2 Chronicleschapter 14
15 verses · Ezra, by tradition · 450 to 400 BC · History
Then Asa cried out to the LORD his God: “O LORD, there is no one besides You to help the powerless against the mighty. Help us, O LORD our God, for we rely on You, and in Your name we have come against this multitude. O LORD, You are our God. Do not let a mere mortal prevail against You.”
Introduction
Ezra, by tradition, History, 2 Chronicles Overview.
This chapter was written for a powerless province learning what to do when the odds are impossible. Tradition gives the book to Ezra. It opens the reign of Asa, one of the kings the writer counts as good, and it moves from reform to rest to war. Listen for how the writer links the quiet years to the building work. Notice how the two tribes of the army are equipped. Then attend to the prayer before the battle, because the chapter turns on it.
Context
- Who
- A powerless province learning what to do when the odds are impossible
- What
- Asa's removal of foreign altars and idols, his fortifying of Judah in years of rest, and his victory over Zerah the Cushite after prayer.
- Where
- The towns of Judah, then the Valley of Zephathah at Mareshah in the western foothills.
- When
- The first part of Asa's reign, about 911 to 895 BC.
- Why
- To show that seeking the LORD brings rest, and that He helps the powerless against the mighty.
Historical context
The reform is a demolition list. Foreign altars and high places pulled down, standing stones broken, and the wooden poles of Asherah cut down. Those objects were the ordinary furniture of local worship all over the region, and archaeologists have recovered them from Israelite sites. Removing them was physical work with a political cost in every village.
Show the rest of the historical context, 3 more paragraphs
The ten quiet years are spent on walls, towers, gates and bars. The writer connects the two openly. The land had rest, so the building happens now, and peace is treated as a construction window.
The army is described by its equipment, and the difference between the tribes is real. Judah's men carried the large shield and the spear, which is close formation fighting. Benjamin's carried a smaller shield and the bow, which fits everything else known about that tribe's preference for missile weapons.
Zerah is called the Cushite, and his identity is genuinely debated. He may have been a Nubian commander leading an Egyptian force, or the head of a Cushite people settled in the southern desert, since the survivors are pursued toward Gerar rather than toward Egypt. The battlefield itself is fixed. Mareshah is a Judean lowland fortress town that has been excavated, guarding the valley route up into the hills.
Significance
Asa's prayer is the sentence the chapter exists for. There is no one besides You to help the powerless against the mighty.
Show the rest of the significance, 1 more paragraph
That was written down for people who had no power at all, no army, no walls worth the name and no king. The chapter says the arithmetic was never the deciding factor.
This chapter in Jewish lifeWhat this chapter is in Jewish life and reading.
What is done
2 Chronicles is not read in the synagogue. Chronicles stands among the Writings in the Hebrew canon rather than among the Prophets the Haftarah is drawn from. The division into two books came in through the Greek. The book therefore carries neither a weekly Torah portion nor a Haftarah, and this site's own reading table records the same for all thirty-six chapters. Asa's reforms and the Cushite invasion are met in the commentary and the midrash instead, and the rest of this card is drawn from them.
How it is read
The verse numbers used below are the ones the corpus prints, and they are the Hebrew ones. They run ahead of the numbers many English Bibles carry through this stretch of the book. The commentary itself shows it, where Rashi cites a verse 13:23 that an English Bible numbers in the next chapter.
Asa's command to seek God Rashi reads as a contrast drawn against the north. The Ten Tribes sought other and new gods "which came up of late, and did not seek the God of their fathers" (Rashi on II Chronicles 14:3:1, the Judaica Press Tanach with Rashi, CC-BY). The peace of the reign he takes as the direct result. Since they sought Him, He gave them peace from round about (Rashi on II Chronicles 14:6:2).
