NOTES for Ki1 16:1-34
The history of plots and civil strife in the kingdom of Israel shows clearly that those who oppose evil rulers are not always bearers of good, and that if the Lord permits them to act, it is by no means because He does not intend to repay the evil committed during the “struggle against evil.”
The success of Zimri’s conspiracy, in which he brutally dealt with King Elah, was a consequence of Baasha’s many sins, whose effects fell upon his house. But Zimri himself, though he seemed to carry out a just retribution, was not concerned with the triumph of justice at all. He was as wicked as Baasha, and so the blood he shed fell upon his own head.
And then the same chain of sins, retributions, and new sins continues. Omri, who succeeded Zimri, now commits the same pagan sins. The Bible does not deny the good done by sinful kings; it is no accident that the narrator notes, for example, Omri’s valor. Yet all the good these kings did or could have done is outweighed by the evil they willingly or unwillingly promoted after turning away from the Lord.