14:2-5 At the beginning of his reign, Asa . . . removed the foreign altars in Judah (14:5). However, he did not remove the pagan shrines from Israel (15:17). These were probably in the cities of the northern kingdom that Asa had inherited from Abijah. Idolatry practiced by other peoples occupying the land plagued Judah throughout its history; this pagan activity might have revived toward the end of Asa’s reign more than thirty years later.

14:7-14 Solomon had prayed that the Lord would hear his people when they were led into battle (6:34). In the battle against Zerah, God responded to such a prayer. • Ethiopian (literally “Cushite”) might refer to someone from southern Egypt (Nubia) or a Midianite territory northeast of Aqabah (see Num 12:1; Hab 3:7). However, the mention of Libya in 2 Chr 16:8, the size of the battle (comparable to the attack of Shishak against Rehoboam in 12:3), and the location of Mareshah in the west of Judah indicate that Zerah was an Egyptian; he is otherwise unknown. He might have been a Nubian general dispatched by Osorkon I, the Libyan pharaoh who ruled Egypt between the tenth and fourteenth years of Asa (900–897 BC). Another view is that Shishak established a buffer state around Gerar, supported by Nubian mercenaries that invaded Judah. The account, however, only says that Asa and his armies pursued the armies south to Gerar and took a vast amount of plunder, particularly from the herdsmen living in tents around the cities.