The same verse carries the longest note in the chapter, and it is a piece of chronology worked out in the open. Rashi asks how the years of peace fit the years of war with Baasha. The ten tranquil years belong to the earlier notice about the land being quiet. After them war ran between the two kings, since Baasha came to the throne in Asa's third year and seven years of peace followed. He weighs the possibility that the Cushite war stood before the thirty-fifth year. Of that he says plainly that it is difficult to him, because of the verses that follow in this book and in Kings. He ends by sending the reader to the early chronology of the rabbis. "In Seder Olam (ch. 16) it is explained clearly" (Rashi on II Chronicles 14:6:1). The building of the cities he reads as a refuge prepared while the kingdom stood quiet (Rashi on II Chronicles 14:6:1 and 14:6:3).
The prayer before the battle Rashi reads as an argument about strength rather than a cry of fear. Judah is few and the enemy as numerous as the sand, so the plea rests on what God can do rather than on what Judah has. "You can help both the great and the powerless" (Rashi on II Chronicles 14:10:1). The clause about no man prevailing he gives two ways. On the first, the enemy must not be allowed human strength to prevail, so that they never say they have defeated Israel's God. On the second, which he brings from the Rabbi, the weak one must not be held back. He proves that sense of the verb from Deuteronomy and Genesis and Judges (Rashi on II Chronicles 14:10:2).
Radak, Metzudat David and Malbim comment across this chapter as well, and they outnumber the kept notes here. The corpus carries their refs with the reason that Sefaria holds no English version of them, so they stand here cited and unquoted. Malbim on II Chronicles 14:1:1, 14:2:1, 14:3:1, 14:4:1, 14:5:1, 14:7:1, 14:11:1, 14:12:1, 14:13:1 and 14:14:1. Metzudat David on II Chronicles 14:2:1, 14:4:1, 14:5:1, 14:9:1, 14:12:1, 14:13:1 and 14:14:1. Radak on II Chronicles 14:10:1.
What the rabbis say
The corpus carries twenty-one rabbinic locators for this chapter and the text of none. Each is cited and linked here rather than quoted. The prayer at the tenth verse draws eleven of them, and they gather around the sea rather than around this battle. Four are from the Mekhilta. They are Mekhilta DeRabbi Shimon Ben Yochai 14:10, Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael, Tractate Shirah 4:13, and Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael, Tractate Vayehi Beshalach 2:31 and 3:15. The others are Aggadat Bereshit 9:3 and 12:1, Midrash Lekach Tov, Exodus 14:10:5, Midrash Sekhel Tov, Shemot 14:10:5, Midrash Tanchuma, Beshalach 9:2, Vayikra Rabbah 29:11 and Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 246:1. The locators on Exodus 14 are the rabbis reading Asa's plea beside Israel at the sea.
The years of quiet draw the tractate of the scroll. The fifth verse carries Megillah 4a:2, Mekhilta DeRabbi Shimon Ben Yochai 14:7, and Introductions to Amoraic Literature, Part I (Introductions to Tractates of the Babli), Temurah 81. The sixth carries Megillah 4a:4.
The army and the rout carry the rest. The eighth verse, the shields and spears of Judah and the bows of Benjamin, carries Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 230:16. The eleventh, where the Cushites are broken, carries Midrash Tehillim 79:1. The twelfth, the pursuit to Gerar, carries Eikhah Rabbah 4:15, Eikhah Rabbah, Petichta 30 and Otzar Midrashim, Midrash Minayin 1:15. The thirteenth, the cities struck around Gerar, carries Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer 49:4. What each of them teaches is a saying of the rabbis, and is reported as theirs wherever this site quotes one. The quotations wait on a fetch that carries the text.
