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2 Chronicles 14:1-15

2 Chronicles 14:1-15

The Pulpit Commentary · Joseph S. Exell and contributors · Public Domain

EXPOSITION

This chapter commences Asa's long reign of forty-one years. Asa was son of Abijah and grandson of Maachah (2 Chronicles 15:16; 1 Kings 15:13). The reign was remarkable for the devotion of Asa to the true God, and for the signal successes given to him in consequence, but it did not reach its end without a mournful defection on Asa's part from trust in God (2 Chronicles 16:2-4, 2 Chronicles 16:12), which entailed its reward (2 Chronicles 16:9), and which has left tarnished for all ages a fame that would otherwise have been fairest among all the kings of Judah. The disjointed and grudging parallel to the forty-eight verses of this and the following two chapters respecting Asa, in Chronicles, is comprised within the sixteen verses only of 1 Kings 15:8-24.

2 Chronicles 14:1

Buried … in the city of David (see our note, 2 Chronicles 12:16). Asa his son. If, according to the suggestion of our note, 2 Chronicles 10:8 and 2 Chronicles 12:13, the alleged forty-one years of the age of Rehoboam be made twenty-one, it will follow that Asa could not now be more than a boy of some twelve years of age. It is against that suggestion that there is no sign of this, by word or deed, in what is here said of the beginning of Asa's reign; the signs are to the contrary, especially taking into the question the indications given us respecting the tendencies, if not contradicted, of the queen-mother Maachah (2 Chronicles 15:16; 1 Kings 15:13), and it is not supposable that a boy of twelve years of age could contradict them. This point must be held still moot. In his days … quiet ten years. No doubt one cause of this was the defeat that Jeroboam and Israel had sustained at the hands of Abijah (2 Chronicles 13:18-20). It appears also, from 1 Kings 15:19, that after that defeat a league was instituted between Abijah and the then King of Syria: "There is a league between me and thee, and between my father and thy father." And these things, with Israel's new kings, and perhaps Asa's extreme youth, would have favoured the repose of the land.

2 Chronicles 14:2

That which was good and right. Our Authorized Version does not omit to mark the first three words with italic type, the simple and emphatic original being, the good and the straight.

