2 Chronicleschapter 16
14 verses · Ezra, by tradition · 450 to 400 BC · History
In the thirty-ninth year of his reign, Asa became diseased in his feet, and his malady became increasingly severe. Yet even in his illness he did not seek the LORD, but only the physicians.
Introduction
Ezra, by tradition, History, 2 Chronicles Overview.
This chapter was written for a province always tempted to buy safety from a stronger neighbour. Tradition gives the book to Ezra. It closes the reign of Asa, whose earlier years the writer praised, and it shows the same king in a different light. Listen for what Asa trusts when a new threat comes. Then hear the seer's rebuke, which holds one of the best known sentences in the Old Testament. Watch what the king does to the messenger and where he turns in his last illness.
Context
- Who
- A province permanently tempted to buy safety from a stronger neighbour
- What
- Asa's treaty with Ben-hadad of Damascus against Baasha, Hanani's rebuke, Asa's anger, his illness and his burial.
- Where
- Ramah, five miles north of Jerusalem, the court at Damascus, and the towns of northern Israel.
- When
- Late in Asa's reign, about 895 to 870 BC.
- Why
- To warn that relying on a foreign power in place of the LORD brings war, and that God strengthens those whose hearts are fully His.
Historical context
Baasha fortifying Ramah is an economic weapon rather than an invasion. Ramah sits on the main ridge road running north and south just above Jerusalem. Fortify it and the highway closes, which stops the traffic, stops the trade, and stops anyone from the north coming down to worship. It was a blockade built in stone.
Show the rest of the historical context, 4 more paragraphs
Asa's answer is to empty the treasuries of the temple and the palace and buy Ben-hadad of Damascus out of his existing treaty with Israel. Paying a great power to open a second front against an enemy was standard regional politics, and it worked. The Arameans raided the northern towns of Ijon, Dan, Abel-maim and the store cities of Naphtali, and Baasha abandoned Ramah. Asa then carried away Ramah's own stone and timber and used them to build Geba and Mizpah.
Hanani the seer confronts him for it, and Asa puts a prophet in the stocks, a wooden frame that held a man bent and immobile in public view. He oppressed some of the people in the same season.
The burial is described in full. Laid in his own tomb, on a bier filled with spices and blended perfumes, with a great fire made in his honour. That burning was a funeral honour for a king, using large quantities of aromatic material.
The date given for Baasha's move, the thirty-sixth year, creates a real chronological knot, since Baasha was dead by the thirty-sixth year of Asa's own reign. The solution most commonly used reckons these years from the division of the kingdom rather than from Asa's accession, which places the events in the mid 890s and resolves the conflict. Others treat one of the two figures as damaged in copying.
Significance
The seer's line became one of the most quoted sentences in the Old Testament. The eyes of the LORD roam to and fro over all the earth, to show Himself strong on behalf of those whose hearts are fully devoted to Him.
Show the rest of the significance, 1 more paragraph
The chapter's warning fitted their situation exactly. A community with no army is always being offered protection by someone. Asa bought it, won the immediate round, and spent the rest of his life at war.
This chapter in Jewish lifeWhat this chapter is in Jewish life and reading.
What is done
2 Chronicles is not read in the synagogue. Chronicles stands among the Writings in the Hebrew canon rather than among the Prophets the Haftarah is drawn from. The division into two books came in through the Greek. The book therefore carries neither a weekly Torah portion nor a Haftarah, and this site's own reading table records the same for all thirty-six chapters. Asa's treaty with Aram and his last illness are met in the commentary and the midrash instead, and the rest of this card is drawn from them.
How it is read
The verse numbers used below are the ones the corpus prints, and they are the Hebrew ones. They differ from the numbers many English Bibles carry through this stretch of the book.