Sources: Rashi, Rashi on II Chronicles 14:3:1 to 14:10:2, six kept notes, The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg, CC-BY; Seder Olam, Seder Olam chapter 16 on the years of Asa, named inside Rashi on II Chronicles 14:6:1; Radak, Radak on II Chronicles 14:10:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; Metzudat David, Metzudat David on II Chronicles 14:2:1 to 14:14:1, seven refs cited because the corpus carries no English text; Malbim, Malbim on II Chronicles 14:1:1 to 14:14:1, ten refs cited because the corpus carries no English text; The Sefaria corpus, scripts/data/sources/sefaria/2-chronicles/14.json, the 21 Talmud and Midrash locators of this chapter; This site's reading table, src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts, probed in this lane: 2-chronicles parashot total 0, haftarah uses total 0, hasSynagogueReading true for 0 of 36 chapters, festivalReadingForBook null.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
Asa breaks down the altars and the land has rest
Abijah rested with his fathers: Abijah dies, Asa takes the throne, and the land has peace for ten years. The quiet follows the victory at Zemaraim, with Israel defeated and Abijah's treaty with Aram. Barnes reckons Asa a boy of ten or eleven at his accession, so the quiet years cover a minority reign.
2 Chronicles 14:1
“So Abijah slept with his fathers, 1Ki 15:8. and Asa his son reigned in his stead; in his days the land was quiet ten years; the Targum is, the land of Israel; but much better the Septuagint, the land of Judah; these ten years, in which it had rest from war, were the first three years of Asa's reign, and the first seven of Baasha's, according to Jarchi, and which seems right; after which there was war between them all their days, see 1Ki 15:32.”
1 more voice on this verseWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
2 Chronicles 14:1
“Asa his son reigned - If Rehoboam was (1Ki 12:8 note) not more than 21 years old at his accession, Asa, when he mounted the throne, must have been a mere boy, not more than 10 or 11 years of age. The land was quiet ten years - The great blow struck by Abijah 2Ch 13:15-19, his alliance with Syria 1Ki 15:19, and the rapid succession of sovereigns in Israel during the earlier part of Asa’s reign 1Ki 15:25-33, would naturally prevent disturbance on the part of the northern kingdom.”
2 Chronicles 14:2-5
did what was good and right: Asa clears away the foreign altars, high places, sacred pillars and Asherah poles. The parallel at 1 Kings 15:14 says the high places were not removed, while verse 5 says he removed them from the cities of Judah. Henry traces the idolatry to Solomon's old age.
2 Chronicles 14:2
“Since Solomon admitted idolatry, in the latter end of his reign, nothing had been done to suppress it, and so, we presume, it had got ground. Strange gods were worshipped and had their altars, images, and groves; and the temple service, though kept up by the priests ( ch. xiii. 10 ), was neglected by many of the people.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
shattered the sacred pillars: The verse names four objects of false worship: foreign altars, high places, sacred pillars and Asherah poles. Henry calls them a great provocation to a jealous God and a great temptation to a careless, unthinking people. Asa hoped, Henry says, to reform idolaters by destroying idols.
to seek the LORD: Asa commanded Judah's people to seek the LORD, and Gill takes this as a public edict. Seeking Him meant praying to Him alone and attending His worship. To observe the law and the commandments meant to keep every law of God, moral, ceremonial and civil.
2 Chronicles 14:4
“And commanded Judah to seek the Lord God of their fathers,.... To pray to him, and him only, and attend his worship and service; this he did by a public edict: and to do the law and the commandment: to observe all the laws of God, moral, ceremonial, and civil.”
and incense altars: Asa now cleared high places from all the cities of Judah. Barnes reads the word for incense altars as sun images, following the margin, and points to Leviticus 26:30. Henry sets the peace in the kingdom that followed against the constant alarms of war in the two reigns before.
2 Chronicles 14:5
“Images - See the margin, sun-images; and Lev 26:30 note.”
2 Chronicles 14:6-7
Asa built fortified cities in Judah: Asa spends the quiet years building cities. His reason is the book's own chain of cause: “The land is still ours because we have sought the LORD our God”. Barnes notes the building was a quiet act of independence, since Judah still lay in the sphere Shishak's invasion had drawn.
