INTRODUCTION
See introduction to 1 Chronicles.
Just as 1 Chronicles paralleled and drew on 1 and 2 Samuel (starting at 1Sa 31), so 2 Chronicles parallels 1 and 2 Kings. Its first nine chapters constitute the third out of the four major divisions into which the Chronicler’s history naturally falls. These chapters are devoted to the reign of Solomon (970–930 B.C.), the son of David, and correspond to 1Ki 1–11. Even more so than in 1 Kings, the Solomonic record in 2 Chronicles shows a greater concern for Solomon’s temple—six out of the opening nine chapters (chs. 2–7)—than it shows for Solomon’s kingship (as compared to 1Ki 5:1–9:9). The third division of Chronicles does commence and conclude (chs. 1 and 8–9) with basic facts about Solomon’s reign. The final division is about Judah’s history down to the destruction of Jerusalem and the Exile.
II. The Reign of Solomon (2Ch 1:1–9:31)
A. Solomon’s Inauguration (1:1–17)
Chapter 1 concerns the king’s inauguration. Shortly before his death in 970 (1Ch 29:26), King David had seen his son Solomon safely seated on the throne of a united Israel (cf. 23:1); and, by means of a second anointing, he had ensured the allegiance of the nation’s leaders to him (see 29:22). Solomon’s personal career as monarch, however, was inaugurated when God appeared to him in a dream at Gibeon (2Ch 1:1–13, paralleling 1Ki 3:4–15). This event, perhaps more than any other in history, brings to mind the biblical principle of Jas 1:5.
1 The opening verse of 2 Chronicles draws together two other references: (1) that Solomon was “established firmly” recalls the struggle at his accession as this was recorded in 1Ki 1 (cf. 1Ch 29:22), and (2) that God made him “exceedingly great” picks up the thought of 1Ch 29:25.
2–4 Ezra, the author, clarifies 1Ki 3:4 by identifying the various elements that made up Solomon’s “whole assembly,” those who represented “all . . . Israel” and who accompanied him to Gibeon. At the time Moses’ tabernacle, “God’s Tent of Meeting,” was located at this center, seven miles northwest of Jerusalem (see 1Ch 16:39). With the ark now at the Jerusalem capital, these two cities became the only legitimate places for divine atonement. First Kings 3:2 does recognize the reality of deviation in popular practice; but the principle of centralized worship, of services of sacrifice only where God revealed himself, had been established by Moses almost five hundred years earlier (Ex 20:24; Lev 17:3–9; Dt 12:5). Other “high places,” even if used in the name of the Lord God of Israel, were necessarily excluded. This was because of their contamination through association with Canaanite Baal worship: they stood under God’s ban (Nu 33:52; Dt 12:2). Indeed, Solomon’s first drift toward sin became apparent by his recognition and use of such unauthorized high places.
5–6 The “bronze altar” made by Bezalel (see 1Ch 2:20) had a frame of acacia wood, but it was overlaid with bronze (Ex 38.1–2).
7–8 When that night God “appeared to Solomon,” it was in the form of a dream (1Ki 3:5, 15; cf. 1Sa 28:6). The “kindness” that God showed Solomon was his hesed (GK 2875; lit., faithfulness to what he had previously covenanted; cf. 1Ch 16:41): in this instance, that Solomon should succeed David as king (see 22:9).
9 God’s “promise to . . . David”—primarily as revealed in 1Ch 17:11–14—that Solomon prayed might “be confirmed” (GK 586) included the permanent establishment of David’s seed on the throne of Israel and the erection of the temple at Jerusalem. The Lord had already fulfilled his promise to Abraham, that he should have descendants “as numerous as the dust of the earth” (Ge 13:16; 22:17; cf. 1Ki 4:20; 1Ch 27:23).
10 The central teaching of ch. 1 lies in Solomon’s selfless prayer for wisdom, which was the precise characteristic that his father David had already invoked for him (1Ch 22:12). The newly inaugurated king’s desire to have it so that he might “lead this people” Israel reads, literally, that he might “go out and come in before this people.” Such words referred originally to military leadership (1Ch 11:2; cf. 1Sa 18:13) but are here broadened into representing good governmental administratorship in general.
11–13 God granted Solomon’s request. His factual knowledge was to some extent limited by his cultural environment; but his “wisdom,” in the sense of that divinely given ability that can apply knowledge to life situations (as shown by his authorship of Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Songs; cf. 1Ki 4:29, 32), has never been surpassed (1Ki 3:12). God also granted him an unparalleled concentration of wealth (v.15; cf. 1Ch 22:14) and honor (1Ch 29:25; Mt 6:29), which illustrates Christ’s teaching: “Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well” (Mt 6:33).
