A verse by verse commentary on 2 Chronicles 14 dealing with Asa King of Judah.

1. 2 CHRO ICLES 14 COMME TARY
EDITED BY GLE PEASE
1 [a]And Abijah rested with his ancestors and was
buried in the City of David. Asa his son succeeded
him as king, and in his days the country was at
peace for ten years.
BAR ES, "Asa his son reigned - If Rehoboam was (1Ki_12:8 note) not more than
21 years old at his accession, Asa, when he mounted the throne, must have been a mere
boy, not more than 10 or 11 years of age.
The land was quiet ten years - The great blow struck by Abijah 2Ch_13:15-19, his
alliance with Syria 1Ki_15:19, and the rapid succession of sovereigns in Israel during the
earlier part of Asa’s reign 1Ki_15:25-33, would naturally prevent disturbance on the part
of the northern kingdom. The tender age of Asa himself would be a bar to warlike
enterprises on the part of Judah.
CLARKE, "The land was quiet ten years - Calmet thinks these years should be
counted from the fifth to the fifteenth of Asa’s reign.
GILL, "So Abijah slept with his fathers, 1Ki_15:8.
and Asa his son reigned in his stead; in his days the land was quiet ten
years; the Targum is, the land of Israel; but much better the Septuagint, the land of
Judah; these ten years, in which it had rest from war, were the first three years of Asa's
reign, and the first seven of Baasha's, according to Jarchi, and which seems right; after
which there was war between them all their days, see 1Ki_15:32.
HE RY 1-5, "Here is, I. Asa's general character (2Ch_14:2): He did that which was
good and right in the eyes of the Lord his God. 1. He aimed at pleasing God, studied to
approve himself to him. Happy are those that walk by this rule, to do that which is right,
not in their own eyes, or in the eye of the world, but in the eyes of God. 2. He saw God's
eye always upon him, and that helped much to keep him to what was good and right. 3.
God graciously accepted him in what he did, and approved his conduct as good and
right.

2. II. A blessed work of reformation which he set on foot immediately upon his accession
to the crown. 1. He removed and abolished idolatry. Since Solomon admitted idolatry, in
the latter end of his reign, nothing had been done to suppress it, and so, we presume, it
had got ground. Strange gods were worshipped and had their altars, images, and groves;
and the temple service, though kept up by the priests (2Ch_13:10), was neglected by
many of the people. Asa, as soon as he had power in his hands, made it his business to
destroy all those idolatrous altars and images (2Ch_14:3, 2Ch_14:5), they being a great
provocation to a jealous God and a great temptation to a careless unthinking people. He
hoped by destroying the idols to reform the idolaters, which he aimed at, rather than to
ruin them. 2. He revived and established the pure worship of God; and, since the priests
did their part in attending God's altars, he obliged the people to do theirs (2Ch_14:4):
He commanded Judah to seek the Lord God of their fathers, and not the gods of the
heathen, and to do the law and the commandments, that is, to observe all divine
institutions, which many had utterly neglected. In doing this, the land was quiet before
him, 2Ch_14:5. Though they were much in love with their idols, and very loth to leave
them, yet the convictions of their consciences sided with the commands of Asa, and they
could not, for shame, refuse to comply with them. Note, Those that have power in their
hands, and will use it vigorously for the suppression of profaneness and the reformation
of manners, will not meet with so much difficulty and opposition therein as perhaps they
feared. Vice is a sneaking thing, and virtue has reason enough on its side to make all
iniquity stop her mouth, Psa_107:42.
III. The tranquillity of his kingdom, after constant alarms of war during the last two
reigns: In his days the land was quiet ten years ( 2Ch_14:1), no war with the kingdom of
Israel, who did not recover the blow given them in the last reign for a great while.
Abijah's victory, which was owing, under God, to his courage and bravery, laid a
foundation for Asa's peace, which was the reward of his piety and reformation. Though
Abijah had little religion himself, he was instrumental to prepare the way for one that
had much. If Abijah had not done what he did to quiet the land, Asa could not have done
what he did to reform it; for inter arma silent leges - amidst the din of arms the voice of
law is unheard.
JAMISO , "2Ch_14:1-5. Asa destroys idolatry.
In his days the land was quiet ten years — This long interval of peace was the
continued effect of the great battle of Zemaraim (compare 1Ki_15:11-14).
K&D, "2Ch_14:1-3
Asa's efforts for the abolition of idolatry and the establishment of the kingdom. -
2Ch_14:1-4. The good and right in God's eyes which Asa did is further defined in 2Ch_
14:2-4. He abolished all the objects of the idolatrous worship. The “altars of the
strangers” are altars consecrated to foreign gods; from them the ‫ּות‬‫מ‬ ָ , high places, are
distinguished-these latter being illegal places of sacrifice connected with the worship of
Jahve (see on 1Ki_15:14). The ‫ּוה‬‫ב‬ ֵ ַ‫מ‬ are the statues or monumental columns consecrated
to Baal, and ‫ים‬ ִ‫ר‬ ֵ‫שׁ‬ ֲ‫א‬ the wooden idols, tree-trunks, or trees, which were consecrated to
Astarte (see on 1Ki_14:23 and Deu_16:21). Asa at the same time commanded the people
to worship Jahve, the God of the fathers, and to follow the law.

3. BE SO , "2 Chronicles 14:1. In his days the land was quiet ten years — There was
no war with the kingdom of Israel, which did not recover the blow given in the last
reign for a great while. Abijah’s victory, which was owing, under God, to his
courage and bravery, laid a foundation for Asa’s peace, which was the reward of his
piety, and the reformation he effected. Though Abijah had little religion himself, he
was instrumental in preparing the way for one that had much. If Abijah had not
done what he did to quiet the land, Asa could not have done what he did to reform
it.
ELLICOTT, "(1) So Abijah slept . . . in his stead.—Verbatim as 1 Kings 15:8
(Abijam).
In his days the land was quiet ten years.—Mentioned here as a result of Abijah’s
great victory. “The land was quiet,” or “had rest” (Judges 3:11; Judges 5:31). The
phrase is explained in 2 Chronicles 14:6, “He had no war in those years.”
During this period of repose Asa strengthened the defences of his country (2
Chronicles 14:5, comp. 2 Chronicles 15:19).
The name Asa may perhaps mean “healer;” (comp. the Syriac ’ôsç “physician,” and
2 Chronicles 16:12); or “spices” (Syriac ‘ôsô; comp. 2 Chronicles 16:14).
COFFMA , ""In his days, the land was quiet ten years" (2 Chronicles 14:1). This
was most likely due in large part to the tremendous victory that God had given
Abijah over Jeroboam. Judah had rest, "Until the invasion of Zerah in 896 B.C.;
and this was God's reward for Asa's reforms."[1]
The Chronicler gave much more space to Asa than was given in Kings; but this was
not due to the Chronicler's having derived all of this, "from his Midrashic
source,"[2] a false allegation common enough among critics. Greater and greater
respect among competent scholars for Chronicles tends more and more to the
acceptance of the absolute historicity of every word in it.
"He took away ... the foreign altars ... the high places ... brake down the pillars ...
hewed down the Asherim" (2 Chronicles 14:3). Kings also records other reforms of
Asa, but these are supplementary, not contradictory. Some scholars have fallen into
the error of supposing that the high places, "In earlier years, had been acceptable
secondary places for worshipping Jehovah";[3] but this cannot possibly be true.
God had specifically forbidden all of these pagan things in Deuteronomy 16:21-22,
and had sternly demanded their destruction (Deuteronomy 7:5; 12:3).
We reject the ridiculous emendation by which the RSV translated pillars in this
passage (2 Chronicles 14:5) as incense altars. They were no such thing. The very
height of them would have made them useless as altars of incense; those that
Solomon put in the temple were 35 cubits high! "They were probably the symbols of
the male element in nature ... they and the sacred trees of the Asherah were

4. associated with sexual practices repugnant to the worshippers of God."[4] P.C.
Barker backs up this opinion in the Pulpit Commentary.[5]
While serving as a chaplain in Japan and Korea during the Korean war, this writer
saw some of those `pillars' associated with pagan worship. They were carved
wooden models of the human penis six to eight feet in height; and he still has
photographs of them. They were carried in a procession by young virgins in an
annual parade.
"Three hundred thousand ... two hundred and fourscore thousand" (2 Chronicles
14:8). Payne thought that, "These figures must have included the whole
population";[6] and Ellison rejected the mention of Zerah's million man army in 2
Chronicles 14:9 with the comment that, "A million probably means no more than an
exceedingly large number."[7] Such comments must be rejected, because they are
merely scholarly devices for saying, "Of course, this is not true." Regarding the
numbers in 2 Chronicles 14:8, Canon F. C. Cook observed that, "They correspond
well with the numbers given in 2 Chronicles 13:19. In ten years of peace, the army
had grown from 400,000 to 580,000, as should have been expected in a time of peace
and prosperity."[8]
And, as regards that million man army mentioned in 2 Chronicles 14:9, below, Cook
pointed out that, "This is the largest collected army of which we read in Scripture;
but it does not exceed the known numbers of other Oriental armies of ancient times.
Darius Codomannus brought into the field of Abela a force of 1,040,000; and Xerxes
crossed the Hellespont with more than a million combatants."[9]
Any thoughtful person may see prejudice and bias in the fact than any statement by
any pagan writer whomsover, regardless of how preposterous it may be, is received
as gospel truth, while a malicious skepticism is pointed at every line of the Sacred
Scriptures. The army of Zerah mentioned in the next verse, below, just as certainly
had a million men in it as did the army of Zerxes, a fact that is implicit in Asa's
prayer in which he recognized that his own force of only 580,000 was as nothing
compared with it.
TRAPP, " So Abijah slept with his fathers, and they buried him in the city of David:
and Asa his son reigned in his stead. In his days the land was quiet ten years.
Ver. 1. So Abijah slept with his fathers.] See 1 Kings 2:10.
In the city of David.] There David’s sepulchre was to be seen in the apostles’ days;
[Acts 2:29] and there Solomon’s sepulchre, which the Jews had in great esteem, fell
to pieces without force offered to it, a little before the last destruction of Jerusalem
in 132 AD, as Dio testifieth. (a)
POOLE, "Asa is made king; he destroyeth idolatry, 2 Chronicles 14:1-5. Having
peace, he strengtheneth his kingdom with forts and armies, 2 Chronicles 14:6-8. In a

