1 Kings 15:25, commentary and pictures

This verse belongs to the history after the division of the kingdom at the death of Solomon, when Rehoboam took the kingdom but lost a large portion of it through imprudent stubbornness in the rebellion of the ten tribes against Rehoboam the son of Solomon, leaving ten tribes in Israel and two and a half tribes in Judah. Israel and Judah then continued together with war and strife between the two divisions over the turbulent Ten Tribes, sometimes at war and sometimes at peace, until the kingdom of Israel was obliterated in 721 B.C. The account is found in the remainder of 1 Kings and the whole of 2 Kings, with the wicked northern kingdom given no further mention in Chronicles after the division. It covers about eighty years from the revolt of the ten tribes to the death of Jehoshaphat, recording one of the reigns of the several kings of both Judah and Israel, including the fifty years after the division leading to Omri.

The verse records Nadab the son of Jeroboam succeeding his father's stormy reign over Israel and reigning himself only two years, beginning in the second year of Asa king of Judah. His reign belongs to the time of Abijah and Asa in Judah and falls inside Asa's one long good reign, Asa having come to the throne two years before the death of Jeroboam. It marks the end of Jeroboam's royal house and the start of the account of Israel's kings after Jeroboam. It stands in the succession from Jeroboam's line to Baasha's house through Baasha, Elah, Zimri, Omri and Ahab, with Baasha's dynasty lasting only two generations before Omri's strong but wicked reign followed by Ahab dominated by Jezebel.

The verse is part of a sad historical record full of important lessons showing general moral decline in Israel and Judah with periods of revival when the people sought God, teaching that faithful leaders strongly shaped the people while weak, unworthy leaders who failed to lead rightly brought them into failure. It belongs to the steady going from bad to worse after Jeroboam who made Israel to sin, part of the account of Israel's apostasy under kings who led the nation away from worship of the living God toward idols. Nadab met a tragic death fulfilling the prophecy of Ahijah against the house of Jeroboam, when he was slain by Baasha, a traitor of the tribe of Issachar, who destroyed the unworthy house of Jeroboam and was then submitted to by the people as ruler. The dating in the verse shows the Bible custom of reckoning beginning and ending fractions of a series as if they were whole numbers, so the reigns of the kings of Judah and Israel can only be harmonized by counting partial years as whole years, and the same inclusive counting explains how Christ being in the grave part of Friday, all of Saturday, and part of Sunday is counted as three days and three nights.