God’s Word for You
2 Chronicles 16:1-6 The blood of a covenant
by Pastor Timothy Smith on Thursday, December 5, 2024
16:1 In the thirty-sixth year of the reign of Asa, Baasha king of Israel went up against Judah and built Ramah in order to prevent anyone from going in or coming out from Asa king of Judah. 2 So Asa took silver and gold from the treasuries of the house of the LORD and the from the house of the king and sent them to Ben-Hadad king of Syria, who lived in Damascus. He said, 3 “A covenant between me and you, as there was between my father and your father. I am sending to you silver and gold. Go and break your covenant with Baasha king of Israel, that he may withdraw from me.” 4 And Ben-Hadad listened to King Asa and sent the princes of his armies against the cities of Israel. They struck Ijon, Dan, Abel Maim, and all the store cities of Naphtali. 5 And when Baasha heard of it, he stopped building Ramah and ended that project. 6 Then King Asa led all of Judah, and they carried away the stones of Ramah and its timber that Baasha had been building with, and with this he built Geba and Mizpah.
Baasha was the third king of the northern kingdom. His story is worth telling briefly here. Jeroboam had died in 909, and his son ruled after him for a couple of years (this is found in 1 Kings 15). But while the son was attacking a Philistine city “out west” called Gibbethon (near Ekron), a Hebrew from the tribe of Issachar conspired against him and murdered him. Then this man, Baasha, hunted down and murdered every single member of Jeroboam’s family. All of this happened early in the days of Asa (his third year, around 908 BC). Baasha was king in the north for 24 years in all, until 886.
In about 895 or 894, Baasha began to fortify the village of Ramah in Benjamin, just about due north of Jerusalem, four or five miles away, just beyond the height of Gibeah, known as “Gibeah of Saul,” because he had used it has his capital (compare Hosea 5:8). Ramah had been the birthplace and home of the prophet Samuel (1 Samuel 1:19, 8:4).
This fortress was a serious threat to Asa. Something certainly had to be done about it. But rather than call on the Lord, he paid an enemy to switch sides. This was Ben-Hadad, the first of several kings with that name in the Bible.
| Ben-Hadad I | 880s?-865 | 2 Chronicles 16:2 |
| Hadadezer (Ben-Hadad II) | 865-842 | 2 Kings 8:14 |
| Hazael | 842-796 | 1 Kings 19:15 |
| Ben-Hadad III | 796-775 | 2 Kings 13:3 |
| Hadianu | 775-754 | |
| Rezin | 754-732 | Isaiah 7:1 |
It seems simple to say “switch sides” but the text says that Asa told Ben-Hadad to break a covenant. A covenant was a special kind of agreement, usually made by the slaughtering of several animals (Genesis 15:9). The two parties walked through the pieces of the slaughtered animals, and said either aloud or simply by implication, “May I be slaughtered like these animals if I break my side of this covenant” (Jeremiah 34:18). The blood of the covenant was binding (Zechariah 9:11; Hebrews 9:20-21). For the king of a country to break a covenant was a serious offense.
Nevertheless, Asa’s bribe worked. He had made a covenant of silver and gold with Ben-Hadad, and the Arameans struck cities of Israel in the far north (at the foot of Mount Hermon) and also store cities along the shore of the Sea of Galilee. The fact that Baasha ended his project in Ramah suggests that he learned about the reason for Aram’s attack and gave up. Asa confiscated (or stole) the stone and the lumber and used it for his own projects.
The covenant God has made with his people is not a two-sided covenant. It is a covenant God made himself: “‘This is the covenant I will make with them after that time, says the Lord. I will put my laws in their hearts, and I will write them on their minds.’ Then he adds: ‘Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more’” (Hebrews 10:16-17). The slaughtered beast of this covenant was not an animal, but our Lord Jesus Christ. His blood, shed on the cross, is the blood of the covenant, since Jesus says: “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many” (Mark 14:24). This was prophesied in the Old Testament, when Malachi said that after the messenger (John the Baptist) came, who was the one who “will prepare the way before me.” Then, suddenly, “the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come” (Malachi 3:1).
Therefore when we eat and drink the sacrament, including the blood of the covenant, it is not a work that we are doing that has any effect on our souls, but rather is simply the reception of Christ’s life and death on our behalf. It is his work, not ours, that we partake of and receive for our eternal benefit. As our Confession says: “The holy sacrament was not instituted to make provision for a sacrifice for sin—for the sacrifice has already taken place—but to awaken our faith and comfort our consciences when we perceive that through the sacrament grace and forgiveness of sin are promised us by Christ. Accordingly the sacrament requires faith, and without faith it is used in vain” (Augsburg Confession XXIV:30).
Jesus Christ will never switch sides or break his covenant, his one-sided covenant, with us. His words give the most comfort and delight; his words bring us perfect peace: “This is my covenant with them when I take away their sins” (Romans 11:27).
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in New Ulm, Minnesota. To receive God’s Word for You via e-mail, please visit the St. Paul’s Lutheran Church website.