5. strait, calling on God, he overthroweth Zerah, and spoileth the Ethiopians, 2
Chronicles 14:9-15.
i.e. There was no open war, either by Baasha or others; only there were secret
grudges and private hostilities between his and Baasha’s subjects, 1 Kings 15:16.
GUZIK, "A. The characteristics of the reign of Asa.
1. (2 Chronicles 14:1-6) The blessedness of the reign of King Asa.
So Abijah rested with his fathers, and they buried him in the City of David. Then
Asa his son reigned in his place. In his days the land was quiet for ten years. Asa did
what was good and right in the eyes of the LORD his God, for he removed the altars
of the foreign gods and the high places, and broke down the sacred pillars and cut
down the wooden images. He commanded Judah to seek the LORD God of their
fathers, and to observe the law and the commandment. He also removed the high
places and the incense altars from all the cities of Judah, and the kingdom was quiet
under him. And he built fortified cities in Judah, for the land had rest; he had no
war in those years, because the LORD had given him rest.
a. Asa his son reigned in his place: This great-grandson of Solomon took the throne
Judah at the end of Jeroboam’s reign in Israel, after his father’s brief reign.
b. Asa did what was good and right in the eyes of the LORD: As is related in 1
Kings 15:11, Asa was more like his ancestor David in his character as a king than he
was like his own father.
c. He removed the altars of the foreign gods and the high places: Asa launched a
reform movement that lashed out against idolatry and officially sanctioned sin.
i. 1 Kings 15:12 says that he banished the perverted persons from the land. These
state-sanctioned homosexual idol-temple prostitutes were introduced into Judah
during the reign of Rehoboam (1 Kings 14:24). Asa’s father Abijam didn’t remove
these perversions and idols, but King Asa did.
ii. 1 Kings 15 also tells us that he removed Maachah his grandmother from being
queen mother, because she had made an obscene image of Asherah. This
demonstrated the thoroughness of Asa’s reforms. He was able to act righteously
even when his family was wrong, in particular his own grandmother (called
Michaiah in 2 Chronicles 13:2). “It is in a man’s own family circle that his
faithfulness is put fairly to the test.” (Knapp)
d. He commanded Judah to seek the LORD God of their fathers: King Asa could
not force people to seek the LORD and obey him. Yet he could command them with
moral force and with his own example.

6. e. He also removed the high places: Interestingly, 1 Kings 15:14 says of the reign of
Asa, but the high places were not removed. Since 2 Chronicles 14:3 connects these
high places with altars of the foreign gods. Therefore Asa removed the high places
that were dedicated to idols, but not the ones that were dedicated to the LORD.
f. The kingdom was quiet under him . . . because the LORD had given him rest: 1
Kings 15:14 tells us that Asa’s heart was loyal to the LORD all his days. Here we see
the blessing he and the kingdom of Judah enjoyed from his loyal heart to God.
i. He built fortified cities in Judah: “Though he had no war, yet he provided for it.
So did our Queen Elizabeth; and so must every Christian soldier.” (Trapp)
BI 1-4, "And Asa did that which was good and right in the eyes of the Lord his God.
Asa faithful to his God
We have watched the steady fall of the kingdom of Israel Judah also began in shame and
ended in disaster, but its shame was not so unmixed nor its disaster so complete. The
reason for this better fate is suggested in our text: the saving influence of good men
interposed to hold the people to God and prosperity. Our lesson presents Asa as the
righteous leader of his people.
1. Asa reformed the religion of Judah. Like Gideon, he began his rule with a bold
attack upon the popular idolatry. The worship of Baal and Ashtoreth had clung to the
people ever since they met it when entering Canaan, in spite of God’s warning that
for this very sin the inhabitants were cast out before them. In recent years Solomon
had patronised it, Rehoboam encouraged and Abijah confirmed it; and under these
royal leaders Judah had become fascinated with its worship and debauched with its
hideous vice. But the reformer’s axe went crashing through the groves. He was well
named Asa(“Physician,” “Cure”), for he healed the hurt of his people. We hear of no
resistance to his vigorous measures. The conscience of the nation yet answered to the
conscience of the king: “the land was quiet before him.”
2. Asa advanced the material prosperity of Judah. In the ten years of rest which God
gave him “he built fenced cities, with walls and towers, gates and bars,” to protect
them from Israel on the north and Egypt on the south.
3. Passing now to determine the nature and the extent of Asa’s influence, we find the
cause of his success in his piety. He was a sound reformer, an able king, and a
successful soldier, because he was faithful to his God. “He did that which was right,
and commanded the people to serve the Lord.” So, too, his best work for his subjects
was upon their characters. Asa’s influence was most important and enduring. He
ascended the throne at a crisis in the nation’s history. Israel was already twenty years
along in its fatal transgression, and Judah was hastening after it. His father and
grandfather had forsaken the righteousness of David and perpetuated the iniquity of
Solomon, rather than his splendour or his wisdom. Had the succeeding reign of
forty-one years followed the same course, we must believe that the current toward
wickedness would have been set past turning. Had Asa been like Jeroboam, Judah
would have gone down like Israel. Through Asa’s faithfulness the old man’s dying
blessing has come to pass: “Judah, thou art he whom thy brethren shall praise: thy
father’s children shall bow down before thee, and unto him shall the gathering of the

7. people be.” For Judah prevailed above his brethren, and of him came the chief ruler.
The Jewish monarchy fell at last, but the real cause for which Asa struggled shall
never perish. He who reads the story of Israel and Judah will mark with wonder the
controlling power exercised by the king upon the religious faith of the nation. If it is
written of one, “He did evil in the sight of the Lord,” it is always true that “he made
Israel to sin.” If he worshipped Jehovah, his subjects worshipped with him. The
character of the king decided the character of the people. The saving influence of
righteous leaders. The power to lead others may come either from external
circumstances or from personal qualities.
1. The influence given by external circumstances.
(1) Official rank gives authority. Asa did, as king, what he could never have
accomplished as a private citizen. He had direct control over his dependents. A
devout centurion will have a devout soldier to wait upon him. The moral
influence of those in high stations is wide and strong. Eminence makes example
conspicuous.
(2) Wealth brings influence.
(3) Employers have large opportunity for good.
2. Besides the control given by external circumstances, we may notice the influence
of personal qualities. Not what the man has, but what the man is, makes him a
leader. Jeroboam is an instance in point. Beginning life as a common labourer, he
died king of Israel. How continually have gifted, accomplished, and learned men
brought saving help to the Church of God throughout her history. There is a subtle,
mighty influence which should always be consecrated to holy uses—popularity,
power to win the favour of others. Disciplined character has a peculiar mastery over
others for good. Its control is quieter and deeper than any we have marked; it is the
atmosphere of a soul refined to its highest uses. “All high beauty has a moral element
in it. Gross and obscure natures, however decorated, seem impure shambles; but
character gives splendour to youth, and awe to wrinkled skin and grey hairs.” God
has been at great pains to fit souls for this service. (Monday Club Sermon.)
PARKER, "Asa: Life and Lessons
2 Chronicles 14 , 2 Chronicles 15
ASA was a good king of Judah; he "did that which was good and right in the eyes of
the Lord his God." ot only "good and right" because these might be variable
terms. There are persons who set themselves to the presumptuous and impious task
of settling for themselves, what is "right" and what is "good." In the case of Asa, he
did not invent a righteousness, nor did he invent a goodness which he could adapt to
his own tempers, ambitions, and conveniences: he was right and good and "did that
which was good and right in the eyes of the Lord his God." Whilst the land had

8. peace, Asa set to work and built walls and towers and fences, and did all that he
could for the good of his country. Zerah, an Ethiopian warrior, did not understand
silence. He mistook quietness for languor; he made the vulgar mistake of supposing
that quietness was indifference. He did not know that repose is the very highest
expression of power. So he brought against Asa, king of Judah, no fewer than a
million soldiers—"a thousand thousand" —to us a large number, to the Orientals
quite a common array. What was to be done? Asa did not shrink from war, though
he never courted it. He must meet the foe in battle. Before doing so he must pray:
"And Asa cried unto the Lord his God, and said, Lord, it is nothing with thee to
help [rather, "it is alike to thee to help the powerful or the weak"—thou canst as
easily, i.e, help the weak as the strong] whether with many, or with them that have
no power: help us, O Lord our God; for we rest on thee, and in thy name we go
[comp. 1 Samuel 17:45] against this multitude. O Lord, thou art our God; let not
man [or, mortal man] prevail against thee" ( 2 Chronicles 14:11).
Having risen from their knees, they launched themselves against the Ethiopians, and
were mighty as men who answer straw with steel. They fought in God"s name and
for God"s cause, and the thousand thousand of the Ethiopians were as nothing
before the precise and terrific stroke of men who had studied war in the school of
God.
Asa, then, began upon a good foundation; he established himself upon a great
principle. That is what all young people especially should take to heart right
seriously. To such we say: do not make an accident of your lives—a thing without
centre, purpose, certitude, or holiness. Regard it as a trust from God. Be right in
your great foundation lines, and you will build up a superstructure strong, after the
nature and quality of the foundation upon which you build. Do not snatch at life. Do
not take out an odd motto here and there and say, "This will do for the occasion."
Life should be deeply laid in its bases, strongly cemented together in its principles,
noble in its convictions; then it can be charitable in its concessions and recognitions.
On what is your life based? What is the point at which you are aiming? If you have
no broad foundation, no solid rock, no complete purpose and policy, then you are
adventurers, speculators, and the turn of the wheel will mean your present or
ultimate ruin.
"And he [Asa] took courage, and put away the abominable idols [abominations] out
of all the land of Judah and Benjamin, and out of the cities which he had taken from
mount Ephraim, and renewed the altar of the Lord" ( 2 Chronicles 15:8).
Let us not trifle with the occasion by suggesting that we have no idolatries to uproot,
no heathen groves to examine, to purify, or to destroy. That would indeed be
making light of history, and ignoring the broadest and saddest facts of our present
circumstances. The world is full of little gods, Prayer of Manasseh -made idols,
groves planted by human hands, oppositions and antagonisms to the true theism of
the universe. We are so apt to think that the idols are a long way off, far beyond
seas; or that they existed long centuries ago and spoke languages now obsolete or