14 Chapter 1 concludes (vv.14–17) by adducing historical evidences for the fulfillment of God’s promises. King Solomon’s “chariot cities” and other urban constructions have been validated archaeologically by excavations at cities of his period from Hazor in the north to Gezer in the southwest. Megiddo too contains Solomonic structures, including an intricate gateway complex, a palace area, and perhaps even its well-known subterranean water system. Two huge, stone stables holding about 450 horses were formerly attributed to the wise king—and may still be based on his planning—but, at least to the level to which they have been so far recovered, they seem now to be datable to King Ahab in the next century. (Currently there is some doubt as to whether these were even stables, but perhaps were grain storage bins.)
15 Solomon’s silver, “and [his] gold,” too (which does not receive mention in the parallel passages: 9:27; 1Ki 10:27), were as common as “stones”—whose abundance are plainly evident to any tourist to the Holy Land. Solomon also made cedar as plentiful as the sycamore-fig trees, which abound in “the foothills” (cf. 1Ch 27:28).
16 Kue is probably Cilicia, in what is now southern Turkey, at the east end of the Mediterranean; it was a prime ancient supplier of horses.
17 The price for chariots and horses ran about fifteen pounds and three and three-fourths pounds of silver each, respectively. Each chariot cost four times as much as each horse, because of the craftsmanship required and because the wood itself had to be imported into Egypt. The law of Moses, significantly, forbade excess in these very matters (Dt 17:16); they were, in fact, the sorts of sins that Solomon’s prosperity eventually precipitated.
B. Solomon’s Temple (2:1–7:22)
1. Preparations (2:1–18)
Despite the greatness of King Solomon’s armies, wealth, and material possessions (1:14–17), it is not these things that are the most important for us today; nor were they for Ezra in his day. It was Solomon’s temple that captured the greatest concern. This building was, after all, the place where the people worshiped God (but see John 4:21; cf. Mt 27:51).
To the Jews of 450 B.C., the temple overshadowed every other aspect of the career of Solomon. Through the rites of atonement that were performed at its altar, God brought Israel into reconciliation with himself (cf. 2Co 5:18); and continuously these rites symbolized the presence of the Lord in the midst of his redeemed people (2Ch 7:1–2; Ex 29:45–46). Salvation was bound up in the temple, even if in a preliminary and anticipatory way. For even as its altar and priests were a figure that pointed forward to Christ’s sacrifice on the cross (Heb 7:27; 8:4–5; 9:9–12), so the structure itself was a type, a material prophecy of that day when the Word of God would become flesh and “tabernacle” among us (cf. Jn 1:14). Still today it serves as a type of that future glorification that awaits us in the heavenly presence of God himself (Ex 24:18; Heb 9:24).
Solomon’s preparations for the temple possessed considerable antecedents. King David had already prepared in many ways: providing the design for the whole complex, gathering supplies, and enlisting personnel (1Ch 22; 28–29). Solomon, however, still needed to organize the labor force (2Ch 2:2, 17–18). A further aspect, and perhaps the most significant of his preparations, lay in the young king’s search for technical assistance from Hiram king of Tyre (cf. v.12). This way Solomon could gain an experienced superintendent of construction and also a supply of timber from the incomparable cedars of Lebanon (vv.3–10). A suitable contract was soon negotiated (vv.11–16).
1 In addition to the temple, Solomon is said to have constructed a palace for himself (cf. v.12). Though repeatedly mentioned, little is known about it except for the time involved in its building and for some of the costly wood used in its construction (8:1; 9:11; cf. 7:11). It seems to have lain south of the temple on Mount Moriah, but north of the older city of Jerusalem on Mount Zion (cf. 1Ch 26:15), in the space that existed between them.
2 The distribution of the king’s “conscripted” laborers between “carriers and . . . stone cutters” is based on the total of 153,600 given in v.17. These workers were drafted from the alien population that was resident in Israel, according to plans that had already been formulated by David (see 1Ch 22:2). The total figures are validated by 1Ki 5:15–16 (cf. 2Ch 2:18). Solomon also conscripted some 30,000 men out of Israel to labor in relays of 10,000 men each, one month out of every three (1Ki 5:13–14). Precedent for such monthly rotation appears in Egypt, where the system grew out of the three-month period for the annual inundation of the Nile.
3 The king then sent a communication, the text of which appears in vv.3b–10, to “Hiram [a shortened form of Ahiram] king of Tyre.” This city was a Phoenician port, newer and lying to the south of its counterpart Sidon, and situated on an island off the Mediterranean coast. Tyre lies, indeed, just north of the white cliffs that marked the northern border of Israel and specifically the tribe of Asher. It possessed the finest harbor in the area, and its inhabitants were noted for their ship building and commerce.
The occasion for King Solomon’s writing had been furnished by the arrival of a Phoenician delegation sent by Hiram to console Solomon over the death of his father, David, who had been Hiram’s friend, and to congratulate him on his own accession (1Ki 5:1). The new king’s request that Hiram send him “cedar logs as you did for my father David” (cf. 1Ch 14:1) must not be misunderstood as implying either that the logs were to be used for a palace, as had been the case with David (cf. v.4), or that they were the first timber to be provided for the temple (cf. David’s previous accumulations in this regard, 1Ch 22:4, 14).