The seer's rebuke carries the longest note here, and it states the book's own causation without softening it. Rashi asks why Aram escaped, and answers that Asa did not trust God. Had he trusted as he trusted when the Cushites attacked, the allied kings "would not have escaped from your hand, and you would have defeated them all". He adds the second loss, that Asa also lost the money he paid to break the treaty with Baasha (Rashi on II Chronicles 16:7:1, the Judaica Press Tanach with Rashi, CC-BY). The classical reading of this chapter therefore takes the reverse inside one reign exactly as the book presents it, a king who sought and then failed to seek.
Three short notes handle words. The name of the city Rashi treats as one name in three spellings across the books. He compares three Hebrew words for a rod to show that such variation is ordinary (Rashi on II Chronicles 16:2:1). The prison he explains as a vaulted building, and gives the Middle High German word for the vaulting (Rashi on II Chronicles 16:10:1). The spread of the king's disease he reads as a swelling moving "from the sole of his foot to the top of his head" (Rashi on II Chronicles 16:12:1).
The burial draws two readings, and both are about what was burnt. The spices were prepared by the perfumer's art (Rashi on II Chronicles 16:14:1). On the first reading the spices were burnt to ashes and the ashes scattered on the king. On the second, which Rashi brings from Avodah Zarah, what was burnt at a king's death was his bier and the vessels he had used (Rashi on II Chronicles 16:14:2). The burning at a royal funeral is read here as an honour paid with property rather than as a rite performed on the body.
Radak, Metzudat David and Malbim comment across this chapter as well, and one further note of Rashi himself is carried without text. The corpus gives the reason in each case, that Sefaria holds no English version of the ref, so they stand here cited and unquoted. Malbim on II Chronicles 16:2:1, 16:3:1, 16:4:1, 16:5:1, 16:6:1, 16:8:1 and 16:11:1. Metzudat David on II Chronicles 16:1:1, 16:3:1, 16:7:1, 16:8:1, 16:9:1, 16:11:1 and 16:12:1. Radak on II Chronicles 16:1:1 and 16:9:1. Rashi on II Chronicles 16:4:1 and 16:10:2.
What the rabbis say
The corpus carries fourteen rabbinic locators for this chapter and the text of none. Each is cited and linked here rather than quoted. The eyes of the LORD running to and fro through the earth draw the heaviest run. The ninth verse carries eight. Four are from the Tanchuma. They are Midrash Tanchuma, Nasso 5:1, and Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Beha'alotcha 5:1, Bereshit 35:1 and Nasso 8:1. The others are Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer 4:3, Sanhedrin 38a:18, Shemot Rabbah 36:2 and Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 705:2.
The chronology of the chapter draws the early chronology of the rabbis. The first verse, the coming up of Baasha in the thirty-sixth year, carries Seder Olam Rabbah 16:2. The seventh, the seer's rebuke, carries Seder Olam Rabbah 20:2. The third, the treaty between Asa and Ben Hadad, carries Midrash Tanchuma, Metzora 6:1.
The close carries the rest. The twelfth verse, the disease in Asa's feet and his seeking the physicians, carries Introductions to Tanaitic Literature, Introduction to Halakhic Midrashim, Mekhilta of Rabbi Ishmael 60. The fourteenth, the burning at the burial, carries Bava Kamma 16b:19. One further locator stands in the file, Midrash Shmuel 28:6, filed under a verse number beyond the fourteen this chapter holds. What each of them teaches is a saying of the rabbis, and is reported as theirs wherever this site quotes one. The quotations wait on a fetch that carries the text.
Sources: Rashi, Rashi on II Chronicles 16:2:1 to 16:14:2, six kept notes, The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg, CC-BY; Tractate Avodah Zarah, Avodah Zarah 11a on burning for the kings, reported inside Rashi on II Chronicles 16:14:2; Radak, Radak on II Chronicles 16:1:1 and 16:9:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; Metzudat David, Metzudat David on II Chronicles 16:1:1 to 16:12:1, seven refs cited because the corpus carries no English text; Malbim, Malbim on II Chronicles 16:2:1 to 16:11:1, seven refs cited because the corpus carries no English text; The Sefaria corpus, scripts/data/sources/sefaria/2-chronicles/16.json, the 14 Talmud and Midrash locators of this chapter; This site's reading table, src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts, probed in this lane: 2-chronicles parashot total 0, haftarah uses total 0, hasSynagogueReading true for 0 of 36 chapters, festivalReadingForBook null.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
Silver and gold sent to Ben-hadad instead of to God
the thirty-sixth year of Asa’s reign: The date has troubled readers, since Baasha reigned only twenty-four years and by a strict count of Asa's reign was dead before the thirty-sixth year. Commentators generally count the number from the division of the kingdom, which removes the conflict with 1 Kings 15 and 16. Baasha fortifies Ramah.