9. forgotten. othing of the kind; they live here, they build to-day. Our gods are a
million strong. We do not call them gods, but we worship them none the less. Luck,
Accident, Fortune, Fashion, Popularity, Self-indulgence—these are the base progeny
of idols that did once represent some ideal thought and even some transcendental
religion. Idolatry has retrograded; polytheism has gone quickly backward. To
worship the sun!—Why, there is reason in it; verily, sometimes he looks as if made
to be worshipped, to be hailed with song and to be followed with adoring wonder in
his infinite course of illumination. But we worship accident, fortuitous
circumstances, probabilities. We calculate at the counter of our gods—where the
men we often mock fell down and dumbly worshipped what they did not
understand. Theirs the nobler idolatry! having in it a touch of heavenly philosophy.
Asa said, in effect, "We must be right about our gods before we can be right with
one another." That is true teaching. With a wrong theology we never can have a
thoroughly sound and healthy economical system. To be wrong in our conception of
God is to be wrong in every point in the line of our thinking. The points themselves
may be apparently sustained by great force of reasoning and great witness of
concurrent facts; but when connected with their starting point they are vitiated by
the mistake which was originally made. Looking on all human history we find that
the conception of God—any god—which any people have held, has ultimately
determined their fortunes. We rest on this philosophy. We believe in a God of
righteousness, purity, mercy; a Father-God, loving all, redeeming all, caring for
each as if each were an only child; patient with us, careful about us, studying our
littlenesses, and making our infirmities the starting-points of new beneficences. We
cannot be true to that conception of God, and have along with it a morality that we
can palter with, and duties with which we can trifle. The conviction of a theology so
massive, so substantial, so rational, will make itself felt in every pulsation of
individual thought and social relationship.
This was the corner-stone upon which Asa built his great and gracious policy. What
was the effect of it upon other people? We find that the effect then was what it must
always be:—
"They fell to him out of Israel in abundance [comp. chap. 2 Chronicles 11:16], when
they saw that the Lord his God was with him" ( 2 Chronicles 15:9).
Such is the influence of a great leadership. If Asa had been halting, the people would
have halted too. Asa was positive, and positiveness sustained by such beneficence
begets courage in other people. "They fell to him out of Israel in abundance"—that
Isaiah , they came over to him and were on his side. They ranked themselves with
Asa; they looked for his banner and called it theirs, "when they saw that the Lord
his God was with him." ations perish for want of great leaders. Social reformers
are dependent to a large extent upon the spirit of the leadership which has adopted
them. The Church is always looking round for some bolder Prayer of Manasseh ,
some more heroic and dauntless spirit, who will utter the new truth, if any truth can
be new—say rather, the next truth; for truth has always a next self, a larger and
immediately-impending self, and the hero, who is also martyr, must reveal that next
phase of truth and die on Golgotha for his pains. Can we not, in some small sense,

10. be leaders in our little circles, in our business relations, in our family life, in our
institutional existence? Many people can follow a tune who cannot begin one. That
is the philosophy we would unfold and enforce. You would suppose from the
immediate answer to the leader that any man in the whole thousand could have
begun the tune—the reality of the case being, that the leader alone, perhaps, might
be able to start it; yet, the moment his clear, dominating tone is heard, a thousand
men took it up as if they had begun it. It is so in morals. Many persons can feel a
speech who cannot make one. That is the secret of true speaking. So the reporter
does not report the speech only; he reports the whole proceedings. Hence the
interruptions are as essential to the understanding of a meeting as is the eloquence
itself. We must know who applauded, where they applauded, how much they
applauded; so that, having read the reporter"s notes, we know what a thousand
men or more felt and said, for every hearer in a great and responsive audience is as
truly a speaker as is the one man who gives articulation to the common sentiment of
the multitude. We want leaders—men who will have the courage to say now and
then, "Let us pray." The people are waiting for good leadership. They know the
shepherdly voice when they hear it; "There is a spirit in man: and the inspiration of
the Almighty giveth him understanding," and you might have had a more
unanimous following if your leadership had been less marked by ambiguity and
equivocation. Your family might have been more united if to firmness you had
added grace—if to grace you had added firmness. Regard all leaders with prayerful
hopefulness in so far as they want to do good and to be good. Sympathise with them,
say to Asa, even the king, "What thou hast done thou hast well done; in God"s
name we bless thee for the purification of the land and for the encouragement of all
noble things."
Asa showed the limits of human forbearance and human philosophy. He broke
down in the very act of doing that which was right because he went too far. He made
a covenant and the people made it along with him.
"And they entered into a covenant to seek the Lord God of their fathers with all
their heart and with all their soul; that whosoever would not seek the Lord God of
Israel should be put to death, whether small or great, whether man or woman" ( 2
Chronicles 15:12-13).
That is the danger. You cannot make men religious by killing them, by threatening
them, by inflicting upon them any degree of penalty. Do not force a child to church.
Lead it; lure it; make the church so bright and homelike and beautiful that the child
will eagerly long for the time to come when the door will be opened. We conquer by
love. The Christian cause advances, not by persecution but by charity; not even by
argument but by love. Controversy has done nothing for the truth compared with
what has been done by holiness, purity, nobleness, patience, and the quiet heroisms
which can only be accounted for by the existence of deep and real religious
convictions.
Asa was impartial. There was a touch of real grandeur about the man. He would not
even allow his mother to keep an idol. The queen had an idol of her own "in a

11. grove."
"And also concerning Maachah the mother of Asa the king, he removed her from
being queen, because she had made an idol in a grove: and Asa cut down her idol,
and stamped it and burnt it at the brook Kidron" ( 2 Chronicles 15:16).
Thus ruthlessly Asa disestablished that little royal church. See how burningly in
earnest the man was; and what a man will do when his earnestness is fervent! He
knows nothing about fathers, mothers, partialities, or concessions. He says, "Light is
the foe of darkness, and you cannot have any little dark corner of your own. This
light must find you out, chase away every shadow and purify every secret place in
human life and thought." Many men fail to follow Asa just at that point. They are
great reformers upon a public scale; but their own houses are stables that need to be
cleansed. They are quite violent progressists in all national matters; but the moment
they go home and shut the house-gate upon themselves they fall into all kinds of
confusion and tumult and false relationship. " ow," said Asa, in effect, "what is
good for the public is good for the individual; what is good for the subject is good
for the queen. Cut down the queen"s idol, cut down the queen"s grove; and when
you have got the little god, stamp on it, burn it, throw the ashes into the brook; and
because the queen no longer repents of her idolatry, she must leave her throne." We
want more men of that kind. They will have uncomfortable lives, they will not be
popular men; they will be fools according to the world"s arithmetic, they will be
madmen in the estimation of cold minds; but they are God"s sons, children of the
light, born not of men, not of blood, but born of God, born in heaven.
Let us consider this man"s case well, and apply it to ourselves. We must have no
persecution, no threatening, no driving; only prayer, reasoning, hope, love; inform
the mind, guide the reason, multiply the schools, double the circulation of all good
books, inspire the affections, purify the very source and spring of the will; and our
victories will not be so many coarse and costly destructions, but will be as the
triumph of light over darkness, fair as the morning and beneficent as the summer.
EBC, "ASA: DIVI E RETRIBUTIO
2 Chronicles 14:1-15; 2 Chronicles 15:1-19; 2 Chronicles 16:1-14
ABIJAH, dying, as far as we can gather from Chronicles, in the odor of sanctity,
was succeeded by his son Asa. The chronicler’s history of Asa is much fuller than
that which is given in the book of Kings. The older narrative is used as a framework
into which material from later sources is freely inserted. The beginning of the new
reign was singularly promising. Abijah had been a very David, he had fought the
battles of Jehovah, and had assured the security and independence of Judah. Asa,
like Solomon, entered into the peaceful enjoyment of his predecessor’s exertions in
the field. "In his days the land was quiet ten years," as in the days when the judges
had delivered Israel, and he was able to exhort his people to prudent effort by
reminding them that Jehovah had given them rest on every side. This interval of

12. quiet was used for both religious reform and military precautions. The high places
and heathen idols and symbols which had somehow survived Abijah’s zeal for the
Mosaic ritual were swept away, and Judah was commanded to seek Jehovah and
observe the Law; and he built fortresses with towers, and gates, and bars, and
raised a great army "that bare bucklers and spears,"-no mere hasty levy of half-
armed peasants with scythes and axes. The mighty array surpassed even Abijah’s
great muster of four hundred thousand from Judah and Benjamin: there were five
hundred and eighty thousand men, three hundred thousand out of Judah that bare
bucklers and spears and two hundred and eighty thousand out of Benjamin that
bare shields and drew bows. The great muster of Benjamites under Asa is in
striking contrast to the meager tale of six hundred warriors that formed the whole
strength of Benjamin after its disastrous defeat in the days of the judges; and the
splendid equipment of this mighty host shows the rapid progress of the nation from
the desperate days of Shamgar and Jael or even of Saul’s early reign, when "there
was neither shield nor spear seen among forty thousand in Israel." These references
of buildings, especially fortresses, to military stores and the vast numbers of Jewish
and Israelite armies, form a distinct class amongst the additions made by the
chronicler to the material taken from the book of Kings. They are found in the
narratives of the reigns of David, Rehoboam, Jehoshaphat, Uzziah, Jotham,
Manasseh, in fact in the reigns of nearly all the good kings; Manasseh’s building
was done after he had turned from his evil ways. [1 Chronicles 12:1-40, etc.; 2
Chronicles 11:5 ff; 2 Chronicles 17:12 ff; 2 Chronicles 26:9 ff; 2 Chronicles 27:4 ff;
2 Chronicles 28:23-24 ;, 2 Chronicles 33:14] Hezekiah and Josiah were too much
occupied with sacred festivals on the one hand and hostile invaders on the other to
have much leisure for building, and it would not have been in keeping with
Solomon’s character as the prince of peace to have laid stress on his arsenals and
armies Otherwise the chronicler, living at a time when the warlike resources of
Judah were of the slightest, was naturally interested in these reminiscences of
departed glory; and the Jewish provincials would take a pride in relating these
pieces of antiquarian information about their native towns, much as the servants of
old manor-houses delight to point out the wing which was added by some famous
cavalier or by some Jacobite Squire.
Asa’s warlike preparations were possibly intended, like those of the Triple Alliance,
to enable him to maintain peace; but if so, their sequel did not illustrate the maxim,
"Si vis pacem, para bellum." The rumour of his vast armaments reached a powerful
monarch: "Zerah the Ethiopian." (2 Chronicles 14:9-15) The vagueness of this
description is doubtless due to the remoteness of the chronicler from the times he is
describing. Zerah has sometimes been identified with Shishak’s successor, Osorkon
I, the second king of the twenty-second Egyptian dynasty. Zerah felt that Asa’s
great army was a standing menace to the surrounding princes, and undertook the
task of destroying this new military power: "He came out against them." umerous
as Asa’s forces were, they still left him dependent upon Jehovah, for the enemy were
even more numerous and better equipped. Zerah led to battle an army of a million
men, supported by three hundred war chariots. With this enormous host he came to
Mareshah, at the foot of the Judaean highlands, in a direction southwest of
Jerusalem. In spite of the inferiority of his army, Ass came out to meet him; "and

