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Commentaries and Other Bible Study Helps - Prayer Tents - Prayer Tents
15:1-24 Abijam and Asa. The authors continue to tell about the kings of Judah before returning to pick up the threads of the history of Israel with Nadab, son of Jeroboam. Abijam (vv. 1-8) is a characteristically bad Judean king, indulging in the idolatry of Solomon in his later days and of Rehoboam; Asa (vv. 9-24) is a characteristically good Judean king, behaving relatively faithfully like David and the earlier Solomon. These two set the pattern for all the Judean kings who follow, who are measured in terms of whether they have been "like David" or not.
15:2-3 If Abishalom (v. 2) is the same as David's son Absalom, one should remember that the Hebrew terms daughter and father (as well as "mother," v. 10) do not necessarily refer to first-generation descent, and can mean "granddaughter" and "forefather" (and "grandmother").
15:5 David was basically committed to God, although even he had sinned in the matter of Uriah the Hittite (with Uriah's wife, Bathsheba, 1 Samuel 11).
15:6-7 there was war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam . . . between Abijam and Jeroboam. This puzzling juxtaposition is presumably designed to emphasize the continuity between the two wars; the feud between the houses of Rehoboam and Jeroboam that began with the events of ch. 12 is still rumbling on. On the Chronicles of the Kings, see note on 14:19.
15:10-11 Asa reigned forty-one years, from On the generations depicted by mother, daughter, and father, see note on vv. 2-3.
15:13 The queen mother played an important role within the family politics of the court, as an adviser of the king and as teacher of the royal children. abominable image for Asherah. This is another object associated with the worship of the goddess Asherah to go alongside the Asherim mentioned in 14:15, 23. On the brook Kidron, see note on 2 Chron. 15:16.
15:14-15 the high places were not taken away. By removing the high places Asa could have focused his reforms upon worship in Jerusalem, but otherwise he was commended for his religious policy; he was faithful enough to bring into the house of the Lord the sacred gifts of his father and his own sacred gifts. When 2 Chron. 14:3 says that Asa removed the high places, this should be taken as meaning some but not all of them (cf. 2 Chron. 15:17).
15:17 Baasha king of Israel. Asa's reign in Judah was a long one, and he saw five Israelite kings rise and fall before the infamous Ahab began his rule (16:29). Baasha is the second of these (15:33-16:7), and he finds Asa's military position so precarious that he is able to push into Benjamin and fortify (build up) Ramah, only a few miles north of Jerusalem.
15:18-19 Asa took all the silver and the gold. Asa was forced to send a substantial bribe to Damascus to try to buy a new friend, reviving the treaty between his father Abijah and the previous Syrian king Tabrimmon (cf. note on 2 Chron. 16:2-5). A marker dedicated to the god Baal Melqart has been found at Aleppo in northern Syria. It bears an Aramaic inscription that mentions Barhada, son of Tabrimmon, son of Hezion.
