Asa’s last years
16
📚📚In the thirty-sixth year of the reign of Asa, Baasha king of Israel came up against Judah, and built Ramah, to prevent anyone going out or coming in to Asa king of Judah.2 📚Then Asa brought silver and gold out of the treasuries of the house of the LORD and the king’s house, and sent it to Ben-Hadad king of Syria, who lived at Damascus, saying, 3 📚“There is a treaty between me and you, as there was between my father and your father. See, I have sent you silver and gold. Go, break your treaty with Baasha king of Israel, so that he will depart from me”.
4 📚And Ben-Hadad listened to King Asa, and sent the commanders of his armies against the cities of Israel, and they attacked Ijon, and Dan, and Abel-Maim 📖, and all the store cities of Naphtali. 5 And it came about, when Baasha heard it, that he stopped the building of Ramah, and let his work cease. 6 📚Then Asa the king took along all Judah, and they carried away the stones of Ramah and its timber which Baasha was using in building, and with them he built Geba and Mizpah.
7 📚And at that time Hanani the seer came to Asa king of Judah, and said to him, “Because you have relied on the king of Syria, and not relied on the LORD your God, the army of the king of Syria has escaped from your hands. 8 📚Were not the Ethiopians and the Lubim a huge army, with very many chariots and horsemen? Yet, because you relied on the LORD, he delivered them into your hands.
16:7-8 Asa had every reason to trust in the Lord (v 8), but he now put more confidence in human means than in God. The result was his spiritual downfall. In his death he was honored for his faithfulness (v 14), but he had to pay for his unfaithfulness. It comes naturally to all men to trust in what they can see rather than in the unseen God. Let us rather follow the example of Paul in 2 Cor 4:18.⚜
9 📚For the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show himself strong on behalf of those whose heart is perfect toward him. You have acted foolishly in this; therefore from now on you will have wars”.
10 📚Then Asa was angry 📖 with the seer, and put him in a prison; for he was enraged at him because of this thing. And at that same time Asa oppressed some of the people.
11 📚And, see, the acts of Asa, first and last, lo, they are written in the book of The Kings of Judah and Israel. 12 📚And in the thirty-ninth year of his reign Asa became diseased in his feet. Though his disease was very severe, yet in his disease he did not seek the LORD, but the physicians 📖. 13 📚And Asa slept 📖 with his ancestors, dying in the forty-first year of his reign. 14 📚And they buried him in his own tomb, which he had made for himself in the city of David, and laid him on the couch which was filled with perfumes and various kinds of spices prepared by the perfumer’s art; and they made a very great fire 📖 for him.