2 Chronicles 16:12

12 In the thirty-ninth year of his reign, Asa developed a serious foot disease. Yet even with the severity of his disease, he did not seek the LORD ’s help but turned only to his physicians.

2 Chronicles 16:12 Meaning and Commentary

2 Chronicles 16:12

And Asa in the thirty ninth year of his reign was diseased in
his feet
This was about two years before his death, and his disease is generally thought to be the gout in his feet, and a just retaliation for putting the prophet's feet into the stocks:

until his disease was exceeding great;
it increased upon him, and became very severe and intolerable, and the fits were frequent, as well as the pain sharper; though the sense of the Hebrew ^F13 phrase may be, that his disease got upwards, into a superior part of his body, head, or stomach, which, when the gout does, it is dangerous. A very learned physician ^F14 is of opinion, that not the gout, but what he calls an "aedematous" swelling of the feet, is meant, which insensibly gets up into the bowels, and is successively attended with greater inconveniences; a tension of the abdomen, difficulty of breathing, very troublesome to the patient, and issues in a dropsy, and death itself:

yet in his disease he sought not to the Lord;
his seeking to physicians for help in his disease, perhaps, would not have been observed to his reproach, had he also sought unto the Lord, whom he ought to have sought in the first place; and when he applied to the physicians, he should have implored the blessing of God on their prescriptions; but he so much forgot himself as to forget the Lord: this is the first time we read of physicians among the Jews, and some think these were Heathens, and a sort of enchanters: the Jews entertained a very ill opinion of physicians; the best of them, they say ^F15, deserve hell, and they advise ^F16 men not to live in a city where the chief man is a physician; but the author of the book of Ecclesiasticus gives a great encomium of them, and exhorts to honour and esteem them,

``1 Honour a physician with the honour due unto him for the uses which ye may have of him: for the Lord hath created him. 2 For of the most High cometh healing, and he shall receive honour of the king. 3 The skill of the physician shall lift up his head: and in the sight of great men he shall be in admiration. 4 The Lord hath created medicines out of the earth; and he that is wise will not abhor them. 5 Was not the water made sweet with wood, that the virtue thereof might be known? 6 And he hath given men skill, that he might be honoured in his marvellous works. 7 With such doth he heal [men], and taketh away their pains. 8 Of such doth the apothecary make a confection; and of his works there is no end; and from him is peace over all the earth,'' (Sirach 38)

Julian ^F17 the emperor greatly honoured them, and observes, that it is justly said by the philosophers, that the art of medicine fell from heaven.

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FOOTNOTES:

F13 (hleml de) "usque ad supra", Montanus; "usque ad summum", Vatablus; "usque ad sursum", Piscator.
F14 Scheuchzer. Physic. Sacr. vol. 4. p. 645.
F15 T. Bab. Kiddashin, fol. 32. 1. Gloss. in ib.
F16 T. Bab. Pesachim, fol. 113. 1.
F17 Opera, par. 2. p. 154.

2 Chronicles 16:12 In-Context

10 Asa became so angry with Hanani for saying this that he threw him into prison and put him in stocks. At that time Asa also began to oppress some of his people.

11 The rest of the events of Asa’s reign, from beginning to end, are recorded in

12 In the thirty-ninth year of his reign, Asa developed a serious foot disease. Yet even with the severity of his disease, he did not seek the LORD ’s help but turned only to his physicians.

13 So he died in the forty-first year of his reign.

14 He was buried in the tomb he had carved out for himself in the City of David. He was laid on a bed perfumed with sweet spices and fragrant ointments, and the people built a huge funeral fire in his honor.