13. they set the battle in array in the valley of Zephathah at Mareshah." Like Abijah,
Asa felt that, with his Divine ally, he need not be afraid of the odds against him even
when they could be counted by hundreds of thousands. Trusting in Jehovah, he had
taken the field against the enemy; and now at the decisive moment he made a
confident appeal for help: "Jehovah, there is none beside Thee to help between the
mighty and him that hath no strength." Five hundred and eighty thousand men
seemed nothing compared to the host arrayed against them, and outnumbering
them in the proportion of nearly two to one. "Help us, Jehovah our God; for we rely
on Thee, and in Thy name are we come against this multitude. Jehovah, Thou art
our God; let not man prevail against Thee."
Jehovah justified the trust reposed in Him. He smote the Ethiopians, and they fled
towards the southwest in the direction of Egypt; and Asa and his army pursued
them as far as Gerar, with fearful slaughter, so that of Zerah’s million followers not
one remained alive. Of course this statement is hyperbolical. The carnage was
enormous, and no living enemies remained in sight. Apparently Gerar and the
neighboring cities had aided Zerah in his advance and attempted to shelter the
fugitives from Mareshah. Paralyzed with fear of Jehovah, whose avenging wrath
had been so terribly manifested, these cities fell an easy prey to the victorious Jews.
They smote and spoiled all the cities about Gerar, and reaped a rich harvest "for
there was much spoil in them." It seems that the nomad tribes of the southern
wilderness had also in some way identified themselves with the invaders; Asa
attacked them in their turn. "They smote also the tents of cattle"; and as the wealth
of these tribes lay in their flocks and herds, "they carried away sheep in abundance
and camels, and returned to Jerusalem."
This victory is closely parallel to that of Abijah over Jeroboam. In both the numbers
of the armies are reckoned by hundreds of thousands; and the hostile host
outnumbers the army of Judah in the one case by exactly two to one, in the other by
nearly that proportion: in both the king of Judah trusts with calm assurance to the
assistance of Jehovah, and Jehovah smites the enemy; the Jews then massacre the
defeated army and spoil or capture the neighboring cities.
These victories over superior numbers may easily be paralleled or surpassed by
numerous striking examples from secular history. The odds were greater at
Agincourt, where at least sixty thousand French were defeated by not more than
twenty thousand Englishmen; at Marathon the Greeks routed a Persian army ten
times as numerous as their own; in India English generals have defeated
innumerable hordes of native warriors, as when Wellesley-
"Against the myriads of Assaye Clashed with his fiery few and won."
For the most part victorious generals have been ready to acknowledge the succoring
arm of the God of battles. Shakespeare’s Henry V after Agincourt speaks altogether
in the spirit of Asa’s prayer:-
"O God, Thy arm was here; And not to us, but to Thy arm alone, Ascribe we all

14. Take it, God, For it is only Thine."
When the small craft that made up Elizabeth’s fleet defeated the huge Spanish
galleons and galleasses, and the storms of the northern seas finished the work of
destruction, the grateful piety of Protestant England felt that its foes had been
destroyed by the breath of the Lord; "Afflavit Deus et dissipantur."
The principle that underlies such feelings is quite independent of the exact
proportions of opposing armies. The victories of inferior numbers in a righteous
cause are the most striking, but not the most significant, illustrations of the
superiority of moral to material force. In the wider movements of international
politics we may find even more characteristic instances. It is true of nations as well
as of individuals that-
"The Lord killeth and maketh alive; He bringeth down to the grave and bringeth
up: The Lord maketh poor and maketh rich; He bringeth low, He also lifteth up: He
raiseth up the poor out of the dust, He lifteth up the needy from the dunghill, To
make them sit with princes And inherit the throne of glory."
Italy in the eighteenth century seemed as hopelessly divided as Israel under the
judges, and Greece as completely enslaved to the "unspeakable Turk" as the Jews to
ebuchadnezzar; and yet, destitute as they were of any material resources, these
nations had at their disposal great moral forces: the memory of ancient greatness
and the sentiment of nationality; and today Italy can count hundreds of thousands
like the chroniclers Jewish kings, and Greece builds her fortresses by land and her
ironclads to command the sea. The Lord has fought for Israel.
But the principle has a wider application. A little examination of the more obscure
and complicated movements of social life will show moral forces everywhere
overcoming and controlling the apparently irresistible material forces opposed to
them. The English and American pioneers of the movements for the abolition of
slavery had to face what seemed an impenetrable phalanx of powerful interests and
influences; but probably any impartial student of history would have foreseen the
ultimate triumph of a handful of earnest men over all the wealth and political power
of the slave-owners. The moral forces at the disposal of the abolitionists were
obviously irresistible. But the soldier in the midst of smoke and tumult may still be
anxious and despondent at the very moment when the spectator sees clearly that the
battle is won: and the most earnest Christian workers sometimes falter when they
realize the vast and terrible forces that fight against them. At such times we are both
rebuked and encouraged by the simple faith of the chronicler in the overruling
power of God.
It may be objected that if victory were to be secured by Divine intervention, there
was no need to muster five hundred and eighty thousand men or indeed any army at
all. If in any and every case God disposes, what need is there for the devotion to His
service of our best strength, and energy, and culture, or of any human effort at all?
A wholesome spiritual instinct leads the chronicler to emphasize the great

15. preparations of Abijah and Asa. We have no right to look for Divine co-operation
till we have done our best; we are not to sit with folded hands and expect a complete
salvation to be wrought for us, and then to continue as idle spectators of God’s
redemption of mankind we are to tax our resources to the utmost to gather our
hundreds of thousands of soldiers; we are to work out our own salvation with fear
and trembling, for it is God that worketh in us both to will and to do of His good
pleasure.
This principle may be put in another way. Even to the hundreds of thousands the
Divine help is still necessary. The leaders of great hosts are as dependent upon
Divine help as Jonathan and his armor-bearer fighting single-handed against a
Philistine garrison, or David arming himself with a sling and stone against Goliath
of Gath. The most competent Christian worker in the prime of his spiritual strength
needs grace as much as the untried youth making his first venture in the Lord’s
service.
At this point we meet with another of the chronicler’s obvious self-contradictions.
At the beginning of the narrative of Asa’s reign we are told that the king did away
with the high places and the symbols of idolatrous worship, and that, because Judah
had thus sought Jehovah, He gave them rest. The deliverance from Zerah is another
mark of Divine favor: And yet in the fifteenth chapter Asa, in obedience to
prophetic admonition, takes away the abominations from his dominions, as if there
had been no previous reformation, but we are told that the high places were not
taken out of Israel. The context would naturally suggest that Israel here means
Asa’s kingdom, as the true Israel of God; but as the verse is borrowed from the
book of Kings, and "out of Israel" is an editorial addition made by the chronicler, it
is probably intended to harmonize the borrowed verse with the chronicler’s
previous statement that Asa did away with the high places. If so, we must
understand that Israel means the orthern Kingdom, from which the high places
had not been removed, though Judah had been purged from these abominations.
But here, as often elsewhere, Chronicles taken alone affords no explanation of its
inconsistencies.
Again, in Asa’s first reformation he commanded Judah to seek Jehovah and to do
the Law and the commandments; and accordingly Judah sought tile Lord.
Moreover, Abijah, about seventeen years before Asa’s second reformation, made it
his special boast that Judah had not forsaken Jehovah, but had priests ministering
unto Jehovah, "the sons of Aaron and the Levites in their work." During
Rehoboam’s reign of seventeen years Jehovah was duly honored for the first three
years, and again after Shishak’s invasion in the fifth year of Rehoboam. So that for
the previous thirty or forty years the due worship of Jehovah had only been
interrupted by occasional lapses into disobedience. But now the prophet Oded holds
before this faithful people the warning example of the "long seasons" when Israel
was without the true God, and without a teaching priest, and without law. And yet
previously Chronicles supplies an unbroken list of high-priests from Aaron
downwards. In response to Oded’s appeal, the king and people set about the work
of reformation as if they had tolerated some such neglect of God, the priests, and the

16. Law as the prophet had described.
Another minor discrepancy is found in the statement that "the heart of Asa was
perfect all his days"; this is reproduced verbatim from the book of Kings.
Immediately afterwards the chronicler relates the evil doings of Asa in the closing
years of his reign.
Such contradictions render it impossible to give a complete and continuous
exposition of Chronicles that shall be at the same time consistent. evertheless they
are not without their value for the Christian student. They afford evidence of the
good faith of the chronicler. His contradictions are clearly due to his use of
independent and discrepant sources, and not to any tampering with the statements
of his authorities. They are also an indication that the chronicler attaches much
more importance to spiritual edification than to historical accuracy. When he seeks
to set before his contemporaries the higher nature and better life of the great
national heroes, and thus to provide them with an ideal of kingship, he is
scrupulously and painfully careful to remove everything that would weaken the
force of the lesson which he is trying to teach; but he is comparatively indifferent to
accuracy of historical detail. When his authorities contradict each other as to the
number or the date of Asa’s reformations, or even the character of his later years,
he does not hesitate to place the two narratives side by side and practically to draw
lessons from both. The work of the chronicler and its presence with the Pentateuch
and the Synoptic Gospels in the sacred canon imply an emphatic declaration of the
judgment of the Spirit and the Church that detailed historical accuracy is not a
necessary consequence of inspiration. In expounding this second narrative of a
reformation by Asa, we shall make no attempt at complete harmony with the rest of
Chronicles; any inconsistency between the exposition here and elsewhere will simply
arise from a faithful adherence to our text.
The occasion then of Asa’s second reformation was as follows: Asa was returning in
triumph from his great defeat of Zerah, bringing with him substantial fruits of
victory in the shape of abundant spoil. Wealth and power had proved a snare to
David and Rehoboam, and had involved them in grievous sin. Asa might also have
succumbed to the temptations of prosperity; but, by a special Divine grace not
vouchsafed to his predecessors, he was guarded against danger by a prophetic
warning. At the very moment when Asa might have expected to be greeted by the
acclamations of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, when the king would be elated with
the sense of Divine favor, military success, and popular applause, the prophet’s
admonition checked the undue exaltation which might have hurried Asa into
presumptuous sin. Asa and his people were not to presume upon their privilege; its
continuance was altogether dependent upon their continued obedience: if they fell
into sin the rewards of their former loyalty would vanish like fairy gold. "Hear ye
me, Asa, and all Judah and Benjamin: Jehovah is with you while ye be with Him;
and if ye seek Him, He will be found of you; but if ye forsake Him, He will forsake
you." This lesson was enforced from the earlier history of Israel. The following
verses are virtually a summary of the history of the judges:-

