2 Chronicles 16:7 - Meaning and Application

Here is a plain and faithful rebuke that a prophet of the Lord gave Asa for making this alliance with Baasha. The prophet was Hanani the seer, that is, a man who spoke God’s word, and he was the father of Jehu, another prophet mentioned in (1 Kings 16:1) and (2 Chronicles 19:2). Several things were wrong in Asa’s agreement with Benhadad, but the prophet names the main sin here as Asa’s trust in the king of Syria instead of in the Lord his God (2 Chronicles 16:7).

Asa seems to have thought that, even if God was on his side, that would not be enough unless Benhadad was on his side too. In other words, he acted as if God could not, or would not, help him, so he needed to use a clever human plan to save himself. God is deeply displeased when people distrust him and rely more on human strength than on his power and goodness. Trusting God gives him honor, so he rightly feels insulted when that honor is given to someone else.

The prophet plainly tells Asa that he had acted foolishly (2 Chronicles 16:9). It is foolish to lean on a broken reed when we have the Rock of Ages, a sure and lasting place to depend on. To show Asa his folly, the prophet first reminds him that this went against Asa’s own experience (2 Chronicles 16:8). Asa had every reason to trust God, because God had already helped him powerfully and given him victory over a threatening enemy, just as he had helped his father before him, since both had relied on the Lord their God (2 Chronicles 13:18; 2 Chronicles 14:11).

The prophet’s point is clear: the Ethiopians and the Lubim were a huge army, large enough to overwhelm a kingdom, yet God delivered them because Asa trusted him. If God had been enough then, why doubt him now against Baasha? The many times God has shown us kindness make our distrust of him even worse. He has helped us in six troubles, so why should we suspect him in the seventh?

Our hearts are often strangely mixed. When we have nothing else to depend on, we trust God. But when other supports appear, we lean too much on them and on our own understanding. True faith keeps trusting God alone, even when the world seems friendly and inviting.

The prophet also says Asa acted against what he knew about God and his providence, that is, God’s wise care over the world (2 Chronicles 16:9). Asa should have known that the eyes of the Lord move through the whole earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully his. God rules the world with perfect wisdom, and all creatures and all their actions are always before his eyes. His providence is quick, always moving, always watching, and it reaches everywhere, even the darkest and farthest places.

God’s eye also directs his hand, and his power is never weak or uncertain. Satan may go to and fro in the earth, but God’s providence goes everywhere too, never out of the way and never at a loss. God rules the world for the good of his people and carries out his loving purposes for their salvation. Christ rules over all things for the good of his church (Ephesians 1:22). Those whose hearts are right with God can be sure of his protection and have every reason to depend on it.

The prophet also shows that Asa acted against his own best interest. He had missed a chance to check the rising power of the king of Syria, because Benhadad’s army escaped from Asa’s hand (2 Chronicles 16:7). That army might have joined Baasha’s forces and fallen with them, but Asa let it go. He had also brought God’s displeasure on himself, and from then on he could expect conflict instead of peace, with constant alarms of war (2 Chronicles 16:9). Those who will not trust God lose the shelter of his care and put themselves outside it.

Asa’s response to this rebuke was angry. Even though the warning came from God through a man known to be his messenger, and even though the rebuke was just and meant for Asa’s good, Asa became furious with the seer for telling him the truth (2 Chronicles 16:10). It is sobering to see such a change in Asa, whose heart had once been described as faithful to the Lord. A wise man can still fall into rage, and a good man can still hate correction. When God leaves people to themselves, they become capable of much sin.

Those who praise their own conduct cannot bear disagreement. A quick, bitter temper can drive a person into offenses against God as well as shameful behavior toward people. Asa’s anger showed itself in two ways. First, he put the prophet in prison, treating him like a criminal, even binding him in the stocks or some other painful restraint. God’s prophets often meet people who cannot bear correction, but they must still do their duty.

Second, Asa oppressed some of the people, likely those who supported the prophet or were known to be his friends. The one who abused his authority by attacking God’s prophet then went on to abuse that same authority against his own people. That only weakened his kingdom and hurt his own influence. Persecutors often become tyrants.

Two years before his death, Asa became severely diseased in his feet, suffering badly from gout (2 Chronicles 16:12). He had put the prophet in the stocks, and now God, in effect, put him in the stocks too, so his punishment fit his sin. The disease was very serious and, according to some, it spread upward and became fatal. His great fault was that, instead of seeking the Lord for relief, he looked only to physicians.

Using doctors was not wrong in itself. The sin was trusting them and expecting from them what only God could give. We should always use human help with our eyes fixed on the Creator, depending on him, since he gives all creatures their power and usefulness. Without him, even the most skilled and faithful doctors are of no value. Some think these physicians were foreigners or even sorcerers, to whom Asa turned as if there were no God in Israel.

His death and burial had unusual honor (2 Chronicles 16:14). They gave him a very splendid burial. I am reluctant to think, as some do, that Asa himself ordered such funeral display, as if it were an act of vanity and a desire to be buried like the heathen rather than in the Jewish way.

It is said that Asa dug the tomb for himself, as someone mindful of death. But I am willing to think this funeral honor showed the deep respect his people still had for him, even after the failings and weaknesses of his later years. They agreed to honor him at his death.

The lesson is this: the sincere devotion and useful service of good people should be remembered with praise, even if they had faults. Let their sins be buried with them, while their good deeds are remembered over their graves. The one who said, “There is not a righteous man who does good and never sins,” also said, “The memory of the righteous is a blessing,” and so it should be.