4 Concerning the activities projected for accomplishment within the temple, the “burning [of] fragrant incense” before the Lord was an act that was performed twice daily on the altar of incense (Ex 30:6–8). In reference to the “consecrated bread,” see 1Ch 9:32; on the daily “burnt offerings,” 23:30; and on the “appointed feasts,” 23:31.
5 Solomon’s affirmation that “our God is greater than all other gods” testifies to his religious commitment, even when dealing with a powerful pagan king. The latter’s response then indicates a corresponding willingness on Hiram’s part to recognize the Lord.
6 Even though the temple was designed to house the glory cloud of God’s presence (5:13–14), Solomon, from the very outset, acknowledged that it could not “contain him,” in the sense of restricting or in any way confining his infinitude to this one location (cf. 6:18; Ac 7:48–49). God in his grace has seen fit, on various occasions, to manifest himself for purposes of revelation and redemption; the supreme demonstration of this fact lies in the incarnation of Jesus Christ (Jn 1:14). Yet in all such cases, significant qualifications are present that prevent any reduction in the Lord’s glory or any manipulation of God on the part of men. Such localization is always voluntary on his part, undertaken on his initiative alone (6:5–6); it is paralleled by his continuing and simultaneous omnipresence (16:9); and it is revocable at his will, capable of termination whenever he may deem it to have become detrimental to his purposes.
In the light of the greatness of God, Solomon confessed his own inadequacy: “Who then am I?” His humility becomes all the more noteworthy in view of his own unsurpassed wealth, wisdom, and power (cf. 1:12, 14–15).
7 Solomon requested from Hiram a skilled workman and in fact hired a number of experienced Phoenicians (vv.8, 14) to work with his own men. For despite a growing number of “skilled craftsmen” in Israel, their techniques remained inferior to those of their northern neighbors, as is demonstrated archaeologically by less finely cut building stones and by the lower level of Israelite culture in general.
8–9 The materials that the king requested consisted preeminently of “cedar logs.” The fragrant cedars of Lebanon were famed throughout the ancient world. They were resistant to decay and superior to any timber native to Palestine. This valuable resource was particularly squandered under Turkish rule, so that today only a few isolated groves of magnificent trees survive. The further product, rendered “pine,” probably refers to the Phoenician juniper, while the “algum” (GK 454) or almug (not mentioned in the parallels that occur in 1Ki 5:6, 8, 10) was a foreign import. It has been traditionally translated as “sandalwood,” because it was brought in from Ophir (9:10) and used for ornamental woodwork and for musical instruments (9:11). Sandalwood, however, does not grow in Lebanon; and the term seems here, as indicated by the NIV note, to represent another variety of juniper.
10 Solomon’s payment to the Phoenicians was based on the charges that he had asked them to quote (1Ki 5:6). First Kings goes on to speak of his delivering an identical “twenty thousand cors of wheat” but of only twenty cors of “pressed” oil (5:11, NIV note; cf. the listing here of “twenty thousand baths of [ordinary] olive oil”). Ten baths are contained in one cor; but the Chronicles figure still represents 115,000 gallons (NIV note), as compared to 1,200 gallons in Kings. The latter makes no mention at all of the “barley” and “wine.” Kings puts a limitation both on the product—in respect to the oil, it is speaking of a special, luxury kind—and on its recipients; for Kings refers only to the royal household of Hiram and not, as in Chronicles, to the larger group of Phoenician “servants, the woodsmen who cut timber.” Furthermore, Kings concerns an annually repeated delivery, while in Chronicles it is a one-time payment. Seen in this light, the differing figures suggest no unreasonable proportions.
As to the actual amounts involved, the 125,000 bushels of the two different grains and the 120,000 gallons of the two liquids (cf. NIV note) represent considerable quantities; but they are not beyond the magnitude either of Solomon’s resources or of the temple project that he was financing. Such payments constituted a heavy drain on the economy of Israel. When they were prolonged, because of Solomon’s private building projects (cf. v.1 and 1Ki 7:1–2), they exhausted the kingdom (1Ki 9:10–11).
11–12 Hiram’s answer to Solomon includes words of praise to the Lord and of appreciation for his love to Israel, which are not recorded in 1Ki 5. This speech is appropriate, not simply theologically, but also practically, coming from the lips of an accomplished businessman, who was dealing with a promising prospective customer—whatever may have been Hiram’s individual doctrinal commitments, or lack of same.
13 The name of the master craftsman whom Hiram sent to Solomon is “Huram-Abi.” This may be rendered “Huram, my father,” not in the sense of a physical relationship (Hiram’s father is known to have been Abibaal), but of social status, meaning, “my (trusted) administrator,” or “adviser” (as in Ge 15:8; Jdg 17:10).
14 Huram-Abi’s mother was, by tribal descent, (lit.) “a woman from the daughters of Dan,” but by immediate situation, “a widow from the tribe of Naphtali” (1Ki 7:14). Yet the fact that his father came “from Tyre” gave Huram-Abi a combined Phoenician-Hebrew endowment, which enabled him to deal both linguistically and culturally with the two nationalities of workmen who would be responsible to him.