17. " ow for long seasons Israel was without the true God, and without teaching priest,
and without law."
Judges tells how again and again Israel fell away from Jehovah. "But when in their
distress they turned unto Jehovah, the God of Israel, and sought Him, he was found
of them."
Oded’s address is very similar to another and somewhat fuller summary of the
history of the judges, contained in Samuel’s farewell to the people, in which he
reminded them how when they forgot Jehovah, their God, He sold them into the
hand of their enemies, and when they cried unto Jehovah, He sent Zerubbabel, and
Barak, and Jephthah, and Samuel, and delivered them out of the hand of their
enemies on every side, and they dwelt in safety. Oded proceeds to other
characteristics of the period of the judges:
"There was no peace to him that went out, nor to him that came in; but great
vexations were upon all the inhabitants of the lands. And they were broken in
pieces, nation against nation and city against city, for God did vex them with all
adversity."
Deborah’s song records great vexations: the highways were unoccupied, and the
travelers walked through by-ways; the rulers ceased in Israel; Gideon "threshed
wheat by the winepress to hide it from the Midianites." The breaking of nation
against nation and city against city will refer to the destruction of Succoth and
Penuel by Gideon, the sieges of Shechem and Thebez by Ahimelech, the massacre of
the Ephraimites by Jephthah, and the civil war between Benjamin and the rest of
Israel and the consequent destruction of Jabesh-gilead. [ 5:6-7; 6:2;, 8:15-17;, 9:1-7;,
12:6]
"But," said Oded, "be ye strong, and let not your hands be slack, for your work
shall be rewarded." Oded implies that abuses were prevalent in Judah which might
spread and corrupt the whole people, so as to draw down upon them the wrath of
God and plunge them into all the miseries of the times of the judges. These abuses
were wide-spread, supported by powerful interests and numerous adherents. The
queen-mother, one of the most important personages in an Eastern state, was herself
devoted to heathen observances. Their suppression needed courage, energy, and
pertinacity; but if they were resolutely grappled with, Jehovah would reward the
efforts of His servants with success, and Judah would enjoy prosperity. Accordingly
Asa took courage and put away the abominations out of Judah and Benjamin and
the cities he held in Ephraim. The abominations were the idols and all the cruel and
obscene accompaniments of heathen worship. {Cf. 1 Kings 15:12} In the prophet’s
exhortation to be strong, and not be slack, and in the corresponding statement that
Asa took courage, we have a hint for all reformers. either Oded nor Asa
underrated the serious nature of the task before them. They counted the cost, and
with open eyes and full knowledge confronted the evil they meant to eradicate. The
full significance of the chronicler’s language is only seen when we remember what
preceded the prophet’s appeal to Asa. The captain of half a million soldiers, the

18. conqueror of a million Ethiopians with three hundred chariots, has to take courage
before he can bring himself to put away the abominations out of his own dominions.
Military machinery is more readily created than national righteousness; it is easier
to slaughter one’s neighbors than to let light into the dark places that are full of the
habitations of cruelty; and vigorous foreign policy is a poor substitute for good
administration. The principle has its application to the individual. The beam in our
own eye seems more difficult to extract than the mote in our brother’s, and a man
often needs more moral courage to reform himself than to denounce other people’s
sins or urge them to accept salvation. Most ministers could confirm from their own
experience Portia’s saying, "I can easier teach twenty what were good to be done
than be one of the twenty to follow mine own teaching."
Asa’s reformation was constructive as well as destructive; the toleration of
"abominations" had diminished the zeal of the people for Jehovah, and even the
altar of Jehovah before the porch of the Temple had suffered from neglect: it was
now renewed, and Asa assembled the people for a great festival. Under Rehoboam
many pious Israelites had left the orthern Kingdom to dwell where they could
freely worship at the Temple; under Asa there was a new migration, "for they fell to
him out of Israel in abundance when they saw that Jehovah his God was with him."
And so it came about that in the great assembly which Asa gathered together at
Jerusalem not only Judah and Benjamin, but also Ephraim, Manasseh, and Simeon,
were represented. The chronicler has already told us that after the return from the
Captivity some of the children of Ephraim and Manasseh dwelt at Jerusalem with
the children of Judah and Benjamin, [1 Chronicles 9:3] and he is always careful to
note any settlement of members of the ten tribes in Judah or any acquisition of
northern territory by the kings of Judah. Such facts illustrated his doctrine that
Judah was the true spiritual Israel, the real or twelve-tribed whole, of the chosen
people.
Asa’s festival was held in the third month of his fifteenth year, the month Sivan,
corresponding roughly to our June. The Feast of Weeks, at which first-fruits were
offered, felt in this month; and his festival was probably a special celebration of this
feast. The sacrifice of seven hundred oxen and seven thousand sheep out of the spoil
taken from the Ethiopians and their allies might be considered a kind of first-fruits.
The people pledged themselves most solemnly to permanent obedience to Jehovah;
this festival and its offerings were to be first-fruits or earnest of future loyalty.
"They entered into a covenant to seek Jehovah, the God of their fathers, with all
their heart and with all their soul; they sware unto Jehovah with a loud voice, and
with shouting, and with trumpets, and with cornets." The observance of this
covenant was not to be left to the uncertainties of individual loyalty; the community
were to be on their guard against offenders, Achans who might trouble Israel.
According to the stern law of the Pentateuch, [Exodus 22:20,, Deuteronomy 13:5,
Deuteronomy 13:9, Deuteronomy 13:15] "whosoever would not seek Jehovah, the
God of Israel, should be put to death, whether small or great, whether man or
woman." The seeking of Jehovah so far as it could be enforced by penalties, must
have consisted in external observances; and the usual proof that a man did not seek
Jehovah would be found in his seeking other gods and taking part in heathen rites.

19. Such apostasy was not merely an ecclesiastical offense; it involved immorality and a
falling away from patriotism. The pious Jew could no more tolerate heathenism
than we could tolerate in England religions that sanctioned polygamy or suttee.
Having thus entered into covenant with Jehovah, "all Judah rejoiced at their oath
because they had sworn with all their heart, and sought Him with their whole
desire." At the beginning, no doubt, they, like their king, "took courage"; they
addressed themselves with reluctance and apprehension to an unwelcome and
hazardous enterprise. They now rejoiced over the Divine grace that had inspired
their efforts and been manifested in their courage and devotion, over the happy
issue of their enterprise, and over the universal enthusiasm for Jehovah; and He set
the seal of his approval upon their gladness, He was found of them, and Jehovah
gave them rest round about, so that there was no more war for twenty years: unto
the thirty-fifth year of Asa’s reign. It is an unsavory task to put away abominations:
many foul nests of unclean birds are disturbed in the process; men would not choose
to have this particular cross laid upon them, but only those who take up their cross
and follow Christ can hope to enter into the joy of the Lord.
The narrative of this second reformation is completed by the addition of details
borrowed from the book of Kings. The chronicler next recounts how in the thirty-
sixth year of Asa’s reign Baasha began to fortify Ramah as an outpost against
Judah but was forced to abandon his undertaking by the intervention of the Syrian
king. Benhadad, whom Asa hired with his own treasures and those of the Temple;
whereupon Asa carried off Baasha’s stones and timber and built Geba and Mizpah
as Jewish outposts against Israel. With the exception of the date and a few minor
changes, the narrative so far is taken verbatim from the book of Kings. The
chronicler, like the author of the priestly document of the Pentateuch, was anxious
to provide his readers with an exact and complete system of chronology; he was the
Ussher or Clinton of his generation. His date of the war against Baasha is probably
based upon an interpretation of the source used for chapter 15; the first reformation
secured a rest of ten years, the second and more thorough reformation a rest exactly
twice as long as the first. In the interest of these chronological references, the
chronicler has sacrificed a statement twice repeated in the book of Kings: that there
was war between Asa and Baasha all their days. As Baasha came to the throne in
Asa’s third year, the statement of the book of Kings would have seemed to
contradict the chronicler’s assertion that there was no war from the fifteenth to the
thirty-fifth year of Asa’s reign. [1 Kings 15:16; 1 Kings 15:32-33]
After his victory over Zerah, Asa received a Divine message which somewhat
checked the exuberance of his triumph; a similar message awaited him after his
successful expedition to Ramah. By Oded Jehovah had warned Asa, but now He
commissioned Hanani the seer to pronounce a sentence of condemnation. The
ground of the sentence was that Asa had not relied on Jehovah, but on the king of
Syria.
Here the chronicler echoes one of the keynotes of the great prophets. Isaih had
protested against the alliance which Ahaz concluded with Assyria in order to obtain

20. assistance again the united onset of Rezin, king of Syria, and Pekah, king of Israel,
and had predicted that Jehovah would bring upon Ahaz, his people, and his dynasty
days that had not come since the disruption, even the King of Assyria. [Isaiah 7:17]
When this prediction was fulfilled, and the thundercloud of Assyrian invasion
darkened all the land of Judah, the Jews, in their lack of faith, looked to Egypt for
deliverance; and again Isaiah denounced the foreign alliance: "Woe to them that go
down to Egypt for help but they look not unto the Holy One of Israel, neither seek
Jehovah; the strength of Pharaoh shall be your shame, and the trust in the shadow
of Egypt your confusion." [Isaiah 31:1; Isaiah 30:3] So Jeremiah in his turn
protested against a revival of the Egyptian alliance: "Thou shalt be ashamed of
Egypt also, as thou wast ashamed of Assyria." [Jeremiah 2:36]
In their successive calamities the Jews could derive no comfort from a study of
previous history; the pretext upon which each of their oppressors had intervened in
the affairs of Palestine had been an invitation from Judah.
In their trouble they had sought a remedy worse than the disease; the consequences
of this political quackery had always demanded still more desperate and fatal
medicines. Freedom from the border raids of the Ephraimites was secured at the
price of the ruthless devastations of Hazael; deliverance from Rezin only led to the
wholesale massacres and spoliation of Sennacherib. Foreign alliance was an opiate
that had to be taken in continually increasing doses, till at last it caused the death of
the patient.
evertheless these are not the lessons which the seer seeks to impress upon Asa.
Hanani takes a loftier tone. He does not tell him that his unholy alliance with
Benhadad was the first of a chain of circumstances that would end in the ruin of
Judah. Few generations are greatly disturbed by the prospect of the ruin of their
country in the distant future: "After us the Deluge." Even the pious king Hezekiah,
when told of the coming captivity of Judah, found much comfort in the thought that
there should be peace and truth in his days. After the manner of the prophets,
Hanani’s message is concerned with his own times. To his large faith the alliance
with Syria presented itself chiefly as the loss of a great opportunity. Asa had
deprived himself of the privilege of fighting with Syria, whereby Jehovah would
have found fresh occasion to manifest His infinite power and His gracious favor
towards Judah. Had there been no alliance with Judah, the restless and warlike
king of Syria might have joined Baasha to attack Asa; another million of the
heathen and other hundreds of their chariots would have been destroyed by the
resistless might of the Lord of Hosts. And yet, in spite of the great object-lesson he
had received in the defeat of Zerah, Asa had not thought of Jehovah as his Ally. He
had forgotten the all-observing, all-controlling providence of Jehovah, and had
thought it necessary to supplement the Divine protection by hiring a heathen king
with the treasures of the Temple; and yet "the eyes of Jehovah run to and fro
throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong in behalf of them whose heart is
perfect toward Him." With this thought, that the eyes of Jehovah run to and fro
throughout the earth, Zechariah [Zechariah 4:10] comforted the Jews in the dark
days between the Return and the rebuilding of the Temple. Possibly during Asa’s

