And he went in to confirm as usual the covenant, that they should seek the Lord the God of their fathers with all their heart, and with all their soul.

and they enter into a covenant to seek Jehovah, God of their fathers, with all their heart, and with all their soul,

And they made an agreement to be true to the Lord, the God of their fathers, with all their heart and all their soul;

And he entered, according to custom, in order to confirm the covenant, so that they would seek the Lord, the God of their fathers, with their whole heart and with their whole soul.

Solemn renewals of the original covenant which God made with their fathers in the wilderness Exodus 24:3-8 occur from time to time in the history of the Jews, following upon intervals of apostasy. This renewal in the reign of Asa is the first on record. The next falls 300 years later in the reign of Josiah. There is a third in the time of Nehemiah (see the marginal references). On such occasions, the people bound themselves by a solem oath to observe all the directions of the Law, and called down God's curse upon them if they forsook it.

They entered into a covenant - The covenant consisted of two parts:
1. We will seek the God of our fathers with all our heart, and with all our soul.
2. Whosoever, great or small, man or woman, will not worship the true God, and serve him alone, shall be put to death. Thus no toleration was given to idolatry, so that it must be rooted out: and that this covenant might be properly binding, they confirmed it with an oath; and God accepted them and their services.

And they entered into a covenant,.... Asa and all his people; that is, as Piscator remarks, they went between the pieces of the calf cut asunder, for the confirmation of the covenant, see Jeremiah 34:18,
to seek the Lord God of their fathers, with all their heart, and with all their soul; to serve and worship him most truly, sincerely, and cordially.

And they entered into the covenant, i.e., they renewed the covenant, bound themselves by a promise on oath (שׁבוּעה, 2-Chronicles 15:14) to hold the covenant, viz., to worship Jahve the God of the fathers with their whole heart and soul; cf. Deuteronomy 4:29. With בּבּרית בּוא, cf. Jeremiah 34:10.

Into covenant - The matter of this covenant was nothing but what they were before obliged to. And tho' no promise could lay any higher obligation upon them, than they were already under, yet it would help to increase their sense of the obligation, and to arm them against temptations. And by joining all together in this, they strengthened the hands of each other