This superintendent’s diversified skills included the capacity to handle precious metals, wood, stone, and fabrics. He thus presents a parallel to the wide-ranging abilities of Bezalel, the master builder of the Mosaic tabernacle (Ex 31:2–5). The “purple” cloth that he could employ was produced from what was actually a deep red dye, obtained from the murex shellfish of the Phoenician coast. Such material was called “royal purple” because of its quality, scarcity, and cost.
15–16 Despite limited facilities, Joppa had a small projecting point of rocks that set it apart from the generally unprotected sands and beaches of southern Palestine. It is mentioned in Egyptian documents as early as the time of Thutmose III, who was probably the Pharaoh of the Hebrew oppression, dying just before the Exodus in 1446 B.C. (Ex 4:19). Joppa served as the port (cf. Jnh 1:3) for inland Judah and for the city of Jerusalem. Before one reached Solomon’s capital, however, there were some thirty-five miles of flat, then hilly, and finally rugged terrain.
17–18 Ezra here itemizes “3,600 foremen” out of the total of 153,600 aliens. There were, in addition, 250 chief Israelite officers (8:10), making a total of 3,850. The parallel passages in 1 Kings list only 3,300 foremen (5:16) but then have a correspondingly larger number of chief officers, “550” (9:23), again making a total of 3,800. Since Kings does not distinguish the aliens from the Israelites, the differences in figures would seem to be due to the ways the respective authors distinguished the “chief” officers.
2. Construction (3:1–4:22)
Having explained something of Solomon’s preparations for the temple (ch. 2), the Chronicler moves into a description of its actual construction (chs. 3–4). His material forms a parallel to and represents an abridgment of 1Ki 6–7.
1 “Mount Moriah” was the summit, in the area of that same name on which Abraham had shown his willingness to sacrifice his son Isaac (Ge 22:2), over one thousand years earlier. “The threshing floor” of Araunah, which was located on Mount Moriah, was then sanctified even further by David’s encounter with God at that place (1Ch 21:18–22:1).
2 Construction on the site did not begin till “the fourth year” of Solomon’s reign, probably because of the planning and preparation that had to precede it (2Ch 2). This particular regnal year extended from the fall of 967 B.C. to the fall of 966; but since “the second month” begins in April/May, the exact date must have fallen in the spring of 966.
3 Cubits “of the old standard” represented an earlier, sacred measure. These ran about three inches longer than the ordinary cubit, which was a trifle under eighteen inches (see Eze 40:5; 43:13). On this basis the temple building measured about 105 feet by 35 feet, rather than 90 by 30; and it had doubled the dimensions of the tabernacle.
4 Along the entire front of the temple stretched a porch, or portico, that was open on the front. Its depth was 10 cubits (1Ki 6:3; c. 15 feet); the present text tells how high its side walls rose, namely, 20 cubits (30 feet).
5 “The main hall” refers to the temple proper, and particularly to its outer room, which corresponded to the “Holy Place” in the tabernacle. Compare the reference in v.8 to the inner room as the “Most Holy Place,” called elsewhere the “oracle” (v.16). As for the wood that the king used (i.e., pine), see 2:8; and cedar was employed as well (1Ki 6:9).
The paragraphing in the NIV connects Solomon’s provision of a layer of “pure gold” for “the inside” (v.4) with this same main hall. The expenditure was enormous. But it was with these very projects in mind that David had proceeded with his earlier, massive preparations (cf. 1Ch 22:14; 29:4, 7).
6 The reference to “precious stones” may suggest mosaics, inlaid in the floor (cf. 1Ch 29:2). The gold “of Parvaim” seems to denote a place name, perhaps in southeastern Arabia; or it may be a variant name for Ophir.
7 The term rendered “doorframes” usually is limited to the “threshold” or “sill”; but the present context of beams overlaid with gold favors a broader meaning. The carved decorations included palm trees and flowers (1Ki 6:29) but especially “cherubim.” The appropriateness of depicting these angelic creatures lay in their association with the holy and majestic presence of God (Ge 3:24; cf. their major function in vv.10–14, concerning the inner room). They appear normally in human form but with wings (Eze 1:5–6).
8 The “six hundred talents of fine gold” with which the interior of the oracle was overlaid are not mentioned in 1Ki 6. They consumed only a fraction of what David had provided (1Ch 22:14) but still constituted about twenty-three tons of gold.
9 The “nails” which fastened the gold sheets to the walls involved a much smaller amount of gold, totaling only twenty ounces (one and one-fourth pounds, NIV note).
10–13 The two large cherubim, when placed side by side, had a total wingspread of thirty-five feet. They are thus not to be confused with the small cherubim on the ark but were great gold-plated figures of olive wood (1Ki 6:23), which filled the Most Holy Place and overshadowed the whole ark.
