2 Chronicles 15:3

Azariah’s message comes at a turning point in Asa’s reign. In 2 Chronicles 14 Asa had already begun to put things right. He took away the foreign altars and the high places and commanded Judah to seek the LORD (2 Chronicles 14:1–5), and the land had rest in his days (2 Chronicles 14:6). Then Zerah the Ethiopian came against him with a vast army. Asa called on the LORD, and God gave Judah an overwhelming victory and great spoil (2 Chronicles 14:9–15).

Asa reigned over the southern kingdom of Judah (about 913–873 BC), in the years after the kingdom divided. His father Abijah and his grandfather Rehoboam had both had seasons of unfaithfulness, and idolatry and foreign worship were still in the land.

God sends his prophet at the moment of success. A king fresh from a great victory is in danger of growing proud or careless, and God meets that danger before it takes hold. His guidance is needed in triumph as much as in crisis. Azariah brings encouragement, warning and instruction together. He explains why Judah won, tells them what will keep them safe, and calls them to finish the reform Asa had begun. Asa listened, cleared the land of its idols and led the people into a covenant to seek the LORD (2 Chronicles 15:8–19).

Azariah goes out to meet Asa and calls on the king and “all Judah and Benjamin” to hear him. The word is for the whole people under Asa’s rule as well as for the king, and “Hear ye me” asks for their full attention.

The name he uses is Yᵉhôvâh, the LORD, the personal name of Israel’s God, linked to hâyâh, “to be”. It names the eternal God who keeps covenant with his people, and the promise and the warning that follow come from him.

The message has three parts. “The LORD is with you, while ye be with him” states the principle. God’s presence with his people, with his favor, protection and blessing, goes together with their loyalty to him, and being with him means obeying him, worshipping him alone and turning from idols. “If ye seek him, he will be found of you” is the encouragement, for God makes himself available to those who look for him. “If ye forsake him, he will forsake you” is the warning. Seeking and forsaking stand side by side, each with its outcome, so that the choice is plain.

This explains the victory Asa has just won. Judah sought the LORD, and the LORD was with them in the battle. It also rests on the covenant given through Moses, with its blessings for obedience and its curses for disobedience (Deuteronomy 28). Moses promised that Israel would find the LORD when they sought him with all their heart and soul (Deuteronomy 4:29), and Jeremiah gives the same promise to those who search for God with all their heart (Jeremiah 29:13). James calls us to draw near to God and promises that he will draw near to us (James 4:8), and a psalm says that those who know the LORD’s name trust in him, because he stands by those who seek him (Psalm 9:10).

God’s steadfast love and faithfulness hold firm, and the experience of his presence and help flourishes where his people trust him, follow him and give themselves to him. This concerns how a people lives in his blessing, while salvation itself remains his gift.

Azariah turns to Israel’s past to prove his point. “For a long season” brings together rab, much or many, and yôwm, day or time: many days. “Israel” here, as often in Chronicles, means the covenant people as a whole, with Judah as the heir of David’s line, and the failures he describes touched the whole nation.

Three things were missing, each marked by “without”, which renders the negative lôʼ. The first and deepest is “the true God”. The word for God is ʼĕlôhîym again, the same word as in verse 1, and “true” comes from ʼemeth, stability, certainty and truth. The LORD is the real and dependable God, set against the empty idols people turned to. Israel left him for idolatry, for a mixture of his worship with the worship of other gods, or for a faith that kept his name and lost its devotion. People built high places and set up Asherah poles, and the line between true worship and pagan practice blurred.

The second is “a teaching priest”. The verb behind “teaching”, yârâh, means to throw or shoot, to water as the rain does, and to point out or teach. The priests offered sacrifices, and they were also charged to teach Israel God’s judgments and his law (Deuteronomy 33:10). Malachi says that a priest’s lips should keep knowledge (Malachi 2:7), and through Hosea God says, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge” (Hosea 4:6). When the priests neglected this work, the people were left ignorant and open to every error, as in the days after Joshua, when a generation grew up ignorant of the LORD (Judges 2:10).

