الكتاب المقدس

Expositor's Bible Commentary 2 Chronicles 14:1 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. ASA: DIVINE RETRIBUTION 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 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." Numerous 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 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 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 Nebuchadnezzar; 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 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 Northern 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 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. Nevertheless 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:- "Now 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. { Jdg 5:6-7 ; Jdg 6:2 ; Jdg 8:15-17 ; Jdg 9:1-7 ; Jdg 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. Neither 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 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 Northern 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. 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 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. Nevertheless 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 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 enemi

And Asa did that which was good and right in the eyes of the Lord his God. 2 Chronicles 14:1-4 Asa faithful to his God Monday Club Sermon. 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 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. ) Therefore said he unto Judah, Let us build these cities... while the land is yet before us 2 Chronicles 14:7 The duty of improving present opportunity J. G. Breay, B.A. ( a Sunday-school sermon): — Consider — I. THE OPPORTUNITY FOR LABOUR WITH WHICH WE ARE BLESSED. "The land is yet before us." 1. We have liberty to labour. 2. The facilities are great: multiplication of elementary books, circulation of Bibles, etc. 3. The encouragements are numerous. The prejudices of society are in our favour. God's command, etc. II. THE IMPORTANCE OF LABOURING WHILE WE HAVE THIS OPPORTUNITY. 1. What is the work to which we are called? That of teaching the young the Word of God ( Deuteronomy 6:6, 7 ; Psalm 78:5, 7 ; Proverbs 22:6 ). 2. The duty of improving existing opportunities. Conclusion: Address children. If you had to pass through a long and dark passage where there were many deep pits, how anxious, at the beginning, would you feel for light. Such is the Word of God given to you at your entrance into life ( Psalm 119:105 ). ( J. G. Breay, B.A. ) And Asa, cried unto the Lord his God. 2 Chronicles 14:11, 12 Victories over superior numbers W. H. Bennett, M.A. 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. For the most part victorious generals have been ready to acknowledge the succouring 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." When Elizabeth's fleet defeated the Spanish Armada, the grateful piety of Protestant England felt that its foes had been destroyed by the breath of the Lord: "Afflavit Deus et dissipantur." ( W. H. Bennett, M.A. ) The superiority of moral to material force W. H. Bennett, M. A. Characteristic instances are to be found in the wider movements of international polities. 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 Nebuchadnezzar; 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 to-day Italy can count hundreds of thousands like the chronicler's 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. 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. 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. We have no right to look for Divine co-operation till we have done our best; we are to work out our own salvation, for it is God that worketh in us. ( W. H. Bennett, M. A. ) King Asa's prayer on the eve of battle The Penny Pulpit. I. OUR TEXT IS A PRATER — the surest weapon in war as in all other emergencies. II. It is the prayer of a king on the eve of battle, and therefore partakes of a NATIONAL CHARACTER. III. IT IS A PRAYER OF FAITH, EXHIBITING RELIANCE ON THE DIVINE ARM FOR HELP, and therefore implying humiliation, together with a distinct conviction that no human force, however vast, can prevail, except under the recognised championship of the Almighty. ( The Penny Pulpit. ) The all-sufficiency of God's help W. T. Tindley, D.D. I. ASA ACTED PROMPTLY AND ENERGETICALLY AS THE OCCASION REQUIRED. Only one purpose moved him, and that was to bring out all the military strength of his kingdom, and at once, with no unnecessary delay, strike the foe, every soldier realising that the crown of victory was the prize to be won or lost, according as he should be faithful or unfaithful in his particular duty. Having acted thus promptly and energetically, then — II. ASA CALLED ON GOD FOR HELP. He did not ask God to work a miracle on his behalf. Whoever calls upon God for help without first helping himself, without first putting forth his own efforts to secure that for which he invokes the Divine aid, will call upon God in vain. There are other elements of strength in war besides those which are merely physical. God is a moral and spiritual force which will make an army of inferior numbers more than adequate to encounter and overcome the mere physical force which inheres in superiority of numbers. Hence the wisdom and virtue of prayer. III. WHAT WAS THE ISSUE? "The Lord smote the Ethiopians before Asa, etc. ( W. T. Tindley, D.D. ) Asa's prayer A. Maclaren, D.D. This King Asa, Rehoboam's grandson, had had a long reign of peace, which the writer of the Book of Chronicles traces to the fact that he had rooted out idolatry from Judah. "The land had rest, and he had no war... because the Lord had given him rest." But their came a time when the war-cloud began to roll threateningly over the land, and a great army came up against him. Like a wise man he made his military dispositions first, and prayed next. This prayer contains the very essence of what ought to be the Christian attitude in reference to all the conditions and threatening dangers and conflicts of life. I. THE WHOLESOME CONSCIOUSNESS OF OUR OWN IMPOTENCE. It did not take much to convince Asa that he had "no power." His army, according to the numbers given of the two hosts, was outnumbered two to one. If we look fairly in the face our duties, our tasks, our dangers, the possibilities of life and its certainties, the more humbly we think of our own capacity, the more wisely we shall think about God, and the more truly we shall estimate ourselves. The world says "Self-reliance is the conquering virtue." Jesus says to us, "Self-distrust is the condition of all victory." And that does not mean any mere shuffling off of responsibility from our own shoulders, but it means looking the facts of our lives, and of our own characters, in the face. And if we will do that, however apparently easy may be our course, and however richly endowed in mind, body, or estate we may be, we