ASA

The third king of Judah after Solomon, son and successor of Abijam, 1Ki 15:8. He began to reign B. C. 951, and reigned forty-one years at Jerusalem. The first part of his reign was comparatively peaceful and prosperous. He restored the pure worship of God; expelled those who, from sacrilegious superstition, prostituted themselves in honor of their false gods; purified Jerusalem from the infamous practices attending the worship of idols; and deprived his mother of her office and dignity of queen, because she erected an idol to Astarte. In the eleventh year of his reign, God gave him the victory over the vast army of the Cushite king Zerah; and the prophet Azariah encouraged him to go on in his work of reform. And yet, when Baasha king of Israel opposed this very work, he sought aid not from God, but from heathen Syria. In the latter part of his life, he became diseased in his feet; and Scripture reproaches him with having had recourse to the physicians, rather than to the Lord, 2Ch 16:12. Yet his reign was, on the whole, one of the happiest which Judah enjoyed, and the Bible repeatedly commends his piety as an example. 1Ki 22:43 2Ch 20:32 21:12. His funeral rites were celebrated with special magnificence. There was ill-will and strife between Asa and Baasha all their days, as between Rehoboam and Israel, 1Ki 15:6,16.

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Asa. Asa
Physician, son of Abijah and grandson of Rehoboam, was the third king of Judah. He was zealous in maintaining the true worship of God, and in rooting all idolatry, with its accompanying immoralities, out of the land (1 Kings 15:8-14). The Lord gave him and his land rest and prosperity. It is recorded of him, however, that in his old age, when afflicted, he “sought not to the Lord, but to the physicians” (comp. Jer. 17:5). He died in the forty-first year of his reign, greatly honoured by his people (2 Chr. 16:1-13), and was succeeded by his son Jehoshaphat.

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Asa. physician; cure

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ASA. 1. King of Judah 1Ki 15:8-24; 1Ch 3:10; 2Ch 14; 15; 16; Mt 1:7 2. A Levite 1Ch 9:16

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(physician , or cure). Son of Abijah and third king of Judah. (B.C. 956-916.) (His long reign of 41 years was peaceful in its earlier portion, and he undertook the reformation of all abuses, especially of idolatry. He burnt the symbol of his grandmother Maachah’s religion and deposed her from the dignity of "king’s mother,") and renewed the great altar which the idolatrous priests apparently had desecrated. (2 Chronicles 15:8) Besides this he fortified cities on his frontiers, and raised an army, amounting, according to (2 Chronicles 14:8) to 580,000 men, a number probably exaggerated by an error of the copyist. During Asa’s reign, Zerah, at the head of an enormous host, (2 Chronicles 14:9) attacked Mareshah. There he was utterly defeated, and driven back with immense loss to Gerar. The peace which followed this victory was broken by the attempt of Baasha of Israel to fortify Ramah. To stop this Asa purchased the help of Benhadad I. king of Damascus, by a large payment of treasure, forced Baasha to abandon his purpose, and destroyed the works which he had begun at Ramah. In his old age Asa suffered from gout, He died, greatly loved and honored, in the 41st year of his reign. Ancestor of Berechiah a Levite who resided in one of the villages of the Netophathites after the return from Babylon. (1 Chronicles 9:16)

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king of Judah, son of Abijah 1Ki 15:8,16; 2Ch 14:2,13; 16:7,13

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‖As″a (�), n. [[NL. asa, of oriental origin; cf. Per. azā mastic, Ar. asā healing, isā remedy.]] An ancient name of a gum.