2 Chronicles 14:3

The altars of the strange (gods); Hebrew, the altars of the stranger, meaning, of course, "the altars of the gods of the stranger." This expression, "strange gods," is found in the Authorized Version about thirteen times for the Hebrew גֵכָר, or הַגֵּכָר, and would be most correctly rendered, "The gods [or, 'god'] of the stranger," i.e. of the foreigner, as it is rendered in the solitary instance of . The high places. Comp. and 2 Chronicles 15:17, which says, "But the high places were not taken away out of Israel;" and 1 Kings 15:14, which says, "But the high places were not removed," without limiting this non-removal to "of Israel." On the question of this apparent inconsistency and surface-contradiction, see our Introduction, §7, pp. 16.1 and 17.2. Further, it may here be well distinctly to note how little is even the apparent discrepancy or contradiction alleged in this subject, throwing in the analogous passages in Jehoshaphat's history (2 Chronicles 17:6; 2 Chronicles 20:33), in case these may reflect any light on the question. Firstly, we will remove out of our way the parallel in 1 Kings 15:14, with the observation that it is evident from its immediate context that it corresponds with the last statement of our Chronicles (2 Chronicles 15:17), savouring of a retrospective summarizing of the compiler, not with the first statements (2 Chronicles 14:3, 2 Chronicles 14:5), which set forth Asa's prospective purpose of heart, his resolution, and, no doubt, his edicts. Secondly, we may notice that there is a plain-enough distinction made by the writer in 1 Kings 15:3 and 1 Kings 15:5 respectively—the one saying that Asa "took away the high places," without any further limitation; the other saying within two verses, "Also out of all the cities of Judah" (note by the way here the suggestive stress laid upon "the cities," possibly as more easily coped with than country districts) "he took away the high places." The only legitimate inference (taking into account both the words used, and the fact that the last written are found close upon the former, with the significant conjunction "also") must be that some different information was intended in the two places. 1 Kings 15:3 finds Asa as much master of "Judah" as 1 Kings 15:5. Therefore the natural interpretation of 1 Kings 15:3 must be that Asa at once abolished "the high places" nearest home, nearest Jerusalem, most within his own personal reach; then "also" that he did and ordered the same to be done in "all the cities of Judah," and it was done at the time, if only for the time. Thirdly, include the statement of 2 Chronicles 15:17, if we do not insist (as we might insist very fairly when pressed on a point of alleged inconsistency or contradiction) on the fact that now the high places "of Israel" arc distinctly designated, and that therein those outlying parts of Asa's more or less acknowledged sway outside of Judah and his thoroughest control are designedly described, let us instead take the help of an exactly analogous (and analogously alleged) discrepancy (2 Chronicles 17:7 compared with 2 Chronicles 20:33), and we find there that the very key with which to unlock the difficulty is provided to our hand. Jehoshaphat (2 Chronicles 17:6) "took away the high places;" "the people" (2 Chronicles 20:33) did not faithfully and with a constant heart follow suit, but had failed to prepare, i.e. to turn "their hearts unto the God of their fathers." How well the juxtaposition of these very words would tell, nay, do tell, with the emphatic words of 1 Kings 15:14! "Nevertheless Asa's heart was perfect with the Lord all his days;" and with our 2 Chronicles 15:17, "Nevertheless the heart of Asa was perfect all his days." In both these passages the antithesis is patent between Asa's heart and the people's hearts, between Asa's "all his days" and the people's uncertainty and apostasy. The fidelity of Bible history and its non-cunningly, non-fabulously devised tenor are gratefully corroborated by the inquisition made into such a supposed "discrepancy,"" inconsistency," "contradiction." Notice once more the confirming indication, so far as it goes, of the one verb that commands the next verse, as there noted upon. Brake down the images; Hebrew, מַחֵּבוֹת. It occurs in the Authorized Version thirty-two times, and is rendered "pillar" or "pillars" twelve times; "image" or "images" nineteen times; and "garrisons" once. It appears simply to have slipped from the signification of pillar into the rendering of the word "image," by aid of the intermediate word "statue." It is used of the pillar or statue of Baal in 2 Kings 3:2; 2 Kings 10:26, 2 Kings 10:27, with his name expressed; and in 2 Chronicles 18:4; 2 Chronicles 23:14, without that name expressed. Cut down the groves; Hebrew, וַיְגַדַּע אֶת־הָאֲשֵׁרִים. The verb here used implies the "cutting," "cutting down," "pruning" of trees. It is undoubtedly applied also to other cutting and cutting down, as of the "breaking" of a red (), of an arm (1 Samuel 2:31), of horns (), of bars or bolts (). It occurs in all twenty-three times. It is here employed to describe the destroying of what according to the Authorized Version arc called "groves"—a word which with little doubt misleads for the rendering of our אֲשֵׁרִים. Before this same word we have also another Hebrew verb for "cutting," of very frequent occurrence in its simple and metaphorically derived uses included, viz. כָּרַת. The first uses of this verb with the above word are found in 6:25, 6:26, 6:30. That word means literally "fortune," but in its ultimate derivation "straightness," and hence supposed to designate, in Phoenician and Aramaean idolatry, Astarte or the planet Venus, who is constantly associated in such idolatry with Baal ( 3:7). But see for the first occurrence of the word, , where there is no express mention of Baal, but where the idolatries of the Amorite, Canaanite, Hittite, Hivite, Perizzite, and Jebusite are being spoken of. When we take into consideration the probable ultimate derivation of the word, the fact of the verbs that speak of "cutting" being uniformly applied to what it represents, the "burning" to which this was condemned ( 6:26) when cut down, and a series of statements that represent it as "set up under every green tree" (1 Kings 14:23; 2 Kings 17:10; see also 1 Kings 15:13; 2 Kings 21:7; 2 Kings 23:6; 2 Chronicles 15:16), it not only becomes perfectly certain that "grove" and "groves" cannot rightly render the word, but directs us with the light of those passages that speak of it coupled with Baal as an object of worship, and that speak of prophet and priest called by its name ( 3:7 (compared with 2:13; 10:6; 1 Samuel 7:4); 1 Kings 18:19; 2 Kings 21:3; 2 Kings 23:4), to the strong conviction that it should be at once written with a capital letter, and rendered as a proper name; that it may possibly be a synonym with Ashtoreth, 1.q. Astarte, or a representation in wooden pillar, stock or trunk fashion, of some supposed aspect of her passion or dominion, very likely in the voluptuous or sensual direction. Conder, in 'Handbook to the Bible,' p. 187, 2nd edit; speaks of "Baal-peor () as identified by St. Jerome with the classical Priapus;" and adds "the Asherah (rendered 'grove' in our version) was also apparently a similar emblem" (2 Kings 23:7). The analogy of the sacred tree of the Assyrians sculptured on the monuments of Nineveh, which was probably a straight trunk or stock garlanded at certain times with ribbons and flowers, has been opportunely pointed to.

