Bible Study - 2 Chronicles 16:1-3

The Reign of Asa and the 36th Year Problem

You go. Second Chronicle 16. In the 36th year of the reign of Asa, Baasha king of Israel went up against Judah and built Ramah that he might permit no one to go out or come in to Asa king of Judah. Then Asa took silver and gold from the treasuries of the house of the Lord and the king's house and sent them to Ben Hadad king of Syria who lived in Damascus saying there is a covenant between me and you as there was between my father and your father.

Behold I am sending to you silver and gold. Go break your covenant with Baasha king of Israel that he may withdraw from me. And Ben Hadad listened to King Asa and sent the commanders of his armies against the cities of Israel and they conquered Ijon, Dan, Abel Mayim and all the store cities of Naphtali.

And when Baasha heard of it he stopped building Ramah and let his work cease. Then King Asa took all Judah and they carried away the stones of Ramah and its timber with which Baasha had been building and with him he built Geba and Mizpah.

Amen. So we have read about Asa how he has fought against the Ethiopians and then was confronted by Azariah and then Azariah told him that if he continues to seek the Lord the Lord will be with him. If he fails to seek the Lord then the Lord will forsake him.

So Asa has committed himself to seeking the Lord all the people with Asa and so God bless them with many years of peace until until the 36th year of the reign of Asa which as we were worried is not exactly what it appears to be from the beginning.

So when is Nadab's reign relative to Asa? If you look in first Kings chapter 15 and let me go ahead and bring up that passage as well as my my diff here. First Kings 15 25. All right and remember if you go to svrbc .org slash chronicles it has a comparison between chronicles and then the Kings passages that the chronicler bases his text on.

So that is helpful in studying all these things. So let's see. So if we look at verse 25 it says Nadab the son of Jeroboam began to reign over Israel in the second year of Asa king of Judah and he reigned over Israel two years.

He did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and walked in the way of his father and in his sin which he made Israel to sin. So Nadab's reign is from the second to the third year of Asa's reign and so he removes him because he had perpetuated the idolatry of Jeroboam.

So how does Baasha rise to the throne? Baasha rise to the throne by killing him at Gibbathon during battle and he had sided with the Philistines for the purpose of political gain. Also note what's going on here.

As far as the larger nation of Israel goes there was Saul and then after Saul there was David. From then on the kings of Judah are all the sons of David and Judah remains on the throne with small exceptions of Ahab's line intruding for a short while but then the resumption of the the king of Judah the son of David sitting on the throne and that is a constant thing.

With the northern kingdom of Israel it swaps out every so often. It's not just oh it's Jeroboam and then the children of Jeroboam. It swaps out with entirely different people. We have after Nadab we have Baasha who's of the tribe of So he's not even of Ephraim like Jeroboam had been.

So we're switching whole tribes that are leading the people of Israel and then later Baasha will be his line will be upended etc. So what's going on in the northern kingdom is a pretty big lack of stability.

How does this event relate to the preceding context in 2nd Chronicles? Well previously in 2nd Chronicles there has been no peace for Asa and or excuse me there has been only peace for Asa and so here we have we have finally war for him.

Yeah the Lord has honored his zeal and so he has not had any war and now he has he has some war. How does that compare to 1st Kings? So if you remember 1st Kings does not emphasize as much God's blessing on Asa with peace and so it says this a little bit differently.

It says let's see what is this passage here this was 1st Kings 1532 that says and there was war between Asa and Baasha king of Israel all their days. We looked at that last time right that is that is how it was stated but then we have here that he is from the previous verse that Asa didn't have war until the 35th year of or he had peace all the way through the 35th year of his reign.

So Kings is not as interested in emphasizing the peace so he talks about the internal conflict. Chronicles more interested in showing the peace so speaking probably about there being no war outside with outside forces and just with Israel he just speaks of this as peace.

Okay does that distinction make sense right? There's war with Israel versus war with other nations and Chronicles is probably emphasizing that there just was not war with other nations and now talks about the war that happened with Baasha.

All right when does Baasha's reign begin relative to Asa? Okay so Baasha's reign begins in the third year of Asa's reign and ends in the 26th year of Asa's reign according to 1st Kings 16. Now how does that fit if it says in the 36th year of the reign of Asa Baasha king of Israel went up against Judah.

So listen to what listen to that to Baasha's reign again. So Baasha reigns from the third year to the 26th year of Asa but then it says if it's in the 36th year that he goes to war. If all these numbers mean the same thing this is long after he's done reigning.

The 36th year here certainly refers to how much time the nation has been around as a distinct nation. So yeah you've had Rehoboam and you've had Bajah etc you've had these different kings and so it's just marking how much time has happened since basically the nation has existed as a distinct nation.

