2 Chronicles · chapter 15 of 36
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2 Chronicles 15 tells how the Spirit of God comes upon the prophet Azariah, who goes out to meet Asa with a message: the Lord is with you while you are with him. Asa takes courage, removes the idols and renews the altar, and gathers Judah, Benjamin and many from the north in Jerusalem. They make a covenant to seek the Lord with all their heart, and Asa removes even his grandmother Maacah over her idol.
After the victory over Zerah, the chronicler shows that Asa still needed a word from God to keep going. The prophet Azariah's message is one of the clearest summaries of the book's theology: God responds to those who seek him and withdraws from those who forsake him. It is also one of the great moments of spiritual renewal in the kingdom of Judah.
The Spirit of God comes upon Azariah the son of Oded, who goes out to meet Asa as he returns from the battle. He tells Asa, Judah and Benjamin that the Lord is with them while they are with him; that if they seek him, he will be found by them, but if they forsake him, he will forsake them. He recalls that for a long time Israel was without the true God, without a teaching priest and without law, but that in their distress they turned to the Lord and found him. He urges them to be strong, for their work will be rewarded.
When Asa hears these words, he takes courage and removes the detestable idols from Judah and Benjamin and from the cities he had taken in the hill country of Ephraim. He repairs the altar of the Lord in front of the porch of the house. He gathers all Judah and Benjamin, and many from Ephraim, Manasseh and Simeon who had come over to him when they saw that the Lord was with him.
They assemble in Jerusalem in the third month of Asa's fifteenth year and sacrifice from the plunder seven hundred oxen and seven thousand sheep. They make a covenant to seek the Lord with all their heart and soul, and swear with a loud voice, with shouting, trumpets and horns. All Judah rejoices, and the Lord is found by them and gives them rest on every side.
Asa also removes Maacah from being queen mother because she had made an abominable image of Asherah; he cuts down the image and burns it at the brook Kidron. Although the high places were not taken out of Israel, Asa's heart was wholly true all his days. There is no war until the thirty-fifth year of his reign.
References follow ESV book names and verse numbers. Read each verse in your Bible before the explanation.
Azariah says that the Lord is with them while they are with him; that if they seek him, he will be found by them, but if they forsake him, he will forsake them. It is a sentence that sums up the teaching of the whole book of Chronicles.
The prophet urges them to be strong and not let their hands grow weak, for their work has a reward. It is an encouragement for those who serve the Lord in difficult times.
The people make a covenant to seek the Lord, the God of their fathers, with all their heart and all their soul. The renewal of the covenant is a decision of the community, not only of the king.
All Judah rejoices at the oath because they swore it with all their heart, and the Lord is found by them. A joyful and sincere faith is what God answers with rest and blessing.
6 questions with answers and references, ready for Sunday school, small group or a Bible quiz night.
Answer: Azariah, the son of Oded, a prophet on whom the Spirit of God came. — 2 Chronicles 15:1
Answer: That if they seek him, he will be found by them, but if they forsake him, he will forsake them. — 2 Chronicles 15:2
Answer: He took courage, removed the detestable idols and repaired the altar of the Lord. — 2 Chronicles 15:8
Answer: Seven hundred oxen and seven thousand sheep. — 2 Chronicles 15:11
Answer: To seek the Lord, the God of their fathers, with all their heart and all their soul. — 2 Chronicles 15:12
Answer: He removed her from being queen mother because she had made an abominable image of Asherah, and he burned the image. — 2 Chronicles 15:16
Azariah's promise is not a mechanical formula but an invitation to be with God. Whoever seeks him finds him, and the chronicler shows that this seeking must be wholehearted, joyful and accompanied by obedience. In a small group we can talk about what it concretely means to seek the Lord in daily life, beyond a Sunday meeting.
The episode of Maacah also shows that faithfulness to God can cost something in the family. Asa must act firmly toward his own grandmother. It is not about harshness but about putting God above family ties, as Jesus told his disciples. Sometimes love for the Lord requires hard decisions at home, and they are best made with humility and prayer.
2 Chronicles 15 ends with a kingdom united in a covenant and at peace until Asa's thirty-fifth year. In 2 Chronicles 16 the picture changes: faced with the threat of Baasha of Israel, Asa stops relying on the Lord and seeks help from the king of Syria.
The text does not specify. Many connect it with the period of the judges, described in the book of Judges as a time of disorder and idolatry, in which Israel cried out to the Lord in their distress. What matters is the lesson: in their distress they turned to the Lord and found him.
The text calls her Asa's mother, but in Hebrew mother can also mean grandmother or queen mother. She is the same Maacah as in 2 Chronicles 11:20, wife of Rehoboam, and so Asa's grandmother. That is why many versions say grandmother.
The covenant reflected the law of Moses, which punished idolatry and rejection of the covenant with death, according to Deuteronomy 13. It was an application of the old covenant law to Israel as a nation. It is not presented as a model for the church, which draws near to God by faith and not by force.