Verse Lens · Concise explanation

1 Kings 15:21 Explained in Context

Use this verse as a doorway into the larger passage—not as an isolated saying.

Selected verse

Verse 21. And it came to pass, when Baasha heard thereof, that he left off building of Ramah, and dwelt in Tirzah.

King James Version — public domain in the United States · Bible text and permissions

Quick Meaning

This verse advances the thought unit through its next reported action, speech, or consequence: “And it came to pass, when Baasha heard thereof, that he left off building of Ramah, and dwelt….” Its responsible meaning belongs to the complete movement “Asa buys Aramean pressure against Baasha and closes his reign.”

Read It With

  • 1 Kings 15:16–24

Read 1 Kings 15:21 with 15:16–24. The selected wording supplies one step in the thought unit through its next reported action, speech, or consequence; the surrounding verses supply the causes, responses, and outcome summarized here: Summarizes prolonged war between Asa and Baasha; closes Asa's life with burial and Jehoshaphat's succession.

Why This Verse Appears Here

Within “Asa buys Aramean pressure against Baasha and closes his reign,” 1 Kings 15:21 advances the thought unit through its next reported action, speech, or consequence through the wording “And it came to pass, when Baasha heard thereof, that he left off building of Ramah, and dwelt….” Its placement is governed by this reviewed relationship: 1 Kings 15:9–15 establishes this prior movement: Dates Asa's accession by Jeroboam's twentieth year; notes Asa's deposit of dedicated silver, gold, and vessels in the temple. 1 Kings 15:16–24 escalates the unresolved conflict and its human cost; that demonstrated relationship, rather than database adjacency alone, explains its placement.

Read 1 Kings 15:16–24 together

Why these verses belong together: Asa buys Aramean pressure against Baasha and closes his reign is the complete reviewed scene, prayer, oracle, list, or regnal notice bounded at 15:16–15:24.

Verse 16. And there was war between Asa and Baasha king of Israel all their days.

Verse 17. And Baasha king of Israel went up against Judah, and built Ramah, that he might not suffer any to go out or come in to Asa king of Judah.

Verse 18. Then Asa took all the silver and the gold that were left in the treasures of the house of the LORD, and the treasures of the king’s house, and delivered them into the hand of his servants: and king Asa sent them to Ben-hadad, the son of Tabrimon, the son of Hezion, king of Syria, that dwelt at Damascus, saying,

Verse 19. There is a league between me and thee, and between my father and thy father: behold, I have sent unto thee a present of silver and gold; come and break thy league with Baasha king of Israel, that he may depart from me.

Verse 20. So Ben-hadad hearkened unto king Asa, and sent the captains of the hosts which he had against the cities of Israel, and smote Ijon, and Dan, and Abel-beth-maachah, and all Cinneroth, with all the land of Naphtali.

Verse 21. And it came to pass, when Baasha heard thereof, that he left off building of Ramah, and dwelt in Tirzah.

Verse 22. Then king Asa made a proclamation throughout all Judah; none was exempted: and they took away the stones of Ramah, and the timber thereof, wherewith Baasha had builded; and king Asa built with them Geba of Benjamin, and Mizpah.

Verse 23. The rest of all the acts of Asa, and all his might, and all that he did, and the cities which he built, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah? Nevertheless in the time of his old age he was diseased in his feet.

Verse 24. And Asa slept with his fathers, and was buried with his fathers in the city of David his father: and Jehoshaphat his son reigned in his stead.

What Remains True

Power remains accountable for every person exposed, silenced, displaced, injured, or killed even when the narrative also reports fulfillment or victory. This unit tests that truth through summarizes prolonged war between Asa and Baasha; closes Asa's life with burial and Jehoshaphat's succession. In 1 Kings 15:21, the concrete line “And it came to pass, when Baasha heard thereof, that he left off building of Ramah, and dwelt…” keeps that truth accountable to the narrated evidence.

How It Can Shape Life

  • The evidence to keep visible in this verse is “And it came to pass, when Baasha heard thereof, that he left off building of Ramah, and dwelt….” When authority exposes people to violence, preserve evidence, protect those at risk, require independent lawful review, and refuse retaliation, collective blame, or celebration of harm. This response follows from the unit's own sequence: Summarizes prolonged war between Asa and Baasha; closes Asa's life with burial and Jehoshaphat's succession.

Continue in Context

The full thought-unit study remains the final contextual authority for this Verse Lens.

Read 1 Kings 15:16–24 — Asa buys Aramean pressure against Baasha and closes his reign
Sources used for this Verse Lens

How certain is this explanation? strong

These are the sources used directly for this lens. Language, grammar, disagreements, and the complete source shelf remain attached to the full thought-unit research record.

Biblical text

King James (Authorized) Version — eng-kjv2006

eBible.org and CrossWire Bible Society

USFM archive eng-kjv2006_usfm.zip; source files dated 2026-08-19; downloaded 2026-08-24; archive SHA-256 aec1b3b26c622fd3d963d2bbac963016b9513246ffbfa20da00bb100372ea007; normalized corpus SHA-256 09aef51d90488aa7b9722b3fd9a93f4b25f6bf2064c5fd798fb39673c300ddf2.

Supports: Exact displayed KJV wording, paragraph metadata, supplied-word markup, and complete verse coverage.

Exact location: 1 Kings 15:16–24, pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM corpus

Open source ↗

hebrew text and morphology

Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible: 1 Kings

Open Scriptures

Open Scriptures, release 2.2

Supports: Hebrew wording and morphology used for lexical, grammatical, name, clause, and older-English checks; this is not a critical apparatus or historical proof.

Exact location: Open Scriptures MorphHB v.2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/1Kgs.xml, Masoretic words and morphology for 15:16–24

Open source ↗

translation and translator notes

NET Bible: 1 Kings with translators' notes

Biblical Studies Press

Biblical Studies Press, 2006

Supports: Only printed unit-level translation, lexical, grammatical, textual, historical, and verse-numbering notes; silence is not evidence.

Exact location: NET Bible 1 Kings PDF, printed pp. 614–616, translation and translator notes for 15:16–24

Open source ↗
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