2 Chronicleschapter 13
22 verses · Ezra, by tradition · 450 to 400 BC · History
Key verse
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.
It stands in Abijah on Mount Zemaraim: God Himself is with us as captain, verses 1 to 12.
The chapter
Chapter summary
Abijah stands on Mount Zemaraim and preaches to Jeroboam's army before the battle: the Chronicler's clearest statement of what the southern kingdom claims. Jehovah gave the kingdom to David and his sons by a covenant of salt; Jeroboam's priests are anyone who comes with a bullock and seven rams, while in Jerusalem the sons of Aaron burn incense morning and evening and the lampstand is lit. 'As for us, Jehovah is our God, and we have not forsaken him… O children of Israel, fight ye not against Jehovah, the God of your fathers; for ye shall not prosper.' The ambush closes behind Judah; the priests sound the trumpets, the men shout, and Judah prevails 'because they relied upon Jehovah, the God of their fathers.'
Context
History · Ezra · 2 Chronicles overview
The world behind this chapter
2 Chronicles 13The history
Speaking to an enemy army from a height before a battle was a normal part of ancient warfare. Voices carry across a valley, and the aim was to break the other side's nerve before a blow was struck. Abijah's speech is a legal brief delivered at the top of his lungs.
The rest of the history, and what it meant to them
His argument is entirely about worship. Judah still has the sons of Aaron and the Levites serving, and the burnt offering goes up morning and evening. The bread is set out on the clean table, the lamps are lit each evening, and the priests sound the trumpets. Israel has golden calves, and priests made by anyone who came with a young bull and seven rams, which is to say a priesthood that could be bought.
The covenant of salt he cites is a real formula. Salt preserved, so agreements sealed with salt were understood to be permanent, and the grain offerings were salted for the same reason.
The battle is a standard ambush. Engage the front, send a force around behind, and catch the enemy between. Judah's advantage in the text is the trumpets the priests blew and the cry the men raised.
The troop figures of four hundred thousand, eight hundred thousand and five hundred thousand killed are enormous, and honesty requires naming the difficulty. The Hebrew word usually translated thousand can also mean a unit, a squad or a clan contingent, and some scholars read the figures as counts of units. Others take them as written, on the ancient practice of stating a great victory in round, resounding numbers. The text leaves it open.
What it meant to them
The first hearers made the same argument Abijah made, in the same terms. Their claim against the rival worship in Samaria rested on the priesthood, the lamp, the bread and the daily offering rather than on strength.
The writer turns that claim into a battlefield speech, so the theology arrives with an army behind it. We are carrying out the requirements of the LORD our God, while you have forsaken Him.
Sources cited
- Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Chronicles
- John H. Walton, Victor H. Matthews and Mark W. Chavalas, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament
- Roland de Vaux, Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions
Where the chapter sits
2 Chronicles 13 falls in Kings of Judah: Rehoboam to Ahaz (chapters 10–28). The divided kingdom narrated from Judah's side only; reform kings (Asa, Jehoshaphat, Joash, Uzziah, Jotham) and evil kings; prophetic interventions unique to Chronicles (Azariah, Hanani, Zechariah son of Jehoiada).
Before it: Solomon's reign, chapters 1–9. After it: Hezekiah to the exile, chapters 29–36.
The whole shape of 2 Chronicles→The structure of this chapter
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
A. Abijah on Mount Zemaraim: God Himself is with us as captain
1. (vv. 1-3)
2 Chronicles 13:1
“The history of Abijah’s reign is here related far more fully than in Kings (marginal reference), especially as regards his war with Jeroboam.”