2 Chronicles 14:6
“The land had rest - Those have rest indeed, to whom God gives rest; peace indeed, to whom Christ gives peace. We find by experience, it is good to seek the Lord.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
The land is still ours: Asa said Judah should build cities with walls and towers. Barnes explains the land as unoccupied by an enemy, open for Judah to go wherever it pleased, and he compares Genesis 13:9. He calls it an act of rebellion against Egypt, which could be expected to try to stop it.
2 Chronicles 14:7
“The land is yet before us - i. e., “unoccupied by an enemy” - “the land is open to us to go where we please.” Compare Gen 13:9. The fortification of the strongholds would be an act of rebellion against Egypt, and it might be expected that the Egyptians would endeavor to put a stop to it.”
bearing large shields and spears: The muster totals 580,000, with 300,000 from Judah “bearing large shields and spears” and 280,000 from Benjamin “bearing small shields and drawing the bow”. Clarke reads the equipment as the ordinary split between close fighting and fighting at a distance. The next verses set this army against one far larger.
2 Chronicles 14:8
“Targets and spears - Probably targets with the dagger in the center, and javelins for distant fight. Bare shields and drew bows - They were not only archers, but had shield and sword for close fight.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
A million Ethiopians, and a prayer that decides the battle
2 Chronicles 14:9-10
Zerah the Cushite came against them: Zerah brings “an army of 1,000,000 men and 300 chariots”, the largest army named in the Old Testament, as far as Mareshah. Wesley notes that the Hebrew Cush often names an Arabian people, nearer Asa's border than African Ethiopia. Barnes proposes that Zerah was Osorkon the Second of Egypt.
2 Chronicles 14:9
“Zerah the Ethiopian is probably Usarken (Osorkon) II, the third king of Egypt after Shishak, according to the Egyptian monuments. Osorkon II may have been by birth an Ethiopian, for he was the son-in-law, not the son, of the preceding monarch, and reigned in right of his wife. The object of the expedition would be to bring Judaea once more under the Egyptian yoke. An host of a thousand thousand - This is the largest collected army of which we hear in Scripture; but it does not exceed the known numbers of other Oriental armies in ancient times.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Chronicles 14:9
“Ethiopian - Or, the Arabian, as the Hebrew word Cush is commonly used: these being much nearer to Asa than the Ethiopians.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
the Valley of Zephathah: appears nowhere else in Scripture. Barnes places it in the broad valley that opens northwest from Mareshah into the great Philistine plain. Zerah pulled back into that open ground as Asa advanced, where his horsemen and chariots had room to fight.
2 Chronicles 14:10
“Then Asa went out against him,.... Notwithstanding he brought so great an army with him: and they set the battle in array in the valley of Zephathah at Mareshah; where the Ethiopians were; he did not stay till they got further into his country, but marched against them when on the frontiers of it, and chose the valley to pitch in, as being more to the advantage of his smaller army; see Jdg 1:17.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Chronicles 14:10
“The “valley of Zephathah” - not elsewhere mentioned - is probably the broad Wady which opens out from Mareshah (marginal reference) in a northwesterly direction, leading into the great Philistine plain. Zerah, on the advance of Asa, drew off into the wider space of the Wady, where he could use his horsemen and chariots.”
no one besides You to help: Asa prays, “O LORD, there is no one besides You to help the powerless against the mighty”. Jehoshaphat prays in the same pattern at 2 Chronicles 20:12. Clarke traces the same reasoning to Jonathan's word at Michmash, that the LORD can save whether by many or by few.
2 Chronicles 14:11
“Whether with many - The same sentiment as that uttered by Jonathan, 1Sa 14:6, when he attacked the garrison of the Philistines. O Lord our God - we rest on thee - “Help us, O Lord our God; because we depend on thy Word, and in the name of thy Word we come against this great host.” - Targum.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 more voices on this verse
2 Chronicles 14:11
“Asa prayed, and his prayer manifested great power: when Zerah the Indian [Ethiopian] went out against him with an army of one million with him, Asa then prayed, saying, "By this shall your power be known, O our God, when you finish off a vast people by means of a small people." God heard his prayer and sent his angel to rout them. Thus the vast army was defeated by the power of Asa's prayer.”