2 Chronicles 16:1
“In the thirty and sixth year of the reign of Asa Baasha king of Israel came up against Judah,.... How this is to be reconciled with the reign of Baasha, which was but twenty four years, and was begun in the third of Asa, and therefore must have been dead nearly ten years before this year of Asa's reign; see Gill on 1Ki 15:17 where, and in the following verses, are the same things related as here, to the end of the sixth verse; the explanation of which the reader is referred to.”
1 more voice on this verseWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
2 Chronicles 16:1
“The six and thirtieth year - After the division of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah; according to Usher. This opinion is followed in our margin; see the note on 1Ki 15:16, where this subject is farther considered. Concerning Baasha’s building of Ramah, see the note on 1Ki 15:17.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 Chronicles 16:2-4
silver and gold from the treasuries: Asa answers by taking “the silver and gold from the treasuries of the house of the LORD and the royal palace” to buy Ben-hadad. Chronicles has already shown Asa defeating Zerah's far larger army by relying on the LORD, so the reader carries the contrast Hanani will name.
Henry judges both men: Ben-hadad sinned by breaking his treaty with Baasha for a bribe, and Asa sinned by paying him to do it. The public faith of kings and kingdoms, Henry writes, must be held dear. Asa bought a broken promise.
2 Chronicles 16:3
“It was doubtless a sin in Benhadad to break his league with Baasha upon no provocation, but merely through the influence of a bribe; and, if so, certainly it was a sin in Asa to move him to it, especially to hire him to do it. The public faith of kings and kingdoms must not be made so cheap a thing.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Ijon, Dan, Abel-maim: Abel-maim is the city 1 Kings 15:20 calls Abel-beth-maachah. Barnes notes it lay among the cities most exposed to an invader from the north, and Tiglath-pileser took it from Pekah at 2 Kings 15:29. Ben-hadad sent his commanders against the northern cities of Israel.
2 Chronicles 16:4
“Abel-maim - or, “Abel-beth-maachah” 1Ki 15:20. It was one of the towns most exposed to attack when an invader entered Israel from the north, and was taken from Pekah by Tiglath-pileser 2Ki 15:29. Store cities - See 1Ki 9:19 note.”
2 Chronicles 16:5-6
he stopped fortifying Ramah: Baasha abandons Ramah, and Asa strips its stones and timber to build Geba and Mizpah, turning the enemy's own fortress into his own border defenses. The account runs nearly word for word with 1 Kings 15:21-22, and Chronicles adds nothing, saving its comment for the seer who meets Asa next.
the stones of Ramah: Asa turned Baasha's own stone and timber against him, building up Geba and Mizpah. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown explain that Baasha fortified Ramah because Judah's blessing, Asa's victory and the fame of the national covenant drew emigrants south. The fort meant to stop them now built Judah's towns.
2 Chronicles 16:6
“Took all Judah - See on 1Ki 15:22 (note).”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Hanani's rebuke, and a seer put in the prison house
2 Chronicles 16:7-9
relied on the king of Aram: Hanani's rebuke, found only in Chronicles, charges Asa: “you have relied on the king of Aram and not on the LORD your God”. He recalls the far larger army of Cushites and Libyans that Asa defeated by relying on the LORD.