2 Chronicles 14:4

And commanded Judah to seek the Lord God of their fathers. What an indication lies couched in this word "commanded" (confirmatory of the spirit of what is said above, in our previous verse-note) of the moral efforts of Asa, and that the efforts on which he may have largely relied for "taking away the high places" were moral efforts, rather than those of physical force.

2 Chronicles 14:5

The images; Hebrew, חַמָּנֹים. The images spoken of here are, of coarse, not the same with those (noted upon already) of 2 Chronicles 14:3. The present khammanim are mentioned seven times beside, viz. Le 26:30; 2 Chronicles 34:4, 2 Chronicles 34:7; ; ; , . Gesenius says Khamman is an epithet of Baal as bearing rule over the sun ( חַמָה, "heat," or "the sun"), in the oft-found compound expression, בַּעַל חַמָּן; he thinks the plural ( חַמָּנִים), invariably found in the Old Testament, is short for בְּעָלִים חַמָּנִים. He does not agree with the translation of Haenaker, "sun-image" by aid of the word פֶסֶל understood, images said to have been of a pyramid form, and placed in the most sacred positions of Baal-temples. This, however, is the rendering adopted by not a few modern commentators (so 2 Chronicles 34:4). Gesenius would render "the Sun-Bard," or "the Sun-Lord," i.e. statues of the sun, representing a deity to whom (see ' Phoen. Inseript.') votive stones,were inscribed. In his 'Thesaurus' Gesenius instances the Phoenician inscriptions, as showing that our chemmanim denoted statues of both Baal, the sun-god, and Astarte, the moon-goddess.

2 Chronicles 14:6

He built fenced cities in Judah. Though it is not said so here, it is very probable that Asa did again the work of Rehoboam (2 Chronicles 11:5-12) which Shishak had done so much to undo (2 Chronicles 12:4, 2 Chronicles 12:5, 2 Chronicles 12:8).

2 Chronicles 14:7

We have sought him, and he hath given us rest. In three successive verses the blessings of peace and quiet, and no war and rest, are recorded (; ).

2 Chronicles 14:8

The "ten years' quiet" (2 Chronicles 14:1) begins to see its end. Targets (2 Chronicles 9:15); spears (2 Chronicles 11:12); for both, see 1 Chronicles 12:24. Out of Benjamin … shields and … bows. The minuter coincidences of the history are very observable and very interesting; for see 1 Chronicles 8:40; 1 Chronicles 12:2; and much earlier, ; 20:16, 20:17.

2 Chronicles 14:9-15

The remaining seven verses of this chapter are occupied with the account of the invasion of Zerah the Ethiopian, and the successful defence and reprisals of Asa.

