2 Chronicles 16:11-14 - Homilies By T. Whitelaw

The career of Asa.

I. HIS LIFE .

1 . The length of his reign. Forty-one years. His father, whose " heart was not perfect" towards God ( 1 Kings 15:3 ), reigned only three years ( 2 Chronicles 13:3 ). The Old Testament promised long life as a reward to piety ( Psalms 34:12-14 ). But, even without a special promise, a religious life is calculated to prolong days. "Fear God, and keep his commandments," is the first rule of health.

2 . The incidents of his reign.

3 . The character of his reign.

II. HIS DEATH .

1 . The date of it. In the forty-first year of his reign; most likely he was over sixty at the time of his decease.

2 . The cause of it. Twofold.

III. HIS BURIAL .

1 . The place of his sepulture. The city of David, where his fathers slept ( 1 Kings 15:24 ), yet not in the general tomb of the kings, but in " his own sepulchres;" in a tomb he had specially caused to be excavated for himself (verse 14). Joseph of Arimathaea hewed out a tomb for himself ( Luke 23:53 ). The first thing a Pharaoh of Egypt did on ascending the throne was to construct for himself and descendants a royal mausoleum.

2. The manner of his entombment.

IV. HIS CHARACTER .

1 . A good man . His heart was perfect ( 2 Chronicles 15:7 ; 1 Kings 15:14 ), if his life was not ( 2 Chronicles 16:10 ). The general tenor of his conduct was upright, though he erred somewhat towards the close of his career. "It was thought a high eulogy on Jehoshaphat his son that he walked in all the way of his father" (Rawlinson); while the honours paid Asa on dying showed that his countrymen esteemed him to have been an honourable prince. His "faults and follies" may suggest that no man is perfect, and that "in many things we all offend."

2 . An ardent reformer. He removed the altars and the high places of the strange gods or foreign divinities ( 2 Chronicles 14:3 ), though he left standing those belonging to Jehovah ( 2 Chronicles 15:17 ; 1 Kings 15:14 ). He "commanded Judah to seek the Lord God of their fathers" ( 2 Chronicles 14:4 ), and bound mere by a solemn league and covenant so to do ( 2 Chronicles 15:14 ), though he himself, in old age, declined a little from his early faith ( 2 Chronicles 16:2 , 2 Chronicles 16:12 ).

3 . A valiant soldier . That with his piety he combined courage, his encounter with Zerah the Ethiopian evinced. If he was genuinely good, he was also conspicuously great.—W.