And 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 hast not relied on Jehovah thy God, therefore has the army of the king of Syria escaped out of thy hand.
Asa had already seen God shatter a huge Ethiopian army. Yet when a smaller threat came from Baasha, king of Israel, he paid for Syria's help with silver and gold from the temple — and at the very moment the plan worked, God sent Hanani the seer to call it failure.
The alliance achieved everything Asa wanted. Baasha stopped fortifying Ramah, and Judah had peace.
Though Asa had gained his ends in hiring Syria to help him, God did not congratulate Asa! Rather, He sent Hanani the prophet to him to strongly reprove him for having relied on the king of Syria instead of on the Lord.
The gain was real. What it cost him was every blessing that belongs to a walk of faith.
By taking this path the king seems to have escaped a great disaster. But he has lost all the blessing of a walk of faith, and he will prove it, to his sorrow. Oh, how much happier he was when he felt he had no strength of his own, and still stood against the countless army of Zerah!
The obvious question is why his faith gave way at all.
It is hard to explain this sudden failure of Asa's faith. Not long before, with God's help, he had wiped out the immense army of Zerah the Ethiopian. Now, facing an enemy not half as dangerous, his faith fails, and he leans on human strength to save him. It was the beginning of Asa's downfall. He got the deliverance he wanted, but it cost him the rebuke of God and wars to the end of his reign.
Commentators read the inner cause differently. One writer sees a zeal for reform that never reached the heart: Asa was "outwardly zealous against idols, inwardly no faith in God" (The Bible Treasury). Others treat him as a true believer who lost his footing.
Hanani's charge names a loss, not just a fault. Where the ESV says the Syrian army "has escaped you," older translations read "escaped out of your hand" — and that hand is the point these writers press.
Instead of calling on Ben-hadad for help, Asa could have conquered him, as the words "escaped out of your hand" imply... God had it in His heart to use Asa to destroy this pagan power, which in later days caused His people so much sorrow and distress. But he missed his opportunity.
The enemy Asa paid to rescue him was the enemy God meant him to remove.
God's discipline here is not random. It grows straight out of the wrong step itself.
How remarkable is the government of God. Whatever wrong step we take to reach an end, it not only fails to reach it, but brings its own chastening with it. The very thing we least want comes on us. God would have stopped not only Israel but Syria too. Instead, the army of the king of Syria escaped out of his hand.
Hanani's words expose something Asa's reforms had hidden.
The king's heart was no longer perfect. It had been perfect about idols, but not about the world. You cannot hope for blessing while you keep one of the great principles of Christian holiness and abandon the other. Joy, peace, and strength are gone.
The pull Asa felt is not ancient history.
The pull to meet a worldly trial in a worldly way is immense. People easily think that you cannot meet the world's attacks on you by spiritual means, so the danger is that we turn to earthly means to escape... Be sure of this: if we do not feel the danger, it is because we are under the world's influence ourselves.
One writer traces the slide to lost closeness with God: "If we get out of communion there is no saying what we may do" (The Bible Treasury).
- Relied once — Asa had beaten a far bigger army by leaning on God. His failure was not inexperience. It was a sudden collapse of faith before a smaller threat.
- Relied elsewhere — the sin Hanani names is a change of reliance. Not idols, not neglected reform, but leaning on the king of Syria instead of on God.
- Reliance costs — the plan worked and still cost him everything. Syria slipped out of the hand that was meant to subdue it. The peace he bought turned into war for the rest of his reign.
- Reliance exposed — a heart can be perfect about idols and imperfect about the world. Keep one principle of holiness, drop the other, and joy, peace and strength are gone.
- Reliance today — the pull to meet a worldly trial in a worldly way is strong. Not feeling the danger is the proof that the world already has us.
Were not the Ethiopians and the Libyans a huge army, with very many chariots and horsemen? but when thou didst rely on Jehovah, he delivered them into thy hand.
Hanani's rebuke does not argue with Asa; it makes him do arithmetic. A far larger army of Ethiopians and Libyans had already fallen to him, so why did a smaller threat from Baasha send him buying help from Syria?
Asa had faced something far worse and survived it, which makes his later panic hard to explain.
It is difficult to account for this sudden defect in Asa's faith. Only a short time before, with God's help, he had destroyed the huge army of Zerah the Ethiopian. Now, facing an enemy not half as dangerous, his faith fails, and he looks to human strength to save him. Had not his father Abijah trusted the Lord and defeated an earlier army of Israel twice the size of his own? It was the beginning of Asa's downfall.
The verse says the victory came because Asa relied on God. That reliance had a shape: Asa prayed it out loud before the battle started.
But faith had to be tested. A powerful army led by Zerah, an Ethiopian, came against Judah… Before the two sides ever clashed, Asa cried to the Lord. His prayer is beautiful and simple… "Help us, O LORD our God, for we rely on You, and in Your name we have come against this multitude. O LORD, You are our God; let not man prevail against You." What confidence and trust! He put the whole matter in the LORD's hands. Their enemies were His enemies.
This is the reliance that verse 8 points back to.
The rebuke begins with a loss: the Syrian army escaped his hand.
"So the army of the king of Syria has escaped out of your hand." Asa could have subdued Benhadad instead of calling on him for help; that is what "escaped out of your hand" implies… It was in God's heart to use Asa to destroy this pagan power, which in later days caused His people so much sorrow and distress. But he missed his opportunity.
Asa's record until this point was full of religious reform. The crisis exposed what that reform had not reached.