2 Chronicles 14:9

Zerah the Ethiopian; Hebrew, זֶרַח הַכּוּשִׁי, the "Ethiopian," Greek and Septuagint rendering for "Cushite." In its vaguest dimensions Ethiopia, or Cush, designated Africa south of Egypt, but more concisely it meant the lands we now call Nubia, Sennaar, Kordefan, and part of Abyssinia. And these, roughly speaking, were bounded north, south, east, and west respectively by Egypt and Syene, Abyssinia, Red Sea, and Libyan Desert. When, however, Ethiopia proper is spoken of, the name probably designates the kingdom of Meroe (Seba, ; 1 Chronicles 1:9); and the Assyrian inscriptions make the Cushite name of the deified Nimrod one with Meroe), which was so closely associated at different times with Egypt, that sometimes an Egypt king swayed it (as e.g. some eighteen hundred years before Shishak, Sesostris fourth king of the twelfth dynasty), and sometimes vice versa (as e.g. the three Ethiopian kings of the twenty-fifth dynasty—Shabak (Sabakhou), Sethos (Sebechos), and Tarkos (Tirhakah), whose reigning dates as between Ethiopia and Egypt are not yet certified). The name thus confined covers an irregular circular bulk of country between "the modern Khartoum, where the Astapus joins the true Nile, and the influx of the Astaboras, into their united stream." From the language of Diodorus (1:23), harmonized conjecturally with Strabo (18:821), the region may be counted as 375 miles in circumference and 125 miles in the diameter of the erratic circle, its extreme south point being variously stated, distant from Syene, 873 miles (Pliny, 6.29. § 33); or, according to Mannert's book ('Geogr. d. Alt.,' 10.183), 600 miles by the assertion of Artemidorns, or 625 by that of Eratosthenes. Thence the "Cushite" extended probably to the Euphrates and the Tigris, and through Arabia, Babylonia, and Persia. Some, however, think that the Cushite now intended was the Ethiopian of Arabia, who had settlement near Gerar (Dr. Jamieson, in 'Comm.') as a nomadic horde. Dr. Jamieson quotes Bruce's 'Travels' to support this view, which seems a most improbable, not to say impossible, one nevertheless. The question as to the people intended will perhaps best be found in the solution of the question for whom the name of their king stands (see following note). Zerah. Hebrew as above. It is noteworthy that the four previous occurrences of this name— and 1 Chronicles 1:37, son of Reuel, grandson of Esau; and 1 Chronicles 2:6, son of Judah and Tumor; 1 Chronicles 4:24, son of Simeon; 1 Chronicles 5:6, 1 Chronicles 5:26, Hebrew text, son of Iddo, a Gershonite Levite—show it as the name of an Israelite, or descendant of Shem. Our present Zerah is a Cushite, or descendant of Ham. The Septuagint forms of the name are ζαρέ ζαρά ζαρές, or ζαραέ ζααραι, or (Alexandrian) ἀκαρίας. Although Professor Dr. Murphy says that "it is plain that Zerah was a sovereign of Kush, who in the reign of Takeloth, about B.C. 944, invaded Egypt and penetrated into Asia," the balance of probability, both from the names themselves and the synchronisms of history, corroborated by the composition of Zerah's army (Cushim and Lubim, 2 Chronicles 16:8) and some other tributary considerations, is that our Zerah was Usarken II; the fourth king of the twenty-second dynasty (or possibly Usarken I the second king of the dynasty). The invasion of the text was probably in Asa's fourteenth year, his reign thus far being dated B.C. 953-940. The alleged army of this Zerah was an Egyptian army, largely made of mercenaries (compare the description of Shishak's army, 1 Chronicles 12:3). The present defeat of Zerah would go far to explain the known decline of the Egyptian power at just this date, i.e. some twenty-five to thirty years after Shishak. At the same time, it must be admitted that it is not possible to identify with certainty Zerah with either Usarken. Whether he is an unknown Arabian Cushite, or an unknown African Cushite of Ethiopia-above-Egypt, or one of the Usarkens, has yet to be pronounced. Mareshah (see our note, 2 Chronicles 11:8). It lay the "second mile" (Eusebius and Jerome) south of Eleutheropolis and between Hebron (1 Maccabees 5:36; 2 Maccabees 12:35) and Ashdod (Josephus, 'Ant.,' 12.8. § 6). The mention of the valley of Zephathah in the following verse will half identify its exact position. It is probable that Dr. Robinson ('Bibl. Res.,' 2.67) and Toblev in his interesting, Dritto Wand.', have reliably fixed the site one Roman mile south-west of the modern Beit-Jibrin. Mareshah is again mentioned in 2 Chronicles 20:37 and , as quoted already, in references interesting to be consulted. A thousand thousand. Whether this number be correct or not, it may be noted that it is the largest alleged number of an army given in the Old Testament.

