it was not difficult to foresee that the Syrian king Benhadad would turn the superiority to Israel which he had gained against Judah itself. But in order to estimate rightly Asa's conduct, we must consider that it was perhaps an easier thing, in human estimation, to conquer the innumerable multitudes of the Ethiopian hordes than the united forces of the kings of Israel and Syria; and that, notwithstanding the victory over the Ethiopians, yet Asa's army may have been very considerably weakened by that war. But these circumstances are not sufficient to justify Asa. Since he had so manifestly had the help of the Lord in the war against the Cushites, it was at bottom mainly weakness of faith, or want of full trust in the omnipotence of the Lord, which caused him to seek the help of the enemy of God's people, the king of Syria, instead of that of the Almighty God, and to make flesh his arm; and for this he was justly censured by the prophet.
Verse 11
2Ch 16:11The end of Asa's reign; cf. 1Ki 15:23-24. - On 2Ch 16:11, cf. the Introduction.
Verses 12-13
In the thirty-ninth year of his reign Asa became diseased in his feet, and that in a high degree. The words חיו עד־למעלה are a circumstantial clause: to a high degree was his sickness. “And also in his sickness (as in the war against Baasha) he sought not Jahve, but turned to the physicians.” דּרשׁ is primarily construed with the accus., as usually in connection with יהוה or אלהים, to seek God, to come before Him with prayer and supplication; then with בּ, as usually of an oracle, or seeking help of idols (cf. 1Sa 28:7; 2Ki 1:2.; 1Ch 10:14), and so here of superstitious trust in the physicians. Consequently it is not the mere inquiring of the physicians which is here censured, but only the godless manner in which Asa trusted in the physicians.
Verse 14
The Chronicle gives a more exact account of Asa's burial than 1Ki 15:24. He was buried in the city of David; not in the general tomb of the kings, however, but in a tomb which he had caused to be prepared for himself in that place. And they laid him upon the bed, which had been filled with spices (בּשׂמים, see Exo 30:23), and those of various kinds, mixed for an anointing mixture, prepared. זנים from זן, kind, species; וּזנים, et varia quidem. מרקּח in Piel only here, properly spiced, from רקח, to spice, usually to compound an unguent of various spices. מרקחת, the compounding of ointment; so also 1Ch 9:30, where it is usually translated by unguent. מעשׂה, work, manufacture, is a