So this numbering emphasizes the blessing Asa enjoyed so long as he was faithful. So it's a larger number and I believe that the Chronicler is appealing to a larger number once again in order to emphasize God's blessing on him but it's a large number that goes back before his reign all the way to Rehoboam.

And then it groups him with his fathers and yeah it groups him with his fathers as well. So it shows that unity. All right let me just read my notes. Recall that the Chronicler's agenda is to plot and interpret the trajectory of Judah so by working with numbers dating back to the origin of civil war he lets us know that this is a significant inflection point.

Ramah in Benjamin and the Meaning of Defection

All right for verse 1 excuse me verse 1b and built Rama that he might not suffer anyone to go out or come in to Asa king of Judah. All right what is the geographic significance of Rama? We have this parallel text here so let me pull up Judges 18.

Judges 18 21 to 28 says so they turned and departed putting the little ones in the livestock and the goods in front of them. When they had gone a distance from the house of Micah the men who were in the houses near Micah's house were called out and they overtook the people of Dan and they shouted to the people of Dan who turned around and said to Micah what is the matter with you that you come with such a company?

Then he said you take my gods that I have made and the priest and go away and what have I left? How then do you ask me what is the matter with you? And the people of Dan said to him do not let your voice be heard among us lest angry fellows fall upon you and you lose your life with the lives of your household.

Then the people of Dan went their way and when Micah saw that they were too strong for him he went and turned back to his home. But the people of Dan took what Micah had made and the priest who belonged to him and they came to Laish with the people quiet and unsuspecting and struck them with the edge of the sword and burned the city with fire.

And there was no deliverer because it was far from Sidon and they had no dealings with anyone. It was in the valley that belonged to Beth Rehob. Then they rebuilt the city and lived in it. Okay. Man. Yeah, probably not.

I do remember this being related in some way because it's the continuation of Micah the priest that we looked at in the previous chapter when we were going through when Azariah mentioned in times previous when people did what was right in their own eyes.

He didn't use that phrase but he was talking about the time of the judges. And this is supposed to be related in some way. Oh man. But yeah, I'm not gonna be able to figure it out right now. Yeah. This is something where I've been able to do a lot more editing lately and I'll be able to figure this out the second I get home I bet.

But okay. Yeah. I don't know what the point of that was. All right. So Rama is in the land of Benjamin. All right. Benjamin is part of the southern kingdom. Baasha is making an intrusion into near Jerusalem.

So this is five miles north of Jerusalem and he wants to keep people from going to Asa because the suggestion is that they're defecting. Right. He built Rama that he might not suffer anyone to go out or come in to Asa king of Judah.

All right. So it sounds like people are defecting from the northern kingdom to the southern kingdom. It shows you how prosperous he's been. And yeah, it's very much like with David and Saul. You remember Saul kept losing men to David.

This is sort of a similar thing. Yeah. Not sure. You know what? This was, I think this was supposed to be Joshua. That was, that was the issue. It was supposed to be Joshua, not judges. And Joshua, it describes all the different cities of Benjamin and includes Rama there in that passage.

So sorry about that. Yeah. I know there have been a few of those lately. Sorry. Make you do all that extra reading. Okay. So yeah, the point, the point of the reading was to let you know that Rama is in Benjamin and remember Benjamin has defected to Judah and, and making an intrusion into Benjamin to set up that city.

He's keeping people from further people from defecting. All right. Verse two, then Asa brought out silver and gold out of the treasuries of the house of Jehovah and of the king's house and sent word to Ben-Hadad king of Syria that dwelt at Damascus saying, all right.

Asa's Bribe to Ben-Hadad and the Shame of Trusting in Human Alliances

So why does Asa bring out silver and gold? So he's going to bribe the king of Syria. What is the significance of this coming from the house of the Lord in the king's house? Well, he is, is basically degrading the quality of the kingdom, both the palace, the line that he's come from.

And then also the house of God. It's something that you see frequently that in order to supply people with things, they have to cannibalize the house of God or the palace of the king. And both of those are shameful.

They're divine treason in a sense. Okay. First Kings adds details to highlight the offense. So if I can pull this up here, first of all, it says he, he doesn't just bring the silver and gold, but he takes all that is left.

And then first Kings also speaks of the treasuries of the king's house. First Kings also had another way of speaking about this. Let me see. Okay. Let me read you these two passages. Okay. Then Asa brought out silver and gold out of the treasuries of the house of Jehovah and out of the king's house and sent word to Ben-Hadad king of Syria that dwelt at Damascus saying, et cetera.

All right. First Kings 15, 18 says, then Asa took all the silver and all the gold that were left. Okay. So it says took instead of brought, and then all that was left and the treasuries of the house of the Lord and the treasuries of the king's house.

