151 And in the eighteenth year of king Jeroboam the son of Nebat began Abijam to reign over Judah. 2 He reigned three years in Jerusalem; and his mother's name was Maachah, a daughter of Abishalom. 3 And he walked in all the sins of his father, which he had done before him; and his heart was not perfect with Jehovah his God, as the heart of David his father. 4 But for David's sake Jehovah his God gave him a lamp in Jerusalem, setting up his son after him, and establishing Jerusalem; 5 because David did that which was right in the sight of Jehovah, and turned not aside from anything that he commanded him all the days of his life, except in the matter of Urijah the Hittite. 6 And there had been war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam all the days of his life. 7 And the rest of the acts of Abijam, and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah? And there was war between Abijam and Jeroboam. 8 And Abijam slept with his fathers; and they buried him in the city of David. And Asa his son reigned in his stead.
9 And in the twentieth year of Jeroboam king of Israel, Asa began to reign over Judah; 10 and he reigned forty-one years in Jerusalem; and his mother's name was Maachah, daughter of Abishalom. 11 And Asa did what was right in the sight of Jehovah, as David his father. 12 And he put away the sodomites out of the land, and removed all the idols that his father had made. 13 And also Maachah his mother he removed from being queen, because she had made an idol for the Asherah; and Asa cut down her idol, and burned it in the valley of Kidron. 14 But the high places were not removed; only, Asa's heart was perfect with Jehovah all his days. 15 And he brought into the house of Jehovah the things which his father had dedicated, and the things which he himself had dedicated, silver and gold and vessels.
16 And there was war between Asa and Baasha king of Israel all their days. 17 And Baasha king of Israel came up against Judah, and built Ramah, in order to let none go out or come in to Asa king of Judah. 18 And Asa took all the silver and the gold that were left in the treasures of the house of Jehovah, and in the treasures of the king's house, and gave them into the hand of his servants; and king Asa sent them to Ben-Hadad, the son of Tabrimmon, the son of Hezion, king of Syria, who dwelt at Damascus, saying, 19 There is a league between me and thee, [as] between my father and thy father; behold, I send thee a present of silver and gold: go, break thy league with Baasha king of Israel, that he may depart from me. 20 And Ben-Hadad hearkened to king Asa, and sent the captains of his forces against the cities of Israel, and smote Ijon, and Dan, and Abel-Beth-Maachah, and all Kinneroth, with all the land of Naphtali. 21 And it came to pass when Baasha heard of it, that he left off building Ramah, and dwelt in Tirzah. 22 And king Asa called together all Judah: none was exempted; and they carried away the stones and the timber from Ramah, with which Baasha had been building; and king Asa built with them Geba of Benjamin, and Mizpah. 23 And the rest of all the acts of Asa, and all his might, and all that he did, and the cities that he built, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah? Only, in the time of his old age he was diseased in his feet. 24 And Asa slept with his fathers, and was buried with his fathers in the city of David his father. And Jehoshaphat his son reigned in his stead.
131 In the eighteenth year of king Jeroboam began Abijah to reign over Judah. 2 He reigned three years in Jerusalem; and his mother's name was Michaiah, the daughter of Uriel of Gibeah. And there was war between Abijah and Jeroboam. 3 And Abijah began the war with an army of men of war, four hundred thousand chosen men; and Jeroboam set the battle in array against him with eight hundred thousand chosen men, mighty men of valour. 4 And Abijah stood up on the top of mount Zemaraim, which is in mount Ephraim, and said, Hear me, Jeroboam, and all Israel! 5 Ought ye not to know that Jehovah the God of Israel gave the kingdom over Israel to David for ever, to him and to his sons [by] a covenant of salt? 6 But Jeroboam the son of Nebat, the servant of Solomon the son of David, rose up and rebelled against his lord. 7 And vain men, sons of Belial, gathered to him and strengthened themselves against Rehoboam the son of Solomon, and Rehoboam was young and faint-hearted, and did not shew himself strong against them. 8 And now ye think to shew yourselves strong against the kingdom of Jehovah in the hand of the sons of David; and ye are a great multitude, and ye have with you the golden calves that Jeroboam made you for gods. 9 Have ye not cast out the priests of Jehovah, the sons of Aaron, and the Levites, and made you priests as the peoples of the lands? whoever comes to consecrate himself with a young bullock and seven rams, he becomes a priest of what is not God. 10 But as for us, Jehovah is our God, and we have not forsaken him; and the priests that serve Jehovah are the sons of Aaron, and the Levites are at their work: 11 and they burn to Jehovah every morning and every evening burnt-offerings and sweet incense; the loaves also are set in order upon the pure table; and the candlestick of gold with its lamps to burn every evening: for we keep the charge of Jehovah our God; but ye have forsaken him. 12 And behold, we have God with us at our head, and his priests, and the loud-sounding trumpets to sound an alarm against you. Children of Israel, do not fight with Jehovah the God of your fathers; for ye shall not prosper.