21. twenty years of tranquility his faith had become enfeebled for want of any severe
discipline. It is only with a certain reserve that we can venture to pray that the Lord
will "take from our lives the strain and stress." The discipline of helplessness and
dependence preserves the consciousness of God’s loving providence. The resources
of Divine grace are not altogether intended for our personal comfort; we are to tax
them to the utmost, in the assurance that God will honor all our drafts upon His
treasury. The great opportunities of twenty years of peace and prosperity were not
given to Asa to lay up funds with which to bribe a heathen king, and then, with this
reinforcement of his accumulated resources, to accomplish the mighty enterprise of
stealing Baasha’s stones and timber and building the walls of a couple of frontier
fortresses. With such a history and such opportunities behind him, Asa should have
felt himself competent, with Jehovah’s help, to deal with both Baasha and
Benhadad, and should have had courage to confront them both.
Sin like Asa’s has been the supreme apostasy of the Church in all her branches and
through all her generations: Christ has been denied, not by lack of devotion, but by
want of faith. Champions of the truth, reformers and guardians of the Temple, like
Asa, have been eager to attach to their holy cause the cruel prejudices of ignorance
and folly, the greed and vindictiveness of selfish men. They have feared lest these
potent forces should be arrayed amongst the enemies of the Church and her Master.
Sects and parties have eagerly contested the privilege of counseling a profligate
prince how he should satisfy his thirst for blood and exercise his wanton and brutal
insolence; the Church has countenanced almost every iniquity and striven to quench
by persecution every new revelation of the Spirit, in order to conciliate vested
interests and established authorities. It has even been suggested that national
Churches and great national vices were so intimately allied that their supporters
were content that they should stand or fall together. On the other hand, the
advocates of reform have not been slow to appeal to popular jealousy and to
aggravate the bitterness of social feuds. To Hanani the seer had come the vision of a
larger and purer faith, that would rejoice to see the cause of Satan supported by all
the evil passions and selfish interests that are his natural allies. He was assured that
the greater the host of Satan, the more signal and complete would be Jehovah’s
triumph. If we had his faith, we should not be anxious to bribe Satan to cast out
Satan, but should come to understand that the full muster of hell assailing us in
front is less dangerous than a few companies of diabolic mercenaries in our own
array. In the former case the overthrow of the powers of darkness is more certain
and more complete.
The evil consequences of Asa’s policy were not confined to the loss of a great
opportunity, nor were his treasures the only price he was to pay for fortifying Geba
and Mizpah with Baasha’s building materials. Hanani declared to him that from
henceforth he should have wars. This purchased alliance was only the beginning,
and not the end, of troubles. Instead of the complete and decisive victory which had
disposed of the Ethiopians once for all, Asa and his people were harassed and
exhausted by continual warfare. The Christian life would have more decisive
victories, and would be less of a perpetual and wearing struggle, if we had faith to
refrain from the use of doubtful means for high ends.

22. Oded’s message of warning had been accepted and obeyed, but Asa was now no
longer docile to Divine discipline. David and Hezekiah submitted themselves to the
censure of Gad and Isaiah; but Asa was wroth with Hanani and put him in prison,
because the prophet had ventured to rebuke him. His sin against God corrupted
even his civil administration; and the ally of a heathen king, the persecutor of God’s
prophet, also oppressed the people. Three years after the repulse of Baasha a new
punishment fell upon Asa: his feet became grievously diseased. Still he did not
humble himself, but was guilty of further sin he sought not Jehovah, but the
physicians. It is probable that to seek Jehovah concerning disease was not merely a
matter of worship. Reuss has suggested that the legitimate practice of medicine
belonged to the schools of the prophets; but it seems quite as likely that in Judah, as
in Egypt, any existing knowledge of the art of healing was to be found among the
priests. Conversely, physicians who were neither priests nor prophets of Jehovah
were almost certain to be ministers of idolatrous worship and magicians. They failed
apparently to relieve their patient: Asa lingered in pain and weakness for two years,
and then died. Probably the sufferings of his latter days had protected his people
from further oppression, and had at once appealed to their sympathy and removed
any cause for resentment. When be died, they only remembered his virtues and
achievements; and buried him with royal magnificence, with sweet odors and divers
kinds of spices; and made a very great burning for him, probably of aromatic
woods.
In discussing the chronicler’s picture of the good kings, we have noticed that, while
Chronicles and the book of Kings agree in mentioning the misfortunes which as a
rule darkened their closing years, Chronicles in each case records some lapse into
sin as preceding these misfortunes. From the theological standpoint of the
chronicler’s school, these invidious records of the sins of good kings were necessary
in order to account for their misfortunes. The devout student of the book of Kings
read with surprise that of the pious kings who had been devoted to Jehovah and His
temple, whose acceptance by Him had been shown by the victories vouchsafed to
them, one had died of a painful disease in his feet, another in a lazar-house, two had
been assassinated, and one slain in battle. Why had faith and devotion been so ill
rewarded? Was it not vain to serve God? What profit was there in keeping His
ordinances? The chronicler felt himself fortunate in discovering amongst his later
authorities additional information which explained these mysteries and justified the
ways of God to man. Even the good kings had not been without reproach, and their
misfortunes had been the righteous judgment on their sins.
The principle which guided the chronicler in this selection of material was that sin
was always punished by complete, immediate, and manifest retribution in this life,
and that conversely all misfortune was the punishment of sin. There is a simplicity
and apparent justice about this theory that has always made it the leading doctrine
of a certain stage of moral development. It was probably the popular religious
teaching in Israel from early days till the time when our Lord found it necessary to
protest against the idea that the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their
sacrifices were sinners above all Galileans because they had suffered these things, or

23. that the eighteen upon whom the tower in Siloam fell, and killed them were
offenders above all the inhabitants of Jerusalem. This doctrine of retribution was
current among the Greeks. When terrible calamities fell upon men their neighbors
supposed these to be the punishment of specially heinous crimes. When the Spartan
king Cleomenes committed suicide, the public mind in Greece at once inquired of
what particular sin he had thus paid the penalty. The horrible circumstances of his
death were attributed to the wrath of some offended deity, and the cause of the
offence was sought for in one of his many acts of sacrilege, possibly he was thus
punished because he had bribed the priestess of the Delphic oracle. The Athenians,
however, believed that his sacrilege had consisted in cutting down trees in their
sacred grove at Eleusis; but the Argives preferred to hold that he came to an
untimely end because he had set fire to a grove sacred to their eponymous hero
Argos. Similarly, when in the course of the Peloponnesian war the Aeginetans were
expelled from their island, this calamity was regarded as a punishment inflicted
upon them because fifty years before they had dragged away and put to death a
suppliant who had caught hold of the handle of the door of the temple of Demeter
Theomophorus. On the other hand, the wonderful way in which on four or five
occasions the ravages of pestilence delivered Dionysius of Syracuse from his
Carthaginian enemies was attributed by his admiring friends to the favor of the
gods.
Like many other simple and logical doctrines, this Jewish theory of retribution came
into collision with obvious facts, and seemed to set the law of God at variance with
the enlightened conscience. "Beneath the simplest forms of truth the subtlest error
lurks." The prosperity of the wicked and the sufferings of the righteous were a
standing religious difficulty to the devout Israelite. The popular doctrine held its
ground tenaciously, supported not only by ancient prescription, but also by the most
influential classes in society. All who were young, robust, wealthy, powerful, or
successful were interested in maintaining a doctrine that made health, riches, rank,
and success the outward and visible signs of righteousness. Accordingly the
simplicity of the original doctrine was hedged about with an ingenious and elaborate
apologetic. The prosperity of the wicked was held to be only for a season; before he
died the judgment of God would overtake him. It was a mistake to speak of the
sufferings of the righteous: these very sufferings showed that his righteousness was
only apparent, and that in secret he had been guilty of grievous sin.
Of all the cruelty inflicted in the name of orthodoxy there is little that can surpass
the refined torture due to this Jewish apologetic. Its cynical teaching met the
sufferer in the anguish of bereavement, in the pain and depression of disease, when
he was crushed by sudden and ruinous losses or publicly disgraced by the unjust
sentence of a venal law-court. Instead of receiving sympathy and help, he found
himself looked upon as a moral outcast and pariah on account of his misfortunes;
when he most needed Divine grace, he was bidden to regard himself as a special
object of the wrath of Jehovah. If his orthodoxy survived his calamities, he would
review his past life with morbid retrospection, and persuade himself that he had
indeed been guilty above all other sinners.

