Rabbinic literature
The question that puzzled Heinrich Ewald and others, "Where was the brazen serpent until the time of Hezekiah?" occupied the Talmudists also. They answered it as follows: Asa and Joshaphat, when clearing away the idols, purposely left the brazen serpent behind, in order that Hezekiah might also be able to do a praiseworthy deed in breaking it.
According to the Rabbis, Asa was one of the five men who were distinguished by certain physical perfections possessed by Adam, but due having abused them, were afflicted in those very body parts. Samson was distinguished by his strength, but "his strength went from him" (Judges 16:19); Saul by towering with his neck above the rest, but "he took a sword and fell upon it" (I Sam. 31:4); Absalom by his long hair, but "his head caught of the oak" (II Sam. 18:9); Zedekiah by his eyes, but "they put out the eyes of Zedekiah" (II Kings 25:7); Asa by his feet but "in the time of his old age he was diseased in his feet" (I Kings 15:23) (perhaps with gout). The reason given for Asa's condition was that, when enlisting the whole of Judah in war he "exempted none" (I Kings 15:22), but forced Torah scholars—and even newly married husbands, whom the Law (Deut. 20:7) exempts—to march along.
The chronological discrepancy between 2 Chronicles 16:1 and 1 Kings 16:8 is readjusted by the interpretation that the 36th year of Chronicles refers to the 36 years of the secession of the northern kingdom, which was a punishment for the 36 years of Solomon's marriage to the daughter of Pharaoh, and ended in reality in the 15th year of Asa's reign, when Zerah the Ethiopian was vanquished by him; the alliance between the kingdoms of Israel and Syria (I Kings xi. 23) also lasted 36 years. In obtaining an alliance with the king of Syria against Baasha by giving away the gold and silver treasures of the house of the Lord (I Kings 15:18), Asa sinned grievously, for which Hanani, the seer, sternly rebuked him (II Chronicles 16:7).
Asa, having contracted a matrimonial alliance with the wicked house of Omri, brought about the decree of Heaven that after 42 years both the houses of David and of Omri should go down together, which nearly happened in the time of Ahaziah, wherefore the latter is said to have been 42 years old when he ascended the throne (II Chron. xxii. 2) in contradiction with xxi. 20, and II Kings viii. 26.
Among the treasures which Asa took from Zerah the Ethiopian, and which Zerah had taken from Shishak (II Chronicles 12:9, compare 16:2), there was also the marvelous throne of Solomon upon which all the kings of Judah subsequently sat; while the other great treasures were given by Asa to the king of Syria to obtain his alliance; then they were taken again by the Ammonites, to be recaptured by Jehoshaphat; then they fell into the hands of Sennacherib, from whom Hezekiah recovered them, and at the capture of Jerusalem they came into the hands of the Babylonians; then into those of the Persians, and afterward of the Macedonians, and finally of the Romans, who kept them at Rome.
