Page:The Books of Chronicles (1916).djvu/287

Rh 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. And Asa did that which was good and right in the eyes of the his God: for he took away the strange altars, and the high places, and

sins of his father" (1 Kin. xv. 3), and received favour from Jehovah only on account of the merits of David. Evidently the Chronicler deemed it fitting to fasten on the fact of the favour, perhaps because he felt it imperative that Jeroboam should receive from the next king of Judah the punishment for his sins which Rehoboam could not inflict.

in the commentary] Heb. Midrash. See Introduction, § 5, p. xxxi.

Iddo] See note on ix. 29.

XIV. 1—5 (cp. 1 Kin. xv. 9—15).&emsp;

In Kings the reign of Asa is reviewed with entire approval, according to Chronicles his conduct was marred only by the lack of faith manifested in his reliance on the king of Syria (see xvi. 1—10), and in his recourse to physicians at the close of his reign (xvi. 12).

1. ten years] These ten years of rest are naturally to be assigned to the beginning of Asa's reign; later on there was a rest of twenty years (cp. xv. 10 with xv. 19). The number ten here makes a discrepancy with 1 Kin., for Baasha became king of Israel in the third year of Asa (1 Kin. xv. 28, 33), and "there was war between Asa and Baasha all their days" (ib. ver. 32). If, however, we allow some latitude to the language both of 1 Kin. and of Chron., the discrepancy becomes unimportant.

3. he took away] In 1 Kin. xv. 12, 13 he is said to have put away the sodomites, and all the idols that his fathers had made; and also "the abominable image" which Maacah, his mother, had made. These remarks are here ignored by the Chronicler, probably because they would be out of harmony with the comparatively pious character he has ascribed to Asa's predecessors, Rehoboam and Abijah. They are given, however, in xv. 16, 17, where see note.

the strange altars] i.e. altars belonging to gods other than Jehovah.

and the high places] a direct contradiction of 1 Kin. xv. 14, where it is said "But the high places were not taken away: nevertheless the heart of Asa was perfect with the all his days." This remarkable contrast affords a vivid illustration of the different standpoints of Kings and Chron. In Kings the removal of the high-places is the great reform of later days effected by Hezekiah (2 Kin. xviii. 4, 22), by Josiah (2 Kin. xxiii. 8). To the Chronicler, who believed that the law centralising the worship of Jehovah in Jerusalem was in force from the Mosaic age, the abolition of the high-places was felt to be a minimum