Study Desk

The Spirit of God came on Azariah son of Oded.^(a)

So he went out to meet Asa and said to him, "Asa and all Judah and Benjamin, hear me. The Lord is with you^(b) when you are with Him. If you seek Him, He will be found by you,^(c) but if you abandon Him, He will abandon you.^(d)

For many years Israel has been without the true God,^(e) without a teaching priest, and without instruction,^(f)

but when they turned to the Lord God of Israel in their distress and sought Him, He was found by them.

In those times there was no peace for those who went about their daily activities because the residents of the lands had many conflicts.

Nation was crushed by nation and city by city, for God troubled them with every possible distress.

But as for you, be strong; don't be discouraged,^[a] for your work has a reward."^(g)

When Asa heard these words and the prophecy of Azariah son of Oded the prophet, he took courage and removed the detestable idols from the whole land of Judah and Benjamin and from the cities he had captured in the hill country of Ephraim.^(h) He renovated the altar of the Lord that was in front of the portico of the Lord 's temple.⁽ⁱ⁾

Then he gathered all Judah and Benjamin, as well as those from the tribes of Ephraim, Manasseh, and Simeon who had settled among them, for they had defected to him from Israel in great numbers when they saw that Yahweh his God was with him.^(j)

They were gathered in Jerusalem in the third month of the fifteenth year of Asa's reign.

At that time they sacrificed to the Lord 700 cattle and 7,000 sheep from all the plunder they had brought.^(k)

Then they entered into a covenant to seek the Lord God of their ancestors with all their mind and all their heart.^(l)

Whoever would not seek the Lord God of Israel would be put to death, young or old,^[b] man or woman.^(m)

They took an oath to the Lord in a loud voice, with shouting, with trumpets, and with rams' horns.

All Judah rejoiced over the oath, for they had sworn it with all their mind. They had sought Him with all their heart, and He was found by them.⁽ⁿ⁾ So the Lord gave them rest on every side.^(o)

King Asa^(p) also removed Maacah, his grandmother,^[c](q) from being queen mother because she had made an obscene image of Asherah. Asa chopped down her obscene image, then crushed it and burned it in the Kidron Valley.^(r)

The high places were not taken away from Israel; nevertheless, Asa was wholehearted his entire life.^[d]

He brought his father's consecrated gifts and his own consecrated gifts into God's temple: silver, gold, and utensils.

There was no war until the thirty-fifth year of Asa's reign.

In the thirty-sixth year of Asa,^(a) Israel's King Baasha went to war against Judah. He built Ramah in order to deny access to anyone—going or coming—to Judah's King Asa.

So Asa brought out the silver and gold from the treasuries of the Lord 's temple and the royal palace and sent it to Aram's King Ben-hadad, who lived in Damascus, saying,

"There's a treaty between me and you, between my father and your father. Look, I have sent you silver and gold. Go break your treaty with Israel's King Baasha so that he will withdraw from me."

Ben-hadad listened to King Asa and sent the commanders of his armies to the cities of Israel. They attacked Ijon, Dan, Abel-maim,^[a] and all the storage cities^[b] of Naphtali.

When Baasha heard about it, he quit building Ramah and stopped his work.

Then King Asa brought all Judah, and they carried away the stones of Ramah and the timbers Baasha had built it with. Then he built Geba and Mizpah with them.

At that time, Hanani^(b) the seer came to King Asa of Judah and said to him, "Because you depended on the king of Aram and have not depended on the Lord your God,^(c) the army of the king of Aram has escaped from your hand.

Were not the Cushites and Libyans a vast army with many chariots and horsemen?^(d) When you depended on Yahweh, He handed them over to you.^(e)

For the eyes of Yahweh roam throughout the earth^(f) to show Himself strong for those whose hearts are completely His.^(g) You have been foolish in this matter. Therefore, you will have wars from now on."

Asa was angry with the seer and put him in prison^[c] because of his anger over this. And Asa mistreated some of the people at that time.

Note that the events^(h) of Asa's reign, from beginning to end, are written in the Book of the Kings of Judah and Israel.

In the thirty-ninth year of his reign, Asa developed a disease in his feet, and his disease became increasingly severe. Yet even in his disease he didn't seek the Lord but only the physicians.

Asa died in the forty-first year of his reign and rested with his fathers.

He was buried in his own tomb that he had made for himself in the city of David. They laid him out in a coffin that was full of spices and various mixtures of prepared ointments;⁽ⁱ⁾ then they made a great fire in his honor.^(j)