The third is “law”, tôwrâh, God’s instruction and his revealed will for his people, given above all through Moses. The psalmist calls those blessed who walk in the law of the LORD (Psalm 119:1), and Moses set life and death before Israel and urged them to choose life by loving the LORD and obeying his voice (Deuteronomy 30:19–20).

The three belong together. “Without the true God” concerns whom they worshipped and their relationship with him. “Without law” concerns how they lived from day to day. The teaching priest stood between the two, carrying God’s word to the people. When the true God is neglected, faithful teaching fails, and a people left untaught lives without law.

Verse 4 tells the other side: “But when they in their trouble did turn unto the LORD God of Israel, and sought him, he was found of them.” The word for trouble, tsar, comes from a verb meaning to cramp. It most often means an adversary, and here it carries its other sense, distress, the narrow place a people is squeezed into.

They turned, shûwb, a verb that means to turn back or return, and here it describes a nation coming back to the God they had left. That turning was repentance, a change of course as well as a change of mind. They sought him, and here the verb is bâqash, to search out or seek, which shares the English “seek” with dârash in verse 2. And he was found, mâtsâʼ, to find or attain. Their search ended in God himself, with his presence, his help and his deliverance.

Azariah calls him “the LORD God of Israel”, a name that reminded them he had bound himself to this people in covenant. Verse 4 is the promise of verse 2 seen in history: they sought him, and he was found. Distress stripped away their self-reliance and their false gods, and God used it to bring them back.

People ask whether trouble has to come before God is found. He is found by those who seek him at any time and in any circumstance, and the promises given through Moses and Jeremiah put the weight on seeking him with the whole heart. Trouble often clears away distractions and makes a heart ready to turn, and it is the seeking itself that God answers.

Verse 5 describes those dark times: “And in those times there was no peace to him that went out, nor to him that came in, but great vexations were upon all the inhabitants of the countries.” Peace is shâlôwm, completeness, soundness, welfare, peace and safety. Going out and coming in is a pair that covers the whole of life. It takes in the traveller, the worker in the field and the trader heading out, and the one coming home to rest. Danger met people on the road and at home, through bandits, quarrels between tribes and the threat of invasion. The song of Deborah remembers a time when travel itself was unsafe (Judges 5:6).

The “great vexations” are mᵉhûwmâh, tumult, confusion, panic and uproar, a disorder that unsettles a whole people. They lay on “all the inhabitants”, those who yâshab, sit or dwell, in the land, and “the countries” takes in the wider region of Israel as well as Judah. Everyone who lived there felt it, and settled life was broken up.

This is what the law had warned of. God set out what disobedience would bring (Leviticus 26:16), and Moses told Israel they would be struck down before their enemies and scattered if they turned from the LORD (Deuteronomy 28:25). Their loss of peace was a spiritual failure first, and a political and social one after it.

Verse 6 goes further: “And nation was destroyed of nation, and city of city.” The word for nation, gôwy, can mean any people, and here it may also describe tribes, clans or factions within the one nation. A city is ʻîyr. The verb for destroyed, kâthath, means to strike hard, beat down or crush to pieces. Group crushed group and city crushed city, so the ruin came largely from within, through civil strife and feuds between neighbours. It recalls the end of Judges, when “every man did that which was right in his own eyes” (Judges 21:25), and Isaiah’s picture of a people turning on itself under God’s judgment (Isaiah 9:19–21). The law had warned of this too, of Israel falling before those who hated them (Leviticus 26:17).

Then comes the reason: “for God did vex them with all adversity.” The word “for”, kî, gives the cause, and the cause is God. The verb for vex, hâmām, means to put in commotion, disturb, drive or destroy. It is used when the LORD troubled the army of the Egyptians at the Red Sea (Exodus 14:24) and of the LORD’s hand against the rebellious (Deuteronomy 2:15). The tumult of those years was God’s own judgment on a people who had forsaken him. “Adversity” is tsârâh, distress, from a root meaning tightness, and “all adversity” means trouble of every kind. It is a different Hebrew word from the tsar of verse 4, though both speak of distress.

