¹So Abijah slept with his fathers, and they buried him in the city of David, and Asa his son reigned in his stead: in his days the land was quiet ten years. ²And Asa did that which was good and right in the eyes of the LORD his God: =1.= _ten years_] These _ten_ years of rest are naturally to be assigned to the beginning of Asa’s reign; later on there was a rest of _twenty_ years (compare xv. 10 with xv. 19). The number _ten_ here makes a discrepancy with 1 Kings, for Baasha became king of Israel in the _third_ year of Asa (1 Kings xv. 28, 33), and “there was war between Asa and Baasha all their days” (1 Kings xv. verse 32). If, however, we allow some latitude to the language both of 1 Kings and of Chronicles, the discrepancy becomes unimportant. ³for he took away the strange altars, and the high places, and brake down the pillars¹, and hewed down the Asherim; ⁴and commanded Judah to seek the LORD, the God of their fathers, and to do the law and the commandment. ¹ Or, _obelisks_. =3.= _he took away_] In 1 Kings xv. 12, 13 he is said to have put away the sodomites, and all the idols that his fathers had made; and also “the abominable image” which Maacah, his mother, had made. These remarks are here ignored by the Chronicler, probably because they would be out of harmony with the comparatively pious character he has ascribed to Asa’s predecessors, Rehoboam and Abijah. They are given, however, in xv. 16, 17, where see note. _the strange altars_] i.e. altars belonging to gods other than Jehovah. _and the high places_] a direct contradiction of 1 Kings xv. 14, where it is said “But the high places were not taken away: nevertheless the heart of Asa was perfect with the LORD all his days.” This remarkable contrast affords a vivid illustration of the different standpoints of Kings and Chronicles In Kings the removal of the high-places is the great reform of later days effected by Hezekiah (1 Kings xviii. 4, 22), by Josiah (2 Kings xxiii. 8). To the Chronicler, who believed that the law centralising the worship of Jehovah in Jerusalem was in force from the Mosaic age, the abolition of the high-places was felt to be a minimum of reform and must surely have been carried out by any king with a claim to piety. See also the note on xv. 17. _the pillars_] LXX. τὰς στήλας. The “pillar” or “obelisk,” Hebrew _Maṣṣēbāh_, was a monolith standing by an altar as a symbol of the god worshipped at the altar. In later days an image took the place of the pillar, i.e. the mere symbol was succeeded by the likeness of the god. (W. R. Smith, _Religion of the Semites²_, pp. 203 ff., and for illustrations of those recently discovered at Gezer see Macalister, _Bible Side-lights_, or Driver, _Modern Research as illustrating the Bible_, p. 63.)