Did Asa remove the high places?
Posted on Jul.29, 2009. Filed in 1 Kings, 2 Chronicles. Average rating: 3.0 / 10 (Rate It).
Asa was one of Judah’s better kings, doing what was right in the sight of the Lord. He achievements included cleansing Judah of various elements of pagan worship, removing altars, idols, and the like. There is, however, some confusion concerning whether he removed the “high places”.
2 Chronicles reports that Asa did remove the high places as he carried out his reforms:
So Abijah slept with his ancestors, and they buried him in the city of David. His son Asa succeeded him. In his days the land had rest for ten years. Asa did what was good and right in the sight of the Lord his God. He took away the foreign altars and the high places, broke down the pillars, hewed down the sacred poles, and commanded Judah to seek the Lord, the God of their ancestors, and to keep the law and the commandment. He also removed from all the cities of Judah the high places and the incense altars. And the kingdom had rest under him. [2 Chronicles 14:1-5, NRSV]
In its summary of the reign of King Asa, however, 1 Kings says that Asa did not remove the high places:
In the twentieth year of King Jeroboam of Israel, Asa began to reign over Judah; he reigned forty-one years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Maacah daughter of Abishalom. Asa did what was right in the sight of the Lord, as his father David had done. He put away the male temple prostitutes out of the land, and removed all the idols that his ancestors had made. He also removed his mother Maacah from being queen mother, because she had made an abominable image for Asherah; Asa cut down her image and burned it at the Wadi Kidron. But the high places were not taken away. Nevertheless the heart of Asa was true to the Lord all his days. He brought into the house of the Lord the votive gifts of his father and his own votice gifts—silver, gold, and utensils. [1 Kings 15:9-15, NRSV]
Interestingly, 2 Chronicles subsequently includes the passage from 1 Kings that reports Asa’s failure, but amends it in order make it consistent with its previous report of Asa’s success:
King Asa even removed his mother Maacah from being queen mother because she had made an abominable image for Asherah. Asa cut down her image, crushed it, and burned it at the Wadi Kidron. But the high places were not taken out of Israel. Nevertheless the heart of Asa was true all his days. [2 Chronicles 15:16-17, NRSV]
Here, Asa’s failure is qualified—the high places were not taken out of Israel—in a way that makes it consistent his success in taking the high places out of Judah. 2 Chronicles 15 is thus consistent with 2 Chronicles 14, but 1 Kings 15 isn’t.
So did Asa remove the high places or not? If he did, then 1 Kings 15 contains an error. If he didn’t, then 2 Chronicles 14 contains an error.
N.B. All posts are written in a style sympathetic to the claim of Biblical error, even in cases where the author ("Errancy") disagrees with the claim. See the About page for the site's philosophy.
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July 29th, 2009 on 2:12 pm
What you say is true, Errancy, when you say that 2 Chronicles 15 does not conflict with 2 Chronicles 14, because 2 Chronicles 15 says that Asa did not take the high places out of Israel. But it would not conflict with 2 Chronicles 14 even if it had said that he did not take the high places out of Judah. This is because 2 Chronicles 14 only says that Asa removed the high places from the cities of Judah. Judeans under Asa’s rule were compelled to do their idolatry in the country, or in the border towns of the Northern Kingdom.
Since the 2 Chronicles 14 passage is compatible with the claim that Asa did not take away the high places in Israel and it is compatible with the claim that he did not take them away in Judah, it must be compatible with the claim that he did not take them away (per 1 Kings 15).
August 3rd, 2009 on 10:35 am
Point taken; good observation.
However, it does raise the question why the author of 2 Chronicles chose to edit the passage from 1 Kings.
Did he mistakenly think that there was an inconsistency and try to fix it? Or is there some other reason for changing “away” to “out of Israel”?
August 3rd, 2009 on 11:32 am
Asa was not the first king to try to get rid of the high places. It is likely that there was a very common practice of crossing into the border region of Israel to practice idolatry during one of these crackdowns. The Chronicler was just pointing out that Asa did nothing to stop this.
While it is probably true that the Chronicler used Kings as a source, he was not just writing a new edition of Kings. If he were, I wouldn’t expect to see any deviations at all. The Chronicler may have had sources that attest to Asa’s failure to deal with the border situation in addition to his failure to deal with the problem in the Judean countryside.