Study Desk

King Asa also removed Maacah, his grandmother, from being queen mother because she had made an obscene image of Asherah. Asa chopped down her obscene image, then crushed it and burned it in the Kidron Valley.

The high places were not taken away from Israel; nevertheless, Asa was wholeheartedly devoted his entire life.

He brought his father’s consecrated gifts and his own consecrated gifts into God’s temple: silver, gold, and utensils.

Ben-hadad listened to King Asa and sent the commanders of his armies to the cities of Israel. They attacked Ijon, Dan, Abel-maim, and all the storage cities of Naphtali.

When Baasha heard about it, he quit building Ramah and stopped his work.

Asa was enraged with the seer and put him in prison because of his anger over this. And Asa mistreated some of the people at that time.

In the thirty-ninth year of his reign, Asa developed a disease in his feet, and his disease became increasingly severe. Yet even in his disease he didn’t seek the Lord but only the physicians.

Asa rested with his fathers; he died in the forty-first year of his reign.

He was buried in his own tomb that he had made for himself in the city of David. They laid him out in a coffin that was full of spices and various mixtures of prepared ointments; then they made a great fire in his honor.

His son Jehoshaphat became king in his place and strengthened himself against Israel.

He stationed troops in every fortified city of Judah and set garrisons in the land of Judah and in the cities of Ephraim that his father Asa had captured.

Now the Lord was with Jehoshaphat because he walked in the former ways of his father David. He did not seek the Baals

but sought the God of his father and walked by his commands, not according to the practices of Israel.

So the Lord established the kingdom in his hand. Then all Judah brought him tribute, and he had riches and honor in abundance.

His mind rejoiced in the Lord’s ways, and he again removed the high places and Asherah poles from Judah.

In the third year of his reign, Jehoshaphat sent his officials—Ben-hail, Obadiah, Zechariah, Nethanel, and Micaiah—to teach in the cities of Judah.

Now the king of Israel and King Jehoshaphat of Judah, clothed in royal attire, were each sitting on his own throne. They were sitting on the threshing floor at the entrance to Samaria’s gate, and all the prophets were prophesying in front of them.

Then Micaiah said, “Therefore, hear the word of the Lord. I saw the Lord sitting on his throne, and the whole heavenly army was standing at his right hand and at his left hand.

“So he said, ‘I will go and become a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets.’

Now the king of Aram had ordered his chariot commanders, “Do not fight with anyone at all except the king of Israel.”