14 The temple’s “curtain” (GK 7267) corresponds to the curtain that separated the two rooms in the Mosaic tabernacle (Ex 26:31); it was supplementary to the wooden doors mentioned in 4:22 and 1Ki 6:31–32. It emphasized the fact that even though the awesome presence of God, represented by the glory cloud in the Most Holy Place, was present with human beings, it was at the same time separated from them. The curtain portrayed the spiritual truth that the way to God was not yet open (Heb 9:8) and that it would not be till Christ would perform the true atonement to reconcile God and humankind. This then would end the anticipatory forms of the older covenant, including the curtain (Mt 27:51).
15–17 The “two pillars” were freestanding, set up at the portico in front of the temple (1Ki 7:21). Their size, “thirty-five cubits long,” seems to be the result of a copyist’s error. The whole building was only twenty cubits high (cf. v.3); 1Ki 7:15 specifies that they were eighteen cubits each (twenty-seven feet), a figure confirmed by 2Ki 25:17 and Jer 52:21.
Each pillar had an ornamented capital, which added “five cubits” (c. nine feet) to its height. The existence of ornamental pillars has been repeatedly attested by archaeology; subbases for such pillars were found in front of the temple at Hazor, and obelisks constitute an Egyptian illustration of the same sort of thing. Their very names symbolized the sustaining power of God, concretely exhibited by the permanence of the temple.
4:1 Turning in ch. 4 to the furnishings of the temple, Ezra first describes its main “altar.” It was large—about thirty feet square (NIV note)—made of “bronze,” and apparently in stages, with connecting stairs, since it rose to a height of fifteen feet. Just as in the tabernacle, the altar was the first main object to be met as one entered the sanctuary court. It demonstrates that God may be approached only through sacrifices, i.e., through the substitutionary and testamentary death of Christ (Heb 8:2–3; 9:12).
2 The “Sea of cast metal” corresponded to the more modest bronze basin of the tabernacle (Ex 30:18). It was used by the priests for washing (v.6; cf. Ex 30:21) and taught the necessity for purity on the part of those approaching God. It pointed typically to the washing of regeneration and sanctification provided in Christ (Tit 3:5; Heb 9:10). The circumference of the Sea, given as forty-five feet, was only approximate; for its diameter was a full fifteen feet (ten cubits).
3 The “cast figures of bulls . . . in two rows,” “below the rim,” are called simply “gourds” in 1Ki 7:24. Unless this is a copyist’s mistake due to the similarly sounding words, the explanation may lie in a more general description in Kings of these ornamental bands of round-shaped animal heads.
4 Distinct from these cattle were the “twelve bulls” that stood under the Sea and served as its base. They probably denoted the twelve tribes of Israel (cf. Ex 24:4), just as the tribes had once camped, three on each side of the tabernacle (Nu 2).
5 That the Sea was “a handbreadth” thick refers to a person’s four fingers held together (i.e., a little over three inches). The capacity stated in the present Chronicles text of “three thousand baths” should be read with 1Ki 7:26 as “two thousand.” Chronicles’ larger number could have arisen through an unclear reading of the numerical symbols.
6 The large reservoir that constituted the Sea then supplied the “ten” smaller “basins” (holding 40 baths, or 230 gallons each) on their wheeled carts or bases (cf. 1Ki 7:27–39). Their function was for rinsing the offerings, a point not brought out in 1Ki 7:38–39.
7 As compared with the one golden lampstand in the tabernacle, the temple had “ten,” and they were no doubt made “according to the specifications” as in Ex 25:31–40. Once again (cf. v.1) vv.7–10 find no corresponding, parallel passages in 1Ki 7, though Kings does mention the contents of vv.7–10 in its concluding summary (1Ki 7:48–49 = 2Ch 4:19–20). The lampstands, each one with its seven branches, continue to symbolize the perfection with which God’s church must unceasingly shine for him (Lev 24:3–4; Mt 5:14), as supplied by the oil of God’s powerful Holy Spirit (Zec 4:2–6).
8 Of the “ten tables” (only one was made for the tabernacle; cf. 1Ch 28:16), it seems that only one table at a time (13:11; 29:18) was used for displaying the bread, as it was set out fresh every Sabbath, to symbolize Israel’s reestablished communion with God and their life in his Presence (v.19; Lev 24:5–8; cf. 1Ch 9:32; 28:16). The “sprinkling bowls” were not particularly associated with the tables but seem rather to have been used for collecting the blood of sacrifices, which was then sprinkled about the altar in the temple services of atonement (cf. Ex 24:6; 29:16; Lev 1:5; 3:2).
9–11 Moses’ tabernacle had only a single court. The more developed ritual of the temple led to a division between the inner courtyard of the priests (1Ki 6:36; 7:12)—also called the upper court, because it was elevated, so that the priests would be more visible as they performed their sacred duties (Jer 36:10)—and the outer “larger court” for Israel’s general worshipers. Yet this very division into two courts (2Ki 23:12) gave concrete expression to the fact that under the old covenant there had not yet been achieved that universal priesthood of believers that would come about through Jesus Christ. In him all the people of God have direct access to the Father (Jer 31:34; Gal 3:28; Heb 4:14–16). A later distinction of a separate “court of the women” arose only between the OT and NT.