24. The book of Job is an inspired protest against the current theory of retribution, and
the full discussion of the question belongs to the exposition of that book. But the
narrative of Chronicles, like much Church history in all ages, is largely controlled
by the controversial interests of the school from which it emanated. In the hands of
the chronicler the story of the kings of Judah is told in such a way that it becomes a
polemic against the book of. Job. The tragic and disgraceful death of good kings
presented a crucial difficulty to the chronicler’s theology. A good man’s other
misfortunes might be compensated for by prosperity in his latter days; but in a
theory of retribution which required a complete satisfaction of justice in this life
there could be no compensation for a dishonorable death. Hence the chronicler’s
anxiety to record any lapses of good kings in their latter days.
The criticism, and correction of this doctrine belong, as we have said, to the
exposition of the book of Job. Here we are rather concerned to discover the
permanent truth of which the theory is at once an imperfect and exaggerated
expression. To begin with, there are sins which bring upon the transgressor a swift,
obvious, and dramatic punishment. Human law deals thus with some sins; the laws
of health visit others with a similar severity; at times the Divine judgment strikes
down men and nations before an awestricken world. Amongst such judgments we
might reckon the punishments of royal sins so frequent in the pages of Chronicles.
God’s judgments are not usually so immediate and manifest, but these striking
instances illustrate and enforce the certain consequences of sin. We are dealing now
with cases in which God was set at naught; and, apart from Divine grace, the
votaries of sin are bound to become its slaves and victims. Ruskin has said,
"Medicine often fails of its effect, but poison never; and while, in summing the
observation of past life not un-watchfully spent, I can truly say that I bare a
thousand times seen Patience disappointed of her hope and Wisdom of her aim, I
have never yet seen folly fruitless of mischief, nor vice conclude but in calamity."
ow that we have been brought into a fuller light and delivered from the practical
dangers of the ancient Israelite doctrine, we can afford to forget the less satisfactory
aspects of the chronicler’s teaching, and we must feel grateful to him for enforcing
the salutary and necessary lesson that sin brings inevitable punishment, and that
therefore, whatever present appearances may suggest, "the world was certainly not
framed for the lasting convenience of hypocrites, libertines, and oppressors."
Indeed, the consequences of sin are regular and exact; and the judgments upon the
kings of Judah in Chronicles accurately symbolize the operations of Divine
discipline. But Rain, and ruin, and disgrace are only secondary elements in God’s
judgments; and most often they are not judgments at all. They have their uses as
chastisements; but if we dwell upon them with too emphatic an insistence, men
suppose that pain is a worse evil than sin, and that sin is only to be avoided because
it causes suffering to the sinner. The really serious consequence of evil acts is the
formation and confirmation of evil character. Herbert Spencer says in his "First
Principles" "that motion once set up along any line becomes itself a cause of
subsequent motion along that line." This is absolutely true in moral and spiritual
dynamics: every wrong thought, feeling, word, or act, every failure to think, feel,
speak, or act rightly, at once alters a man’s character for the worse. Henceforth he

25. will find it easier to sin and more difficult to do right; he has twisted another strand
into the cord of habit: and though each may be as fine as the threads of a spider’s
web, in time there will be cords strong enough to have bound Samson before Delilah
shaved off his seven locks. This is the true punishment of sin: to lose the fine
instincts, the generous impulses, and the nobler ambitions of manhood, and become
every day more of a beast and a devil.
PULPIT, "This chapter commences Asa's long reign of forty-one years. Asa was son
of Abijah and grandson of Maachah (2 Chronicles 15:16; 1 Kings 15:13). The reign
was remarkable for the devotion of Asa to the true God, and for the signal successes
given to him in consequence, but it did not reach its end without a mournful
defection on Asa's part from trust in God (2 Chronicles 16:2-4, 2 Chronicles 16:12),
which entailed its reward (2 Chronicles 16:9), and which has left tarnished for all
ages a fame that would otherwise have been fairest among all the kings of Judah.
The disjointed and grudging parallel to the forty-eight verses of this and the
following two chapters respecting Asa, in Chronicles, is comprised within the sixteen
verses only of 1 Kings 15:8-24.
2 Chronicles 14:1
Buried … in the city of David (see our note, 2 Chronicles 12:16). Asa his son. If,
according to the suggestion of our note, 2 Chronicles 10:8 and 2 Chronicles 12:13,
the alleged forty-one years of the age of Rehoboam be made twenty-one, it will
follow that Asa could not now be more than a boy of some twelve years of age. It is
against that suggestion that there is no sign of this, by word or deed, in what is here
said of the beginning of Asa's reign; the signs are to the contrary, especially taking
into the question the indications given us respecting the tendencies, if not
contradicted, of the queen-mother Maachah (2 Chronicles 15:16; 1 Kings 15:13),
and it is not supposable that a boy of twelve years of age could contradict them. This
point must be held still moot. In his days … quiet ten years. o doubt one cause of
this was the defeat that Jeroboam and Israel had sustained at the hands of Abijah (2
Chronicles 13:18-20). It appears also, from 1 Kings 15:19, that after that defeat a
league was instituted between Abijah and the then King of Syria: "There is a league
between me and thee, and between my father and thy father." And these things,
with Israel's new kings, and perhaps Asa's extreme youth, would have favoured the
repose of the land.
Asa King of Judah
2 Asa did what was good and right in the eyes of

26. the Lord his God.
CLARKE, "Did that which was good - He attended to what the law required
relative to the worship of God. He was no idolater, though, morally speaking, he was not
exempt from faults, 1Ki_15:14. He suppressed idolatry universally, and encouraged the
people to worship the true God: see 2Ch_14:3-5.
GILL, "And Asa did that which was good and right,.... See 1Ki_15:11.
JAMISO , "Asa did that which was good and right — (compare 1Ki_15:14).
Still his character and life were not free from faults (2Ch_16:7, 2Ch_16:10, 2Ch_16:12).
K&D, "
BE SO , "2 Chronicles 14:2. Asa did that which was good and right in the eyes of
the Lord — Happy they that walk by this rule; that do not only that which is right
in their own eyes, or in the eyes of the world, but which is so in God’s eyes. Asa saw
that God’s eye was always upon him, and therefore he kept his eye always upon
God, studied to approve himself to him, and endeavoured in all things to please him.
ELLICOTT, "REIG OF ASA (2 Chronicles 14-16.)
(a) EFFORTS TO ROOT OUT ILLEGITIMATE WORSHIPS, A D TO
STRE GTHE THE SYSTEM OF ATIO AL DEFE CES (2 Chronicles 14:2-7;
comp. 1 Kings 15:9-15).
(2) That which was good and right.—Literally, The good and the right, an
expression defined in 2 Chronicles 14:3-4. It is used of Hezekiah, 2 Chronicles 31:20.
See 1 Kings 15:11, “And Asa did the right in the eyes of the Lord, like David his
father.”
For (and) . . . the altars of the strange gods.—Literally, altars of the alien. Vulg.,
“altaria peregrini cultus.” Comp. the expression, gods of the alien (Gen. xxxv, 2, 4).
(Comp. 1 Kings 15:12 b, and he took away all the idols that his fathers had made; a
summary statement, which is here expanded into details.) But both here and in 2
Chronicles 12:1-2, the chronicler has omitted to mention the qedçshîm (Authorised
Version, “Sodomites”) (1 Kings 15:12 a)
And the high places.—i.e., those dedicated to foreign religions. It is clear from 2
Chronicles 15:17, as well as 1 Kings 15:14, that high places dedicated to the worship

27. of Jehovah were not done away with by Asa.
Brake down the images.—Brake in pieces (or shattered) the pillars. They were
dedicated to Baal, and symbolised the solar rays, being, no doubt, a species of
obelisk. (See Genesis 28:18; Exodus 34:13; Judges 3:7.)
The “high places, images, and groves” of this verse are all mentioned in 1 Kings
14:23.
TRAPP, "2 Chronicles 14:2 And Asa did [that which was] good and right in the eyes
of the LORD his God:
Ver. 2. And Asa did that which was good.] See 1 Kings 15:11.
In the eyes of the Lord.] ot in his own eyes, or the eyes of men, qui larvis ducuntur,
which are oft bemisted.
MACLARE , "ASA'S REFORMATION, AND CONSEQUENT PEACE AND
VICTORY
Asa was Rehoboam’s grandson, and came to the throne when a young man. The two
preceding reigns had favoured idolatry, but the young king had a will of his own, and
inaugurated a religious revolution, with which and its happy results this passage deals.
I. It first recounts the thorough clearance of idolatrous emblems and images which Asa
made. ‘Strange altars,’-that is, those dedicated to other gods; ‘high places,’-that is, where
illegal sacrifice to Jehovah was offered; ‘pillars,’-that is, stone columns; and ‘Asherim,’-
that is, trees or wooden poles, survivals of ancient stone- or tree-worship; ‘sun-images,’-
that is, probably, pillars consecrated to Baal as sun-god, were all swept away. The
enumeration vividly suggests the incongruous rabble of gods which had taken the place
of the one Lord. How vainly we try to make up for His absence from our hearts by a
multitude of finite delights and helpers! Their multiplicity proves the insufficiency of
each and of all.
1Ki_15:13 adds a detail which brings out still more clearly Asa’s reforming zeal; for it
tells us that he had to fight against the influence of his mother, who had been prominent
in supporting disgusting and immoral forms of worship, and who retained some
authority, of which her son was strong enough to take the extreme step of depriving her.
Remembering the Eastern reverence for a mother, we can estimate the effort which that
required, and the resolution which it implied. But 1 Kings differs from our narrative in
stating that the ‘high places’ were not taken away-the explanation of the variation
probably being that the one account tells what Asa attempted and commanded, and the
other records the imperfect way in which his orders were carried out. They would be
obeyed in Jerusalem and its neighbourhood, but in many a secluded corner the old rites
would be observed.
It is vain to force religious revolutions. Laws which are not supported by the national
conscience will only be obeyed where disobedience will involve penalties. If men’s hearts
cleave to Baal, they will not be turned into Jehovah-worshippers by a king’s commands.

28. Asa could command Judah to ‘seek the Lord God of their fathers, and to do the law,’ but
he could not make them do it.
II. The chronicler brings out strongly the truth which runs through his whole book,-
namely, the connection between honouring Jehovah and national prosperity. He did not
import that thought into his narrative, but he insisted on it as moulding the history of
Judah. Modern critics charge him with writing with a bias, but he learned the ‘bias’ from
God’s own declarations, and had it confirmed by observation, reflection, and experience.
The whole history of Israel and Judah was one long illustration of the truth which he is
constantly repeating. No doubt, the divine dealings with Israel brought obedience and
well-being into closer connection than exists now; but in deepest truth the sure defence
of our national prosperity is the same as theirs, and it is still the case that ‘righteousness
exalteth a nation.’ ‘The kingdom was quiet,’ says the chronicler, ‘and he had no war in
those years; because the Lord had given him rest.’ 1 Kings makes more of the standing
enmity with the northern kingdom, and records scarcely anything of Asa’s reign except
the war which, as it says, was between him and Baasha of Israel ‘all their days.’ But,
according to 2Ch_16:1, Baasha did not proceed to war till Asa’s thirty-sixth year, and the
halcyon time of peace evidently followed immediately on the religious reformation at its
very beginning.
Asa’s experience embodies a truth which is substantially fulfilled in nations and in
individuals; for obedience brings rest, often outward tranquillity, always inward calm.
Note the heightened earnestness expressed in the repetition of the expression ‘We have
sought the Lord’ in 2Ch_14:7, and the grand assurance of His favour as the source of
well-being in the clause which follows, ‘and He hath given us rest on every side.’ That is
always so, and will be so with us. If we seek Him with our whole hearts, keeping Him
ever before us amid the distractions of life, taking Him as our aim and desire, and ever
stretching out the tendrils of our hearts to feel after Him and clasp Him, all around and
within will be tranquil, and even in warfare we shall preserve unbroken peace.
Asa teaches us, too, the right use of tranquillity. He clearly and gratefully recognised
God’s hand in it, and traced it not to his own warlike skill or his people’s prowess, but to
Him. And he used the time of repose to strengthen his defences, and exercise his soldiers
against possible assaults. We do not yet dwell in the land of peace, where it is safe to be
without bolts and bars, but have ever to be on the watch for sudden attacks. Rest from
war should give leisure for building not only fortresses, but temples, as was the case with
Solomon. The time comes when, as in many an ancient fortified city of Europe, the
ramparts may be levelled, and flowers bloom where sentries walked; but to-day we have
to be on perpetual guard, and look to our fortifications, if we would not be overcome.
SBC, "There is many a useful lesson to be learnt from the story of Asa’s life.
Consider:—
I. Where his piety was born. In a most unlikely home. He was brought up in an ungodly
family. The court was corrupt. Society was rotten. The moral atmosphere he breathed
was enough to poison the finest child that was ever born. The same grace that preserved
Asa pure and devout amid the corruptions of the royal court may keep you clean.
II. How was Asa’s piety evidenced? (1) By his fervent prayerfulness. (2) By his
uncompromising opposition to everything that was sinful.
III. Where did the piety of Asa fail? His prosperity proved—I shall not say his ruin, but
his loss—his eternal loss. It may have added to the lustre of his earthly crown, but I fear

