Asa in his old age was diseased in his feet (1Kings xv. 23).  According to 2Chronicles xvi. 12, he died of this illness, which is described as extremely dangerous, in the forty-first year of his reign, after having already been otherwise unfortunate in his later years.  And why?  He had invoked foreign aid, instead of the divine, against Baasha of Israel.  Now, as Baasha survived only to the twenty-sixth year of Asa, the wickedness must have been perpetrated before that date.  But in that case its connection with the punishment which overtook the king only towards the close of his life would not be clear.  Baasha’s expedition against Jerusalem, accordingly, and the Syrian invasion of Israel occasioned by Asa on that account are brought down in Chronicles to the thirty-sixth year of the latter (xvi. 1).  It has been properly observed that Baasha was at that date long dead, and the proposal has accordingly been made to change the number thirty-six into sixteen,—­without considering that the first half of the reign of Asa is expressly characterised as having been prosperous, that the thirty-fifth year is already reached in chap. xv. 19, and that the correction destroys the connection of the passage with what follows (xvi. 7 seq.).  For it is in connection with that flagitious appeal for aid to the Syrians that the usual prophet makes his appearance (xvi. 7), and makes the usual announcement of impending punishment.  It is Hanani, a man of Northern Israel (1Kings xvi. 7), but Asa treats him as if he were one of his own subjects, handles him severely, and shuts him in prison.  By this he hastens and increases his punishment, under which he falls in the forty-first year of his reign.

Jehoshaphat, the pious king, according to 1Kings xxii., took part in the expedition of the godless Ahab of Israel against the Damascenes.  Chronicles cannot allow this to pass unrebuked, and accordingly when the king returns in peace, the same Hanani announces his punishment, albeit a gracious one (2Chronicles xix.  I-3).  And gracious indeed it is; the Moabites and Ammonites invade the land, but Jehoshaphat without any effort on his part wins a glorious victory, and inexhaustible plunder (xx. 1 seq.).  One cannot blame him, therefore, for once more entering into an alliance with Ahab’s successor for a naval expedition to be undertaken in common, which is to sail from a port of the Red Sea, probably round Africa, to Tarshish (Spain, 2Chronicles ix. 21).  But this time he is punished more seriously as Eliezer the son of Dodavah had prophesied, the ships are wrecked.  Compare on the other hand 1Kings xxii. 48, 49:  “Jehoshaphat made ships of Tarshish to go to Ophir for gold, but they went not, for the ships were wrecked in the harbour on the Red Sea.  At that time Ahaziah the son of Ahab had said to Jehoshaphat:  Let my servants go with thy servants in the ships; but Jehoshaphat would not.”  So the original statement.  But in Chronicles a moral ground must be found for the misfortune, and Jehoshaphat therefore makes with the king of Samaria a sinful alliance, which in point of fact he had declined, not indeed from religious motives.