12–15 In the summary of the work performed by Huram (cf. 2:14) for the temple, the first items to be mentioned are the two bronze pillars (cf. 3:15) with their “bowl-shaped capitals” (see 1Ki 7:17–20). Their bulbous lower capitals were covered by an ornamented network or grating, while the upper sections consisted of a flaring crown, like opened lilies.
16 The name “Huram-Abi” connotes “Huram my administrator” (see comment on 2:13).
17–18 The places at which Huram cast the bronze articles for the temple were located “in the plain east of the Jordan,” about halfway between Galilee and the Dead Sea. The deep clay located at “Succoth” and “Zarethan” provided suitable molds for the great metal objects.
19–21 In the summary of the temple furnishings, the “gold floral work” refers to the ornamentation on the lampstands (Ex 25:33).
22 The “gold doors” were made of carved olive wood, which was in turn overlaid with gold (3:7; 1Ki 6:31–35). The “doors of the main hall” opened onto the portico and the courts and led from the “Holy Place,” which was the outer room of the temple. The inner doors to the oracle provided protection additional to the curtain for sealing off this Most Holy Place (cf. 3:14).
3. Dedication (5:1–7:22)
After having described the construction of Solomon’s temple in chs. 3–4, the Chronicler devotes his next three chapters to events connected with its dedication. The material makes up a single unit that extends from the king’s summons to the men of Israel in 5:2 down through their dismissal in 7:10, together with an introductory verse and an appended but related answer of God to the dedicatory prayer (7:11–22). These three chapters present a close parallel to their source in 1Ki 8:1–9:9. Much of their theological importance lies in the light that Solomon’s ceremonies of dedication throw on the significance of the temple concept as a whole.
When he had assembled the representative leaders of Israel, the king’s first act was to conduct the ark of God’s covenant into the temple and to enshrine it in the Most Holy Place (5:1–10). He thus constituted the structure on Mount Moriah as the successor to Israel’s previous sanctuaries; and God confirmed the validity of Solomon’s procedure by taking up his own, localized dwelling within the temple and filling it with the “shekinah” the cloud of his Presence (vv.11–14; see comment on 1Ki 8:10–11).
Chapter 6 consists primarily of two utterances by King Solomon: his blessing on the people, which is actually a testimony of praise to the Lord for his faithfulness in prospering the temple project up to this point (vv.3–11), and his long prayer to God, dedicating the building for his sanctuary and imploring his favorable response when Israel should submit their petitions toward his Presence within the structure (vv.12–42). This action too was visibly confirmed by the Lord, as he sent down fire from heaven on the new altar (7:1–3). Two weeks of extensive dedicatory sacrifices and feasting followed (vv.4–10).
A final section, sometime after Solomon had completed his own palace, describes how the Lord appeared to the king by night and verbally confirmed his agreement to the request that he would dwell in the temple and answer the prayers that were addressed to him there. His blessing, however, was conditioned on Israel’s continued faithfulness; and he threatened exile and the temple’s destruction if the nation should become apostate (7:11–22).
1 A preliminary action of Solomon was to bring into the temple “the things his father David had dedicated” (cf. 1Ch 18:10–11; 22:14; 26:26–27; 29:2–5). Some of David’s treasures must have remained, even after the great outlays for erecting the temple. The “treasuries” themselves may have been located in the “upper parts” (3:9) of the building, in some of the rooms that surrounded the sanctuary proper (1Ki 6:5–10).
2 The first step in the activities of dedication was for the king and the assembled national leaders to bring the ark up from the old citadel of Zion to the temple area situated on the more northerly ridge of Moriah (cf. 3:1; Ps 48:2). For forty years the ark had remained in the tent that David had first pitched on its arrival in Jerusalem (cf. 1Ch 15:1; 16:1).
3 The assembly was delayed until “the festival in the seventh month,” i.e., until the Feast of Tabernacles (cf. 7:8–10). The work on the temple structure as such had been finished (5:1) in the eighth month of Solomon’s eleventh year (1Ki 6:38), i.e., in Sept./Oct. 960 B.C. (cf. 3:2). This entails a lapse of eleven months (until the fall of 959) for the official dedication ceremonies; but there were doubtless other matters that had to be arranged after the completion of the building.
4 In transporting the ark Solomon took the added precaution of employing the priests, taken from among the total group of Levi, to perform this work (vv.5, 7; 1Ki 8:3; cf. 1Ch 13:10; 15:4).
5 Also “brought up” was the “Tent of Meeting,” or tabernacle (cf. 1:3), from its previous location at Gibeon (cf. 1Ch 16:39).
6 The large number of sheep and cattle sacrificed followed the more modest precedent set by David when he first brought the ark to Jerusalem (1Ch 15:26; 16:1–3).
