Paul Kretzmann Commentary - 2 Chronicles 13:13 - 13:22

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Paul Kretzmann Commentary - 2 Chronicles 13:13 - 13:22


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The Defeat of Jeroboam

v. 13. But Jeroboam,
while Abijah harangued his army from his elevated station, caused an ambushment to come about behind them, to surprise the army of Judah in the rear; so they, the main division of Israel's army, were before Judah, and the ambushment was behind them.

v. 14. And when Judah looked back,
their attention having been called to the enemy's detachment in their rear, behold, the battle was before and behind. And they cried unto the Lord, and the priests sounded with the trumpets, this being the pledge of victory and intended to reassure the soldiers of Judah.

v. 15. Then the men of Judah,
filled with new courage by the well-known signal, gave a shout, their war-cry combining with the sound of the trumpets; and as the men of Judah shouted, it came to pass that God smote Jeroboam and all Israel before Abijah and Judah. It is particularly emphasized that the ranks of Israel were broken due to the interference of Jehovah in behalf of Judah.

v. 16. And the children of Israel fled before Judah; and God delivered them into their hand.

v. 11. And Abijah and his people,
inflamed by the usual passions of civil war, slew them with a great slaughter; so there fell down slain of Israel five hundred thousand chosen men.

v. 18. Thus the children of Israel were brought under at that time,
defeated and humbled, also weakened by their terrible loss of armed men, and the children of Judah prevailed, because they relied upon the Lord God of their fathers, and not on account of their own invincible valor.

v. 19. And Abijah pursued after Jeroboam, and took cities from him: Bethel with the towns thereof,
the hamlets surrounding it, and Jeshanah with the towns thereof, and Ephrain with the towns thereof, all border cities which, strictly speaking, belonged to the territory of Judah and Benjamin.

v. 20. Neither did Jeroboam recover strength again in the days of Abijah,
he could not recover from the awful blow which had been struck; and the Lord struck him, and he died, not snatching him away by a sudden death, but visiting him with misfortune and heaping one blow after another upon him, so that he outlived Abijah by only two years. 1Ki_14:20; 1Ki_15:9.

v. 21. But Abijah,
as long as he adhered to the Lord alone, waxed mighty, and married fourteen wives, and begat twenty and two sons and sixteen daughters, this, of course, having taken place before he became king, long before the war with Jeroboam.

v. 22. And the rest of the acts of Abijah, and his ways, and his sayings, are written in the story of the prophet Iddo,
which is mentioned elsewhere also as a source from which the sacred writer drew. We who, by the grace of God, have His pure Word and Sacraments, should heed the warning contained in this history and beware of apostasy.