2 Chronicles 14:10

The valley of Zephathah at Mareshah. "At" some translate "belonging to," some more suitably to the exact connection "near." The Hebrew here for" valley" is גֵיא. It can scarcely designate necessarily a "ravine." It is a valley in the sense of being a low, fiat region, in which springs of water "broke out." From , the first occasion of its occurrence, to it is found fifty-six times, and is always rendered (Authorized Version) "valley;" it is the word used in the celebrated passages, "Though I walk through the valley" etc. (); and "Every valley shall be exalted" (). The Septuagint, however, do not render it uniformly; but though they render it generally φάραξ, they also have ναπή κοίλας αὐλών, and in some cases the simple word γῆ, as e.g. ἐν γῇ ( γε) ἑννόμ, (2 Chronicles 28:3; 2 Chronicles 33:6), which, nevertheless, elsewhere they describe as φάραξ ἑννόμ (). The full explanation may probably be that the word is used for the valley that narrowed up to a ravine-like pass, or gorge, or that opened out into one of the wide wadies of the country; but see Stanley's 'Sinai and Palestine,' Appendix, pp. 482, 483, new edit; 1866. It is supposed that Zephathah is not mentioned elsewhere, but see the Zephath of 1:17; and comp. : 1 Samuel 30:30, which Keil and Bertheau think conclusively to be not the same.

2 Chronicles 14:11

Nothing with thee; Hebrew, אֵין־עִמְּךָ. In the passage of very similar tenor (1 Samuel 14:6) the exact rendering is more easily fixed, "It is nothing to the Lord," i.e. it makes no difference to the Lord, "to save by many or by few." Probably the correcter rendering of our present Hebrew text would be, "It makes no difference with thee to help those whose strength is great or whose strength is nothing (between the much even to the none of strength)." Keil and Bertheau would translate "There is none beside thee." For another instance of the preposition גֵּין followed by ל, see ; and comp. 2 Chronicles 1:13. The prayer must be counted a model prayer to an omnipotent Deliverer. It consists of opening invocation and the instancing of what postulates the crowning Divine attribute as the broad foundation for argument; of invocation repeated, warmed to closer clinging by the appropriating "oar;" attended by the defining, though very universal petition, Help us; and followed by the argument of the unbending fidelity of trusting dependence, For we rest on thee, and in thy Name we go against this multitude; and, lastly, of invocation renewed or still determinedly sustained, pressed home by the clenching challenge of relationship and its correlative responsibility and presumable holy pride. The antithesis marked in these two last clauses will not escape notice—one made all the bolder, with the marginal reading of "mortal mall" for the emphatic (a poetical, universal kind of) word here employed ( אֱגוֹשׁ) for man.

2 Chronicles 14:12

So the Lord smote the Ethiopians. As little as the real work was of the army of Asa, so little is said of even the mere human method by which this great victory was obtained for Asa and Judah. Again and yet again, in the following two verses, the glory is given to "the Lord."

2 Chronicles 14:13

And the Ethiopians … before his host. It is evident that these words, with the clauses they include, should be placed in brackets, and so leave "they," the subject of the verb "carried" in the last clause, to refer to its proper noun-subject, Asa and the people. Gerar. This place is mentioned as defining a full distant spot as the limit of the pursuit of the flying army. While it was nearly four hours south of Gaza, on the road to Egypt, it is calculated that it was more than twenty miles distant from Mareshah.

