Chapter Sixteen

1–6. Asa’s war with Baasha, king of Israel, and his alliance with the king of Syria. 7–10. The reproach of Asa by the seer and the latter’s imprisonment in jail. 11–14. Asa’s final days, his illness, and death.

2 Chronicles 16:1. In the thirty-sixth year of the reign of Asa, Baasha king of Israel went up against Judah, and built Ramah, that he might not allow anyone to go out or come in to Asa king of Judah. 2 Chronicles 16:2. And Asa brought out silver and gold from the treasuries of the house of the Lord and of the king’s house, and sent them to Ben-hadad king of Syria, who dwelt in Damascus, saying: 2 Chronicles 16:3. “Let there be a covenant between me and you, as there was between my father and your father. Behold, I send you silver and gold. Now, break your covenant with Baasha king of Israel, that he may withdraw from me. 2 Chronicles 16:4. And Ben-hadad hearkened to King Asa, and sent the commanders of his armies against the cities of Israel, and they conquered Ijon, Dan, and Abel-maim, and all the store-cities of Naphtali. 2 Chronicles 16:5. And when Baasha heard of it, he stopped building Ramah and ceased his work. 2 Chronicles 16:6. Then King Asa gathered all Judah, and they carried away the stones and timber of Ramah with which Baasha had been building, and with them he built Geba and Mizpah. Compare (1 Kgs 15:16-22). Concerning the chronological dates of Asa’s war with Baasha, see “Commentary on the Bible”, vol. II, pp. 439–440; compare Prof. Gulyaev, “Historical Books of the Scripture of the Old Testament”, p. 531. Concerning the location of the Israelite cities taken by the Syrian king, see the comments to (1 Kgs 15:20). “Commentary on the Bible”, vol. II, p. 441.

2 Chronicles 16:7. At that time the seer Hanani came to Asa king of Judah and said to him: “Because you have relied on the king of Syria, and have not relied on the Lord your God, therefore the army of the king of Syria has escaped from your hand. 2 Chronicles 16:8. Were not the Ethiopians and the Libyans a huge army with exceedingly many chariots and horsemen? Yet because you relied on the Lord, He delivered them into your hand. 2 Chronicles 16:9. For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong in behalf of those whose heart is wholly devoted to Him. You have done foolishly in this. For from now on you will have wars. 2 Chronicles 16:10. Then Asa was angry with the seer, and put him in the stocks, for he was in a rage with him because of this. And Asa also oppressed some of the people at the same time. The seer Hanani lived and worked also under Asa’s son and successor, Jehoshaphat (2 Chr 19:2 and further). The cause and essence of his reproofs to Asa lay in the latter’s lack of faith in the protective action of God’s providence and in superstitious reliance on the help and power of a pagan king (see similar prophetic reproofs to the Israelite king Ahab (1 Kgs 20:35-43); the prophet Isaiah’s reproofs to the Judean king Hezekiah (2 Kgs 20:15-19)). Asa was all the more guilty of cowardly disbelief in God’s providence because in the war with Zerah he had a strikingly clear example of God’s miraculous help (verse 8; cf. chapter 14), which was explicitly taught to him by the prophet Azariah (2 Chr 15:1-7). In the words of the seer Hanani (verse 9) there is given a clear expression of the biblical teaching concerning God’s providential action, particularly in relation to pious people. The fact that Asa responded to the prophetic reproof with violence to the person of the prophet, as well as the other oppressions that he inflicted on some of the people (verse 10), shows that despite all his piety, Asa was not a typical truly theocratic king; for this reason Jesus Sirach does not include him among the best theocratic kings (Sir 49:5).

2 Chronicles 16:11. And behold, the acts of Asa, from first to last, are written in the book of the kings of Judah and Israel. 2 Chronicles 16:12. And in the thirty-ninth year of his reign Asa was diseased in his feet, and his disease became severe; yet in his disease he did not seek the Lord, but sought physicians. 2 Chronicles 16:13. And Asa slept with his fathers, dying in the forty-first year of his reign. 2 Chronicles 16:14. And they buried him in his own tomb which he had hewn out for himself in the city of David. And they laid him on a bed that was filled with various kinds of spices and fragrant ointments, which had been compounded in a perfumer’s art; and they made a very great burning for him. In the description of Asa’s illness (verse 12) attention is drawn partly to the particular acuteness of it (the illness—rheumatism of the legs or gout, see “Commentary on the Bible”, vol. II, p. 441), but chiefly to his already known (cf. verse 7) sin—the sin of self-reliance: the preference of human medical help over the all-healing power of God. In the account of Asa’s burial (verse 14) mention is made, first, of Asa’s own special tomb, which he himself had prepared, and second, there is a remarkable biblical-archaeological description of the burial rites of Hebrew kings (compare below (2 Chr 21:19) and (Jer 34:5)). Some scholars (among them Prof. Gulyaev, “Historical Books of the Scripture of the Old Testament”, pp. 533–534) on the basis of the burning of spices in honor of the king mentioned here and in the cited passages, supposed that there was a cremation of the king’s body, and that Hebrew kings and nobles in general were buried by cremation. But the only clear testimony to this method of burial is in the account (1 Sam 31:12) of the burial of Saul and his sons, who fell in battle, by the inhabitants of Jabesh: the case of burning of corpses was entirely exceptional here, brought about by a pious desire to protect the bodies from desecration at the hands of the Philistines. The reign of Asa’s son and successor, Jehoshaphat, to which 3 Kings devotes an extraordinarily brief account in a few verses (1 Kgs 22:41-50), 2 Chronicles devotes four chapters (2 Chr 17-20), supplementing the information in 3 Kings with both external events of Jehoshaphat’s reign and especially by depicting the internal—governmental and religiously-theocratic—activity of this pious king.