역대하 16:11 주석

This chapter concludes the history of the reign of Asa, but does not furnish so pleasing an account of his latter end as we had of his beginning. I. Here is a foolish treaty with Benhadad king of Syria (Ch2 16:1-6). II. The reproof which God sent him for it by a prophet (Ch2 16:7-9). III. Asa's displeasure against the prophet for his faithfulness (Ch2 16:10). IV. The sickness, death, and burial of Asa (Ch2 16:11-14).

INTRODUCTION TO 2 CHRONICLES 16 Baasha coming up against Judah, and building Ramah, Asa made a league with the king of Syria, and hired him to make a diversion in his favour, and cause Baasha to leave off building, which succeeded, Ch2 16:1, for which he was reproved by a prophet of the Lord, with whom he was so angry for it as to put him in prison, and oppress others, Ch2 16:7, and the chapter is closed with an account of his disease and conduct under it, and of his death and burial, Ch2 16:11.

And Asa slept with his fathers, and died in the forty first year of his reign. See Kg1 15:10. 2 Chronicles 16:14

Baasha, king of Israel, begins to build Ramah, to prevent his subjects from having any intercourse with the Jews, Ch2 16:1. Asa hires Ben-hadad, king of Syria, against him; and obliges him to leave off building Ramah, Ch2 16:2-5. Asa and his men carry the stones and timbers of Ramah away, and build therewith Geba and Mizpah, Ch2 16:6. Asa is reproved by Hanani, the seer, for his union with the king of Syria: he is offended with the seer, and puts him in prison, Ch2 16:7-10. Of his acts, Ch2 16:11. He is diseased in his feet, and seeks to physicians and not to God, and dies, Ch2 16:12, Ch2 16:13. His sumptuous funeral, Ch2 16:14.

ASA, BY A LEAGUE WITH THE SYRIANS, DIVERTS BAASHA FROM BUILDING RAMAH. (Ch2 16:1-14) In the six and thirtieth year of the reign of Asa, Baasha . . . came up against Judah--Baasha had died several years before this date (Kg1 15:33), and the best biblical critics are agreed in considering this date to be calculated from the separation of the kingdoms, and coincident with the sixteenth year of Asa's reign. This mode of reckoning was, in all likelihood, generally followed in the book of the kings of Judah and Israel, the public annals of the time (Ch2 16:11), the source from which the inspired historian drew his account. Baasha . . . built Ramah--that is, fortified it. The blessing of God which manifestly rested at this time on the kingdom of Judah, the signal victory of Asa, the freedom and purity of religious worship, and the fame of the late national covenant, were regarded with great interest throughout Israel, and attracted a constantly increasing number of emigrants to Judah. Baasha, alarmed at this movement, determined to stem the tide; and as the high road to and from Jerusalem passed by Ramah, he made that frontier town, about six miles north of Asa's capital, a military station, where the vigilance of his sentinels would effectually prevent all passage across the boundary of the kingdom (see on Kg1 15:16-22; also Jer 41:9).

The end of Asa's reign; cf. Kg1 15:23-24. - On Ch2 16:11, cf. the Introduction. Ch2 16:12-13 In the thirty-ninth year of his reign Asa became diseased in his feet, and that in a high degree. The words חיו עד־למעלה are a circumstantial clause: to a high degree was his sickness. "And also in his sickness (as in the war against Baasha) he sought not Jahve, but turned to the physicians." דּרשׁ is primarily construed with the accus., as usually in connection with יהוה or אלהים, to seek God, to come before Him with prayer and supplication; then with בּ, as usually of an oracle, or seeking help of idols (cf. Sa1 28:7; Kg2 1:2.; Ch1 10:14), and so here of superstitious trust in the physicians. Consequently it is not the mere inquiring of the physicians which is here censured, but only the godless manner in which Asa trusted in the physicians. Ch2 16:14 The Chronicle gives a more exact account of Asa's burial than Kg1 15:24. He was buried in the city of David; not in the general tomb of the kings, however, but in a tomb which he had caused to be prepared for himself in that place. And they laid him upon the bed, which had been filled with spices (בּשׂמים, see Exo 30:23), and those of various kinds, mixed for an anointing mixture, prepared. זנים from זן, kind, species; וּזנים, et varia quidem. מרקּח in Piel only here, properly spiced, from רקח, to spice, usually to compound an unguent of various spices. מרקחת, the compounding of ointment; so also Ch1 9:30, where it is usually translated by unguent. מעשׂה, work, manufacture, is a shortened terminus technicus for רוקח מעשׂה, manufacture of the ointment-compounder (cf. Exo 30:25, Exo 30:35), and the conjecture that רוקח has been dropped out of the text by mistake is unnecessary. "And they kindled for him a great, very great burning," cf. Ch2 21:19 and Jer 34:5, whence we gather that the kindling of a burning, i.e., the burning of odorous spices, was customary at the burials of kings. Here it is only remarked that at Asa's funeral an extraordinary quantity of spices was burnt. A burning of the corpse, or of the bed or clothes of the dead, is not to be thought of here: the Israelites were in the habit of burying their dead, not of burning them. That occurred only in extraordinary circumstances-as, for example, in the case of the bodies of Saul and his sons; see on Sa1 31:12. The kindling and burning of spices at the solemn funerals of persons of princely rank, on the other hand, occurred also among other nations, e.g., among the Romans; cf. Plinii hist. nat. xii. 18, and M. Geier, de luctu Hebr. c. 6.