7–8 The holy object was placed in the temple’s “inner sanctuary.” The name of this place derives from an Arabic word meaning “back,” i.e., the shrine that was situated in the innermost, or back, portion of the temple, “the Most Holy Place” (cf. 3:5). On “the cherubim,” under whose wings it rested, see comment on 3:11.
9 Though the curtain (cf. 3:14) concealed the ark itself from view, the poles by which the ark was carried must have projected on one or both of its sides, so as to be visible from the door. The statement that “they are still there today” must have been quoted by Ezra from his sources (9:29), particularly from 1Ki 8:8, out of those portions that were written before the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 B.C. The ark had been gone for over a century by Ezra’s day.
10 The fact that by Solomon’s time “there was nothing in the ark except the two tablets” of the Decalogue shows that the golden pot of manna (Ex 16:32–34) and Aaron’s rod that budded (Nu 17:10–11; Heb 9:4) must have been lost during the intervening vicissitudes through which the ark passed. The Chronicler’s reference at this point to the Lord’s Sinaitic covenant may be attributed to the fact that the Ten Commandments, as engraved on Moses’ two tablets of stone, expressed the basic response that God expected from his covenant people, whom he had already redeemed (Ex 20:2; cf. 19:4–6). The tablets could in a sense be called “the testimony” (25:16, 21) to his covenant.
11 In the ceremony during which God granted his confirmation to this new home for the ark, Ezra’s word that the priests were present “regardless of their divisions” refers to the way they had been organized by David into their twenty-four hereditary courses (1Ch 24:3–19). But the normal rotations in service could be disregarded on an occasion as significant as this, in which all were present.
12 The Chronicler is the first OT writer to refer to the “fine linen” worn by the Levites (cf. 1Ch 15:27). The “120 priests sounding trumpets” (cf. 15:24) may suggest a figure of five drawn from each of the twenty-four priestly courses (cf. 1Ch 24:4).
13–14 The idea expressed by hesed (GK 2876), here rendered as God’s “love,” means more specifically his “faithfulness” (cf. 1Ch 16:41). The “cloud,” which was in fact “the glory of the LORD,” had first guided the people of Israel out of Egypt (Ex 13:21–22) and then through the desert (40:36–38); and it is associated with the angel of God (14:19; 23:20–23), presumably the preincarnate presence of Christ. At the dedication of the Mosaic tabernacle, almost five hundred years before Solomon, the cloud of God’s glory had filled that earlier sanctuary (40:34–35). In the days just before the Exile, Ezekiel had envisioned the sin of Israel as driving the glory cloud out of the sanctuary (Eze 10:18–19; 11:23); and it had not returned to the second temple, of Ezra’s day. The “shekinah” as it came to be called (see comment on 1Ki 8:10–11), meant God’s “glorious dwelling.” It appeared during Christ’s first coming (Mt 17:5; Ac 1:9), and it will accompany his glorious second advent (Ac 1:11; Rev 1:7; 14:14).
6:1 The first two verses of ch. 6 reflect on the immediately preceding event, when God had demonstrated his approval of the king’s relocation of the ark in the new temple. The Lord’s words that he mentions, about dwelling “in a dark cloud,” refer to God’s presence on the top of Mount Sinai, shrouded in a cloud (Ex 19:9; 20:21), and also in the Mosaic tabernacle, as veiled off in its Most Holy Place (Lev 16:2).
2 Though the purpose of the temple was for the Lord “to dwell” there “forever,” there was still the attached condition that Israel must continue faithful (7:19–20; Mt 23:37–38). They did not; and the temple was twice destroyed (586 B.C. and A.D. 70). But Christ has promised that he will yet reign on Mount Zion (Mt 23:39) and rule forever in the New Jerusalem (Rev 21:2).
3 While he was speaking with God, Solomon had been facing the temple and the cloud of the divine Presence that filled it. Now, for his address with its blessing on the people, Solomon turned around and faced east, toward the crowd that stood beyond the altar.
4 Solomon’s blessing on Israel consisted of a recalling of God’s verbal promises to David—that the temple would be built and David’s dynasty established (v.10; cf. 1Ch 17)—and of God’s material fulfillments of them “with his hands,” i.e., in history.
5–6 These promises included God’s choice of Jerusalem (cf. 1Ch 22:1), that his “Name” might be “there” (vv.8, 20; cf. v.33), which meant his very Presence (cf. 1Ch 22:7).
7–9 Solomon’s thoughts on David’s relationship to the temple repeat the latter’s own words from 1Ch 28:2–3.
10–11 God’s covenant could be said to be in the ark, insofar as the two tablets of the Decalogue that the ark contained did constitute “the testimony” to it (cf. on 5:10). This covenant is identified in 1Ki 8:21 as the Sinaitic covenant (cf. 1Ch 16:15 and 17:12), the one that God “made with our fathers when he brought them out of Egypt.”
12 For making his major prayer to God in ch. 6 (vv.12–42), Solomon turned back from facing the people (cf. v.3) and, as he stood “before the altar,” again faced west, toward the temple.
