran the little shop these days. He told me that they got there too late, most of the work of dismantling the fortress had already been finished. But he said they did get to help load a few wagons with lumber and stones, and soldiers drove these wagons away for use in building their own forts. I brought up the point to him that some people didn’t think it was right for the king to use the treasures of the Temple to make alliances with a pagan king. I also mentioned that a prophet of the Lord had rebuked King Asa when he returned from Ramah. The prophet said that the king should have trusted in the Lord, just as he trusted in the battle against the Ethiopians, rather then trusting in the king of the Arameans. The shopkeeper said he knew what happened to Hanani the seer, that the king had thrown him into prison. ‘I don’t know who’s right,’ he said. ‘You ask people like my father, and he always believes in King Asa. My Dad is always talking about how the northern tribes broke away, and how the Egyptians came here and took treasures from us. I don’t know, I was just a kid when all that happened. I hardly remember anything about it. I’ve never really seen anybody from up north. My Dad remembers when those people used to come here to the Temple, but, well, I guess I’ve only thought of them as foreigners.’

“The shopkeeper had expressed concern about his father’s health. Indeed, as I made my leave, I am worried that the next time I visit Jerusalem, I will not see the old man alive again.” Old man E did die a couple of years later. He was born in 953 BCE, in the middle of King Solomon’s long reign, and died around the age of sixty, in the middle of King Asa’s long reign.

The prophet who rebuked King Asa for trusting in the Aramean king also predicted that King Asa would always be engaged in war from that time forward (1 Chronicles 16:9). The Bible does say that "there was war between Asa and Baasha king of Israel all their days" (1 Kings 15:16). King Asa may have also fought wars against other nations, perhaps small military engagements that never got resolved after years of battles. They may have been years of battles where soldiers fought and died but the survivors neither brought home glory nor treasure.

The Bible also says that when King Asa cast Hanani the seer into prison, he also oppressed some of the people. This probably led F the shopkeeper to support the king’s actions, so that he would not join the others who suffered oppression.

About ten years after the victory at Ramah, King Baasha of the northern kingdom died (this was in the 26^th year of King Asa’s reign). Baasha’s son became the new king, but he was killed a year later by Zimri, who was killed a few days later by Omri, who fought against Tibni for several years. To the people in Jerusalem, it may have seemed like the northern kingdom was falling apart.

Another traveler might have seen it this way: “I climbed the steep slope of the Mount of Olives, and I found the place that people had told me about. They were right, this was a beautiful place to get some snacks and enjoy the magnificent view of the Temple and the rest of the city. But I also found that the owner of the shop shared the view of many other people in Judah. When I brought up the misfortune that had befallen the kingdom of Israel, the shopkeeper hooted and hollered. ‘If only my old man could have seen this day!’ he said. ‘He would have been a happy man. Now all we need is for the king to mobilize the army, and we’ll take back that whole sorry mess. We’ll make our kingdom just like it was in the days of David and Solomon, the way my Dad knew it.’ I didn’t mention the fact that I had spoken with Prince Jehoshaphat, the king’s son, and he didn’t seem to share that view at all.”