THE KINGS OF ISRAEL AND JUDAH. George Rawlinson

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ population, so far as the circumstances permitted, firmly to his own community and his own religion. He therefore proclaimed a feast for the third month of his fifteenth year, directly after Zerah had retired, and offered from the spoil which he had captured an immense sacrifice—no fewer than seven hundred oxen and seven thousand sheep—hecatombs on hecatombs—at the same time calling upon the nation, and the newly joined foreigners, to renew the covenant with Jehovah, and bind themselves by a vow, whereof the infraction should be punishable by death (ver. 13), “to seek the Lord God of their fathers with all their heart and with all their soul,” and to be faithful henceforth under all circumstances to the true religion. Enthusiasm was deeply stirred. “They sware unto the Lord (Jehovah) with a loud voice, and with shouting, and with trumpets, and with cornets; and all Judah rejoiced at the oath; for they had sworn with all their heart, and sought him with their whole desire” (vers. 14, 15).

The emigration of his subjects into Judæa was highly displeasing to the reigning Israelite monarch, Baasha.13 Border warfare had continued to prevail between the rival kingdoms from the time of his accession (1 Kings xv. 16); but hitherto no important expedition had been undertaken by either country against the other since the days of Abijah (2 Chron. xiii. 3-20). Now, however, Baasha thought it necessary to assume a more aggressive attitude. Provoked by the continual movement of his people across the frontier, he determined to erect a great fortress upon his southern border, which should command the entrance into Judæa, and effectually put a stop to the emigration that was in progress. Having collected an army, he marched southward, recovered his own cities of Bethel, Jeshanah, and Ephraim,14 and invading Judæa, seized on the important positionof Ramah (Er-Ram), on the high ground half-way between Bethel and Jerusalem, and proceeded to fortify it (1 Kings xv. 17; 2 Chron. xvi. 1). The action was not purely defensive. It effected the lodgment of a hostile force in Judæa itself; it was a menace to Jerusalem. Asa would seem to have fully appreciated the gravity of the danger. He saw that the enemy must be dislodged, and that speedily, but distrusted his own ability, if he were unaided, to dislodge him from the strong position. He therefore called in to his assistance the Syrian king, Benhadad, of Damascus, the most powerful monarch in the region between Egypt and the Euphrates, purchasing his friendship by the gift of such treasures as had accumulated in the Temple since it was stripped to gratify the greed of Sheshonk (1 Kings XV. 18; 2 Chron. xvi. 2). Benhadad, whose interest it was to trim the balance between Israel and Judah, and to prevent either kingdom from becoming too powerful, readily responded to the appeal, and, invading the Israelite kingdom with a large force, subdued the whole of the northern extremity of the dominions of Baasha, on both sides of the sources of the Jordan (1 Kings xv. 20). It was understood that his invasion was made for the benefit of Asa, and Baasha found it necessary to desist from his Judæan enterprise, and withdraw his troops within his own frontier, in order to content the Syrian king; who thereupon retired from the territory of Israel and gave Baasha no more trouble (ibid. ver. 21; 2 Chron. xvi. 5). Asa, finding that Baasha’s troops were withdrawn, “raised a levy of the whole nation for the destruction of the works” which Baasha had commenced, and, occupying Ramah, tore down the constructions of his adversary, and “employed the stores of stone and timber which thus fell into his hands in fortifying the two adjacent cities of Geba and Mizpah against a repetition of the inroads of the king of the Ten Tribes. He further took the opportunity to provide Mizpah with a plentiful supply of water in case of a siege; and it was at this time that the great well was constructed in it, which gained such a melancholy celebrity in the days of Jeremiah” (Jer. xii. 7-9).15

On his return from this triumphant progress, which probably seemed to him almost as glorious as the Ethiopic war, Asa was confronted by a second prophet, one “Jehu, the son of Hanani,” who rebuked him for his want of faith in calling Benhadad to his aid, instead of simply trusting in the Lord, and told him that “he had done foolishly” (2 Chron. xvi. 9). It is not surprising that the king was enraged at the prophet’s boldness. Rebuke is always an offence to the great ones of the earth, and especially when it is thought to be unprovoked and undeserved. Asa, no doubt, was pluming himself on his own wisdom and discretion. He had gained his end without it costing him a single drop of Jewish blood. At a small expenditure of gold and silver he had got his adversary chastised by a neighbouring monarch, and had then recovered his territory without needing to strike a blow. What a triumph of kingcraft and statesman like sagacity over the clumsiness of brute force! What a gain to have not only foiled, but despoiled, his adversary, to have turned the very stones and timber of the intended Israelite advanced post into additional strength for Jewish defences! But from the prophetical standpoint the whole aspect of the affair was different. Asa, Jehu considered, had shown distrust of God. He had put himself under obligations to a heathen king. He had given the sanction of his example to the practice of calling in foreigners to decide the internal quarrels of God’s people. He had thus acted both wickedly and foolishly. But the king did not see things in this light. He thought the prophet had been guilty of great presumption in condemning a policy which had been justified by its success. He was angry because the rebuke was delivered openly, and because it caused a certain amount of dissatisfaction with his conduct among the people (2 Chron. xvii. 10). He therefore had Jehu arrested and thrown into prison. From the time of the establishment of the monarchy there had frequently been a certain degree of friction and struggle between the royal and the prophetical authority,16 but never as yet had a king ventured on visiting a prophet with punishment.17 It is a considerable blot on Asa’s character, that he set the example of a persecution which ultimately proceeded to the extremest lengths, and which, more than anything else, brought down the vengeance of God upon His chosen people.18

      It was, no doubt, in connection with the prophet’s rebuke, and the dissatisfaction which it occasioned, that Asa, about this same time “oppressed some of the people” (2 Chron. xvii. 10). How far his severities extended we are not told; but it cannot be denied, that towards the close of his reign this generally pious prince tarnished, to some extent, the excellent character he had previously acquired, by acts indicative of a weakening of faith, and a failure of self-control. “To his own master each man must stand or fall” (Rom. xiv. 4); and God doubtless balanced Asa’s long years of piety and faithfulness against his weaknesses and shortcomings towards the close of his life. His countrymen showed towards him a fair and equitable spirit. The general character which he left behind him among his contemporaries was that of a brave, warlike, and pious prince, one who “did right in the eyes of the Lord, as did David his father” (1 Kings XV. 11), and whose “heart was perfect all his days” (2 Chron. xv. 17). His faults and “follies” were condoned in consideration of his earnest desire to do God’s will, and his persistence in the championship of true religion. It was thought a high eulogy on Jehoshaphat, his son, to say that “he walked in all the way of Asa his father; he turned not aside from it, doing that which was right in the sight of the Lord” (1 Kings xxii. 43), and it was deemed right to bury the good king with great solemnity, and with every circumstance of honour, in the tomb which he had prepared for himself in the city of David (2 Chron. xvi. 14), adjacent to the sepulchres of his fathers (1 Kings xv. 24).

      Asa was for some time before his death “diseased in his feet.” The author of Chronicles makes it a reproach to him, that in his sickness “he sought not to the Lord, but to the physicians” (2 Chron. xvi. 12). We may conclude from this, that he placed an undue reliance on the aid to be obtained from man, and did not address his prayers for recovery with sufficient fervour to the heavenly throne; but moderns will scarcely blame him greatly for his recourse to ordinary human means of cure in preference to means involving something like the expectation of a miracle.

      Asa “died in the one and fortieth year of his reign” (3 Chron. xvi. 13), at about the age of sixty.

1 Those of Azariah, or Uzziah (52 years), and of Manassah СКАЧАТЬ