Глава 16

1–6. The war of Asa with Baasha, king of Israel, and the alliance of the former with the king of Syria. 7–10. Asa's exposure as a seer and the latter's imprisonment. 11–14. The last days of Asa, illness and death. 2 Chronicles 16:1. In the thirty-sixth year of Asa's reign, Baasha, king of Israel, went to Judah and began to build Rama, so as not to allow anyone to leave Asa, king of Judah, or to come to him. 2 Chronicles 16:2. And Asa brought silver and gold out of the treasuries of the house of the Lord and the king's house, and sent them to Benhadad king of Syria, who dwelt in Damascus, saying: 2 Chronicles 16:3. Let there be a union between me and you, as there was between my father and your father; Behold, I am sending you silver and gold: go, break your alliance with Baasha the king of Israel, so that he will depart from me. 2 Chronicles 16:4. And Benhadad listened to king Asa and sent the captains that he had against the cities of Israel, and they laid waste Iyon and Dan and Abelmaim and all the storehouses in the cities of Naphtali. 2 Chronicles 16:5. And when Vaasa heard about this, he stopped building Rama and stopped his work. 2 Chronicles 16:6. But king Asa gathered all the Jews, and they took out of Ramah the stones and wood that Baasha had used for the building, and from them he built Geva and Mitzpah. Wed. (1 Kings 15:16–22). For the chronological dates of the war between Asa and Baasa, see The Explanatory Bible, vol. II, p. 439–440; Wed at Prof. Gulyaeva, “Historical books of the Holy Scriptures of the Old Testament,” p. 531. For the situation of the Israeli cities taken by the Syrian king, see comments to (1 Kings 15:20). The Explanatory Bible, vol. II, p. 441. 2 Chronicles 16:7. At that time, Hanani the seer came to Asa, king of Judah, and said to him: Because you trusted in the king of Syria and did not trust in the Lord your God, therefore the army of the king of Syria was saved from your hand. 2 Chronicles 16:8. Were not the Ethiopians and Libyans in great strength and with very numerous chariots and horsemen? But because you trusted in the Lord, He delivered them into your hand, 2 Chronicles 16:9. for the eyes of the Lord run throughout the whole earth to support those whose hearts are fully devoted to Him. You have acted recklessly now. Because of this, from now on you will have wars. 2 Chronicles 16:10. And Asa was angry with the seer, and put him in prison, because he was angry with him for this; oppressed Asa and some of the people at that time. The seer Hananiah lived and acted under Asa's son and successor, Jehoshaphat (2 Chron. 19:2 ff.). The reason and essence of his denunciations of Asa is the latter’s lack of faith in protecting the providential action of God and in the superstitious hope for the help and power of the pagan king (cf. similar prophetic denunciations of the Israeli king Ahab (1 Kings 20:35–43); the prophet Isaiah to the Jewish king Hezekiah (2 Kings 20:15–19)). Asa was all the more guilty of cowardly disbelief in God’s Providence because in the war with Zarai he had a strikingly obvious example of God’s miraculous help (v. 8; cf. ch. 14), which the prophet Azariah deliberately taught him about (2 Chron. 15:1–7). The words of the seer Ananias (v. 9) give a clear expression of the biblical teaching about the providential activity of God, especially in relation to pious people. The fact that Asa responded to the prophetic reproof with violence against the person of the prophet, as well as other oppressions he inflicted on some of the people (v. 10), shows that for all his piety, Asa was not a typical truly theocratic king; That is why Jesus Sirach does not name him among the best theocratic kings (Sir.49:5,6). 2 Chronicles 16:11. And so, the deeds of Asa, the first and the last, are described in the book of the kings of Judah and Israel. 2 Chronicles 16:12. And Asa became ill with his legs in the thirty-ninth year of his reign, and his illness rose to the upper parts of his body; but in his illness he sought not the Lord, but the doctors. 2 Chronicles 16:13. And Asa slept with his fathers, and died in the forty-first year of his reign. 2 Chronicles 16:14. And they buried him in the tomb which he had built for himself in the city of David; and they laid him on a bed, which they filled with incense and various artificial ointments, and burned a great variety of them for him. The description of Asa’s illness (v. 12) partly notes its special severity (the disease is rheumatism of the legs or gout, see “The Explanatory Bible,” vol. II, p. 441), but mainly his already known (cf. v. 7) sin is the sin of human reliance: the preference for medical human help over the all-healing power of God. In the speech about the burial of Asa (v. 14), it is mentioned, firstly, about the deliberate tomb of Asa, which he himself prepared, and secondly, a remarkable biblical-archaeological description of the burial rites of the Jewish kings is given (cf. below (2 Chron. 21:19) and cf. (Jer. 34:5)). Some followers (between them and Prof. Gulyaev, “Historical Books of the Holy Scriptures of the Old Testament,” pp. 533–534), on the basis of the burning of incense mentioned here and in the cited places in honor of the king, believed that the burning of the king’s body took place here, and that in general kings and noble Jews were generally buried through corpse cremation. But the only clear evidence of that method of burial is in the story (1 Samuel 31:12) about the burial of Saul and his sons killed in battle by the inhabitants of Jabez: the case of burning corpses here was completely exceptional, caused by a reverent desire to protect the corpses from desecration by the Philistines. To the reign of Asa’s son, Jehoshaphat, about whom 1 Kings gives an extremely brief account in a few verses (1 Kings 22:41–50), 2 Chronicles devotes four chapters (2 Chronicles 17–20), supplementing the information of 1 Kings with both external events of the reign of Jehoshaphat, and especially with a depiction of the internal - governmental and religious-theocratic activities of this pious king. You might be interested in: