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Asaph

ASAPH (ā’săf)

d.600?. Welsh bishop. Little is known about him. He was possibly descended from an important N Welsh family, and was related to Saints Deiniol and Tysilio. He apparently became bishop and abbot of Llanalwy (Denbighshire) and later established a monastery at Llanasa (Flintshire) which was renamed St. Asaph by the Normans when they erected a diocese in the area.

2. An Asaph was the father of Hezekiah’s recorder, Joah (2 Kings 18:18; Isa 36:3, 22).

3. An officer under Artaxerxes Longimanus of Persia (465-445 b.c.) bore the name of Asaph. He is designated as the keeper of the king’s forest in Pal. (Neh 2:8).

4. The reading Asaph in 1 Chronicles 26:1 KJV is plainly a scribal error and should read Ebiasaph (9:19).

The best Gr. reading is Asaph instead of Asa (Matt 1:7). Unquestionably, the OT designated Asa as the father of Jehoshaphat. The Matthew reading is explained as a Septuagintal form. See Music; PSALMS.

Bibliography

Koehler-Baumgartner, Lexicon in Veteris Testamenti Libros (1950), 73; B. T. Dahlberg, “Asaph,” IDB, I (1962), 244, 245; J. P. U. Lilley, “Asaph,” New Bible Dictionary (1962), 94; “Asaph,” Zondervan Pictorial Bible Dictionary (1963), 75.

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (1915)