2 Chronicles 16:3

16:2 Then Asa brought out silver and gold out of the treasures of the house of the Lord and of the king’s house, and sent to Ben–hadad king of Syria, that dwelt at Damascus, saying,

There is a league between me and thee, as there was between my father and thy father: behold, I have sent thee silver and gold; go, break thy league with Baasha king of Israel, that he may depart from me.

KJV

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“Let there be a treaty between me and you, as there was between my father and your father. Behold, I have sent you silver and gold. Go, break your treaty with Baasha king of Israel, that he may depart from me.”

There is a league between me and thee, as there was between my father and thy father: behold, I have sent thee silver and gold; go, break thy league with Baasha king of Israel, that he may depart from me.

There is a league between me and you, as there was between my father and your father: behold, I have sent you silver and gold; go, break your league with Baasha king of Israel, that he may depart from me.

16:4 And Ben–hadad hearkened unto king Asa, and sent the captains of his armies against the cities of Israel; and they smote Ijon, and Dan, and Abel–maim, and all the store cities of Naphtali.

What does 2 Chronicles 16:3 mean?

2 Chronicles 16:3 is a verse in the book of 2 Chronicles, in the Old Testament. In the original Hebrew, key words include בְּרִית (bᵉrîyth), אָב (ʼâb), שָׁלַח (shâlach). It connects to 27 cross-referenced passages elsewhere in Scripture.

Hebrew interlinear

There

leagueבְּרִיתbᵉrîyth/ber-eeth'/H1285a compact (because made by passing between pieces of flesh)

between

and

thee,

there

was

between

fatherאָבʼâb/awb/H1father, in a literal and immediate, or figurative and remote application

and

thy

father:אָבʼâb/awb/H1father, in a literal and immediate, or figurative and remote application

behold,

have

sentשָׁלַחshâlach/shaw-lakh'/H7971to send away, for, or out (in a great variety of applications)

thee

silverכֶּסֶףkeçeph/keh'-sef/H3701silver (from its pale color); by implication, money

and

gold;זָהָבzâhâb/zaw-hawb'/H2091gold, figuratively, something gold-colored (i.e. yellow), as oil, a clear sky

go,יָלַךְyâlak/yaw-lak'/H3212to walk (literally or figuratively); causatively, to carry (in various senses)

breakפָּרַרpârar/paw-rar'/H6565to break up (usually figuratively), i.e. to violate, frustrate

thy

leagueבְּרִיתbᵉrîyth/ber-eeth'/H1285a compact (because made by passing between pieces of flesh)

with

BaashaבַּעְשָׁאBaʻshâʼ/bah-shaw'/H1201Basha, a king of Israel

kingמֶלֶךְmelek/meh'-lek/H4428a king

Israel,יִשְׂרָאֵלYisrâʼêl/yis-raw-ale'/H3478Jisrael, a symbolical name of Jacob; also (typically) of his posterity

that

may

departעָלָהʻâlâh/aw-law'/H5927to ascend, intransitively (be high) or actively (mount); used in a great variety of senses, primary and secondary, literal and figurative

from

me.