2 Chronicles 16:7
“The rebuke of Hanani and his imprisonment by Asa, omitted by the writer of Kings, are among the most important of the additions to Asa’s history for which we are indebted to the author of Chronicles. 2Ch 16:7 Escaped out of thine hand - Hanani means, “Hadst thou been faithful, and opposed in arms the joint host of Israel and Syria, instead of bribing the Syrian king to desert to thy side, the entire host would have been delivered into thy hand, as was Zerah’s. But now it is escaped from thee.”
2 more voices on this verse
2 Chronicles 16:7
“He thought that, though God was on his side, this would not stand him in stead unless he had Benhadad on his side, that God either could not or would not help him, but he must take this indirect course to help himself. Note, God is much displeased when he is distrusted and when an arm of flesh is relied on more than his power and goodness.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
2 Chronicles 16:7
“Escaped - And so reserved to be a scourge to thy kingdom and posterity: whereas if he had joined with Baasha against thee, thou shouldst have overthrown them both, and prevented all that mischief which that monarch will do to thy family.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
the Cushites and Libyans: The Libyans are the Lubim, a people near Egypt in Africa, and Gill reports an Arabic writer who takes them as the Nubians. The vast army of 14:9, named there only as Cushites, numbered a million men with three hundred chariots. Asa relied on the LORD, and He delivered them.
2 Chronicles 16:8
“Were not the Ethiopians and the Lubim a huge host, with very many chariots and horsemen?.... They were no less than 1,000,000 men, and three hundred chariots, 2Ch 14:9, the Lubim were the Libyans, a people near Egypt, that dwelt in Africa; according to an Arabic writer (l), they were the Nubians: yet, because thou didst rely on the Lord, he delivered them into thine hand; and with equal ease could and would have delivered the Syrian army unto him, had he as then trusted in the Lord. (l) Abulpharag. Hist. Dynast. dyn. 3. p. 57.”
the eyes of the LORD: Henry reads the eyes of the LORD as providence, never at a loss, governing the world for the good of His people. He shows Himself strong for hearts fully devoted to Him. Asa relied on the king of Aram, and Henry calls it foolish to lean on a broken reed.
2 Chronicles 16:9
“Providence runs to and fro, is never out of the way, never to seek, never at a loss. (2.) That God governs the world for the good of his people, does all in pursuance of the counsels of his love concerning their salvation, all for Jacob his servant's sake, and Israel his elect, Isa. xlv. Christ is head over all things to his church, Eph. i.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
he put the man in prison: Asa is enraged at the seer and puts him in prison, the first recorded imprisonment of a prophet in Scripture. He oppresses some of the people, and Jamieson, Fausset and Brown note that no cause is given, only that it came “at the same time”. Chronicles names both acts.
2 Chronicles 16:10
“Asa was wroth with the seer - Instead of humbling himself, and deprecating the displeasure of the Lord, he persecuted his messenger: and having thus laid his impious hands upon the prophet, he appears to have got his heart hardened through the deceitfulness of sin; and then he began to oppress the people, either by unjust imprisonments, or excessive taxations.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 more voices on this verse
2 Chronicles 16:10
“Is this he whose heart was perfect with the Lord all his days? Well, let him that thinks he stands take heed lest he fall. A wise man, and yet in a rage!”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
2 Chronicles 16:10
“Asa oppressed some of the people the same time--The form or degree of this oppression is not recorded. The cause of his oppressing them was probably due to the same offense as that of Hanani--a strong expression of their dissatisfaction with his conduct in leaguing with Ben-hadad, or it may have been his maltreatment of the Lord's servant.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Diseased in his feet, Asa seeks physicians and dies
the Book of the Kings: The notice that Asa's acts stand written in the book of the kings of Judah and Israel is the Chronicler's own footnote. Several such citations run through Chronicles, evidence that the writer worked from official annals rather than inventing the record he compresses into a few verses.
