2 Chronicles 15

Notes on the verses

Chap. XV. Ver. 1—19. Azariah the prophet is sent to admonish Asa king of Judah.—Of “Azariah the son of Oded,” we have no farther account; but it appears he had a divine commission to meet Asa on his return from war and victory, and to exhort him and all the people to repentance and a complete reform; this he enforces from a consideration of the wretched and perturbed condition of the sister kingdom of Arabia which lay contiguous to Canaan and Egypt. The same correction of the English version requires to be made in several other places. See the note on (Numbers 12:1). a…. z Chap., XV. Ver. 8. Prophecy of Oded.—This is evidently either an ellipsis or an error of the transcriber. We should read, “of Azariah, the son of Oded the prophet.”

thereof by Hanani, he putteth him in prison. 11 Among his other acts, in his disease he seeketh not to God, but to the physicians. 13 His death and burial. Vhs * the six and thirtieth year of the reign of Asa, Baasha king of Israel came up against | ¢ 7,35 Judah, and built Ramah, to the intent » that he of the king’s house, and sent to Ben-hadad king | 22 iio. of Syria, that dwelt at ° Damascus, saying, the cities of Israel; and they smote Ijon, and Israel, through their ignorance and apostacy; and of the readiness of the God of Israel, in all cases, to receive and to assist a repentant and returning people, of which they had so recently an instance, in their deliverance from their Ethiopian Asa, in sequence, collects together all Judah and Benjamin, with a multitude from other tribes, who had been induced to come to Judah from a conviction that God was with them, and from a desire to worship him according to his own laws.

So they were gathered together in the 15th year of Asa, probably at the feast of Pentecost, to make a covenant with a solemn oath, and to oblige all to adhere thereto, under the penalty of death. This may seem to some a measure of intolerance and severity; but several things must be here remarked: 1. That God was the supreme Ruler in all Israel, and the worship of idols was an overt act of treason. 2. That the people had not only covenanted with the Lord to be their God, but had sworn to it with a hearty and voluntary oath: so that, after this, every idolater was a rebel, and guilty of perjury.