Commentary on 2 Chronicles 16:3

CLARKE · whole chapter

ng any intercourse with the Jews, 2Chr 16:1. Asa hires Ben-hadad, king of Syria, against him; and obliges him to leave off building Ramah, 2Chr 16:2-5. Asa and his men carry the stones and timbers of Ramah away, and build therewith Geba and Mizpah, 2Chr 16:6. Asa is reproved by Hanani, the seer, for his union with the king of Syria: he is offended with the seer, and puts him in prison, 2Chr 16:7-10. Of his acts, 2Chr 16:11. He is diseased in his feet, and seeks to physicians and not to God, and dies, 2Chr 16:12, 2Chr 16:13. His sumptuous funeral, 2Chr 16:14. Verse 1 The six and thirtieth year - After the division of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah; according to Usher. This opinion is followed in our margin; see the note on 1Kgs 15:16, where this subject is farther considered. Concerning Baasha's building of Ramah, see the note on 1Kgs 15:17. Verse 3 There is a league - Let there be a treaty, offensive and defensive, between me and thee: see on 1Kgs 15:22 (note). Verse 6 Took all Judah - See on 1Kgs 15:22 (note). Verse 7 Escaped out of thine hand - It is difficult to know what is here intended. Perhaps the Divine providence had intended to give Asa a grand victory over the Syrians, who had always been the inveterate enemies of the Jews; but by this unnecessary and very improper alliance between Asa and Ben-hadad, this purpose of the Divine providence was prevented, and thus the Syrians escaped out of his hands. Verse 9 Therefore - thou shalt have wars - And so he had with Israel during the rest of his reign, 1Kgs 15:32. Verse 10 Asa was wroth with the seer - Instead of humbling himself, and deprecating the displeasure of the Lord, he persecuted his messenger: and having thus laid his impious hands upon the prophet, he appears to have got his heart hardened through the deceitfulness of sin; and then he began to oppress the people, either by unjust imprisonments, or excessive taxations. Verse 12 Diseased in his feet - He had a strong and long fit of the gout; this is most likely. He sought not to the Lord - "He did not seek discipline from the face of the Lord, but from the physicians." - Targum. Are we not taught by this to make prayer and supplication to the Lord in our afflictions, with the expectation that he will heal us when he finds us duly humbled, i.e., when the end is answered for which he sends the affliction? Verse 14 And laid him in the bed - It is very likely that the body of Asa was burnt; that the bed spoken of here was a funeral pyre, on which much spices and odoriferous woods had been placed; and then they set fire to the whole and consumed the body with the aromatics. Some think the body was not burned, but the aromatics only, in honor of the king. How the ancients treated the bodies of the illustrious dead we learn from Virgil, in the funeral rites paid to Misenus. Nec minus interea Misenum in littore Teucri Flebant, et cineri ingrato suprema ferebant. Principio pinguem taedis et robore secto Ingentem struxere pyram: cui frondibus atris Intexunt latera, et ferales ante cupressas Constituunt, decorantque super fulgentibus armis, etc. Aen. vi. 214. "Meanwhile the Trojan troops, with weeping eyes, To dead Misenus pay their obsequies. First from the ground a lofty pile they rear Of pitch trees, oaks, and pines, and unctuous fir. The fabric's front with cypress twigs they strew, And stick the sides with boughs of baleful yew. The topmost part his glittering arms adorn: Warm waters, then, in brazen caldrons borne Are poured to wash his body joint by joint, And fragrant oils the stiffen'd limbs anoint. With groans and cries Misenus they deplore: Then on a bier, with purple cover'd o'er, The breathless body thus bewail'd they lay, And fire the pile (their faces turn'd away). Such reverend rites their fathers used to pay. Pure oil and incense on the fire they throw, And fat of victims which their friends bestow. These gifts the greedy flames to dust devour, Then on the living coals red wine they pour. And last the relics by themselves dispose, Which in a brazen urn the priests enclose. Old Corineus compass'd thrice the crew, And dipp'd an olive branch in holy dew; Which thrice he sprinkled round, and thrice aloud Invoked the dead, and then dismiss'd the crowd." Dryden. All these rites are of Asiatic extraction. Virgil borrows almost every circumstance from Homer; (see Iliad, xxiii., ver. 164, etc.); and we well know that Homer ever describes Asiatic manners. Sometimes, especially in war, several captives were sacrificed to the manes of the departed hero. So, in the place above, the mean-souled, ferocious demon, Achilles, is represented sacrificing twelve Trojan captives to the ghost of his friend Patroclus. Urns containing the ashes and half-calcined bones of the dead occur frequently in barrows or tumuli in this country; most of them, no doubt, the work of the Romans. But all ancient nations, in funeral matters, have nearly the same rites. Introduction

