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Asa Restores God's Worship

BY A. D. RAHN, A CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN ARTIST.

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And also concerning Maachah the mother of Asa the king, he removed her from being queen, because she had made an idol."-II. Chron., 15, 16.

HE victorious Abijah reigned but a little while over

Judah, then he died and was succeeded by his son

Asa, who was king in Jerusalem for forty-one years, a reign exceeded in length by only two of all the Hebrew kings. On the whole he was a good and successful monarch, one of the very best that Judah knew.

Asa began exceedingly well. He made vigorous efforts to restore the neglected worship of God. He destroyed the idols. He summoned all the people both of Judah and Israel to a solemn ceremony of repentance; and many of the better people of the northern kingdom left that degraded land to dwell in Asa's realm. The “queen mother," his grandmother, Maacah, who had been the chief upholder of idolatry under Rehoboam and Abijah, was driven by Asa from his presence, and expelled from her rank. She fled from him in terror.

Then, perchance as a sign of God's approval, Asa won a great victory over the Ethiopians who had invaded Judah. He gained from them such spoils that Jerusalem was again almost as rich as in the earlier days.

SECOND CHRONICLES XXXVI-DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM 819

11 ¶ Zedekiah was one and twenty years old when he began to reign, and reigned eleven years in Jerusalem.

12 And he did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD his God, and humbled not himself before Jeremiah the prophet speaking from the mouth of the LORD.

13 And he also rebelled against king Nebuchadnezzar, who had made him swear by God: but he stiffened his neck, and hardened his heart from turning unto the LORD God of Israel.

14 ¶ Moreover all the chief of the priests, and the people, transgressed very much after all the abominations of the heathen; and polluted the house of the LORD which he had hallowed in Jerusalem.

15 And the LORD God of their fathers sent to them by his messengers, rising up betimes, and sending; because he had compassion on his people, and on his dwelling place:

16 But they mocked the messengers of God, and despised his words, and misused1 his prophets, until the wrath of the LORD arose against his people, till there was no remedy.

17 Therefore he brought upon them the king of the Chaldees, who slew their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary, and had no compassion upon young man or maiden, old man, or him that stooped for age: he gave them all into his hand.

18 And all the vessels of the house of God, great and small, and the treasures of the house of the LORD, and the treasures of the king, and of his princes; all these he brought to Babylon.

19 And they burnt the house of God, and brake down the wall of Jerusalem, and burnt all the palaces thereof with fire, and destroyed all the goodly vessels thereof.

20 And them that had escaped from the sword carried he away to Babylon; where they were servants to him and his sons until the reign of the kingdom of Persia:

21 To fulfil the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed her sabbaths: for as long as she lay desolate she kept sabbath, to fulfil threescore and ten years.

22 Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the LORD spoken by the mouth of Jeremiah might be accomplished, the LORD stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and put it also in writing, saying,

23 Thus saith Cyrus king of Persia, All the kingdoms of the earth hath the LORD God of heaven given me; and he hath charged me to build him an house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Who is there among you of all his people? The LORD his God be with him, and let him go up.

"The Revised Version alters "misused" to "scoffed at."