Commentaria in III Regum
7. AND THERE WAS A BATTLE BETWEEN ABIAM AND JEROBOAM.—This is related at length in 2 Paralipomenon 13, where it is said that Abiam led out into the line of battle 400 thousand, and Jeroboam 800 thousand, and that, as these, being more numerous, were surrounding them, they called upon God, and by His help 500 thousand of the 800 thousand fell.
10. HIS MOTHER’S NAME WAS MAACHA THE DAUGHTER OF ABESSALOM,—that is, of Absalom the son of David. “Daughter,” that is, granddaughter, as is clear. For this Maacha the mother of Asa is either the same as Maacha the mother of Abia, as Lyranus and Serarius hold, so that she is called “mother,” that is grandmother, of Asa, just as in verse 3 David is called the “father,” that is the grandfather, of Abia; or rather her younger sister, born of the same mother Thamar the daughter of Absalom, as I said from Cajetan on verse 2, or else her granddaughter. “Maacha” in Hebrew is the same as pressure, wearing down, fixing, says Pagninus. This name seems to have been common to the queens or daughters of the kings of Gessur: hence the daughter of the king of Gessur whom David married was called Maacha, who was the mother of Absalom, and thence Thamar the daughter of Absalom called her daughter, who married Roboam, Maacha, and her sister, who married Abia, she also called Maacha: for the Hebrews and the Septuagint, our Vulgate and Josephus constantly call her the mother of Asa. In like manner St. Paula, Melania, Macrina the aunt of St. Basil, Eudoxia and Constantia transmitted their own name to their daughters and granddaughters.
Moreover Maacha is here named the “mother,” or grandmother, of Asa, to show the remarkable virtue and religion of Asa, who, though brought up by so impious a mother, nevertheless turned out so pious that he even removed his own mother from the priesthood of idols. So Pliny, book 7 of his Letters, praises the young man Quadratus, because, though living in the delights of his grandmother, he nevertheless lived most strictly.
13. HE REMOVED ALSO MAACHA HIS MOTHER FROM BEING PRINCESS (the chief priestess) IN THE SACRIFICES OF PRIAPUS.—In Hebrew it is literally, that she might not be lady, because she made a horrible idol; where the Septuagint, the Chaldean, Vatablus, Pagninus and others explain “that she might not be lady” as “that she might not be queen, that she might not rule the kingdom.” Whence our Vulgate also, in 2 Paralipomenon 15:16, translates, “but he also deposed Maacha his mother from her august rule, because she had made in a grove an image of Priapus.” Here, however, it translates, “that she might not be princess in the sacrifices of Priapus”; for here the headship of the sacrifices of Priapus among the Jews and idolaters was an august command and the highest dignity, so that the Hebrew asher, that is “because, that,” is to be taken for baasher, that is “in that she made an idol,” namely in the worship of her Priapus. For “Priapus” the Hebrew has miphletseth, that is, trembling, horror; so Priapus was called, both because he was painted or carved in a foul and horrible shape, and because by his horror he struck terror into thieves and birds that wished to plunder the gardens of which he was the god and guardian; whence that line of Horace, Hence the god is the greatest dread of thieves and birds.
Hence also, from the Hebrew miphletseth, Priapus is called in Latin Phallus and Mutinus: for so Juvenal, Satire 5, Virgil and Ovid call him. So Serarius, Vatablus and Sanchez. Maacha was therefore obscene and sacrilegious, indeed the princess of obscenity and sacrilege, and the queen of harlots and prostitutes, and therefore she consecrated a grove to her Priapus; because lust, being shameful, seeks groves, that is woods and darkness, in which to hide its foulness. Hence a “grove” (lucus) is so called by antiphrasis, because it lacks light (lux), and is dark. So Eucherius. Moreover the Hebrews worshipped Priapus under the name of Beelphegor, as a god of obscenity, with most obscene rites and acts. See what was said on Numbers 25:3. Asa did this at the beginning of his reign, when he was almost a boy; so much the greater was his zeal and piety. Wherefore God rewarded this zeal of Asa: first, with a happy and long peace; second, with the building of many cities; third, with a famous victory, by which he laid low a thousand thousand Ethiopians, 2 Paralipomenon 14:9.
14. BUT THE HIGH PLACES HE TOOK NOT AWAY.—By “high places” Abulensis understands the temples built by Solomon to idols, which remained until Josias, who overthrew them; in which matter, he says, Asa did not sin, nor Josaphat, nor Ezechias, because these temples had by then fallen into contempt and were closed, and no idols were worshipped in them; wherefore, since they were no longer scandalous, they were permitted for the future memory of the event.
Better Cajetan understands by “high places” temples on mountains and high places dedicated to the true God, in which the Israelites sacrificed to the true God, which, though forbidden by God, Asa nevertheless prudently permitted, lest the people’s delight and custom of sacrificing on the high places should draw him away from the worship of God to idolatry: zealous kings, however, such as Ezechias and Josias, removed these also; although it could be said that Asa sinned in permitting the high places, as he sinned in several other things, as was already said.
BUT THE HEART OF ASA WAS PERFECT WITH THE LORD ALL HIS DAYS.—“Perfect,” understand in the faith and worship of the one true God, and in the rooting out of idolatry; for in many other things Asa sinned, as when in his sickness he did not hope in the Lord, but trusted in the art of the physicians, of which presently. Likewise when, distrusting God, he gave the sacred vessels to the king of Syria, verse 18, to escape the war of the king of Israel. Again, when he cast the prophet who rebuked him into the stocks, that is into prison and chains, and slew many of the people, 2 Paralipomenon 16:10. See Abulensis, Question 18.
15. AND HE BROUGHT IN THE THINGS WHICH HIS FATHER HAD SANCTIFIED (that is, dedicated, consecrated) AND WHICH HE HAD VOWED, INTO THE HOUSE OF THE LORD.
18. THE GOLD THAT WAS LEFT IN THE TREASURES OF THE HOUSE OF THE LORD (the gold of the temple) etc., HE SENT TO BENADAD.—Asa sinned in this matter, both because he appropriated and alienated the gold of the temple, and because he placed his hope more in the impious Benadad than in God, and therefore he was rebuked by the prophet, 2 Paralipomenon 16:7.
23. BUT IN THE TIME OF HIS OLD AGE HE HAD PAIN IN HIS FEET.—This matter is related more fully in 2 Paralipomenon 16:12: “Asa,” it says, “was taken ill in the thirty-ninth year of his reign, with a most violent pain in his feet (gout), and neither in his illness did he seek the Lord, but rather trusted in the art of the physicians”; and therefore he died: whence it is immediately added: “And he slept with his fathers, and died in the forty-first year of his reign.”