HENRY_FULL · 2 Chronicles 16:1–6

Asa's League with Benhadad. ( b. c. 929.) 1 In the six and thirtieth year of the reign of Asa Baasha king of Israel came up against Judah, and built Ramah, to the intent that he might let none go out or come in to Asa king of Judah. 2 Then Asa brought out silver and gold out of the treasures of the house of the Lord and of the king's house, and sent to Ben-hadad king of Syria, that dwelt at Damascus, saying, 3 There is a league between me and thee, as there was between my father and thy father: behold, I have sent thee silver and gold; go, break thy league with Baasha king of Israel, that he may depart from me. 4 And Ben-hadad hearkened unto king Asa, and sent the captains of his armies against the cities of Israel; and they smote Ijon, and Dan, and Abel-maim, and all the store cities of Naphtali. 5 And it came to pass, when Baasha heard it, that he left off building of Ramah, and let his work cease. 6 Then Asa the king took all Judah; and they carried away the stones of Ramah, and the timber thereof, wherewith Baasha was building; and he built therewith Geba and Mizpah. How to reconcile the date of this event with the history of the kings I am quite at a loss. Baasha died in the twenty-sixth year of Asa, 1 Kings xvi. 8 . How then could this be done in his thirty-sixth year, when Baasha's family was quite cut off, and Omri was upon the throne? It is generally said to be meant of the thirty-sixth year of the kingdom of Asa, namely, that of Judah, beginning from the first of Rehoboam, and so it coincides with the sixteenth of Asa's reign; but then ( ch. xv. 19 must be so understood; and how could it be spoken of as a great thing that there was no more war till the fifteenth year of Asa, when that passage immediately before was in his fifteenth year? ( ch. xv. 10 ), and after this miscarriage of his, here recorded, he had wars, v. 9 . Josephus places it in his twenty-sixth year, and then we must suppose a mistake in the transcriber here and ( ch. xv. 19 , the admission of which renders the computation easy. This passage we had before ( 1 Kings xv. 17 , &c.) and Asa was in several ways faulty in it. 1. He did not do well to make a league with Benhadad, a heathen king, and to value himself so much upon it as he seems to have done, v. 3 . Had he relied more upon his covenant, and his father's, with God, he would not have boasted so much of his league, and his father's, with the royal family of Syria. 2. If he had had a due regard to the honour of Israel in general, he would have found some other expedient to give Baasha a diversion than by calling in a foreign force, and inviting into the country a common enemy, who, in process of time, might be a plague to Judah too. 3. It was doubtless a sin in Benhadad to break his league with Baasha upon no provocation, but merely through the influence of a bribe; and, if so, certainly it was a sin in Asa to move him to it, especially to hire him to do it. The public faith of kings and kingdoms must not be made so cheap a thing. 4. To take silver and gold out of the house of the Lord for this purpose was a great aggravation of the sin, v. 2 . Must the temple be plundered to serve his carnal politics? He had better have brought gifts and offerings with prayers and supplications, to the house of the Lord, that he might have engaged God on his side and made him his friend; then he would not have needed to be at this expense to make Benhadad his friend. 5. It was well if Asa had not to answer for all the mischief that the army of Benhadad did unjustly to the cities of Israel, all the blood they shed and all the spoil they made, v. 4 . Perhaps Asa intended not that they should carry the matter so far. But those that draw others to sin know not what they do, nor where it will end. The beginning of sin is as the letting forth of water. However the project succeeded. Benhadad gave Baasha a powerful diversion, obliged him to leave off building Ramah and betake himself to the defence of his own country northward, which gave Asa an opportunity, not only to demolish his fortifications, but to seize the materials and convert them to his own use.

Cross-references

Related passages from the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge.

Genesis 20:9

Then Abimelech called Abraham, and said unto him, What hast thou done unto us? and what have I offended thee, that thou hast brought on me and on my kingdom a great sin? thou hast done deeds unto me that ought not to be done.

Exodus 32:21

And Moses said unto Aaron, What did this people unto thee, that thou hast brought so great a sin upon them?

Deuteronomy 28:37

And thou shalt become an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword, among all nations whither the Lord shall lead thee.

Joshua 9:19

But all the princes said unto all the congregation, We have sworn unto them by the Lord God of Israel: now therefore we may not touch them.

Judges 2:2

And ye shall make no league with the inhabitants of this land; ye shall throw down their altars: but ye have not obeyed my voice: why have ye done this?

2 Samuel 21:2

And the king called the Gibeonites, and said unto them; (now the Gibeonites were not of the children of Israel, but of the remnant of the Amorites; and the children of Israel had sworn unto them: and Saul sought to slay them in his zeal to the children of Israel and Judah.)

1 Kings 9:7

Then will I cut off Israel out of the land which I have given them; and this house, which I have hallowed for my name, will I cast out of my sight; and Israel shall be a proverb and a byword among all people:

2 Kings 17:20

And the Lord rejected all the seed of Israel, and afflicted them, and delivered them into the hand of spoilers, until he had cast them out of his sight.