29. it dimmed the splendour of his heavenly.
J. Thain Davidson, Talks with Young Men, p. 219.
3 He removed the foreign altars and the high
places, smashed the sacred stones and cut down
the Asherah poles.[b]
GILL, "For he took away the altars of the strange gods,.... Or of a strange
people, of the Zidonians, Ammonites, and Moabites, which had remained from the times
of Solomon, and which he built for his wives, 1Ki_11:7.
and the high places; built for idols; for as for those on which the true God was
worshipped, they were not removed in his days, 1Ki_15:14.
and brake down the images: or statues, or pillars, erected to the honour of idols, and
on which the images of them were placed:
and cut down the groves; in the midst of which they stood.
JAMISO , "brake down the images — of Baal (see on 2Ch_34:4; see on Lev_
26:30).
cut down the groves — rather, “Asherim.”
BE SO , "2 Chronicles 14:3. He took away the altars of the strange gods — Since
the time when Solomon admitted idolatry, in the latter end of his reign, it appears,
nothing had been done till now to suppress it; so that it may be presumed it had
gained ground. Strange gods were worshipped, and had their altars, images, and
groves: and the temple-service, though kept up by the priests, was neglected by
many of the people. As soon as Asa had power in his hands, he made it his business
to destroy those idolatrous altars and images, they being a great provocation to the
jealous God, and a great temptation to a careless and unthinking people. He hoped,
by destroying the idols, to reform the idolaters, which he had in view, and not their
destruction.
TRAPP,, "2 Chronicles 14:3 For he took away the altars of the strange [gods], and
the high places, and brake down the images, and cut down the groves:

30. Ver. 3. And the high places.] Erected to idols; not the other. [1 Kings 15:14]
PULPIT, "The altars of the strange (gods); Hebrew, the altars of the stranger,
meaning, of course, "the altars of the gods of the stranger." This expression,
"strange gods," is found in the Authorized Version about thirteen times for the
Hebrew ‫ָר‬‫כ‬ֵ‫ג‬, or ‫ָר‬‫כ‬ֵ‫גּ‬ַ‫ה‬, and would be most correctly rendered, "The gods [or, 'god'] of
the stranger," i.e. of the foreigner, as it is rendered in the solitary instance of
Deuteronomy 31:16 . The high places. Comp. Deuteronomy 31:5 and 2 Chronicles
15:17, which says, "But the high places were not taken away out of Israel;" and 1
Kings 15:14, which says, "But the high places were not removed," without limiting
this non-removal to "of Israel." On the question of this apparent inconsistency and
surface-contradiction, see our Introduction, §7, pp. 16.1 and 17.2. Further, it may
here be well distinctly to note how little is even the apparent discrepancy or
contradiction alleged in this subject, throwing in the analogous passages in
Jehoshaphat's history (2 Chronicles 17:6; 2 Chronicles 20:33), in case these may
reflect any light on the question. Firstly, we will remove out of our way the parallel
in 1 Kings 15:14, with the observation that it is evident from its immediate context
that it corresponds with the last statement of our Chronicles (2 Chronicles 15:17),
savouring of a retrospective summarizing of the compiler, not with the first
statements (2 Chronicles 14:3, 2 Chronicles 14:5), which set forth Asa's prospective
purpose of heart, his resolution, and, no doubt, his edicts. Secondly, we may notice
that there is a plain-enough distinction made by the writer in 1 Kings 15:3 and 1
Kings 15:5 respectively—the one saying that Asa "took away the high places,"
without any further limitation; the other saying within two verses, "Also out of all
the cities of Judah" (note by the way here the suggestive stress laid upon "the
cities," possibly as more easily coped with than country districts) "he took away the
high places." The only legitimate inference (taking into account both the words
used, and the fact that the last written are found close upon the former, with the
significant conjunction "also") must be that some different information was
intended in the two places. 1 Kings 15:3 finds Asa as much master of "Judah" as 1
Kings 15:5. Therefore the natural interpretation of 1 Kings 15:3 must be that Asa at
once abolished "the high places" nearest home, nearest Jerusalem, most within his
own personal reach; then "also" that he did and ordered the same to be done in "all
the cities of Judah," and it was done at the time, if only for the time. Thirdly,
include the statement of 2 Chronicles 15:17, if we do not insist (as we might insist
very fairly when pressed on a point of alleged inconsistency or contradiction) on the
fact that now the high places "of Israel" arc distinctly designated, and that therein
those outlying parts of Asa's more or less acknowledged sway outside of Judah and
his thoroughest control are designedly described, let us instead take the help of an
exactly analogous (and analogously alleged) discrepancy (2 Chronicles 17:7
compared with 2 Chronicles 20:33), and we find there that the very key with which
to unlock the difficulty is provided to our hand. Jehoshaphat (2 Chronicles 17:6)
"took away the high places;" "the people" (2 Chronicles 20:33) did not faithfully
and with a constant heart follow suit, but had failed to prepare, i.e. to turn "their
hearts unto the God of their fathers." How well the juxtaposition of these very
words would tell, nay, do tell, with the emphatic words of 1 Kings 15:14!

31. " evertheless Asa's heart was perfect with the Lord all his days;" and with our 2
Chronicles 15:17, " evertheless the heart of Asa was perfect all his days." In both
these passages the antithesis is patent between Asa's heart and the people's hearts,
between Asa's "all his days" and the people's uncertainty and apostasy. The fidelity
of Bible history and its non-cunningly, non-fabulously devised tenor are gratefully
corroborated by the inquisition made into such a supposed "discrepancy,""
inconsistency," "contradiction." otice once more the confirming indication, so far
as it goes, of the one verb that commands the next verse, as there noted upon. Brake
down the images; Hebrew, ‫ֵבוֹת‬ּ‫ח‬ַ‫מ‬ . It occurs in the Authorized Version thirty-two
times, and is rendered "pillar" or "pillars" twelve times; "image" or "images"
nineteen times; and "garrisons" once. It appears simply to have slipped from the
signification of pillar into the rendering of the word "image," by aid of the
intermediate word "statue." It is used of the pillar or statue of Baal in 2 Kings 3:2; 2
Kings 10:26, 2 Kings 10:27, with his name expressed; and in 2 Chronicles 18:4; 2
Chronicles 23:14, without that name expressed. Cut down the groves; Hebrew, ‫ע‬ַ‫ַדּ‬‫ג‬ְ‫י‬ַ‫ו‬
‫ים‬ ִ‫ר‬ֵ‫שׁ‬ֲ‫ָא‬‫ה‬‫ת־‬ֶ‫.א‬ The verb here used implies the "cutting," "cutting down," "pruning" of
trees. It is undoubtedly applied also to other cutting and cutting down, as of the
"breaking" of a red (Zechariah 11:10), of an arm (1 Samuel 2:31), of horns
(Jeremiah 48:25), of bars or bolts (Isaiah 45:2). It occurs in all twenty-three times. It
is here employed to describe the destroying of what according to the Authorized
Version arc called "groves"—a word which with little doubt misleads for the
rendering of our ‫ים‬ ִ‫ר‬ֵ‫שׁ‬ֲ‫א‬ . Before this same word we have also another Hebrew verb
for "cutting," of very frequent occurrence in its simple and metaphorically derived
uses included, viz. ‫ת‬ ַ‫ָר‬‫כּ‬ . The first uses of this verb with the above word are found in
6:25, 6:26, 6:30. That word means literally "fortune," but in its ultimate derivation
"straightness," and hence supposed to designate, in Phoenician and Aramaean
idolatry, Astarte or the planet Venus, who is constantly associated in such idolatry
with Baal ( 3:7). But see for the first occurrence of the word, Exodus 34:13, where
there is no express mention of Baal, but where the idolatries of the Amorite,
Canaanite, Hittite, Hivite, Perizzite, and Jebusite are being spoken of. When we take
into consideration the probable ultimate derivation of the word, the fact of the verbs
that speak of "cutting" being uniformly applied to what it represents, the
"burning" to which this was condemned ( 6:26) when cut down, and a series of
statements that represent it as "set up under every green tree" (1 Kings 14:23; 2
Kings 17:10; see also 1 Kings 15:13; 2 Kings 21:7; 2 Kings 23:6; 2 Chronicles 15:16),
it not only becomes perfectly certain that "grove" and "groves" cannot rightly
render the word, but directs us with the light of those passages that speak of it
coupled with Baal as an object of worship, and that speak of prophet and priest
called by its name ( 3:7 (compared with 2:13; 10:6; 1 Samuel 7:4); 1 Kings 18:19; 2
Kings 21:3; 2 Kings 23:4), to the strong conviction that it should be at once written
with a capital letter, and rendered as a proper name; that it may possibly be a
synonym with Ashtoreth, 1.q. Astarte, or a representation in wooden pillar, stock or
trunk fashion, of some supposed aspect of her passion or dominion, very likely in
the voluptuous or sensual direction. Conder, in 'Handbook to the Bible,' p. 187, 2nd
edit; speaks of "Baal-peor ( umbers 25:3) as identified by St. Jerome with the
classical Priapus;" and adds "the Asherah (rendered 'grove' in our version) was
also apparently a similar emblem" (2 Kings 23:7). The analogy of the sacred tree of