13 But Jeroboam caused an ambush to come about behind them; and they were before Judah, and the ambush behind them. 14 And Judah looked back, and behold, they had the battle in front and behind; and they cried to Jehovah, and the priests sounded with the trumpets. 15 And the men of Judah gave a shout; and as the men of Judah shouted, it came to pass that God smote Jeroboam and all Israel before Abijah and Judah. 16 And the children of Israel fled before Judah; and God delivered them into their hand. 17 And Abijah and his people slew them with a great slaughter; and there fell down slain of Israel five hundred thousand chosen men. 18 And the children of Israel were humbled at that time, and the children of Judah were strengthened, because they relied upon Jehovah the God of their fathers. 19 And Abijah pursued after Jeroboam, and took cities from him: Bethel with its dependent villages, and Jeshanah with its dependent villages, and Ephron with its dependent villages. 20 And Jeroboam did not recover strength again in the days of Abijah; and Jehovah smote him, and he died. 21 But Abijah strengthened himself, and took fourteen wives, and begot twenty-two sons and sixteen daughters. 22 And the rest of the acts of Abijah, and his ways and his sayings, are written in the treatise of the prophet Iddo.
141 And 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. 2 And Asa did what was good and right in the sight of Jehovah his God; 3 and he took away the altars of the strange [gods] and the high places, and broke the columns, and cut down the Asherahs; 4 and commanded Judah to seek Jehovah the God of their fathers, and to practise the law and the commandment. 5 And he removed out of all the cities of Judah the high places and the sun-images; and the kingdom was quiet before him. 6 And he built fortified cities in Judah, for the land had rest, and he had no war in those years; because Jehovah had given him rest. 7 And he said to Judah, Let us build these cities, and surround them with walls and towers, gates and bars, while the land is yet before us; for we have sought Jehovah our God; we have sought him, and he has given us rest on every side. And they built and prospered. 8 And Asa had an army that bore targets and spears: out of Judah three hundred thousand; and out of Benjamin, that bore shields and drew the bow, two hundred and eighty thousand: all these, mighty men of valour.
9 And Zerah the Ethiopian came out against him with a host of a thousand thousand, and three hundred chariots, and he came to Mareshah. 10 And Asa went out against him, and they set the battle in array in the valley of Zephathah near Mareshah. 11 And Asa cried unto Jehovah his God, and said, Jehovah, it maketh no difference to thee to help, whether there be much or no power: help us, O Jehovah our God, for we rely on thee, and in thy name have we come against this multitude. Jehovah, thou art our God; let not man prevail against thee. 12 And Jehovah smote the Ethiopians before Asa and before Judah; and the Ethiopians fled. 13 And Asa and the people that were with him pursued them to Gerar; and the Ethiopians were overthrown, that none of them was left alive; for they were crushed before Jehovah and before his army. And they carried away very much spoil. 14 And they smote all the cities round about Gerar, for the terror of Jehovah came upon them; and they spoiled all the cities, for there was very much spoil in them. 15 They smote also the tents of cattle, and carried away sheep and camels in abundance, and returned to Jerusalem.
151 And the Spirit of God came upon Azariah the son of Oded. 2 And he went out to meet Asa, and said to him, Hear ye me, Asa, and all Judah and Benjamin: Jehovah is with you while ye are with him; and if ye seek him he will be found of you, but if ye forsake him he will forsake you. 3 Now for a long while Israel [was] without the true God, and without a teaching priest, and without law; 4 but in their trouble they turned to Jehovah the God of Israel, and sought him, and he was found of them. 5 And in those times there [was] no peace to him that went out nor to him that came in, but great disturbances were amongst all the inhabitants of the countries. 6 And nation was broken against nation, and city against city; for God disturbed them with all manner of distress. 7 But as for you, be firm and let not your hands be weak; for there is a reward for your deeds.
8 And when Asa heard these words and the prophecy of Oded the prophet, he took courage, and put away the abominations out of all the land of Judah and Benjamin, and out of the cities that he had taken from mount Ephraim, and renewed the altar of Jehovah, that was before the porch of Jehovah. 9 And he assembled all Judah and Benjamin, and the strangers with them out of Ephraim and Manasseh, and out of Simeon; for they fell away to him out of Israel in abundance, when they saw that Jehovah his God was with him. 10 And they assembled themselves at Jerusalem in the third month of the fifteenth year of the reign of Asa. 11 And they sacrificed to Jehovah in that day, of the spoil that they had brought, seven hundred oxen and seven thousand sheep. 12 And they entered into a covenant to seek Jehovah the God of their fathers, with all their heart, and with all their soul, 13 and that whoever would not seek Jehovah the God of Israel should be put to death, whether small or great, whether man or woman. 14 And they swore to Jehovah with a loud voice, and with shouting, and with trumpets, and with cornets. 15 And all Judah rejoiced at the oath; for they took the oath with all their heart, and sought him with their whole desire; and he was found of them. And Jehovah gave them rest round about. 16 And also Maachah, the mother of Asa the king, he removed from being queen, because she had made an idol for the Asherah; and Asa cut down her idol, and stamped it, and burned it in the valley Kidron. 17 But the high places were not removed from Israel; only, Asa's heart was perfect all his days. 18 And he brought into the house of God the things which his father had dedicated, and the things which he himself had dedicated, silver, and gold, and vessels. 19 And there was no war until the thirty-fifth year of the reign of Asa.
