Lexicon :: Strong's H609 - 'āsā'

Asa did what was good and right in the sight of the LORD his God.

Asa had an army of three hundred thousand from Judah bearing large shields and spears, and two hundred eighty thousand from Benjamin bearing regular shields and drawing the bow. All these were valiant warriors.

So Asa marched out against him and lined up in battle formation in Zephathah Valley at Mareshah.

Then Asa cried out to the LORD his God, “LORD, there is no one besides you to help the mighty and those without strength. Help us, LORD our God, for we depend on you, and in your name we have come against this large army. LORD, you are our God. Do not let a mere mortal hinder you.”

So the LORD routed the Cushites before Asa and before Judah, and the Cushites fled.

Then Asa and the people who were with him pursued them as far as Gerar. The Cushites fell until they had no survivors, for they were crushed before the LORD and his army. So the people of Judah carried off a great supply of loot.

When Asa heard these words and the prophecy of Azariah son of Oded the prophet, he took courage and removed the abhorrent idols from the whole land of Judah and Benjamin and from the cities he had captured in the hill country of Ephraim. He renovated the altar of the LORD that was in front of the portico of the LORD’s temple.

They were gathered in Jerusalem in the third month of the fifteenth year of Asa’s reign.

King Asa also removed Maacah, his grandmother,[fn] from being queen mother because she had made an obscene image of Asherah. Asa chopped down her obscene image, then crushed it and burned it in the Kidron Valley.

The high places were not taken away from Israel; nevertheless, Asa was wholeheartedly devoted his entire life.[fn]

There was no war until the thirty-fifth year of Asa’s reign.

So Asa brought out the silver and gold from the treasuries of the LORD’s temple and the royal palace and sent it to Aram’s King Ben-hadad, who lived in Damascus, saying,

Ben-hadad listened to King Asa and sent the commanders of his armies to the cities of Israel. They attacked Ijon, Dan, Abel-maim,[fn] and all the storage cities[fn] of Naphtali.

Then King Asa brought all Judah, and they carried away the stones of Ramah and the timbers Baasha had built it with. Then he built Geba and Mizpah with them.

At that time, the seer Hanani came to King Asa of Judah and said to him, “Because you depended on the king of Aram and have not depended on the LORD your God, the army of the king of Aram has escaped from you.

Asa was enraged with the seer and put him in prison[fn] because of his anger over this. And Asa mistreated some of the people at that time.

Note that the events of Asa’s reign, from beginning to end, are written in the Book of the Kings of Judah and Israel.

In the thirty-ninth year of his reign, Asa developed a disease in his feet, and his disease became increasingly severe. Yet even in his disease he didn’t seek the LORD but only the physicians.

Asa rested with his ancestors; he died in the forty-first year of his reign.