2 Chronicles 13:1-22
1 Now in the eighteenth year of king Jeroboam began Abijah to reign over Judah.
2 He reigned three years in Jerusalem. His mother's name also was Michaiah the daughter of Uriel of Gibeah. And there was war between Abijah and Jeroboam.
3 And Abijah set the battle in array with an army of valiant men of war, even four hundred thousand chosen men: Jeroboam also set the battle in array against him with eight hundred thousand chosen men, being mighty men of valour.
4 And Abijah stood up upon mount Zemaraim, which is in mount Ephraim, and said, Hear me, thou Jeroboam, and all Israel;
5 Ought ye not to know that the LORD God of Israel gave the kingdom over Israel to David for ever, even to him and to his sons by a covenant of salt?
6 Yet Jeroboam the son of Nebat, the servant of Solomon the son of David, is risen up, and hath rebelled against his lord.
7 And there are gathered unto him vain men, the children of Belial, and have strengthened themselves against Rehoboam the son of Solomon, when Rehoboam was young and tenderhearted, and could not withstand them.
8 And now ye think to withstand the kingdom of the LORD in the hand of the sons of David; and ye be a great multitude, and there are with you golden calves, which Jeroboam made you for gods.
9 Have ye not cast out the priests of the LORD, the sons of Aaron, and the Levites, and have made you priests after the manner of the nations of other lands? so that whosoever cometh to consecratea himself with a young bullock and seven rams, the same may be a priest of them that are no gods.
10 But as for us, the LORD is our God, and we have not forsaken him; and the priests, which minister unto the LORD, are the sons of Aaron, and the Levites wait upon their business:
11 And they burn unto the LORD every morning and every evening burnt sacrifices and sweet incense: the shewbread also set they in order upon the pure table; and the candlestick of gold with the lamps thereof, to burn every evening: for we keep the charge of the LORD our God; but ye have forsaken him.
12 And, behold, God himself is with us for our captain, and his priests with sounding trumpets to cry alarm against you. O children of Israel, fight ye not against the LORD God of your fathers; for ye shall not prosper.
13 But Jeroboam caused an ambushment to come about behind them: so they were before Judah, and the ambushment was behind them.
14 And when Judah looked back, behold, the battle was before and behind: and they cried unto the LORD, and the priests sounded with the trumpets.
15 Then the men of Judah gave a shout: and as the men of Judah shouted, it came to pass, that God smote Jeroboam and all Israel before Abijah and Judah.
16 And the children of Israel fled before Judah: and God delivered them into their hand.
17 And Abijah and his people slew them with a great slaughter: so there fell down slain of Israel five hundred thousand chosen men.
18 Thus the children of Israel were brought under at that time, and the children of Judah prevailed, because they relied upon the LORD God of their fathers.
19 And Abijah pursued after Jeroboam, and took cities from him, Bethel with the towns thereof, and Jeshanah with the towns thereof, and Ephrain with the towns thereof.
20 Neither did Jeroboam recover strength again in the days of Abijah: and the LORD struck him, and he died.
21 But Abijah waxed mighty, and married fourteen wives, and begat twenty and two sons, and sixteen daughters.
22 And the rest of the acts of Abijah, and his ways, and his sayings, are written in the story of the prophet Iddo.
2 Chronicles 13:3. Four hundred thousand eight hundred thousand chosen men. This would seem incredible, did we not know that the manner of the Hebrews at that time was to bring all their people from twenty to fifty years of age into the field. Yet such a multitude must form an unwieldy and ungovernable army. If the sword fail to destroy them, they must soon be routed by hunger and thirst. These, like the five hundred thousand under Xerxes, that invaded Greece, melted away like snow in the warmer beams of the sun.
2 Chronicles 13:5. A covenant of salt, that is, incorruptible. “I will make an everlasting covenant with you, and I will give you the sure mercies of David.” Isaiah 55:4, Thus the Messiah was the soul of the covenant, whenever it was renewed, as in Genesis 12:3. But as all covenants with men were accompanied with a feast, our Harmer proves that this word designates a feast: so is the Hebrew reading of Ezra 4:14.
2 Chronicles 13:17. There fell down slain five hundred thousand men. The Vulgate diminishes the number of the slain to fifty thousand; but as the LXX, and the complute edition, agree with the Hebrew, and as Josephus affirms that there never was a battle recorded by either Greek or Barbarian writer, in which there was so great a number slain, the modern versions have done right in disregarding the authority of the Vulgate.
REFLECTIONS.
The particulars of this great battle and prodigious carnage, not being mentioned in the book of Kings, we must here stay a moment for reflection. Rehoboam, on the revolt of the ten tribes, had raised an army to recover the whole of his father's kingdom; but God had graciously prevented him by a prophet, and that message sufficiently indicated the good pleasure of heaven that the two kingdoms should exist together in quiet and concord. The rent of the kingdom was of God, as a punishment for Solomon's fall, and Israel's sins. But Jeroboam had not followed peace: he had skirmishes with Judah all the days of Rehoboam: his day however came at last, and he went not without his reward. Abijah, on coming to the throne, levied his people en masse, to the number of four hundred thousand, and entered his rival's country. Jeroboam did the same; and his numbers were twice as many as those of Judah. What a sight for those huge and hostile multitudes, all brethren, all the seed of Jacob, to contemplate one another. Ah, Israel, thy day was come, thine iniquities were ripe, and heaven was resolved to thrust in the sickle.
Before Abijah struck the blow, he wished to parley, of course that he might prevent the bloody affair by a covenant, for the decision of national disputes by the sword indicates generally a contempt of reason and of moral justice. In this previous step he was highly commendable; but his speech, as might naturally be expected, in a young king, religiously educated, is highly monarchical, and strictly religious: yet there were afterwards many defects in his reign.
Jeroboam, instead of hearkening to a noble speech, relied too much on his numbers and his talents, and sent an army to surround and totally to exterminate Judah, in case of defeat. The late ruler of France, confident of victory, almost invariably adopted this mode of fighting; but he miscalculated the Russian canon at Eylau, and his surrounding division of fifteen thousand men, were like Jeroboam's ambush, cut off.
We have the effects which Jeroboam's stratagem produced on the men of Judah. Finding themselves surrounded, and no retreat left, they cried to the Lord, and animated one another with courage for the battle. So fervent were their shouts, so impetuous their charge, that the men of Israel scarcely waited the first assault; and the immensity of the multitude obstructing the flight, the carnage was without a parallel. Oh what a sight! Half a million bleeding on the plain. Oh what a multitude of widows, of orphans, of mothers at home, pouring torrents of unavailing tears; nor could they forget the anguish of Ephron, till death had numbered them with those for whom they wept. Had those men fallen gloriously in a war against a foreign foe, it had been some consolation to the children; but to fall fighting against brethren, it seemed a day of infatuation, and we fear, a day to people hell, and to be lamented with eternal tears. Jeroboam indeed escaped the sword of Abijah, but God smote him with a languishing disease for two whole years, and his kingdom never recovered its population after so dreadful a scourge. So the Lord had said, that on forsaking his covenant, they should be few in number.
By these events we may be put in remembrance, that Satan sometimes makes a grand effort to destroy a soul, or to exterminate the influence of religion; that he surrounds us before and behind, as Jeroboam's multitude surrounded Judah. Let us, whenever so circumstanced, cry like Judah mightily to the Lord. Let us take heart, raise a shout of courage, and fight the good fight of faith; so shall the confusion of fear designed by the enemy recoil on his own head. Let us place a firm confidence in the promises of Israel's God, and then we shall say not only of the difficulties of life, but of death itself, thanks be to God who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.