The Alliance, and the Disease in His Feet
1 In the thirty-sixth year of Asa’s reign, Baasha king of Israel went up against Judah, and built Ramah, that he might not allow anyone to go out or come in to Asa king of Judah. 2 Then Asa brought out silver and gold out of the treasures of Yahweh’s house and of the king’s house, and sent to Ben Hadad king of Syria, who lived at Damascus, saying, 3 “Let there be a treaty between me and you, as there was between my father and your father. Behold, I have sent you silver and gold. Go, break your treaty with Baasha king of Israel, that he may depart from me.” 4 Ben Hadad listened to King Asa, and sent the captains of his armies against the cities of Israel; and they struck Ijon, Dan, Abel Maim, and all the storage cities of Naphtali. 5 When Baasha heard of it, he stopped building Ramah, and let his work cease. 6 Then Asa the king took all Judah, and they carried away the stones and timber of Ramah, with which Baasha had built; and he built Geba and Mizpah with them. 7 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 have not relied on Yahweh your God, therefore the army of the king of Syria has escaped out of your hand. 8 Weren’t the Ethiopians and the Lubim a huge army, with chariots and exceedingly many horsemen? Yet, because you relied on Yahweh, he delivered them into your hand. 9 For Yahweh’s eyes run back and forth throughout the whole earth, to show himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him. You have done foolishly in this; for from now on you will have wars.” 10 Then Asa was angry with the seer, and put him in the prison; for he was in a rage with him because of this thing. Asa oppressed some of the people at the same time. 11 Behold, the acts of Asa, first and last, behold, they are written in the book of the kings of Judah and Israel. 12 In the thirty-ninth year of his reign, Asa was diseased in his feet. His disease was exceedingly great; yet in his disease he didn’t seek Yahweh, but just the physicians. 13 Asa slept with his fathers, and died in the forty-first year of his reign. 14 They buried him in his own tomb, which he had dug out for himself in David’s city, and laid him in the bed which was filled with sweet odors and various kinds of spices prepared by the perfumers’ art; and they made a very great fire for him.
A king who had faced a million men buys off a lesser threat, and the reproof is not about the tactic but about where he looked.
The threat is real but modest. Baasha fortifies a town on the border to cut the road 2 Chronicles 16:1. It is a blockade, not an invasion, and Asa solves it efficiently.
He takes silver and gold out of both treasuries — the temple's and his own — and buys a foreign king out of an existing treaty 2 Chronicles 16:2–3. It works exactly as intended. The Syrians raid the north, Baasha abandons the project, and Asa carts away the stones and timber to fortify two towns of his own 2 Chronicles 16:6.
By any ordinary measure the policy is a success. Nobody in Judah died, the blockade is gone, and the building materials were free.
The seer's reproof therefore falls somewhere unexpected. Because you have relied on the king of Syria, and have not relied on Yahweh your God, therefore the army of the king of Syria has escaped out of your hand 2 Chronicles 16:7.
The charge is not that the alliance failed. It is that it succeeded and thereby cost him something larger. And the argument put to him is from his own history: an army of a million had been delivered into his hand because you relied on Yahweh 2 Chronicles 16:8. He is reproached by comparison with himself.
The general statement that follows is the widest sentence in the book. Yahweh's eyes run back and forth throughout the whole earth, to show himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him 2 Chronicles 16:9.
God is described as looking for people to support. The initiative is his and the search is continuous and worldwide; what it is looking for is not competence or strength but a whole heart. On that account Asa's error is not a miscalculation. He was already being sought out, and he spent the temple treasury to hire somebody else.
His reaction is recorded without softening. He was in a rage, put the seer in prison, and oppressed some of the people at the same time 2 Chronicles 16:10. The man whose heart had been called perfect a chapter earlier jails a prophet and turns on his subjects.
The last note is a small one and it is devastating. Diseased in his feet in his thirty-ninth year, in his disease he didn't seek Yahweh, but just the physicians 2 Chronicles 16:12.
The fault is not consulting doctors. It is the word just. The verb the book has used for the whole reign — sought, sought, sought — appears one final time in the negative, and the pattern set in the alliance holds to the end: real help was available and he applied to it last, or not at all.
settled What this mark means