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CHAPTER XIV
Asa succeeds his father Abijah, reigns piously, and has peace for ten years, 1. He makes a great reformation in Judah, and builds cities of defense, 2-7. His military strength, 8. He is attacked by Zerah the Ethiopian, with an immense army; Asa cries to the Lord, attacks the Ethiopians, and gives them a total overthrow, 9-12. He takes several of their cities, their cattle, &c., and returns to Jerusalem, laden with spoils, 13-15.
NOTES ON CHAP. XIV
Verse 1. "The land was quiet ten years." - Calmet thinks these years should be counted from the fifth to the fifteenth of Asa's reign.
Verse 2. "Did that which was good" - He attended to what the law required relative to the worship of God. He was no idolater, though, morally speaking, he was not exempt from faults, 1 Kings xv. 14. He suppressed idolatry universally, and encouraged the people to worship the true God: see ver. 3-5.
Verse 6. "Fenced cities" - To preserve his territories from invasion, and strengthen the frontiers of his kingdom, see 2 Chronicles xiv. 7.
Verse 8. "Targets and spears" - Probably targets with the dagger in the center, and javelins for distant fight.
"Bare shields and drew bows" - They were not only archers, but had shield and sword for close fight.
Verse 9. "Zerah the Ethiopian" - Probably of that Ethiopia which lay on the south of Egypt, near to Libya, and therefore the Libyans are joined with them, chap. xvi. 8.
"A thousand thousand" - If this people had come from any great distance, they could not have had forage for such an immense army.
Verse 11. "Whether with many" - The same sentiment as that uttered by Jonathan, 1 Sam. xiv. 6, when he attacked the garrison of the Philistines.
"O Lord our God-we rest on thee" - "Help us, O Lord our God; because we depend on thy WORD, and in the name of thy WORD we come against this great host." -Targum.
Verse 14. "There was-much spoil in them." - These cities being on the rear of this vast army, they had laid up much forage in them; and to get this the Jews overthrew the whole.
Verse 15. "Tents of cattle" - Those which had carried the baggage of the great army, and which they had left in such places as abounded with pasture.
