The Pulpit Commentary — 2 Chronicles — Section 166

were captured, his military power wa.e broken, 2. In his home with bereavement. The 1mdden death of his child Abijah wa.s a sore stroke, to which wa.e added a sorer in the cur~e that none other of the house of Jeroboam should come to hie grave in peace (1 Kinge xiv. 12, 13). 3. In himself with diaease. To this the language of ver. 20 ia believed by some to point (Clarke, Jamieson). V. A VICTm OF ALL-DEVOURING DEATH. Jeroboam succumbed to the fatal malady two years after the death of Abijah, and in the twenty-second year of his reign. Ha expired at Tirza.h, and was buried with his fathers. • Soeptre and crown mtllt tumble down, And in the du■t be equal made With the poor crooked ao:,the and spade.'' w. EXPOSITION. between Abijab and the then King of Syria.: CHAPTER XIV. " There is a lea.gne between me o.nd thee, Thts ohapter commenoes .Ase.'s long reign and between my father and thy father." of forty-one years. .Asa was son of Abije.h And these things, with Israel's new kings, and perhapa Asa's extreme youth, would and grandson of Me.ache.h (eh. xv. 16; have favoured the repose of the land. 1 Kings xv. 15). The reign was remarkable Ver. 2.-That which we.s good and right. for the devotion of Asa to the true God, Our Authorized Version does not omit to .-nd for the signal successes given to him in mark the first three words with italic type, consequence, but it did not reach its end the simple and emphatic original being, the good and the straigl1t. without 11 mournful defection on Asa's part Ver. 3.-The altars of the strange '(gods); from trust in God (eh. xvi. 2-4, 12), which Hebrew, the altars of the stranger, meaning, entailed its reward (eh. xvi 9), and which of course, " the alte.rs of the gods of the has left tarnished for all ages a fame that stranger." This expression, " stre.nge gods," would otherwise have been fairest among all is found in the Authorized Version about thirteen times for the Hebrew i;.l, or ~i!JJ, the kings of Judah. The disjointed and and would be most correctly rendered, '' The grudging pe.rallel to the forty-eight verses gods [or,' god'] of the stranger," i.e. of the of this and the following two chapters re- forei.gner, as it is rendered in the solitary Bpecting Asa, in Chronicles, is comprised instance of Deut. xxxi. 16. The high within the sixteen verses only of 1 Kings plaoBB. Comp. ver. 5 aud eh. xv. 17, which xv. 8-24. says, "But the high places were not taken away out of Israel;" and 1. Kings xv. H, Ver. 1.-Buried . . . in the city of David which says, "But the high places were not (see our note, eh. xii. 16). A.Be. hil 1ou. If, removed," without limiting this non-removal e.coording to the suggestion of our not.e, eh. to "of Israel." On the question of this x. 8 e.nd xii. 13, the alleged forty-one yee.rs apparent inconsist.enoy and surface-contra- of the o.ge of Rehoboam be me.de twenty- diction, see our Introduction, § 7, pp. xvi. 1 one, it will follow that .Asa could not now and xvii. 2. Further, it may here be well be more than a boy of some twelve years of distinctly to note how little is even the age. It is against that suggestion that apparent discrepancy or contradiction there is no sign of this, by word or deed, in alleged in this subject, throwing in the what is here said of the beginning of Asa.'s analogollB passages in Jehoshaphat's history reign ; the signs a.re to the contrary, espe- ( eh. xvii. 6 ; xx. 33), in case these may cially taking into the question the indications reflect any light on the question. Firstly, we given us reapecting the tendencies, if not will remove out of our way the parallel in coutradicted, of the queen-mother Maache.h 1 Kings xv. 14, with the observation that it (eh. xv. 16; l Kings xv. 13), and ii is not i8 evident from its immediate context that supposable the.t e boy of twelve years of ago it correspond& with the last statement of our could contradict them. This point must be Chronicles (eh. xv. 17), savollring of 11, retro- held still moot. In hil da)'II . . • quiet ten •pectiTJe summarizing of the comfiler, not 7ea.n. No doubt one cauae of this was the de- with the flrat statements (eh, xiv. 3, 5), feat that Jeroboe.m and Iarael had sustained which set forth A.sa'a prospective purpose of at the hand& of Abijah ( eh. xiii. J 8-20). heart, hi■ resolution, and, no doubt, hie It o.ppt,W'S alao, from I Kings xv. 19, that edicta. Secondly, we may notice that there &ftl:r tuo.t defeat a league wu i.nltitutod ill a plain-enough distinction made by the on. xiv. 1-15.J THE B:ECOND BOOK OF TH:E CRRONICLES. 167