2 Chronicles 13:2
“He reigned three years in Jerusalem,.... See Gill on 1Ki 15:2, his mother's name also was Michaiah the daughter of Uriel of Gibeah; see 2Ch 11:20; see Gill on 1Ki 15:2. and there was war between Abijah and Jeroboam; and in this chapter is an account of a battle fought between them, not recorded in the book of Kings.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Chronicles 13:2
“His mother’s name - was Michaiah - See on 2Ch 11:20 (note).”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 Chronicles 13:3
“And Abijah set the battle in array, with an army of valiant man of war, even four hundred thousand chosen men,.... Collected such an army of select men, led them into his enemy's country, and set them in order of battle: and Jeroboam also set the battle in array against him, with eight hundred thousand chosen men, being mighty men of valour; double the number of Abijah s army, he having ten tribes to collect out of, and Abijah but two.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Chronicles 13:3
“It has been proposed to change the numbers, here and in 2Ch 13:17, into 40,000, 80,000, and 50,000 respectively - partly because these smaller numbers are found in many early editions of the Vulgate, but mainly because the larger ones are thought to be incredible. The numbers accord well, however, with the census of the people taken in the reign of David 1Ch 21:5, joined to the fact which the writer has related 2Ch 11:13-17, of a considerable subsequent emigration from the northern kingdom into the southern one.”
began Abijah to reign over Judah: Kings dismisses this reign in three verses as Abijam, a king who walked in his father's sins; Chronicles spends the whole chapter on him, calls him Abijah, and gives him a sermon and a covenant kept, the two portraits standing together with neither displacing the other. The armies mustered here, four hundred thousand against eight hundred thousand, are Chronicles' own report, unparalleled in Kings, and Barnes ties the disparity to the emigration from the north Chronicles already recorded at 11:13-17. Jeroboam's number, twice Abijah's, reflects the ten tribes he draws from against Judah's two.
2. (vv. 4-5)
2 Chronicles 13:4
“Stood up upon Mount Zemaraim - “Which was a mount of the tribe of the house of Ephraim.” - Targum. Jarchi thinks that Abijah went to the confines of the tribe of Ephraim to attack Jeroboam. It could not be Shomeron, the mount on which Samaria was built in the days of Omri king of Israel, 1Ki 16:24.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
2 Chronicles 13:4
“Abijah stood up upon Mount Zemaraim--He had entered the enemy's territory and was encamped on an eminence near Beth-el (Jos 18:22). Jeroboam's army lay at the foot of the hill, and as a pitched battle was expected, Abijah, according to the singular usage of ancient times, harangued the enemy.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
2 Chronicles 13:5
“By a covenant of salt? - For ever. “For as the waters of the sea never grow sweet, neither shall the dominion depart from the house of David.” - Targum. See my note on Num 18:19 (note).”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
stood up upon mount Zemaraim: Abijah climbs a hill in Ephraim and does what ancient commanders sometimes did before a battle, he harangues the opposing camp, JFB notes, with Jeroboam's army arrayed below him. His opening claim reaches past Rehoboam's schism to the covenant of salt at verse 5, a phrase Clarke ties through the Targum to salt's incorruption, sealing the kingdom to David's house and his sons for ever. The theology of the covenant retold at 1 Chronicles 17, the LORD's own throne held for David's line, is here put into one king's mouth on a hillside.
3. (vv. 6-7)
2 Chronicles 13:6
“Yet Jeroboam the son of Nebat, the servant of Solomon the son of David, is risen up,.... Notwithstanding it was well known the kingdom was entailed on the posterity of David by an everlasting covenant; Abijah calls Jeroboam Solomon's servant, by way of great contempt, as Jarchi observes, he being the general receiver of his tax in the tribe of Ephraim, 1Ki 11:28. and hath rebelled against his lord; his rightful king and sovereign; the charge is no less than high treason.”
2 Chronicles 13:7
“When Rehoboam was young and tender-hearted - Therefore he could not be forty-one when he came to the throne; see the note on 2Ch 13:3. Children of Belial here signifies men of the most abandoned principles and characters; or men without consideration, education, or brains.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
is risen up, and hath rebelled: Abijah names Jeroboam Solomon's servant before naming him king, Gill notes, a title chosen to shame a man he still calls a rebel against his lord. The charge against the men who backed Jeroboam, vain men, the children of Belial, falls on the moment Rehoboam was young and tenderhearted and could not withstand them, a phrase Clarke reads as evidence Rehoboam was younger at his accession than some had reckoned. Abijah's speech lays the schism on Jeroboam's opportunism and Rehoboam's inexperience together, not on any fault of Judah's own.