2 Chronicles 16:11
“How then could this be done in his thirty-sixth year, when Baasha's family was quite cut off, and Omri was upon the throne? It is generally said to be meant of the thirty-sixth year of the kingdom of Asa, namely, that of Judah, beginning from the first of Rehoboam, and so it coincides with the sixteenth of Asa's reign; but then ( ch. xv.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
1 more voice on this verse
2 Chronicles 16:11
“And, behold, the acts of Asa, first and last,.... See Gill on 1Ki 15:23.”
he did not seek the LORD: Asa's disease in his feet grows severe, “Yet even in his illness he did not seek the LORD, but only the physicians”. Spurgeon, preaching on this chapter, sets this end beside Asa's prayer at 14:11 that there is no one besides the LORD to help.
2 Chronicles 16:12
“Diseased in his feet - He had a strong and long fit of the gout; this is most likely. He sought not to the Lord - “He did not seek discipline from the face of the Lord, but from the physicians.” - Targum. Are we not taught by this to make prayer and supplication to the Lord in our afflictions, with the expectation that he will heal us when he finds us duly humbled, i.e., when the end is answered for which he sends the affliction?”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 more voices on this verse
2 Chronicles 16:12
“He had put the prophet in the stocks, and now God put him in the stocks; so his punishment answered his sin. His disease was exceedingly great; it came to the height (so some); it flew up to his head (so others), and then it was mortal. This was his affliction; but his sin was that in his disease, instead of seeking to the Lord for relief, he sought to the physicians.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
2 Chronicles 16:12
“Sought not - He did not humble himself before God, but put his confidence in the skill and faithfulness of his physicians. His making use of physicians was his duty, but his trusting in them, and expecting that from them, which was to be had from God only, was his sin and folly.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
2 Chronicles 16:13-14
died and rested with his fathers: Asa dies “in the forty-first year of his reign”. He is buried in the tomb he cut for himself, with “a great fire in his honor”. Clarke takes the fire as spices and fragrant woods burned with the body, an honor later withheld from Jehoram at 21:19.
2 Chronicles 16:13
“And Asa slept with his fathers, and died in the forty first year of his reign. See 1Ki 15:10.”
a great fire in his honor: Clarke thinks the bier was a funeral pyre, and the body burned with the spices and fragrant woods. Others hold that only the spices were burned in the king's honour, and Clarke compares the rites Virgil describes for Misenus. Asa had cut his own tomb.
2 Chronicles 16:14
“And laid him in the bed - It is very likely that the body of Asa was burnt; that the bed spoken of here was a funeral pyre, on which much spices and odoriferous woods had been placed; and then they set fire to the whole and consumed the body with the aromatics. Some think the body was not burned, but the aromatics only, in honor of the king. How the ancients treated the bodies of the illustrious dead we learn from Virgil, in the funeral rites paid to Misenus.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
2 Chronicles 16:14
“Note, The eminent piety and usefulness of good men ought to be remembered to their praise, though they have had their blemishes. Let their faults be buried in their graves, while their services are remembered over their graves. He that said, There is not a just man that doeth good and sinneth not, yet said also, The memory of the just is blessed; and let it be so.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
How this psalm is built
The form: Regnal narrative closing a reign, built around a prophetic confrontation that stands in this book alone, as Chronicles classes it.