shall find that we each are like "the man with ten thousand" that has to meet "the King that comes against him with twenty thousand"; and we shaft not "desire conditions of peace" with our enemy, for that is not what in this ease we have to do, but we shall look about us, and not keep our eyes on the horizon, and on the levels of earth, but look up to see if there is not there an ally that we can bring into the field to redress the balance, and to make our ten as strong as the opposing twenty. Now all that is true about the disproportion between the foes we have to face and fight and our own strength. It is eminently true about us Christian people, if we are doing any work for our Master. You hear people say, "Look at the small number of professing Christians in this country, as compared with the numbers on the other side. What is the use of their trying to convert the world?" If the Christian Church had to undertake the task of Christianising the world with its own strength, we might well threw up the sponge and stop altogether. "We have no might." But we are not only numerically weak. A multitude of non-effectives, mere camp-followers, loosely attached, nominal Christians have to be deducted from the muster-roll. So a profound self-distrust is our wisdom. But it is not to paralyse us, but to lead to something better, as it led Asa. II. SUMMONING GOD INTO THE WORLD SHOULD FOLLOW WHOLESOME SELF-DISTRUST. Asa uses a remarkable expression, which is, perhaps, scarcely reproduced adequately in another verse, "It is nothing with Thee to help, whether with many or with them that have no power." It is a strange phrase, but it seems most probable that the suggested rendering in the Revised Version is nearer the writer's meaning, which says, "Lord! there is none beside Thee to help between the mighty and them that have no power," which to our ears is a somewhat cumbrous way of saying that God, and God only, can adjust the difference between the mighty and the weak. Asa turns to God and says, "Thou only canst trim the scales and make the heavy one the lighter of the two by casting Thy might into it. So help us, O Lord, our God." One man with God at his back is always in the majority. There is encouragement for people who have to fight unpopular causes in the world. The consciousness of weakness may unnerve a man; and that is why people in the world are always patting each other on the back and saying, "Be of good cheer, and rely upon yourself." But the self-distrust that turns to God becomes the parent of a far more reliable self-reliance than that which trusts to men. My consciousness of need is my opening the door for God to come in. Just as you always find the lakes in the hollows, so you will always find the grace of God coming into men's hearts to strengthen them and make them victorious, when there has been the preparation of the lowered estimate of one's self. Hollow out your heart by self-distrust, and God will fill it with the flashing waters of His strength bestowed. The way by which we summon God into the field: Asa prays, "Help us, O Lord, our God, for we rest on Thee"; and the word that he employs for "rest" is not a very frequent one. It carries with it a very striking picture. It is used in that tragical story of the death of Saul, when the man that saw the last of him came to David and drew in a sentence the pathetic picture of the wearied, wounded, broken-hearted, discrowned, desperate monarch leaning on his spear. You can understand how hard he leaned, with what a grip he held it, and how heavily his whole, languid, powerless weight pressed upon it. And that is the word that is used here. "We lean on Thee" as the wounded Saul leaned upon his spear. Is that a picture of your faith? III. COURAGEOUS ADVANCE SHOULD FOLLOW SELF-DISTRUST AND SUMMONING GOD BY FAITH. It is well when self-distrust leads to confidence. But that is not enough. It is better when self-distrust and confidence in God lead to courage. And as Asa goes on, "Help us, for we rely on Thee, and in Thy name we go against this multitude." Never mind though it is two to one. What does that matter? Prudence and calculation are well enough, but there is a great deal of very rank cowardice and want of faith in Christian people, both in regard to their own lives and in regard to Christian work in the world, which goes masquerading under much too respectable a name, and calls itself "judicious caution" and "prudence." If we have God with us, let us be bold in fronting the dangers and difficulties that beset us, and be sure that He will help us. IV. THE ALL-POWERFUL PLEA WHICH GOD WILL ANSWER. "Thou art my God, let not man prevail against Thee." That prayer covers two things. You may be quite sure that if God is your God you will not be beaten; and you may be quite sure that if you have made God's cause yours He will make your cause His, and again you will not be beaten. "Thou art our God." "It takes two to make a bargain," and God and we have both to act before He is truly ours. He gives Himself to us, but there is an act of ours required, too, and you must take the God that is given to you, and make Him yours because you make yourselves His. And when I have taken Him for mine, and not unless I have, He is mine, to all intents of strength-giving and blessedness. ( A. Maclaren, D.D. ) The name of God written in life A. Maclaren, D. D. Our whole life ought to be filled with His name. You can write it anywhere. It does not need a gold plate to carve His name upon. It does not need to be set in jewels and diamonds. The poorest scrap of brown paper, and the bluntest little bit of pencil, and the shakiest hand will do to write the name of Christ; and all life, the trivialities as well as the crises, may be flashing and bright with the sacred syllables. Mohammedans decorate their palaces and mosques with no pictures, but with the name of Allah in gilded arabesques. Everywhere, on walls and roof, and windows and cornices, and pillars and furniture, the name is written. There is no such decoration for a life as that Christ's name should be inscribed thereon. ( A. Maclaren, D. D. ).

14:1-15 Asa's piety, He strengthens his kingdom. - Asa aimed at pleasing God, and studied to approve himself to him. Happy those that walk by this rule, not to do that which is right in their own eyes, or in the eye of the world, but which is so in God's sight. We find by experience that it is good to seek the Lord; it gives us rest; while we pursue the world, we meet with nothing but vexation. Asa consulted with his people how to make a good use of the peace they enjoyed; and concluded with them that they must not be idle, nor secure. A formidable army of Ethiopians invaded Asa's kingdom. This evil came upon them, that their faith in God might be tried. Asa's prayer is short, but it is the real language of faith and expectation from God. When we go forth in God's name, we cannot but prosper, and all things work together for the good of those whom he favours.