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2 Chronicles

2 Chronicleschapter 19

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Speaks with:2 Chronicles 19×2Psalms 139×12 John 1×12 Chronicles 18×12 Chronicles 12×1Ezra 7×1

Summary

Chapter summary

Jehoshaphat comes home in peace and is met by Jehu the son of Hanani: 'Shouldest thou help the wicked, and love them that hate Jehovah?… Nevertheless there are good things found in thee': rebuke and commendation in one breath. The king responds by going out among the people from Beer-sheba to the hill country of Ephraim to bring them back to Jehovah, and by reforming the courts. Judges are set city by city with a charge: 'Consider what ye do: for ye judge not for man, but for Jehovah; and he is with you in the judgment.' In Jerusalem a higher bench of Levites, priests, and heads of houses is appointed, with the closing exhortation, 'Deal courageously, and Jehovah be with the good.'

Context

History · Ezra — 2 Chronicles overview

  • A. 1–3 Shouldest thou help the ungodly? Jehu meets the king
  • B. 4–11 Judges appointed: you judge not for man, but for the LORD

The outline

  1. A.Shouldest thou help the ungodly? Jehu meets the kingvv. 1 to 3

    Read vv. 1 to 3 →

  2. B.Judges appointed: you judge not for man, but for the LORDvv. 4 to 11

    Read vv. 4 to 11 →

The world behind this chapter

2 Chronicles 19
When
Jehoshaphat's reform of the courts · c. 852 BC
Where
The fortified cities of Judah, and a high court seated in Jerusalem
Who first heard it
A province running its own courts under a foreign administration

The history

The rebuke comes first. Jehu son of Hanani meets the returning king with a question — should you help the ungodly and love those who hate the LORD? — and adds that good things were nonetheless found in him. The writer records both halves.

The reform that follows is one of the most detailed pictures of a legal system in the Old Testament. Judges are appointed in every fortified city, with a charge that reframes the whole job: you judge not for man but for the LORD, who is with you in the matter of judgment. A judge's ruling is treated as an act of worship, and a bad one as sacrilege.

Then a higher court is seated in Jerusalem, made up of Levites, priests, and heads of families, to hear the cases that come up from the cities. It is split into two tracks with two presiding officers: Amariah the chief priest over everything concerning the LORD, and Zebadiah, the ruler of the house of Judah, over everything concerning the king. Religious law and royal law are separated at the top and staffed by different men.

The standing instructions are blunt: there is no injustice with the LORD our God, no partiality, and no taking of bribes. Officers and Levites are assigned to the court as its staff.

What it meant to them

Under Persian rule the province governed its own internal disputes, and the men hearing this chapter were the ones deciding cases about land, debt, marriage, and inheritance.

The chapter handed them their charter and their warning in the same breath: deal courageously, and the LORD shall be with the good — but remember whose court you are actually sitting in.

Sources cited

  • Roland de Vaux, Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions
  • Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Chronicles

Every work MannaFest builds on →

The text of this chapter

This page carries no textual note on 2 Chronicles 19. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →

This page draws on Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.

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