But the high places were not removed. — The record of the Chronicles — contrasting 2 Chronicles 14:5 with 1 Kings 15:17 — indicates with tolerable plainness an attempt at this reform on Asa’s part, which was not carried out successfully. In spite of all experience of the corruptions inevitably resulting from them, the craving for local and visible sanctuaries, natural at all times, and especially in generations which had been degraded by gross idolatry, proved too strong for even earnest reformers. The historian, writing under the light of later experience, dwells on this imperfection of religious reform again and again.

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