1 Kings 15:23

A SUMMARY OF THE REIGN OF ASA OVER JUDAH

"Now the rest of all the acts of Asa, and all his might, and all that he did, and the cities which he built, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah? But in the time of his old age he was diseased in his feet. And Asa slept with his fathers, and was buried with his fathers in the city of David his father; and Jehoshaphat his son reigned in his stead."

Again we have a very brief summary of a reign that lasted over forty years. While the over-all view of Asa's reign enabled the sacred author to write that, "Asa did that which was right in the eyes of Jehovah" (1 Kings 15:11), this by no means indicates the total absence of evil in his administration. The very best of the kings of Judah were weak and sinful men, because the Christ, whose death enabled people to live more perfectly, had not yet come to mankind.

"In his old age, he was diseased in his feet" (1 Kings 15:23). This disease of Asa began in the thirty-ninth year of his reign (2 Chronicles 16:12), and he sought help from the physicians but not from the Lord. "From this we may see that the longer he lived the more he turned his heart away from the Lord."[6] The old proverb that power corrupts and that total power corrupts totally has been repeatedly proved to be the truth throughout human history.