Aphrahat the Persian Sage · written before 345 · DEMONSTRATION 4.8patristic
2 Chronicles 14:11
“He that sought God in the day of his peace and prosperity could with holy boldness cry to God in the day of his trouble, and call him his God. His prayer is short, but has much in it. He gives to God the glory of his infinite power and sovereignty: It is nothing with thee to help and save by many or few, by those that are mighty or by those that have no power.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
2 Chronicles 14:12-13
the LORD struck down the Cushites: The verb belongs to the LORD: “the LORD struck down the Cushites before Asa and Judah”, and they flee as Israel was routed at 13:15. Judah pursues them to Gerar. Barnes counts this among the rare times Judah met a great neighboring power in open field and prevailed.
pursued them as far as Gerar: The Cushite army was broken beyond any regrouping. Its plunder later paid for the great sacrifices of 15:11, seven hundred oxen and seven thousand sheep. Gill traces that spoil to the Cushite camp and the cities of the Philistines.
2 Chronicles 14:14-15
attacked all the cities around Gerar: The pursuit becomes a raid on every city around Gerar, “because the terror of the LORD had fallen upon them”. The same terror falls on Jehoshaphat's enemies at 2 Chronicles 20:29. Gill reads the towns as Philistine cities allied to Zerah, which would explain the plunder found in them.
2 Chronicles 14:14
“And they smote all the cities round about Gerar,.... The cities of the Philistines, who were auxiliaries and confederates with these Ethiopians, and colonies from them, according to Theodoret, and who says, about Eleutheropolis was a place, called, in his time, Geraron Saton: for the fear of the Lord came upon them; so that they had no power to defend themselves, and oppose the men of Judah: and they spoiled all the cities; of the goods and substance that were in them: for there was exceeding much spoil in them; great wealth and riches of one kind or another.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Chronicles 14:14
“There was - much spoil in them - These cities being on the rear of this vast army, they had laid up much forage in them; and to get this the Jews overthrew the whole.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
the tents of the herdsmen: Gill identifies the herdsmen as Scenite Arabs, a people named for living in tents. The camels point the same way, since Arabs kept them, and Gill thinks the flocks had come with Zerah's host to feed it. Judah went home rich.
2 Chronicles 14:15
“They smote also the tents of cattle,.... The people that dwelt in tents for the sake of the pasturage of their cattle; the Scenite Arabs, so called from dwelling in tents: and carried away sheep; which those Arabs were feeding in Palestine, and which this great army brought with them for their support: and camels in abundance; which is another circumstance proving them to be Arabs, who abounded with camels: and returned to Jerusalem; with their spoil, and with great joy.”
How this psalm is built
The form: Regnal narrative with a battle prayer at its centre, the first of the two this book gives a king of Judah, as Clarke classes it.