4. (vv. 8-9)
2 Chronicles 13:8
“And now ye think to withstand the kingdom of the Lord in the hand of the sons of David,....”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Chronicles 13:8
“Fair reasoning may do a great deal of good and prevent a good deal of mischief. How forcible are right words! Abijah had got with his army into the heart of their country; for he made this speech upon a hill in Mount Ephraim, where he might be heard by Jeroboam and the principal officers, with whom it is probable he desired to have a treaty, to which they consented.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
2 Chronicles 13:9
“Seven rams - “A bullock and two rams” was the offering which God had required at the original consecration of the sons of Aaron Exo 29:1; Lev 8:2. Jeroboam, for reasons of his own, enlarged the sacrifice, and required it at the consecration of every priest.”
golden calves, which Jeroboam made you for gods: The sermon turns from politics to worship: Jeroboam's golden calves are no gods at all, and the priesthood built to serve them stands accused of abandoning the sons of Aaron for whoever brings a bullock and seven rams to consecrate himself. Barnes notes the extra ram is Jeroboam's own addition to the consecration Exodus and Leviticus prescribed with one ram fewer, ordination made a matter of the offering brought rather than of descent. Chronicles has already narrated the Levites and priests leaving the north for Judah at 11:13-17; here Abijah states the reasoning behind that migration as an argument to men he still calls kinsmen.
5. (vv. 10-11)
2 Chronicles 13:10
“The Lord is our God - We have not abandoned the Lord; and we still serve him according to his own law.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 more voices on this verse
2 Chronicles 13:10
“But as for us, the Lord is our God,....”
2 Chronicles 13:10
“We worship no images, have no priests but what he has ordained, no rites of worship but what he has prescribed. Both the temple service and the temple furniture are of his appointing.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
2 Chronicles 13:11
“Pure table - Made of pure gold, Exod. xxv, 23, 24, he saith table and candlestick, though there were ten of each, because ordinarily there was but one of each used at a time for those uses. We keep - Perhaps he flattered himself, that his keeping up the external worship of God would make satisfaction for the errors of his life.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
the Lord is our God, and we have not forsaken him: Against Jeroboam's manufactured priesthood Abijah sets Judah's own, the sons of Aaron, and the Levites wait upon their business, an unbroken succession offered as the case itself. Verse 11 lists the evidence, morning and evening burnt offerings, the shewbread on the pure table, and the golden lampstand kept burning every evening, the daily courses 1 Chronicles 23-26 established still running. We keep the charge of the Lord our God, but ye have forsaken him turns the sermon on the seeking refrain Chronicles measures every reign by, though Wesley allows that Abijah may partly have flattered himself that outward worship covered the faults of his own life.
6. (v. 12)
2 Chronicles 13:12
“God himself is with us - Ye have golden calves; we have the living and omnipotent Jehovah. With - trumpets to cry alarm against you - This was appalling: When the priests sound their trumpets, it will be a proof that the vengeance of the Lord shall speedily descend upon you.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
2 Chronicles 13:12
“Trumpets - Upon the sounding whereof God hath solemnly promised to assist his people, Num. x, 9. The Lord - You have not only us for your enemies, but God, even the God whom your fathers served. It is folly to fight against the God of almighty power: but it is treachery and base ingratitude, to fight against your father's God.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
God himself is with us for our captain: Abijah's climax names God himself is with us for our captain and the priests with sounding trumpets as Judah's actual weapons, a claim the rest of the chapter makes good within the hour. The appeal, fight ye not against the Lord God of your fathers, for ye shall not prosper, still holds out peace, Wesley notes, treason against Jeroboam already charged and now war against Israel's own covenant God laid beside it. Jeroboam gives no recorded answer; the narrative moves straight to what he does instead.