God’s purpose in this was mercy as well as justice. Verse 4 shows what the distress was for: in their trouble they turned and sought him, and he was found. Asa’s own reign showed the other side, because while Judah sought the LORD, the land had rest.

Azariah ends with a charge: “Be ye strong therefore, and let not your hands be weak: for your work shall be rewarded.” “Therefore” ties it to everything he has said. The LORD is with them while they are with him, he has proved it in their history and in their recent victory, and so they have every reason to go on.

“Be ye strong” is châzaq, to be or make strong and firm, a word for courage and resolve as much as for bodily strength. It is the charge God gave Joshua as he led Israel into the land (Joshua 1:6), and Moses gave the same charge to all Israel (Deuteronomy 31:6). “Let not your hands be weak” uses râphâh, to slacken, let go or grow faint. Hands stand for work, and weak hands are the picture of someone who has given up, worn down by weariness, opposition or slow results. Asa’s work was still unfinished, with idols left in the land to remove.

“Your work shall be rewarded” gives the reason. The word sâkâr means wages, payment for work done. The work is their seeking of God, their obedience and the reforms themselves, and God promises to pay it. He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him (Hebrews 11:6). Paul urges believers to keep on doing good, because in due season they will reap (Galatians 6:9), and he assures them that their labour in the Lord has lasting worth (1 Corinthians 15:58).

In Jesus Christ, God came to be with his people in the fullest way. He is Immanuel, “God with us” (Matthew 1:23), the Word made flesh who dwelt among us (John 1:14). The promise “he will be found of you” meets us in him, because to turn to God is to turn to Jesus, who said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6). He came to seek and to save the lost (Luke 19:10), so our seeking answers the One who sought us first. Through his death the barrier of sin is gone, and we come boldly to the throne of grace (Hebrews 4:16). Jesus promised that the one who seeks finds (Matthew 7:8).

What Israel lacked in verse 3, Christ gives. He shows us the true God, for whoever has seen him has seen the Father (John 14:9). He is our great High Priest (Hebrews 4:14), who intercedes for us and teaches with authority. He came to fulfil the law (Matthew 5:17), he is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes (Romans 10:4), and in the new covenant God writes his law on his people’s hearts (Jeremiah 31:33). Our place with God is secured by his grace through faith (Ephesians 2:8–9), and the Spirit he sends abides with us for ever (John 14:16–17).

The turmoil of verses 5 and 6 finds its answer in him as well. Isaiah named him the Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9:6), and he carried our griefs and sorrows (Isaiah 53:4). He is our peace, who broke down the wall of hostility (Ephesians 2:14). Justified by faith, we have peace with God (Romans 5:1), and the peace of God that passes all understanding keeps our hearts (Philippians 4:7). Those who are in Christ Jesus are free of condemnation (Romans 8:1). He leaves his own peace with his disciples (John 14:27), gives rest to the weary (Matthew 11:28–30), and tells us that in him we have peace, because he has overcome the world (John 16:33). His kingdom is righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost (Romans 14:17).

Azariah’s word was given to a king on one of the best days of his reign, and it holds for every day after. The LORD is with those who are with him. He lets himself be found by those who seek him, and Israel’s history shows that this held even after long seasons of unfaithfulness, when people came to him out of the narrow place of their trouble. He is just, and he treats the forsaking of him as the serious thing it is, serious enough that whole nations fell into tumult. He is also faithful to reward the work done for him, and he sees the hands that keep at it when they are tired. In Christ all of this has come near, for the God who is found came looking for us, and the strength to keep going is his gift. Verse 7 speaks to anyone weary in the work God has given as surely as it spoke to Asa: “your work shall be rewarded.”