161 In the thirty-sixth year of the reign of Asa, Baasha king of Israel came up against Judah, and built Ramah, in order to let none go out or come in to Asa king of Judah. 2 And Asa brought out silver and gold out of the treasures of the house of Jehovah and of the king's house, and sent to Ben-hadad king of Syria, who dwelt at Damascus, saying, 3 There is a league between me and thee, and between my father and thy father: behold, I send thee silver and gold; go, break thy league with Baasha king of Israel, that he may depart from me. 4 And Ben-hadad hearkened to king Asa, and sent the captains of his forces against the cities of Israel; and they smote Ijon and Dan and Abelmaim, and all the store-magazines of the cities of Naphtali. 5 And it came to pass when Baasha heard of it, that he left off building Ramah, and let his work cease. 6 And king Asa took all Judah; and they carried away the stones and the timber from Ramah, with which Baasha had been building, and he built with them Geba and Mizpah.
7 And at that time Hanani the seer came to Asa king of Judah, and said unto him, Because thou hast relied on the king of Syria, and hast not relied on Jehovah thy God, therefore has the army of the king of Syria escaped out of thy hand. 8 Were not the Ethiopians and the Libyans a huge army, with very many chariots and horsemen? but when thou didst rely on Jehovah, he delivered them into thy hand. 9 For the eyes of Jehovah run to and fro through the whole earth, to shew himself strong in the behalf of those whose heart is perfect toward him. Herein thou hast done foolishly; for from henceforth thou shalt have wars. 10 And Asa was wroth with the seer, and put him in the prison; for he was enraged with him because of this. And Asa oppressed some of the people at the same time. 11 And behold the acts of Asa, first and last, behold, they are written in the book of the kings of Judah and Israel. 12 And Asa in the thirty-ninth year of his reign was diseased in his feet, until his disease was extremely great; yet in his disease he did not seek Jehovah, but the physicians. 13 And Asa slept with his fathers, and died in the one-and-fortieth year of his reign. 14 And they buried him in his own sepulchre, which he had excavated for himself in the city of David, and laid him in a bed filled with spices, a mixture of divers kinds prepared by the perfumer's art; and they made a very great burning for him.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on 1 Kings 15:1-24
Commentary on 1 Kings 15:1-8
(Read 1 Kings 15:1-8)
Abijam's heart was not perfect with the Lord his God; he wanted sincerity; he began well, but he fell off, and walked in all the sins of his father, following his bad example, though he had seen the bad consequences of it. David's family was continued as a lamp in Jerusalem, to maintain the true worship of God there, when the light of Divine truth was extinguished in all other places. The Lord has still taken care of his cause, while those who ought to have been serviceable thereto have lived and perished in their sins. The Son of David will still continue a light to his church, to establish it in truth and righteousness to the end of time. There are two kinds of fulfilling the law, one legal, the other by the gospel. Legal is, when men do all things required in the law, and that by themselves. None ever thus fulfilled the law but Christ, and Adam before his fall. The gospel manner of fulfilling the law is, to believe in Christ who fulfilled the law for us, and to endeavour in the whole man to obey God in all his precepts. And this is accepted of God, as to all those that are in Christ. Thus David and others are said to fulfil the law.
Commentary on 1 Kings 15:9-24
(Read 1 Kings 15:9-24)
Asa did what was right in the eyes of the Lord. That is right indeed which is so in God's eyes. Asa's times were times of reformation. He removed that which was evil; there reformation begins, and a great deal he found to do. When Asa found idolatry in the court, he rooted it out thence. Reformation must begin at home. Asa honours and respects his mother; he loves her well, but he loves God better. Those that have power are happy when thus they have hearts to use it well. We must not only cease to do evil, but learn to do well; not only cast away the idols of our iniquity, but dedicate ourselves and our all to God's honour and glory. Asa was cordially devoted to the service of God, his sins not arising from presumption. But his league with Benhadad arose from unbelief. Even true believers find it hard, in times of urgent danger, to trust in the Lord with all their heart. Unbelief makes way for carnal policy, and thus for one sin after another. Unbelief has often led Christians to call in the help of the Lord's enemies in their contests with their brethren; and some who once shone brightly, have thus been covered with a dark cloud towards the end of their days.