B. Ambushed, they cry to the LORD, and Jeroboam is struck down
1. (vv. 13-14)
2 Chronicles 13:13
“But Jeroboam caused an ambushment - While Abijah was thus employed in reproving them, Jeroboam divided his army privately, and sent a part to take Abijah in the rear; and this must have proved fatal to the Jews, had not the Lord interposed.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
2 Chronicles 13:13
“Jeroboam - While Abijah was discoursing, Jeroboam takes the advantage of it to lay an ambush. It does not appear that he made any answer to all that Abijah said.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
2 Chronicles 13:14
“We hope they did this before they engaged in this war, but the distress they were in made them renew their prayers and quickened them to be importunate. God brings his people into straits, that he may teach them to cry unto him. Earnest praying is crying.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Jeroboam caused an ambushment to come about behind them: While Abijah preaches, Jeroboam sends a detachment around behind Judah's line, and the trap closes with Judah caught before and behind, sprung before the sermon's appeal could be answered. Judah's response is the chapter's argument acted out: they cried unto the Lord, and the priests sounded with the trumpets, the same weapon of worship 2 Chronicles 20 puts in front of Jehoshaphat's army a generation later. Gill reads the trumpets as more than noise, a signal meant to remind the ranks that God stood with them despite the ambush at their backs.
2. (vv. 15-16)
2 Chronicles 13:15
“Then the men of Judah gave a shout,.... Taking heart at the sound of the trumpets, and in order to encourage one another, and intimidate the enemy; See Gill on 1Sa 17:20, and as the men of Judah shouted, it came to pass, that God smote Jeroboam and all Israel before Abijah and Judah; possessed them with a panic, so that they fled at once, as follows.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Chronicles 13:15
“Gave a shout - It is unspeakable comfort, that no stratagem or ambush can cut off our communication with heaven. To the cry of prayer they added the shout of faith, and so became more than conquerors.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
2 Chronicles 13:16
“And the children of Israel fled before Judah,.... Were in such a fright and consternation, that they could not stand their ground, or engage at all; but took to flight immediately: and God delivered them into their hand; to be taken and slain by them.”
the men of Judah gave a shout: The shout precedes the victory rather than following it: as the men of Judah shouted, it came to pass, that God smote Jeroboam, the timing clause doing the same work as when they began to sing at 2 Chronicles 20:22. Wesley reads the shout as the cry of prayer answered by the shout of faith, no ambush able to cut off Judah's access to heaven. Israel's flight follows at once, God delivered them into their hand, without a further blow from Judah's own hand recorded.
3. (vv. 17-18)
2 Chronicles 13:17
“Slain - The word means strictly “pierced,” and will include both the killed and the wounded. It is translated “wounded” in Lam 2:12.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Chronicles 13:17
“But see the sad effect of division: it was the blood of Israelites that was thus shed like water by Israelites, while the heathen, their neighbours, to whom the name of Israel had formerly been a terror, cried, Aha! so would we have it.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
2 Chronicles 13:18
“Thus the children of Israel were brought under at that time,.... Humbled and weakened, but not reduced to the government of the house of David: and the children of Judah prevailed; or grew strong: because they relied upon the Lord God of their fathers; trusted in him, and not in an arm of flesh; the Targum is,"in the Word of the Lord God of their fathers.''”
slew them with a great slaughter: Five hundred thousand chosen men fall; Barnes notes the word rendered slain means literally pierced, covering both the dead and the wounded, and Henry sets the number against the grief of Israelites killing Israelites while Judah's heathen neighbors would have counted such a loss occasion for gladness. Verse 18 states the moral in the Chronicler's own key, the children of Judah prevailed, because they relied upon the Lord God of their fathers, faith rather than the larger army deciding the field. Gill notes the Targum renders it reliance on the Word of the Lord God of their fathers, sharpening the same point.
