Now for a long season Israel hath been without the true God, and without a teaching priest, and without law.
Israel had prophets among them, yet they could not shake idolatry; but when prophecy ceased and Scripture filled the synagogues, they were clean from it. God's ministers must quicken duty even in princes, not flatter them with their victories. The Spirit came upon the prophet to instruct and embolden him to speak it plain.
AI summary
Commenting on 2 Chronicles 15:1-7
Now for a long season Israel hath been without the true God,.... The fear, worship, and service of him being greatly neglected by them for a long time; what period of time is referred to is not expressed, whether past, present, or to come, but left to be supplied; the Targum refers this to the time of the separation of the ten tribes, and the...
Now for a long season Israel hath been without the true God, &c.--Some think that Azariah was referring to the sad and disastrous condition to which superstition and idolatry had brought the neighboring kingdom of Israel. His words should rather be taken in a wider sense, for it seems manifest that the prophet had his eye upon many periods in the national history, when the...