The Pulpit Commentary — 2 Chronicles — Section 199

him (Pa. xxxiii. 17-21). To trust in God and to neglect the various sources of heaHh and, s~rength he offers us-this is a foolish fana~iciam which will bear its penalty in sullenng and weakuesa. To resort to human science and to trust it, forgetful of the truth that we can do nothing at all independently of the Divine power-this is impiety. True godlineas is found in a wise admixture, a true proportion, of dili"ence and devo- tion, of aelf-reliance and &elf-surrender, of accepting the help of man °and looking for the blessing of God. IV, THAT WE SHOULD JUDGE OUR CONTEMPORARIES, NOT BY THE LAST THING THEY DID, BUT BY ALL THAT THEY WERE, His subjects, when he died, did not remember against him the infirmities of his last days; they considered what had been his character and his course all through his long reign, and "they made a very great burning for him" (ver. 14). Here they were right. Whether they be of the livin" or the departed, we should not judge our fellow men by one or two exceptional act~ which may be unlike them and unworthy of them; but by the apirit of their life, by the principles by which they were guided throughout, by the character they built up.-C. Vera. 1-6.-.A king's (Asa's) mistake. I. WHEN IT HAPPENED. "In the six and thirtieth year of the reign of Asa" (ver. 1). 1. An obvious error. Baasha ascended the throne of Israel in Asa's third year (1 Kings xv. 33), and died in his twenty-sixth (1 Kings xvi. 8). Yet it follows not that this blunder was in the original text. Most likely it crept in through transcription. The existence of such mistakes is not fatal to the claim of Scripture to be regarded as inspired. 2. A probable solution. Different explanations have been given. (1) The thirty-six years of ver. 1 should be reckoned from the separation of the kingdoms (Usher, Jamieson); but against this stands the fact that the thirty-six years are stated to have belouged to the reign of Asa, while the assertion that no war occurred in Judah for thirty-five years after its co=ence- mentas a separate kingdom is incorrect (eh. xiii. 2). (2) In eh. xv. 19, instead of "thirty- five" should be read "five," and in eh. xvi. 1, instead of"thirty-six" should be inserted "six" (Vaihinger in Herzog;Thenius, Bahr). Thus the war with Zerah would be later than the attack of Baasha, though reported before it; and the connection of the verses would be, "There was no war unto the fifth year of the reign of Asa; but in the sixth year Baasha ea.me up." This shatters itself upon the two facts that Asa's reign began with ten years of quiet (eh. xiv. 1), and that Zerah'a invasicn must have been before Ba.asha's attack (eh. xvi. 8). 'l'o be sure, as numbers are being altered generally, the "ten" of eh. xiv. 1 might be changed into "five; " but Hanani, in eh. xvi. 8, could hardly speak of the Ethiopian invasion as an historical fact if it had not then taken place. (3) The six and thirtieth year should be the five and twentieth (Adam Clarke). In favour of this may be urged that it is a fair guess. (4) The text should be "in the sixteenth year of the reign of Asa" (Bertheau, Keil, Ewald, Kleinert in Riehm). The chronology of Asa's reign would thus run: (a) Ten years of quiet (eh. xiv. 1), in the third of which Baasba usurps the supreme authority in Israel (1 Kings xv. 33); (b) the invasion of Zerah (eh. xiv. 9) between the tenth and fifteenth years, probably in the fourteenth; (c) the national covenant in the fifteenth year (eh. xv.10); (d) in the sixteenth the threatening advance of Baasha. (eh. xvi. 1). The statement that Judah was exempt from war until the thirty-fifth year of Asa (eh. xv. 19) may be harmonized with that in 1 Kings xv. 16, 32, that" there was war between Asa and Baasha King of Israel all their days," by assuming that there was latent hostility between the two kingdoms from the first, but no outbreak of war until Asa's thirty-fifth year (Keil)-the attack here recorded not having culminated in any collision between the two powers on the field of battle, the work of causing Baasha to withdraw having been entrusted to Br:nhadad. II. How IT WAS OCCASIONED. By Baasha's advance agalnst Judah (ver. 1). 1. The history of Baasha. The sou of Ahijah, of the house of Issachar-not of Ahijah the prophet, who was an Ephraimite of Shiloh (1 Kings xi. 29)-Baasha appears to have been ol'iginally a person of obscure station, though he afterwards rose to be a captain in the army of Nadab, Jeroboam's son, as Zimri subsequently was in that of Elah, Baasha's son (1 Kings xvi. 9). During the siege of Gibbethon be conspired against his master, smote him and usurped his throne. Not content with this, he Pll;t thc_whole ~ouse of Jeroboam to the sword-an act of cruelty which rehounclc:d on himself alld his houso  260 T.l=tE S'ECONb DOOtr. OF THE CBRONICLES. [ott. xvr. 1-14,