The patterns in this chapter
| Device | What it does | Where to see it |
|---|---|---|
| The reform listed item by item | Verses 3 and 5 name the objects one at a time: the foreign altars, the high places, the sacred pillars, the Asherah poles, then the high places and incense altars in every city. Matthew Henry reads the work as ground recovered, since the foothold dates from Solomon's old age. The list is of physical things, and removing each of them cost something in the village it stood in.Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710, on 2 Chronicles 14:2 to 5. | 2 Chronicles 14:3, 2 Chronicles 14:5 |
| We have sought the LORD our God | The verb this book weighs every reign by runs three times in five verses. Asa commands the people to seek at verse 4, and his own speech at verse 7 uses it twice as the reason for the rest the land is enjoying. The chain the verses state is plain: seeking answered by rest, and rest spent on building rather than on ease.Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710, on 2 Chronicles 14:6 to 7. | 2 Chronicles 14:4, 2 Chronicles 14:7 |
| Two tribes armed two ways | Verse 8 gives Judah large shields and spears and Benjamin small shields and the bow. Adam Clarke reads the split as the ordinary division between close fighting and fighting at a distance in an army of the period. The distinction holds elsewhere in the book, since Benjamin's contingent is still carrying bows at 17:17.Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible, 1832, on 2 Chronicles 14:8. | 2 Chronicles 14:8 |
| The powerless against the mighty | Verse 11 is the first battle prayer in the book and it asks nothing about tactics. It states that help with the powerless and help with the mighty are the same thing to God, and it rests the case on whose name the army carries. Adam Clarke traces the same reasoning back to Jonathan at Michmash, and the prayer is the model Jehoshaphat follows at 20:12.Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible, 1832, on 2 Chronicles 14:11. | 2 Chronicles 14:11 |
The historical value
16 more paragraphs on the patterns
The battlefield is a known site. Mareshah is a fortified town of the Judean lowland guarding the valley route up into the hills, and it has been excavated. Zerah advances to it and Asa meets him in the valley near it, so the fighting happens where the road into Judah narrows.
The reform in verses 3 and 5 removes objects that archaeologists have recovered from Israelite sites of the period. Standing stones and the wooden poles of Asherah were the ordinary furniture of local worship across the region.
The pursuit at verse 13 runs toward Gerar rather than toward Egypt, which is one of the facts that bears on who Zerah was.
Albert Barnes makes a further observation about the period. Judah met a great neighbouring power in the open field and prevailed here, where Shishak, Sennacherib and Nebuchadnezzar were each resisted from behind walls or else were not resisted at all.
The debated concept
Zerah is called the Cushite and his identity is genuinely open.
Albert Barnes identifies him with Osorkon the Second of Egypt's twenty-second dynasty, which would make the invasion an Egyptian campaign under a Libyan house. He offers this as a historian's reading.
John Wesley notes that the Hebrew Cush often names an Arabian people rather than African Ethiopia, and that Arabia sat far nearer Asa's border than Egypt did. The pursuit toward Gerar and the raid on the tents of herdsmen at verse 15 fit that reading.
The positions stand together here. What the text fixes is the ground, Mareshah in Judah's own lowland, and the scale, which is the largest force named in the Old Testament.
The second open question runs across the whole reign. Verses 3 and 5 say Asa removed the high places. The parallel at 1 Kings 15:14 says the high places were not removed. Both halves stand together in one verse at 15:17 of this book, where the high places are left in Israel and Asa's heart is fully devoted all his days.
Albert Barnes reads the tension as the difference between what a king ordered and what the ordinary worship of the country in fact continued to be. Keil reads the same gap in the same way. The book states it again of Jehoshaphat, where 17:6 has the high places removed and 20:33 has them standing because the people had not set their hearts on God.
The estate keeps the verses together rather than choosing one, because the book itself keeps them together.
The divine connection
The prayer at verse 11 states a principle rather than asking for a tactic. Help given to the powerless and help given to the mighty cost God the same, and Judah has come against the multitude in His name.
Adam Clarke traces the reasoning back a long way. Jonathan said at 1 Samuel 14:6 that nothing restrains the LORD from saving by many or by few. A king here leans on a young soldier's theology at the edge of an army many times his own.
The chapter is careful with the credit. Verse 12 says the LORD struck the Cushites down. Verse 13 says they were crushed before the LORD and His army, and verse 14 says the terror of the LORD had fallen on the cities around Gerar.
Keep studying
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 form and classifications
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible, 1832, on 2 Chronicles 14:11, which sets the prayer beside Jonathan's word at 1 Samuel 14:6; the compiler of Chronicles, 2 Chronicles 14:3 to 5, read with 15:8 to 16, 29:3 to 36 and 34:3 to 7 and the site's own guide to this book, src/components/book/guides/2-chronicles/Book2ChroniclesGuide.tsx, the LEDGER table, Asa at 14:1 to 16:14.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes; Jamieson Fausset and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Gill; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.