Arzan, an Armenian writer (died A.D. 459), who translated into the lan3uag3 of his country the works of Athanasius.— Hoefer, Biog. Gen. iii, 409.
A'sa (Heb. Asa' ', NOX, healing, or physician), the name of two men.
1. (Sept. Ao-o, Josephus, "Aaavog.) The son of Abi- jah, grandson of Rehoboam, and third king of the sep- arate kingdom of Judah (1 Kings xv ; 2 Chron. xiv- xvi ; Matt, i, 7, 8). He began to reign two years be- fore the death of Jeroboam, in Israel, and he reigned forty-one years (B.C. 953-912). As Asa was very young at his accession, the affairs of the government were administered by his mother, or, according to some (comp. 1 Kings xv, 1, 10), his grandmother Maachah, who is understood to have been a granddaughter of Absalom. See Maachah. But the young king, on assuming the reins of government, was conspicuous for his earnestness in supporting the worship of God, and rooting out idolatry with its attendant immorali- ties, and for the vigor and wisdom with which he pro- vided for the prosperity of his kingdom. In his zeal against heathenism he did not spare his grandmother Maachah, who occupied the special dignity of " King's Mother," to which great importance was attached in the Jewish court, as afterward in Persia, and to which parallels have been found in modern Eastern countries, as in the position of the Sultana Valide inTurkev (see 1 KingaHi, 19; 2 Kings xxiv, 12; Jer. xxix, 2~; also Calmet, Fragm. xvi; and Bruce' s Travels, ii, 537, and iv, 244). Site had Bet up some impure worship in a grove (the word translated "idol," 1 Kings xv, 13, is "tV??"2* a, fright or horrible image, while in the Vulg. we read ne e$iet [Jlfaacha] princeps in sun-is Priap'i); but Asa burnt the symbol of her religion, and threw fa :i-li.< into the brook Kidron, as Moses had done to the golden calf (Exod. xxxii, 20), and then deposed Maachah from her dignity, lie also placed in the Temple certain Lifts which his father had dedicated, probably in the earlier and better period of his reign [see AnuAii], and which the heathen priests must
have used for their own worship, and renewed the preat altar which they apparently had desecrated (2 Chron. xv, 8) during his minority and under the preceding reigns, and only the altars in the "high-places" were suffered to remain (1 Kings xv, 11-13; 2 Chron. xiv, 2-5). He neglected no human means of putting his kingdom in the best possible military condition, for which ample opportunity was afforded by the peace which he enjoyed for ten years (B.C. 938-928) in the middle of his reign. His resources were so well or- ganized, and the population had so increased, that he fortified cities on his frontiers, and raised an army amounting, according to 2 Chron. xiv, 8, to 580,000
j men ; but the uncertainty attaching to the numbers in our present text of Chronicles has been pointed out by Kennicott and by Davidson {Introduction to the 0. T. p. G86), who consider that the copyists were led into error by the different modes of marking them, and by confounding the different letters which denoted them, bearing as they do a great resemblance to each other. See Number. Thus Asa's reign marks the return of Judah to a consciousness of the high destiny to which God had called her, and to the belief that the Divine power was truly at work within her. The pood effects of this were visible in the 13th year of his reign, when, relying upon the Divine aid, Asa attacked and defeat- ed the numerous host of the Cushite king Zerah (q. v.), who had penetrated through Arabia Petrjea into the vale of Zephathah with an immense host, reckoned at a million of men (which Josephus reduces, however, to 90,000 infantry and 100,000 cavalry, Ant. viii, 12, 1) and 300 chariots (2 Chron. xiv, 9-15). As the tri- umphant Judahites were returning, laden with spoil, to Jerusalem, they were met by the prophet Azariah, who declared this splendid victory to be a consequence of Asa's confidence in Jehovah, and exhorted him to perseverance. Thus encouraged, the king exerted
i himself during the ten ensuing years of tranquillity to extirpate the remains of idolatry, and caused the peo- ple to renew their covenant with Jehovah (2 Chron. xv, 1-15). It was this clear knowledge of his depend- ent political position, as the vicegerent of Jehovah, which won for Asa the highest praise that could be given to a Jewish king — that he walked in the steps of his ancestor David (1 Kings xv, 11). Nevertheless, toward the latter end of his reian (the numbers in 2 Chron. xv, 19, and xvi, 1, should be 25th and 26th) the king failed to maintain the character he had thus acquired. When Baasha, king of Israel, had renew- ed the war between the two kingdoms, and had taken Ramah, which he was proceeding to" fortify as a fron- tier barrier, Asa, the conqueror of Zerah, was so far wanting to his kingdom and his God as to emploj^ the wealth of the Ter.ple and of the royal treasury to in- duce the King of Syria (Damascus) to make a diversion in his favor by invading the dominions of Paasha (see Kitto's Daily Bible Must, in loc). By this means he recovered Ramah, indeed ; but his treasures were squandered, and he incurred the rebuke of the prophet Hanani, whom he cast into prison, being, as it seems, both alarmed and enraged at the effect his address was calculated to produce upon the people. Other persons (who had probably manifested their disapprobation) also suffered from his anger (1 Kings xv, 16 22; 2 Chron. xvi, 1-10). The prophet threatened Asa with war, which appears to have been fulfilled hy the con- tinuance for some time of that with Baasha, as we in- fer from an allusion, in 2 Chron. xvii, 2, to the cities of Ephraim which he took, and which can hardly re- fer to any events prior to the destruction of Ramah. In the last three years of his life Asa was afflicted with a grievous "disease in his feet," probably the gout [see Disease] ; and it is mentioned to his reproach that he placed too much confidence in his physicians (q. v.), i. e. he acted in an arrogant and independent spirit, and without seeking God's blessing on their remedies. At his death, however, it appeared that