1 Kings 16 · a question people ask
What does 16:7 mean by "because he struck him"?
The chapter's second word through Jehu gives two reasons against Baasha and his house: "because of all the evil that he did in the LORD’s sight, to provoke him to anger with the work of his hands, in being like the house of Jeroboam, and because he struck him" (16:7). The verse doesn't name who him is; the words just before are "the house of Jeroboam" (16:7). Baasha had struck Jeroboam's son Nadab (15:27-28), and then "struck all the house of Jeroboam" (15:29). The LORD had said through Ahijah, "I will bring evil on the house of Jeroboam" (14:10), and 1 Kings says Baasha's striking of that house was "according to the saying of the LORD, which he spoke by his servant Ahijah the Shilonite" (15:29). The chapter doesn't explain how that word and 16:7's reason fit together, and it doesn't say what Baasha meant to do. It does say that once king he "walked in the way of Jeroboam" (15:34), the sins for which Jeroboam's house had fallen (15:30). These notes don't go beyond what the verses say.
The verses
“therefore, behold, I will bring evil on the house of Jeroboam, and will cut off from Jeroboam everyone who urinates on a wall, he who is shut up and he who is left at large in Israel, and will utterly sweep away the house of Jeroboam, as a man sweeps away dung until it is all gone.”
“He did that which was evil in the LORD’s sight, and walked in the way of Jeroboam, and in his sin with which he made Israel to sin.”
“Moreover the LORD’s word came by the prophet Jehu the son of Hanani against Baasha and against his house, both because of all the evil that he did in the LORD’s sight, to provoke him to anger with the work of his hands, in being like the house of Jeroboam, and because he struck him.”