“ Him who dies of Baasha in the city will the dogs eat, and him who dies of his in the countryside will the birds of the heavens eat.”
This is the same fate as Ahijah the prophet had prophesied of Jeroboam. See on 1 Kings 14:11. The bodies of his male household would be left out in the open to be eaten by scavengers, a fate considered to be worse than death (compare the care that Rizpah took to ensure that it did not happen to her dead sons in 2 Samuel 21:10-11).
‘ Now the rest of the acts of Baasha, and what he did, and his might, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel?'
As usual we are informed that the remaining acts of the king, what he did and the might that he demonstrated, can be found in the court annals of Israel.
‘ And Baasha slept with his fathers, and was buried in Tirzah, and Elah his son reigned instead of him.'
Baasha himself died peacefully and was buried in Tirzah. And Elah his son reigned instead of him, but only very briefly, for he was assassinated by one of his commanders. When a king of Israel died the throne was seen as up for grabs.
Tirzah had probably become Jeroboam's capital towards the end of his reign (1 Kings 14:17), and would remain Israel's capital city until Omri transferred it to Samaria. It was eleven kilometres (seven miles) north east of Shechem. Excavations have revealed that at this time it had standard houses and a large administrative building, and was heavily fortified.
‘ And moreover by the prophet Jehu the son of Hanani came the word of YHWH against Baasha, and against his house, both because of all the evil that he did in the sight of YHWH, to provoke him to anger with the work of his hands, in being like the house of Jeroboam, and because he smote him.'
But Baasha had been so evil that the prophetic author could not leave it there, and he repeats that YHWH had sent his prophet Jehu to him, and this time it is emphasised that it was with ‘the word of YHWH', Being YHWH's word its effectiveness was certain (compare Isaiah 55:11). And the double charge was that he had continued in the way of Jeroboam, and especially that he had murdered the house of Jeroboam (‘because he smote him'). For both of these sins he was to be especially punished.
Once again we have a lesson concerning God's holiness and hatred of sin, and the certainty of punishment for those who continue in sin and who allow other ‘gods' to interfere with their worship of Him. It is a recurrent lesson of this book.