Wednesday, October 15, 2014

Reflections on 2 Chronicles 13

 2 Chronicles 13(Contemporary English Version)
  1. Abijah became king of Judah in Jeroboam's eighteenth year as king of Israel,
  2. and he ruled from Jerusalem for three years. His mother was Micaiah the daughter of Uriel from Gibeah. Some time later, Abijah and King Jeroboam of Israel went to war against each other.
  3. Abijah's army had four hundred thousand troops, and Jeroboam met him in battle with eight hundred thousand troops.
  4. Abijah went to the top of Mount Zemaraim in the hills of Ephraim and shouted: Listen, Jeroboam and all you Israelites!
  5. The LORD God of Israel has made a solemn promise that every king of Israel will be from David's family.
  6. But Jeroboam, you were King Solomon's official, and you rebelled.
  7. Then right after Rehoboam became king, you and your bunch of worthless followers challenged Rehoboam, who was too young to know how to stop you.
  8. Now you and your powerful army think you can stand up to the kingdom that the LORD has given to David's descendants. The only gods you have are those gold statues of calves that Jeroboam made for you.
  9. You don't even have descendants of Aaron on your side, because you forced out the LORD's priests and Levites. In their place, you appoint ordinary people to be priests, just as the foreign nations do. In fact, anyone who brings a bull and seven rams to the altar can become a priest of your so-called gods.
  10. But we have not turned our backs on the LORD God! Aaron's own descendants serve as our priests, and the Levites are their assistants.
  11. Two times every day they offer sacrifices and burn incense to the LORD. They set out the sacred loaves of bread on a table that has been purified, and they light the lamps in the gold lampstand every day at sunset. We follow the commands of the LORD our God--you have rejected him!
  12. That's why God is on our side and will lead us into battle when the priests sound the signal on the trumpets. It's no use, Israelites. You might as well give up. There's no way you can defeat the LORD, the God your ancestors worshiped.
  13. But while Abijah was talking, Jeroboam had sent some of his troops to attack Judah's army from behind, while the rest attacked from the front.
  14. Judah's army realized they were trapped, and so they prayed to the LORD. The priests blew the signal on the trumpet,
  15. and the troops let out a battle cry. Then with Abijah leading them into battle, God defeated Jeroboam and Israel's army.
  16. The Israelites ran away, and God helped Judah's soldiers slaughter
  17. five hundred thousand enemy troops.
  18. Judah's army won because they had trusted the LORD God of their ancestors.
  19. Abijah kept up his attack on Jeroboam's army and captured the Israelite towns of Bethel, Jeshanah, and Ephron, as well as the villages around them.
  20. Jeroboam never regained his power during the rest of Abijah's rule. The LORD punished Jeroboam, and he died, but Abijah became more powerful.
  21. Abijah had a total of fourteen wives, twenty-two sons, and sixteen daughters.
  22. Everything Abijah said and did while he was king is written in the records of Iddo the prophet.

When Solomon's son, Rehoboam, succeeded him as king the kingdom split in contention between followers of David's descendants among the southern tribes and followers of Jeroboam among the northern tribes. A civil war prevailed between them throughout the reign of Rehoboam in the south and was picked up by his son, Abijah who succeeded him. It appears Abijah determined to settle this contention once and for all through persuasion if possible and through force if persuasion was not possible. Thus he took his army of 400,000 up against Jeroboam's army of 800,000. With the two armies facing each other, Abijah stood on Mount Zemaraim and addressed Jeroboam and his army.

Though we know from the account of 1 Kings 15:3 that Abijah "walked in all the sins his father had done before him," he boldly stood before Jeroboam's army and told of Judah's superiority over Israel because Judah continued to worship the Lord while Israel had gotten rid of the Lord's priest and established their own. The Israelite army, he said, was a vast multitude that had come up against the army of Judah depending on "the golden calves that Jeroboam made for you as gods." (13:8) Judah, on the other hand, he said, had not abandoned the Lord, but continued to have the descendants of Aaron and the Levites ministering to the Lord and faithfully carrying out the prescribed rituals. Therefore, Abijah asserted, "Israelites, don't fight against the LORD God of your ancestors, for you will not succeed." (13:12) A fight against Judah, he claimed, was a fight against God. Abijah had reasonable grounds for this assertion since he was the ruler God had intended for Israel as a descendant of David, and since Judah continued to worship the Lord in the prescribed manner. However, his lack of complete devotion to the Lord left him on somewhat shaky grounds.

Nevertheless, the Lord came through for Abijah. Not only was his army outmanned 2 to 1, while he was speaking Jeroboam had manuevered a division of his army around behind Abijah's army and had him surrounded. When Abijah started to sound the trumpets for attack he discovered "the battle was in front of them and behind them." In his delimma, Abijah wisely cried out to the Lord for help, and the Lord "handed them over to them." So Israel fled before Judah and 500,000 Israelites were killed in the battle. Over one-half of Jeroboam's army. Judah also succeeded in capturing some Israelite cities.

The Lord had dealt with Jeroboam and his idolatry. Jeroboam never regained his power and the Lord later "struck him and he died." (13:20) meanwhile, Abijah prospered but followed in the footsteps of his father and grandfather to acquire a number of wives.

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