Sunday Sermonette: More from the Xerox machine

 Ch. 16 is pretty much copied from the Book of Kings. It ' s a bit puzzling theologically. It continues the ongoing theme of war between Israel and Judah. Asa deals with an Israeli offensive effectively with diplomacy. He recruits the Syrian king into an alliance and soundly defeats the Baasha the king of Israel. But then a prophet comes along and says he shouldn ' t have done that, instead of recruiting  an ally he should have " relied on the Lord, " then he could have conquered Syria as well. Asa doesn ' t like this and throws the guy in jail. Then Asa gets an unspecified foot disease, and he relies on physicians rather than the Lord, and the implication is he shouldn ' t have done that. Then he dies.This is one of the very few references in the Tanakh to physicians. In fact it may be the only one, I can ' t think of another offhand. Of course in those days they didn ' t know anything and couldn ' t really do anything. There ' s no indication here that they helped Asa. Then again the Lord wouldn ' t have done him much good either.On another topic,here ' s an amusing thread from Balloon Juice about theBalloon of the Apocalypse. Apparently I ' m not the only one who was enjoying the freakout from afar.16 In the thirty-sixth year of Asa ’s reign Baasha king of Israel went up against Judah and fortified Ramah to prevent anyone from leaving or entering the territory of Asa king of Judah.2 Asa then took the silver and gold out of the treasuries of theLord’...
Source: Stayin' Alive - Category: American Health Source Type: blogs