4. (vv. 19-20)
2 Chronicles 13:19
“Jeshanah is probably identical with the “Isanas” of Josephus, where a battle took place in the war between Antigonus and Herod; but its situation cannot be fixed. For Ephrain, see Jos 18:23 note.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Chronicles 13:19
“Abijah abandoned his original design of attempting the subjugation of the ten tribes, contenting himself with the recovery of a few border towns, which, though lying within Judah or Benjamin, had been alienated to the new or northern kingdom. Among these was Beth-el, which, with its sacred associations, he might be strongly desirous to wrest from profanation.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
2 Chronicles 13:20
“The Lord struck him, and he died - Who died? Abijah or Jeroboam? Some think it was Jeroboam; some, that it was Abijah. Both rabbins and Christians are divided on this point; nor is it yet settled. The prevailing opinion is that Jeroboam is meant, who was struck then with that disease of which he died about two years after; for he did not die till two years after Abijah: see 1Ki 14:20; 1Ki 15:9. It seems as if Jeroboam was meant, not Abijah.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
2 Chronicles 13:20
“The Lord struck him either with some bodily disease, of which he languished, or with melancholy and trouble of mind; his heart was broken, and vexation at his loss brought his head, probably by this time a hoary head, with sorrow to the grave. He escaped the sword of Abijah, but God struck him: and there is no escaping his sword.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
pursued after Jeroboam, and took cities from him: Abijah pursues and takes border towns rather than the ten tribes themselves; JFB reads it as abandoning any wider conquest and settling for towns Jeroboam had absorbed, Bethel chief among them for its old associations reaching back to Jacob. Jeroboam never recovers strength in Abijah's short reign, and the Lord struck him, and he died; Clarke notes both rabbinic and Christian readers divided over whether Jeroboam or Abijah is meant, with the majority reading taking Jeroboam as the one struck, since he is recorded living roughly two more years past Abijah's own death at 1 Kings 14:20 and 15:9.
C. Abijah's household and the rest of his actsvv. 21-22
married fourteen wives, and begat twenty and two sons: Abijah's fourteen wives and thirty-eight children, Clarke suggests, likely sealed alliances with neighboring powers the way royal marriages regularly did; Gill notes most were had before his three-year reign even began. The source citation, the story of the prophet Iddo, gives Clarke what he calls the first biblical mention of the word that becomes midrash, a lost commentary this very chapter appears to draw from. Kings closes Abijam's three verses with the verdict that his heart was not perfect with the Lord his God; Chronicles closes its fuller chapter without repeating that line, and the two accounts are read alongside each other rather than resolved into one.
2 Chronicles 13:21
“But Abijah waxed mighty,.... In his kingdom, increasing in riches and numbers, power and authority, and in his family: and married fourteen wives, and begat twenty and two sons and sixteen daughters; not after the above battle, nor since he began to reign; for he reigned but three years; but he, no doubt, married wives and had children before he came to the throne, as he might have others after.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Chronicles 13:21
“Married fourteen wives - Probably he made alliances with the neighboring powers, by taking their daughters to him for wives.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 Chronicles 13:22
“Written in the story - במדרש bemidrash, “in the commentary;” this, as far as I recollect, is the first place where a midrash or commentary is mentioned. The margin is right. His ways, and his sayings - The commentary of the prophet Iddo is lost. What his sayings were we cannot tell; but from the specimen in this chapter, he appears to have been a very able speaker, and one who knew well how to make the best use of his argument.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
2 Chronicles 13:22
“But the number of his months was cut off in the midst, and, soon after his triumphs, death conquered the conqueror. Perhaps he was too much lifted up with his victories, and therefore God would not let him live long to enjoy the honour of them.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
This page carries no textual note on 2 Chronicles 13. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes on the Old Testament; Jamieson Fausset and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.