Baasha "slept with his fathers," and his son Elah succeeded him. Elah seems to have been an incapable drunkard, and reigned in Tirzah for less than two years. While he was drinking himself drunk, not even secretly in his own palace, but in the house of his chamberlain Arza--a shamelessness which was regarded as an aggravation of his offence[512]--he was murdered by Zimri, the captain of half of his chariots, and the revolting tragedy of massacre was enacted once again.[513] The fact that Baasha was a man of no distinction, but "exalted _out of the dust_" (1 Kings xvi. 2), probably added to the weakness of his dynasty. From such meagre records of horror there is not much to learn beyond the general truth of the Nemesis which dogs the heels of crime; but there is one significant clause which throws great light on the judgment which we are asked to form of these events. The prophet Jehu rebukes Baasha for showing himself false to the destiny to which God had summoned him. He implies, therefore, that Baasha had some Divine sanction for the revolution which he headed; and certainly in his slaughter of the House of Jeroboam he was the instrument of a Divine decree. Yet we are expressly told that "he provoked the Lord to anger with the work of his hands, in being like the House of Jeroboam, _and because he killed him_," or, as it is rendered in the Revised Version margin, "_because he smote it_." This is not the only place where we find that a man may be in _one sense_ commissioned to do a deed of blood, yet in another sense may be held guilty for fulfilment of the commission.[514] The prophecy of extirpation had been passed, but the cruel agent of its accomplishment was not thereby condoned. God's decrees are carried out as part of the vast scheme of Providence, and He may use guilty hands to fulfil His purposes. King Jehu is His minister of vengeance, but the tiger-like ferocity with which he carried out his work awoke God's anger and received God's punishment. The King of Babylon fulfils the purpose for which he had been appointed, but his ruthlessness receives its just recompense. The wrath of man may accomplish the decrees of God, but it worketh not His righteousness. Herod and Pontius Pilate, Jews and Gentiles, priests and Pharisees, rulers and the mob may rage against Christ, but all they can accomplish is "whatsoever God's hand and God's counsel determine before to be done." FOOTNOTES: [507] Josh. xix. 44, xxi. 23; 1 Kings xv. 27, xvi. 15. [508] His father therefore could not have been Ahijah the prophet, who was an Ephraimite. He was the only ruler who came from slothful Issachar (Gen. xlix. 14, 15) except the unknown Tola (Judg. x. 1). [509] For any other records of Nadab the writer refers to "the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel." [510] 2 Chron. xvi. 7-10. [511] 2 Chron. xx. 34. [512] Comp. Hosea vii. 3-7.