2 Chronicles 18:3

And Ahab king of Israel said unto Jehoshaphat king of Judah, Wilt thou go with me to Ramoth–gilead? And he answered him, I am as thou art, and my people as thy people; and we will be with thee in the war.

2 Chronicles 19:2

And Jehu the son of Hanani the seer went out to meet him, and said to king Jehoshaphat, Shouldest thou help the ungodly, and love them that hate the Lord? therefore is wrath upon thee from before the Lord.

Nehemiah 4:1

But it came to pass, that when Sanballat heard that we builded the wall, he was wroth, and took great indignation, and mocked the Jews.

Psalms 15:4

In whose eyes a vile person is contemned; but he honoureth them that fear the Lord. He that sweareth to his own hurt, and changeth not.

Psalms 44:14

Thou makest us a byword among the heathen, a shaking of the head among the people.

Psalms 52:5

God shall likewise destroy thee for ever, he shall take thee away, and pluck thee out of thy dwelling place, and root thee out of the land of the living. Selah.

Isaiah 31:1

Woe to them that go down to Egypt for help; and stay on horses, and trust in chariots, because they are many; and in horsemen, because they are very strong; but they look not unto the Holy One of Israel, neither seek the Lord!

Jeremiah 12:17

But if they will not obey, I will utterly pluck up and destroy that nation, saith the Lord.

Jeremiah 18:7

At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, and to pull down, and to destroy it;

Jeremiah 24:9

And I will deliver them to be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth for their hurt, to be a reproach and a proverb, a taunt and a curse, in all places whither I shall drive them.

Jeremiah 31:28

And it shall come to pass, that like as I have watched over them, to pluck up, and to break down, and to throw down, and to destroy, and to afflict; so will I watch over them, to build, and to plant, saith the Lord.

Jeremiah 45:4

Thus shalt thou say unto him, The Lord saith thus; Behold, that which I have built will I break down, and that which I have planted I will pluck up, even this whole land.

Lamentations 2:15

All that pass by clap their hands at thee; they hiss and wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem, saying, Is this the city that men call The perfection of beauty, The joy of the whole earth?

Lamentations 2:16

All thine enemies have opened their mouth against thee: they hiss and gnash the teeth: they say, We have swallowed her up: certainly this is the day that we looked for; we have found, we have seen it.

Ezekiel 17:18

Seeing he despised the oath by breaking the covenant, when, lo, he had given his hand, and hath done all these things, he shall not escape.

Romans 1:31

Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful:

2 Corinthians 6:16

And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

2 Timothy 3:3

Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good,

Jude 1:12

These are spots in your feasts of charity, when they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear: clouds they are without water, carried about of winds; trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots;

Topics

Armies Baasha Ben-Hadad

Verses like this

Other verses that share key original-language words with 2 Chronicles 16:3.

1 Kings 15:19

There is a league between me and thee, and between my father and thy father: behold, I have sent unto thee a present of silver and gold; come and break thy league with Baasha king of Israel, that he may depart from me.

Exodus 11:2

Speak now in the ears of the people, and let every man borrow of his neighbour, and every woman of her neighbour, jewels of silver, and jewels of gold.

Exodus 12:35

And the children of Israel did according to the word of Moses; and they borrowed of the Egyptians jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment:

Exodus 20:23

Ye shall not make with me gods of silver, neither shall ye make unto you gods of gold.

Exodus 3:22

But every woman shall borrow of her neighbour, and of her that sojourneth in her house, jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment: and ye shall put them upon your sons, and upon your daughters; and ye shall spoil the Egyptians.

Genesis 12:1

Now the Lord had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will shew thee:

Genesis 13:2

And Abram was very rich in cattle, in silver, and in gold.

Genesis 17:13

He that is born in thy house, and he that is bought with thy money, must needs be circumcised: and my covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant.

Frequently asked questions

What does 2 Chronicles 16:3 say?

2 Chronicles 16:3 (King James Version) reads: "There is a league between me and thee, as there was between my father and thy father: behold, I have sent thee silver and gold; go, break thy league with Baasha king of Israel, that he may depart from me."

Is 2 Chronicles 16:3 in the Old or New Testament?

2 Chronicles 16:3 is in the Old Testament of the Bible, in the book of 2 Chronicles.

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