2 Chronicles 14:14

The fear of the Lord came upon them; i.e. on the cities round about Gerar. This and the following verse illustrate in particular the very graphic character which attaches to the entire stretch of the description of the scene, introduced so suddenly in 2 Chronicles 14:9 and closing with 2 Chronicles 14:15. Much spoil. The Hebrew word here used for "spoil" ( בִּזָּה) is found only in Chronicles, Ezra, Esther, Nehemiah, Daniel, and once in Ezekiel ().

2 Chronicles 14:15

The tents of cattle. This word "tents" ( אָהֲלֵי, construct state) is used just 325 times, and this is the only time it is spoken of as the place of cattle; there are, however, four passages looking the same way (; 6:5; 2 Kings 7:7; ). It is the word used for the tabernacle of the wilderness many times, and many times for the place of abode that has highest associations (; ), and of the usual abodes of people (2 Chronicles 10:16). The use of the word here, though unique, will occasion no surprise, considering the camping of the vast invading army. Camels in abundance. The mention of this spoil reminds us both where we are, on desert border (1 Samuel 27:7-10; 1 Samuel 30:16, 1 Samuel 30:17), and what was the personality or nationality within some latitude of choice of the invaders. Returned to Jerusalem. The expression awakens inevitably, though inaptly, a reminiscence of Scripture language in strangest contrast—the climax in a description also, but of a victory infinitely vaster and grander and for ever (; ). This return of "Asa and the people that were with him" to Jerusalem dated the commencement of a period of comparative internal peace and reform for the kingdom of Judah, that lasted twenty-one years, and yet more of exemption from Egyptian attack, that lasted about three hundred and thirty years. It was a doubtful benefit, but Judah and Egypt came to be found in alliance against Assyria (2 Kings 17:3-6; 2 Kings 18:20, 2 Kings 18:21, 2 Kings 18:24; ; ). The 'Speaker's Commentary' points out the interesting fact that this was one of the only two occasions known of the Jews meeting in open field either Egypt or Assyria (the other occasion being the unfortunate one of Josiah against Necho, 2 Chronicles 35:1-27:30), and adds, "Shishak, Sennacherib, Esarhaddon, Nebuchadnezzar, Alexander, and Ptolemy I were either unopposed or only opposed from behind wails."

HOMILETICS

2 Chronicles 14:1-15

The quiet often years.

The former half of this chapter may be said to turn upon the welcome subject of the "quiet" (spoken of twice), the "no war" (spoken of once), and the "rest" (spoken of three times), which were now for ten years the portion of Judah. The tender youth and the pious promise of King Asa combined, no doubt, in the providence of God, with external circumstances, to secure that interval of quiet and repose from war from which many blessings were able to flow. We may notice generally, from such induction of illustrations as are yielded by the far less complex instances of those wars that belong to early history and to the histories of Scripture, some of the essential and intrinsic advantages and blessings of being, in this most impressive sense, "quiet."

I. THE FREE, LEGITIMATE OPERATION OF THE AFFECTIONS OF HUMAN NATURE. What more dreadful subversion could be known to human nature than that love should be called and should become hate, and to labour to destroy human life should take the place of labour and zeal to save and to serve it! A nation that is at peace, and undisturbed by apprehension of war, is, by the very fact, delivered from being the victim of passions and of the sure operation of principles which must be only one degree less destructive to the unconscious subjects than to their designed and deliberately marked objects. War shakes not merely to its foundations this or that fabric of human society, but to its centre the fabric called human nature itself, which is compacted of affections, and, invisible though they may be, bound of no other bonds so real. Nothing, therefore, can justify it but that kind of necessity which declares, and can demonstrate what it declares, that that disaster of "shaking" confronts, and is within measurable distance of, the one alternative of shattering, and may therefore be counted the lesser evil or risk. The mutual hate and ill will of nations is a monster form of the sin of individual hate, and it is the violating on a gigantic scale of the second great commandment. It is true that there are some reliefs to this indictment, in respect of those composing the actual armies that confront one another, and of throe who may be called the mere machinery of war; but there is little relief, indeed, to it, in regard to all who may be called principals. But in the "quiet" of a nation, its proper human affections find their opportunity and feel their way with some uniformity and some regularity of growth; not swept across, on the one hand, by the destructive tornado of animosity, prejudice, hate, and by all the hurricane of evil-doing; nor, on the other hand, goaded into partial, frenzied action by the anguished imagination, or the sickening sight of the unspeakable horrors of the actual battle-field—its mangled limbs, its cries and groans, and, for months afterwards, its bleeding hearts and wasted homes, and that whole crew of consequential vices and indirect calamities which overspread equally the land of conquered and conqueror!

