This chapter is entirely additional to Kings, and of great interest. It deals with three matters only, (1) The rebuke addressed to Jehoshaphat by the prophet Jehu 2 Chronicles 19:1, (2) Jehoshaphat’s religious reformation 2 Chronicles 19:4, and (3) his reform of the judicial system 2 Chronicles 1... [ Continue Reading ]
JEHOSHAPHAT ... RETURNED TO HIS HOUSE IN PEACE - With the battle of Ramoth-Gilead, and the death of Ahab, the war came to an end. The combined attack of the two kings having failed, their troops had been withdrawn, and the enterprise in which they had joined relinquished. The Syrians, satisfied with... [ Continue Reading ]
JEHU ... WENT OUT TO MEET HIM - Compare 2 Chronicles 15:2. The monarch was therefore rebuked at the earliest possible moment, and in the most effective way, as he was entering his capital at the head of his returning army. Jehu, 35 years previously, had worked in the northern kingdom, and prophesied... [ Continue Reading ]
Jehoshaphat, while declining to renounce the alliance with Israel (compare the 2 Kings 3:7 note), was careful to show that he had no sympathy with idolatry, and was determined to keep his people, so far as he possibly could, free from it. He therefore personally set about a second reformation, passi... [ Continue Reading ]
What exact change Jehoshaphat made in the judicial system of Judah Deu 16:18; 1 Chronicles 23:4, it is impossible to determine. Probably he found corruption widely spread 2 Chronicles 19:7, and the magistrates in some places tainted with the prevailing idolatry. He therefore made a fresh appointment... [ Continue Reading ]
The “fathers of Israel” are the heads of families; the chief of the fathers” are the great patriarchal chiefs, the admitted heads of great houses or clans. They were now admitted to share in the judicial office which seems in David’s time to have been confined to the Levites 1 Chronicles 23:4. FOR... [ Continue Reading ]
The Jews who “dwelt in the cities,” if dissatisfied with the decision given by the provincial judges, might therefore remove the cause to Jerusalem, as to a court of appeal.... [ Continue Reading ]
In religious causes, Amariah, the high priest, was to preside over the court; in civil or criminal causes, Zebadiah was to be president. And to Levites, other than the judges, he assigned the subordinate offices about the court.... [ Continue Reading ]