¹¹And, behold, the acts of Asa, first and last, lo, they are written in the book of the kings of Judah and Israel. ¹²And in the thirty and ninth year of his reign Asa was diseased in his feet; his disease was exceeding great: yet in his disease he sought not to the Lord, but to the physicians.
11. the book of the kings of Judah and Israel] In 1 Kings the appeal is to “the book of chronicles of the kings of Judah.” See Introduction [§ 5].
he sought not to the Lord, but to the physicians] Physicians (Hebrew rōph’īm) are condemned by implication here, perhaps as using incantations and adjurations. Contrast Ecclesiasticus (Ben Sira) xxxviii. 9–15, especially verse 15 (Hebrew text), He that sinneth against his Maker will behave himself proudly against a physician. Curtis notes the connection of the art of healing with the prophets; compare 1 Kings xvii. 17 ff. (Elijah); 2 Kings iv. 19 ff. (Elisha); 2 Kings xx. 7 (Isaiah).
¹³And Asa slept with his fathers, and died in the one and fortieth year of his reign.
13. in the one and fortieth year] Compare 1 Kings xv. 10.
¹⁴And they buried him in his own sepulchres, which he had hewn out for himself in the city of David, and laid him in the bed which was filled with sweet odours and divers kinds of spices prepared by the apothecaries’ art: and they made a very great burning for him.
14. in his own sepulchres] In 1 Kings with his fathers.
which he had hewn out for himself] This clause is absent from 1 Kings.
divers kinds of spices] Mark xvi. 1; John xii. 3, 7, xix. 39, 40.
a very great burning] Compare xxi. 19. What is here meant is not cremation of the body, but only a burning of spices; Jeremiah xxxiv. 5.