II. THE THOUGHT OF A PEOPLE NOT SUBJECT TO THE UNHEALTHY STRAIN OF ONE USURPING INTEREST, ONE IMPERIOUS, TYRANNOUS, CONSTANT, EXCITING THEME, BUT FREE TO ASCERTAIN, TO FOLLOW, TO DEVELOP, THE LEADING AND THE INSTINCTS OF ITS PROPER GENIUS, WHATEVER THAT MAY BE. The loss is, of course, simply incalculable which has resulted from this one source of perversion, so varied in its operation. No eye, even with all the aid of historic retrospect, can track its disturbing, distracting, desolating tyranny. The interaction of the exceedingly diverse genius of different peoples must be equally significant with the same phenomenon as between different individuals (as e.g. even within the range of one family), and is amazingly tributary to the general and, let us say, universal well-being, when permitted, as it never yet has been, free play. For what areas of lands, bounded and unbounded in dimension, and through what stretches of the ages, has it substituted the ravaging headlong course of the turbid mountain-torrent for the flow of some beneficent river, with the generous, fertilizing streams, and the everywhere meandering rills, and the unnumbered perennial springs!

III. OUTER WORKS OF WIDE AND ENDURING INFLUENCE, AND MONUMENTS OF REAL AND ENDURING HONOR, AMONG THE PEOPLE. With what a mourning heart we look back upon many, nay, the most part, of the greatest monuments of antiquity, and are often tempted to do so with cynical look and cynical speech! How many of them perpetuate the names and memory of those who were the scourges of their kind, the pestilences of human society, barriers to the health, wealth, and real well-being of the world, from whom they wrung unwilling and undeserved honour, which time has reversed and revenged! By unfortunate irony of events, the useful works of our text even were largely those of the surer preparation for war; but we may perhaps lay more grateful stress on the thought that they are described rather as preparations against war, and defensive in character. Modern history and, in especial, the history, in God's mercy, through some few longer stretches of time, of Great Britain—that antitype in so many most real senses of Judaea of old—have clone enough just to exemplify sufficiently the fact that, in "quiet," the useful works of art, the pursuit of the most beneficent sciences, the material well-being of a people, find the occasion to rise and to spread more equably. Material well-being may not at first seem to be of the highest moment, but (the expression being rightly understood) it certainly is of very high moment. The world was not meant to be a scene of beggary, nor the mere triumph of moral and spiritual force, with constant strain and effort over material exigence. So far as at any time and any where it is such a scene, it yields no honour to religion, no testimony to its power, no furtherance of its imperial claims.

IV. FAVOURABLE OPPORTUNITY FOR THE FAIREST OF GROWTHS—THAT OF RELIGION, AND OF A HEALTHY STATE OF RELIGIOUS FEELING AND LIFE. The "quiet" and "rest" so repeatedly spoken of are instanced partly, indeed, as the reward of practical religion, but partly also (hero as very emphatically elsewhere) as the opportunity of setting the house of God, its worship, and its priests and officers in order, and of breaking down and breaking away from the evil practices and habits of idolatry. It can scarcely be doubted that the scourge of war was used, has often been used,

2 Chronicles 14:9-15

The human trust and prayer that herald Divine victory.

