2 Chronicles 16King James Version
In his last years, Asa loses heart. He makes a treaty with the Syrians against Israel instead of trusting God. A seer rebukes him and Asa puts the seer in prison. He becomes diseased in his feet and seeks the physicians rather than the Lord. He dies and is buried with great honors.
In the thirty-sixth year of Asa's reign, Baasha of Israel fortifies Ramah to blockade Judah. Asa uses the temple treasury to hire Ben-hadad of Syria to attack Israel, which works. The seer Hanani rebukes Asa: because you relied on the king of Syria instead of God, you have lost a victory you could have had. Asa is furious and imprisons the prophet. Asa later develops a severe foot disease but consults physicians instead of God, and dies. The evaluation is mixed.
A king who began by trusting God utterly ends by imprisoning prophets and consulting doctors instead of God, showing that faithfulness is not a permanent state but a daily choice.
9: "For the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to shew himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him. Herein thou hast done foolishly: therefore from henceforth thou shalt have wars." The prophet names both the divine posture and the specific cost of the deviation.
Asa's reign spans 910 to 869 BC. The thirty-sixth year brings a late chapter reversal that the Chronicler records without softening. The physician detail at the end is the last data point in the narrative: even in physical suffering, Asa does not turn back. The foot disease and the imprisoned prophet are his legacy, alongside the real reforms that preceded them.
Asa in decline, now angry and closed to correction; Hanani the seer, who delivers unwelcome truth and pays for it; Ben-hadad of Syria, bought with temple silver.
Asa's decline is one of the Chronicler's most important case studies. A man who stood before a million-man army and declared total reliance on God ends his life consulting physicians and imprisoning the voice of God. The Chronicler does not spare him. The tragedy is in the contrast: how far a good start can slide without the daily practice of what made the beginning good.
For when you recognize that you have stopped doing the thing that used to define you and started using the strategies everyone else uses. Asa does not call it compromise. He probably calls it pragmatism. Hanani calls it foolishness.
1In the six and thirtieth year of the reign of Asa Baasha king of Israel came up against Judah, and built Ramah, to the intent that he might let none go out or come in to Asa king of Judah.
2Then Asa brought out silver and gold out of the treasures of the house of the LORD and of the king's house, and sent to Benhadad king of Syria, that dwelt at Damascus, saying,
3There is a league between me and thee, as there was between my father and thy father: behold, I have sent thee silver and gold; go, break thy league with Baasha king of Israel, that he may depart from me.
4And Benhadad hearkened unto king Asa, and sent the captains of his armies against the cities of Israel; and they smote Ijon, and Dan, and Abelmaim, and all the store cities of Naphtali.
5And it came to pass, when Baasha heard it, that he left off building of Ramah, and let his work cease.
6Then Asa the king took all Judah; and they carried away the stones of Ramah, and the timber thereof, wherewith Baasha was building; and he built therewith Geba and Mizpah.
7And at that time Hanani the seer came to Asa king of Judah, and said unto him, Because thou hast relied on the king of Syria, and not relied on the LORD thy God, therefore is the host of the king of Syria escaped out of thine hand.
8Were not the Ethiopians and the Lubims a huge host, with very many chariots and horsemen? yet, because thou didst rely on the LORD, he delivered them into thine hand.
9For the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to shew himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him. Herein thou hast done foolishly: therefore from henceforth thou shalt have wars.
10Then Asa was wroth with the seer, and put him in a prison house; for he was in a rage with him because of this thing. And Asa oppressed some of the people the same time.
11And, behold, the acts of Asa, first and last, lo, they are written in the book of the kings of Judah and Israel.
12And Asa in the thirty and ninth year of his reign was diseased in his feet, until his disease was exceeding great: yet in his disease he sought not to the LORD, but to the physicians.
13And Asa slept with his fathers, and died in the one and fortieth year of his reign.
14And they buried him in his own sepulchres, which he had made for himself in the city of David, and laid him in the bed which was filled with sweet odours and divers kinds of spices prepared by the apothecaries' art: and they made a very great burning for him.