Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - 2 Chronicles 17:2 - 17:2

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Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - 2 Chronicles 17:2 - 17:2


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He placed forces (חַיִל) in all the fenced cities of Judah, and garrisons (נְצִיבִים, military posts; cf. 1Ch 11:16) in the land of Judah, and in the cities of Ephraim, which is father Asa had taken; cf. 2Ch 15:8. God blessed these undertakings. Jahve was with him, because he walked in the ways of David his ancestor, the former ways, and sought not the Baals. The former ways of David are his ways in the earlier years of his reign, in contrast to the later years, in which his adultery with Bathsheba (2 Sam. 11) and the sin of numbering the people (1 Chron 21) fall. הַבְּעָלִים are all false gods, in contrast to Jahve, the one God of Israel; and here the word designates not only the Baal-worship properly so called, but also the worship of Jahve by means of images, by which Jahve is brought down to the level of the Baals; cf. Jdg 2:11. The לְ before בְּעָלִים stands, according to the later usage, as a sign of the accusative. In the last clause of 2Ch 17:4, “and not after the doings of Israel” (of the ten tribes), הָלַךְ, “he walked,” is to be repeated. The doing of Israel is the worship of Jahve through the images of the golden calves, which the author of the Chronicle includes in the לַבְּעָלִים דָּרַשׁ.