Baasha's attack on the kingdom of Judah brings out the lack of faith in Asa's heart. He had no confidence in God. His tireless zeal against idolatry had no reality in his soul. Then the sun rose, in the form of Baasha's invasion, and this outward religion withers away, because there was no depth of soil. He goes to the king of Syria for help; there is not even the appearance of going to God.
Commentators differ on how deep the failure went. One writer reads it as zeal that was never real inside. Another says Asa was a good man who had drifted from his first love.
Asa was such a good man, and his heart was perfect all his days. Yet there was that departure from first love which Jehovah could see.
The failure was not a return to idolatry. It was an alliance — and that cost him the two things his early reign had enjoyed.
He had lost his strength; now he loses his rest. These were the two great blessings at the start of his reign… The king's heart was no longer perfect. It had been perfect toward idols, but not toward the world. You cannot hope for blessing if you keep one of the great principles of Christian holiness and abandon the other.
Both halves of Asa's story teach the same lesson about where to look for help.
In time of trouble, the heart is often ready to turn anywhere for help other than to God. But faith always looks to God, and to God only… When Asa, king of Judah, relied on Jehovah, God delivered him from a great army of Ethiopians. But when he relied on the king of Syria instead of the Lord his God, the prophet rebuked him for it, and constant wars followed.
- Reliance decides. The same king faced a huge army and won, then faced a smaller one and failed. The difference was not the size of the threat, but who he leaned on.
- Reliance remembers. God's rebuke is a memory test. Hanani makes Asa look back at the Ethiopians and Libyans he had already seen defeated.
- Reliance wins more than safety. Asa bought Syria's help, so Syria escaped the hand that could have subdued it. Borrowed help cost him a victory God meant to give.
- Reliance runs deeper than reform. Zeal against idols can look strong while trust in God stays shallow. Pressure shows which is which.
- Reliance must stay whole. Asa's heart was right about idols but not about the world. That half-separation cost him his strength and his rest.
For the eyes of Jehovah run to and fro through the whole earth, to shew himself strong in the behalf of those whose heart is perfect toward him. Herein thou hast done foolishly; for from henceforth thou shalt have wars.
Asa had already seen God shatter an army far bigger than his own. Yet when a smaller threat came, he paid the king of Syria to fight for him. The prophet Hanani's answer to that bargain is this verse. It tells us how God watches the earth, and what heart He watches for.
The rebuke lands on a king who had every reason to know better. His earlier victory over Zerah the Ethiopian made the collapse of his trust harder to explain.
It is hard to explain this sudden failure in Asa's faith. Not long before, with God's help, he had destroyed the huge army of Zerah the Ethiopian. Now, facing an enemy not half as dangerous, his faith fails, and he leans for rescue on human strength.
The scheme worked. Asa got what he wanted, which makes the prophet's visit surprising.
Asa got what he wanted by hiring Syria to help him, but God did not congratulate him! … So Hanani tried to persuade Asa that God very much wanted to do the very best for those who put their full confidence in Him.
The picture of God's eyes moving over the earth is not only about His seeing. Writers tie it to His active government, and they trace the same eyes into Zechariah.
In 2 Chronicles 16 the eyes of the LORD are pictured running to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong for those whose heart is perfect towards Him. This is the faithfulness of God, taking notice of all things in His ways of government. In Zechariah, the eyes rest on the stone that is laid in Zion. That is where the seat of that government stands — the government that sees everything, everywhere.
That searching gaze covers every corner of the map, without exception.
His "eyes" run to and fro through the whole earth, beholding the evil and the good. Nothing can possibly escape His notice, whether it happens in the far east or the far west, at either pole or at the equator. The One who has again and again shown "Himself strong on behalf of those whose heart is perfect toward Him" is the One who controls the future of the nations and of the whole earth.
The phrase can frighten anyone who looks honestly at themselves. One writer removes the misunderstanding directly, and does it while commenting on Asa's own case.
Those whose hearts are perfect are not those perfect in flesh, but those who know there is nothing good in them. "Stop regarding man," and begin with yourself.
What God asks of such a heart is simpler than most people expect.
Simply rely on the Lord in everything, just to do His will quietly, and He will show Himself strong on your behalf.
The same eye that misses nothing is not a hostile eye toward those who trust Him. One writer says the believer can even watch where it looks.
But the believer has nothing to fear from the keen, piercing glance of that eye of sevenfold brightness. To him it is soft, tender and affectionate, "like doves beside streams of water." It is his happy privilege to watch where it looks. "I will counsel you with my eye upon you."
Hanani ends by telling Asa he has acted foolishly and will have wars from now on. Part of what he lost was an opportunity: Syria itself could have fallen into his hand.
How remarkable is the government of God. Whatever wrong step we do to accomplish an end, not only does it not accomplish it, but it brings its own chastening with it. The very thing we least desire comes upon us. God would not only have hindered Israel, but Syria. Instead of this, the host of the king of Syria escaped out of his hands.
Asa's response sealed it — he jailed the prophet, oppressed some of the people, and later, when disease struck his feet, turned to physicians rather than to the Lord.
- Searching. God's eyes cover the whole earth. Nothing escapes His notice, because this seeing is His government at work.
- Seeking. They are not just scanning. They are looking for someone to be strong for. God is eager to do His very best for those who fully trust Him.
- Sincere. The heart He looks for is not a flawless heart. It is the heart that knows there is nothing good in itself, and so leans on Him alone.
- Simple. Rely on the Lord in everything and do His will. To the believer, that searching eye is tender, and it guides.
- Sobering. Asa won his battle and lost the blessing. The shortcut carried its own chastening, and wars followed him to the end.