Though God gives nothing for—that vanishing point—our merit, yet he constantly of old gave, now constantly gives, in connection with our own right-doings and fight-praying, in order that his freest gifts may establish a healthy reaction on our experience and on our practical conduct. In the prayer, the appeal, the trust, the simple, practical account of Ass, according to the narrative contained within the compass of the above verses, we have vividly portrayed—

I. THE SOVEREIGN MASTER OF AND OVER ALL DIFFICULTIES. What comfort we forfeit, what source of courage we fling away, when we permit to lie as though the mere commonplace of faith, the truth that God is the Equal of all our confronting difficulties, let them be what they may—equal to them at all times, in all places, under all circumstances and conditions! How much is written in the canon of confidence, the charter of our "liberty of speech" at the throne of the heavenly grace (1 , 1 ), where we read, "If we ask anything according to his will, he heareth us: and if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him"! As much as is thus written, so much do we lose, when we fail to live in the strength thereof. Asa did now live so.

II. THE EXAMPLE OF AN UNCONDITIONED, UNLIMITED, AND UNINTERFERING COMMITTING OF THE ENTIRE CONTROL OF A PRESSING CASE OF HUMAN DIFFICULTY INTO GOD'S HAND, WHILE MAN REMAINS SIMPLY OBEDIENT TO THE DUTY OF ACTIVE WORK. Sometimes we are called upon to stand by and stand still, and see, as it were, at one view, whether more or less sustained in its duration, "the salvation of the Lord;" but more frequently, as in the example of the present narrative, we are reminded of the advisableness and duty of putting our own hand and all our own strength into the work, which still depends supremely on the "saving strength" of God and his Anointed.

III. ONE EARNEST ENTREATY THAT HE WILL BE GRACIOUSLY PLEASED TO ASSUME THE SOVEREIGN MASTERY OF THE DIFFICULTY' OF THE SITUATION, AND TAKE THE CONTROL OFFERED TO HIM, IN LOVING FAITH AND TRUST. God waits for this on the part of his creatures—our heavenly Father on the part of his children. He loves to be asked, and desires that we should seek and knock. And it is, indeed, a most inspiring thought, as well as a thought warranted of inspiration, that our prayer, faith, trust, avail so often as the very signal of Divine action.

IV. THE COMPLETENESS OF THE TRIUMPH, WHICH THENCE RESULTS, OBSERVABLE. A faith that can scarcely be described as anything better than a lame faith; a trust that is suspicious and doubtful all the while; a prayer that has no earnestness nor force of anticipation inherent in it, are poor preparation for conflict, and no augury of decisive and trenchant triumph. They, at all events, in so sense deserve, as certainly they cannot merit nor earn, the shout of victory when the day's sun is ready to go down. Such a shout follows on decision of mind, glowing love, and trust of heart, and a tone in prayer, divinely warranted, that might itself be mistaken for a summons.

HOMILIES BY W. CLARKSON

2 Chronicles 14:1, 2 Chronicles 14:5 (latter part), 6, 7

Rest on every side.

It is significant enough that the Chronicler considered it a noteworthy fact that "in his days the land was quiet ten years." It indicates very forcibly that the chronic condition of the country in those times was one of unsettlement and strife. We should think it strange, indeed, if the historian of our country thought it worth while to record that for ten years the sovereign "had no war" (2 Chronicles 14:6). But it is painful to think that for very many centuries, in many lands, if not in all, war was regarded as the normal condition; an attitude of armed hostility toward the neighbouring nation was considered the necessary and natural relation. History then was not the account of discovery, of invention, of achievement, of advance; it was the story of international or civil war. This was the rule which, we may thank God, is now the exception, and which, we devoutly hope, will soon be obsolete. But for ten years the land "was quiet;" it had "rest on every side." We may glance at—

I. THE NATIONAL ASPECT OF THE SUBJECT. A nation has "rest on every side" when it

To obtain and to preserve such a desirable condition, there need to be

II. THE INDIVIDUAL ASPECT OF IT. HOW shall we have "rest on every side"?

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