So it adds, it adds treasuries twice, right? And Chronicles drops one of them and delivered them to the hand of his servants. And King Asa sent them to Ben-Hadad, the son of Taberman, the son of Hesiod, king of Syria that dwelt at Damascus saying, so there's also the lineage that's there.

So he's emphasizing, you know, this is a pagan king. This is not just Ben-Hadad. This is the son of Taberman, the son of Hesiod. So several ways that the first Kings is emphasizing the sin and the Chronicler de-emphasizes it somewhat.

There was, there was something else here with the word gift, which I'm not going to find that, but I'm pretty sure that first Kings somewhere uses the word present to describe this too, which is the same word that in Proverbs is used for giving bribes.

The idea being that this is something that corrupts. Okay. Verse 30. Oh, yeah, that was, that's down in verse three. Nevermind. 3a, there is a league between me and you as there was between my father and your father.

The Covenant with Syria and the Temptation to Trust Sinful Means

All right. So the league is the agreement not to plunder each other. These alliances, remember they aren't permitted in Deuteronomy. It's forbidden for them to have an alliance with any of these peoples.

We're not supposed to do that. Okay. How was it, how was it present? Let's see. Man, more, more things that needed lots of editing. Wow. So how was this between their fathers? The idea is being that was established among the previous generation of Kings.

And he mentions us in order to show, you know, there's a reason for trust and loyalty between Syria and Judah as opposed to Israel, right? Israel is a new kingdom and they are the older kingdom. All right.

3b, behold, I've sent you silver and gold. Go break your league with Baasha, King of Israel, that he may depart from me. So right now Syria has a alliance with, with Israel, but he's saying just break off your alliance with Israel and take this money instead.

All right. Yeah. Oh, that's pretty obvious. How will that make Baasha depart? Because that's the, that's the terms of the agreement. They take the money and they stop Israel. So, and they renege on their, their promises.

Yes. Yes. So here they're friends, but I mean, that's, that's kind of a common theme in the Bible too, is that a lot of these nations end up being, you know, allies and then enemies and then allies and enemies, whatever's convenient.

They're fair weather friends. They're, they're not really helping very much like Satan. You know, he offers his assistance, but it never works out. That's how he's always depicted in the movies too. You know, it makes a deal.

You know, there's the, the whole arc where the person learns to play the guitar and you know, he's a rock star and then, then, you know, it all comes crashing down for him and he has to, because he sold his soul to Satan or whatever.

But I mean, it's not, it's not far from the truth in that. Yeah. Satan promises a lot and then ends up delivering only death. Okay. What is a difficulty you faced when you were tempted to trust sinful means?

How can you trust the Lord in such situations? What prevents people from trusting the Lord in such situations? Yeah. So here Asa is, the way that the Chronicler has this presented is that he has been treated well by the Lord for many years.

He has, God has been good to them. He sought the Lord. He's received a lot of blessings and now Baasha comes against him and he does not think that God is going to take care of him. So he goes and pays Syria to back off and not help anymore.

If he had just gone against Syria, he would have won. That's basically the guarantee is that God would have blessed him and he would have been able to defeat Syria along with Israel if they came against him.

If he had just trusted, but he chose to not trust. Yeah. It's a, this is a common thing where Satan's bark is worse than his bite and it just seems like it's best to run and do the fearful thing, but it never is.

If you remember, there's a scene in the old Disney movie Bambi that I think of often where all the quail, are they quail? I don't know what they are, but they're, they're, you know, in the bushes and they're so scared and, you know, they want to fly, but they know that if they fly, they'll get shot.

And if they stay there, they'll be fine. And they decide finally to fly. And so they get shot by the hunter. And if they just stayed, if they had just done nothing, they would have been totally fine. That's often how it is.

If we just trust the Lord, wait on him. Oh, we'll be fine. But you trust sinful means and then you, you end up losing. Is that a question? You have two different kinds of chin scratches. Okay. One's a normal.

Chin scratch. The other's like a, I have a question. I guess, I guess he's sinned on multiple levels because he's not trusting in God. And then, and then not only that, but then like he's using, he's using treachery, greed.

It's like he's using all the wrong methods.

Right. Yeah. I, I wrote down in my notes, something along those lines. I said, Judah sins on both ends. They sin by stealing from the house of the Lord and they sin by turning outside enemies against their brothers.

Like there still is a, a brotherhood that's supposed to be there where they're not supposed to be attacking the Northern kingdom unnecessarily. Okay. Anything else? All right. Let's go ahead and pray.

Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for this day. Thank you for your word. We pray that we would trust in you that we would not turn away from you as Asa did in this time of trial. May we be a people who are resilient and able to withstand even points of crisis in Jesus name.

Amen.