2 Chronicleschapter 20
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Speaks with:2 Chronicles 6×42 Chronicles 19×4Deuteronomy 2×32 Chronicles 15×32 Chronicles 17×3Exodus 14×3
The Ammonite and Moabite Armies Are Destroyed — Gustave Doré, Doré's English Bible (1866), public domain
Summary
Chapter summary
Moab, Ammon, and the Meunim come against Judah, and Jehoshaphat, afraid, sets himself to seek Jehovah and proclaims a fast. His prayer ends: 'we have no might against this great company that cometh against us; neither know we what to do: but our eyes are upon thee.' Jahaziel, a Levite of the sons of Asaph, answers by the Spirit: 'the battle is not yours, but God's… stand ye still, and see the salvation of Jehovah with you.' At dawn toward Tekoa the king says, 'Believe in Jehovah your God, so shall ye be established; believe his prophets, so shall ye prosper'. And sends the singers out before the army. The enemy destroys itself; the valley is named Beracah, blessing.
Context
History · Ezra — 2 Chronicles overview
- A. 1–13 A great multitude comes, and all Judah stands and looks to God
- B. 14–19 Jahaziel: the battle is not yours, but God's
- C. 20–30 Singers march in front, and three days are spent gathering spoil
- D. 31–37 A good reign, high places left, and ships broken at Ezion-geber
The outline
A.A great multitude comes, and all Judah stands and looks to Godvv. 1 to 13
Read vv. 1 to 13 →B.Jahaziel: the battle is not yours, but God'svv. 14 to 19
Read vv. 14 to 19 →C.Singers march in front, and three days are spent gathering spoilvv. 20 to 30
Read vv. 20 to 30 →D.A good reign, high places left, and ships broken at Ezion-gebervv. 31 to 37
Read vv. 31 to 37 →
The world behind this chapter
2 Chronicles 20The history
The invasion route is real geography. Moab, Ammon, and their allies came around the southern end of the Dead Sea, up the shore to En-gedi, and then climbed the ascent of Ziz — a steep track up the cliffs from the shore onto the Judean ridge. It is a hard road, and it brought them out only a day's march from Jerusalem, bypassing every fortress in the south.
Jehoshaphat's response is a national fast. Fasting was the recognized public act of a community in emergency, and people came in from all the cities of Judah, standing with their wives and children in the new court of the temple while the king prayed aloud.
The word comes back through a Levite of the sons of Asaph, standing in the middle of the assembly — one of the temple singers, speaking as a prophet, which is exactly the ministry the earlier chapters described. He gives them a route and a position: they will come up by the ascent of Ziz, and you will find them at the end of the valley before the wilderness of Jeruel.
Then the singers go out in front of the army in holy attire. The tactical reality behind the ambush is that three allied armies moving in confined hill country, on unfamiliar ground, are extremely vulnerable to panic and to each other — and the text says they destroyed one another before Judah arrived. Three days were needed just to collect what was left, and the place was named the Valley of Blessing.
The chapter closes with a shipping venture with Ahaziah of Israel that ended in wreckage at Ezion-geber, after a prophet condemned the partnership. The phrase 'ships to go to Tarshish' names a class of large seagoing vessel rather than the destination.
What it meant to them
This was the first hearers' own playbook. Ezra proclaimed a fast at the river Ahava because he was ashamed to ask the king for soldiers to guard the road home.
Fast, assemble, pray in the temple court, hear the word through a Levite, and put the singers in front. A community with no army had one strategy, and this chapter is its clearest example.
Sources cited
- John H. Walton, Victor H. Matthews, and Mark W. Chavalas, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament
- Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Chronicles
The text of this chapter
This page carries no textual note on 2 Chronicles 20. 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.