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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadJohn Kitto Morning Bible Devotions: November 4
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1Ki_16:15-23; 2Ch_16:7-10
The Israelites never, from the commencement of their history, failed to be victorious in any battle undertaken in this spirit—evincing that faith in Him, to which the Lord, by all his covenants, had bound himself to respond. This was so much a matter of course, that the historian simply, but with a truly grand laconism under the circumstances, adds—“So the Lord smote the Cushites before Asa, and before Judah, and the Cushites fled.” They were pursued with great slaughter to their encampments, and to their towns about Gerar; and the spoil with which the Judahites returned was prodigious, and being largely in sheep and camels, it must have made a material contribution to the substantial wealth of the country.
This victory, so signally the doing of the Lord, together with the encouragements given to the king by a prophet named Azariah, who came out to meet him on his return, greatly stimulated the king in his great work of religious reform and purification. A great festival sacrifice was held at Jerusalem, at which 700 oxen and 7000 sheep were offered, and the assembled people then and there entered into a high and solemn covenant, “to seek the Lord their God with all their heart and with all their soul.”
The result was peace and prosperity for many years. This was so signal and apparent, that after a time so strong a tide of migration into this kingdom from the more troubled one of Israel set in, as excited the serious apprehension of Baasha, who was then upon the throne, and incited him to a bold measure for the purpose of preventing it, or holding it in check. He seized the town of Ramah, which lay within the territory of Judah, six miles from Jerusalem, on the way to Bethel, and began to turn it into a strong fortress. This audacious measure, which held out to Asa the prospect of having so able and resolute an enemy holding a position of great strength within so short a distance of his capital, filled with dismay the royal heart which had not quailed before the hosts of Zerah. He lost that faith which had ennobled his past career, and betook himself to miserable diplomacies, no less impolitic than degrading.
The now important Syrian power seated at Damascus, was at this time under a treaty of peace with the kingdom of Israel, to which it was naturally from its position, and had been before, and was afterwards, most hostile. Asa, knowing the really adverse temper of Syria towards Israel, thought it not unlikely, that the king might be induced to break the existing treaty, and by appearing in the north, compel Baasha to abandon his designs in the south. He tried it, and succeeded; but only received this aid from Benhadad, at a most costly sacrifice; for he sent all his silver and gold, whether in the form of treasure or vessels, which he could make available, sparing neither the precious things of his own palace nor of the temple. He reckoned, probably, that it was better to give it up in this way, than to have it taken by force from him; while, if peace resulted from the sacrifice, he would be able to replace it with interest in a few years. For this part of his conduct, it is worthy of note, he was not blamed. The treasure which the ambassadors brought was doubtless more effectual than their arguments in prevailing upon Ben-hadad to accede to a course so dishonorable. He did accede, and sent an army against the north of Israel, which captured and plundered many important towns, and ravaged the whole land of Naphtali, and the country about the sea of Galilee. On hearing this, Baasha at once abandoned Ramah, and went to protect his own country; and the war between him and the Syrians being thus renewed, he found too much employment to resume his former design.
But, however successful it seemed in its immediate object, the thing that Asa had done displeased the Lord. Its offence was gross and accumulated. It was a want of that reliance upon the Lord, which once, in a really more urgent strait, had won him so much honor; it was the tempting of another to do a dishonorable breach of faith; and it was the bringing of a heathen destroyer into that land which was still the Lord’s heritage, though it belonged not to Judah; and upon that people who were still his, although they had strayed from him. For this—but especially for his relying upon the king of Syria more than upon the King of Heaven—a prophet was sent to rebuke and threaten him. It was intimated that, for this, he had not only lost a great victory over the Syrians, which the Lord would have given to him, but his future reign should be troubled with wars. The former intimation is worthy of notice, as being of that rare kind which indicates what would have occurred had a certain course not been taken. We understand it to mean that Baasha would have called the Syrians to his aid, and that Asa would have been afforded a signal victory over them.
To be thus rebuked in the moment when his diplomatic stroke seemed to have fulfilled its purpose so well, was more than one so little used to contradiction could bear; and in his rage he sent the faithful prophet to prison—adding to his original fault the grievous sin of persecuting an inspired messenger of Jehovah. Here we have the melancholy spectacle of a prophet of God imprisoned—not by an idolatrous or notoriously wicked king, but by one who has hitherto borne a noble character, and whose heart was substantially right with God. Not so did David receive Nathan’s more stern rebuke. This descendant of his does that, for only attempting to do which Jeroboam had his arm palsied. But, as Bishop Hall charitably remarks: “It were a pity that the best man should be judged by each of his actions, and not by all; the course of our life must either allow or condemn us, not these sudden exceptions.”