The patterns in this chapter
| Device | What it does | Where to see it |
|---|---|---|
| Relied, and relied not | Hanani's charge turns on one verb used twice. Verse 7 says Asa relied on the king of Aram rather than on the LORD his God. Verse 8 recalls the Cushites and Libyans with their chariots and horsemen, delivered into his hand because he relied on the LORD. The seer measures the king against his own earlier obedience, so the evidence in the case is chapter 14.Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710, on 2 Chronicles 16:7 to 9. | 2 Chronicles 16:7, 2 Chronicles 16:8 |
| The eyes that roam to and fro | Verse 9 gives the seeking refrain its fullest statement in the book and reverses its direction. Through fifteen chapters men have sought God. Here the eyes of the LORD roam over all the earth looking for hearts fully devoted to Him, and the clause that follows turns Asa's peace into war for the rest of his days.Carl Friedrich Keil, The Books of the Chronicles, 1872, on 2 Chronicles 16:9. | 2 Chronicles 16:9 |
| The towns Ben-hadad took, named in order | Verse 4 lists the price of the treaty as Israel paid it: Ijon, Dan, Abel-maim and all the store cities of Naphtali. Paying a great power to open a second front was ordinary regional politics and it worked at once. Baasha abandoned Ramah, and Asa carried its stones and timber away to build Geba and Mizpah.Carl Friedrich Keil, The Books of the Chronicles, 1872, on 2 Chronicles 16:2 to 6. | 2 Chronicles 16:4, 2 Chronicles 16:5, 2 Chronicles 16:6 |
| Sought not the LORD, but the physicians | Verse 12 files the same charge against the king that Hanani brought, in the book's own measuring verb. John Wesley reads the fault as the omission rather than the medicine, since using physicians was Asa's duty and trusting them for what only God supplies was his sin. Charles Spurgeon preached the chapter by name and set this end beside the prayer of 14:11.John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament, 1765, on 2 Chronicles 16:12. | 2 Chronicles 16:12 |
The historical value
13 more paragraphs on the patterns
Ramah sits on the north and south ridge road just above Jerusalem, which is what makes fortifying it a blockade. Close that road and the traffic stops, the trade stops, and nobody from the north comes down to worship.
The towns Ben-hadad struck are named and they trace a line. Ijon, Dan and Abel-maim lie in the far north of Israel, so the raid pulled Baasha's army away from Judah's border by threatening his own.
The prison of verse 10 is more particular than a cell. The Hebrew names a device that held a man bent and immobile in public view, which is why the act reads as humiliation as much as detention.
The burial at verse 14 is described in full because the honour was measurable. A tomb cut for himself in the City of David, a bier full of spices and blended perfumes, and a great fire made for him. Adam Clarke takes the burning as spices and aromatic woods consumed in the king's honour. The same honour is pointedly withheld from Jehoram at 21:19, so the two verses can be read against each other.
The debated concept
The date at verse 1 raises the same question the previous chapter raised at 15:19. Baasha reigned twenty-four years from the division of the kingdom and was dead before the thirty-sixth year of Asa's own reign.
John Gill and Adam Clarke record the reading most commentators follow, that these years are reckoned from the split of the two kingdoms rather than from Asa's coronation. That reckoning removes the conflict with the Baasha of 1 Kings 15 and 16.
Albert Barnes records the other handling, that one of the two figures was damaged in copying, which is the ordinary way a numeral problem is treated. Either reading leaves the same shape, a long peace broken late.
The second question is what verse 12 actually charges. John Wesley reads the fault as the omission rather than the medicine, holding that consulting physicians was the king's duty and trusting them for what only God supplies was his sin. Read that way the verse says nothing against medicine and everything about where a man looks first.
The divine connection
Verse 9 is the sentence the chapter is remembered for and it states the book's theology from God's side. The eyes of the LORD roam over all the earth to show Himself strong on behalf of those whose hearts are fully devoted to Him.
The verse is spoken as a rebuke rather than as a comfort. It is attached to a charge of folly and to a sentence of war, and the man it is spoken to had already seen it proved once at Mareshah.
The chapter states the cost of the treaty in the seer's own terms. Verse 7 says the army of the king of Aram escaped from Asa's hand, so what the silver bought was a battle Judah would otherwise have won.
Keep studying
Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The form and classifications
Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710, on 2 Chronicles 16:13 and 16:14; the compiler of Chronicles, 2 Chronicles 16:7 to 10, which has no parallel in 1 Kings 15:17 to 22 and the site's own guide to this book, src/components/book/guides/2-chronicles/Book2ChroniclesGuide.tsx, the LEDGER table, Asa at 14:1 to 16:14.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); Charles Spurgeon, The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Sermon No. 1152, A Lesson from the Life of King Asa; Jamieson Fausset and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Gill; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament; Keil, The Books of the Chronicles; Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible and W. H. Bennett, The Books of Chronicles (Expositor's Bible).