1 Kings 16:8-20
"8 In the twenty-sixth year of Asa king of Judah, Elah the son of Baasha began to reign over Israel in Tirzah, and he reigned two years. 9 But his servant Zimri, commander of half his chariots, conspired against him. When he was at Tirzah, drinking himself drunk in the house of Arza, who was over the household in Tirzah, 10 Zimri came in and struck him down and killed him, in the twenty-seventh year of Asa king of Judah, and reigned in his place.
11 When he began to reign, as soon as he had seated himself on his throne, he struck down all the house of Baasha. He did not leave him a single male of his relatives or his friends. 12 Thus Zimri destroyed all the house of Baasha, according to the word of the Lord, which he spoke against Baasha by Jehu the prophet, 13 for all the sins of Baasha and the sins of Elah his son, which they sinned and which they made Israel to sin, provoking the LordGod of Israel to anger with their idols. 14 Now the rest of the acts of Elah and all that he did, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel?
15 In the twenty-seventh year of Asa king of Judah, Zimri reigned seven days in Tirzah. Now the troops were encamped against Gibbethon, which belonged to the Philistines, 16 and the troops who were encamped heard it said, “Zimri has conspired, and he has killed the king.” Therefore all Israel made Omri, the commander of the army, king over Israel that day in the camp. 17 So Omri went up from Gibbethon, and all Israel with him, and they besieged Tirzah. 18 And when Zimri saw that the city was taken, he went into the citadel of the king's house and burned the king's house over him with fire and died, 19 because of his sins that he committed, doing evil in the sight of the Lord, walking in the way of Jeroboam, and for his sin which he committed, making Israel to sin. 20 Now the rest of the acts of Zimri, and the conspiracy that he made, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel?"
The reigns of Elah and his successor, Zimri, were brief and full of evil. The picture of the former drinking himself drunk in his steward's house is not an edifying one, and bears witness to the moral corruption that came in the wake of the spiritual declension of his time. The Bible is so insistent upon this sequence that it is more than surprising that so many are blind to it in our own day. Ungodliness is always followed, sooner or later, by unrighteousness. Another aspect of sin, however, is evident here - its shamefulness and degradation. When we consider how low the ideal of kingship had fallen since the time of David, the man after God's own heart, the wonder is not that God should have visited His people with judgement, but that He was so long in doing so, and so patient and forbearing with them.
Zimri's reign must be the shortest on record in any nation. The astonishing thing is that he was able to cram so much evil into such a brief space of time. All the house of Baasha was put to the sword in the seven days in which he occupied the throne. We should see here how sovereignly God controls the affairs of men and nations. Without any kind of complicity in the evil, He used this wicked man to fulfil His will and His sentence of judgment on the house of Baasha (12). This is something the natural mind cannot understand; only the spiritual can see the possibility of a harmony between the sovereign will of God and the responsible actions of men. That God should raise up a man and make him an instrument of His wrath and nevertheless righteously punish him for his evil ways (19) presents a situation which spiritual discernment can not only appreciate but applaud. Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?