13 This verse forms an insertion made by Ezra and is not found in 1Ki 8, between v.22 and v.23. It seems to clarify that Solomon was not “before the altar” to perform a priestly function. He stood rather on an elevated “bronze platform” so that his prayer could be better seen and heard by the people. The term for “platform” (GK 2257) normally designates a “basin” but here denotes a “stage.” The way that the king “then knelt down” (cf. 1Ki 8:54) gave public acknowledgment to the fact that he too was only God’s servant, administering a kingdom that was not his own (cf. 1Ch 28:5).
14–17 The prayer itself through v.39 closely approximated 1Ki 8:23–50a. It consists of praise to the Lord for his faithfulness to his covenant and of petition for its preservation (vv.16–17). Then come more words of praise, for God’s infinity in space (v.18), and yet of petition, for his attention to the king’s and people’s prayers when made toward the temple (vv.19–42). God keeps his “covenant” and the “love.” These synonymous expressions are rightly rendered “covenant of love” (NIV; cf. 5:13, 1Ch 16:41). In other words, God’s covenantal love, made efficacious through the death of Christ, is the source of all blessings, both for believers today and for those who received “the promised eternal inheritance . . . under the first covenant” (Heb 9:15). He reserves these blessings, moreover, for those who are his “servants” (GK 6269; v.14), because faith must always be manifested by obedience (v.16; Jas 2:17–26).
18 In reference to Solomon’s constant recognition that “even the highest heavens” cannot contain the infinite Person of the Lord, see 2:6.
19–21 It was because the king recognized God’s infinity that he prayed concerning the requests people make toward “this place,” toward the earthly temple, that they may be answered by God “from heaven, your dwelling place.” He proceeded to identify seven concrete situations for which he requested the Lord’s intervention from heaven, as follows:
22–23 (1) Swearing to an “oath . . . in this temple.” Testimony in doubtful cases was confirmed by an oath at the sanctuary (Ex 22:10–11; Lev 6:3–5); so God is petitioned to intervene in order to “establish innocence.”
24–25 (2) “Defeat” and exile “by an enemy.” Prayer was needed in such calamities because both of them could be the result of God’s punishing their sin (Lev 26:17, 23; Jos 7:11–12; cf. Dt 28:48).
26–27 (3) Lack of “rain.” The phenomena of nature sometimes have moral causes; specifically, Israel could suffer drought in times of apostasy (Lev 26:19; Dt 11:10–15; 1Ki 17:1).
28–31 (4) “Disease” or other “disasters.” “Plagues” of various sorts could likewise result from sin (Lev 26:16, 20, 25–26; cf. Dt 28 passim), because God “knows” what is in “the hearts of men” (cf. 1Sa 16:7).
32–33 (5) “Foreigners” coming to pray “toward this temple.” From its outset Israel’s sanctuary was thus designed to be “a house of prayer for all nations” (Isa 56:6–8). The goal of the nation’s election was a universal knowledge of God (cf. Ge 12:3; Eph 2:11–13, 19); and even in OT times aliens who would come in faith to the Lord were assured of reception as proselytes into Israel (Ex 12:38, 48; Ru 1:16; 2:12). They would be attracted by God’s “great name,” which involved his actual Presence in the temple (cf. v.6).
34–35 (6) In “war.” God will fight for his own, who cry to him in the battle (14:11–12; Dt 28:7; 1Ch 5:20).
36–39 (7) In “captivity,” caused by “sin.” Solomon’s confession that there is no one who does not sin emphasizes the consistent biblical teaching on humanity’s total depravity (cf. Dt 28 passim; Jer 13:23; 17:9; Eph 2:3). The resulting exile to “a land far away,” as well as Israel’s subsequent restoration on repentance, had been predicted as early as Moses (Lev 26:33, 44–45); and it all came about (2Ch 36:16, 22–23), even as Solomon had prayed.
40 At this point Chronicles omits most of the king’s prayer that is recorded in the parallel passage of 1Ki 8:50b–53, since it was less relevant for a Judah that was no longer in exile in Ezra’s time.
41 Solomon drew his last two verses from Ps 132:8–10 (not included in the parallel passage in 1Ki 8, after v.53). This royal psalm, while anonymous, seems to have been written by David or by one of his associates, for that similar occasion forty years before when the ark was first installed in Jerusalem in its tent (cf. this verse and Ps 132:8 with Nu 10:35, and Ps 132:13–14 with 1Ch 16).
42 In his prayer “do not reject your anointed one,” the king now meant himself, though in subsequent usage it would express Israel’s hope in the coming Messiah, as the climax of Solomon’s line. In Ps 132:10 it had referred to his father, David. Furthermore, to the original wording of the psalm, and as the basis for his own blessing, Solomon added the request for God to “remember the great love” promised to David (see comments on vv.14–17). This same basis was later validated when it was taken up by God himself in words given through the prophet Isaiah (Isa 45:3).
7:1–2 Divine approval that rested on the temple services (cf. vv.1–3) and on Solomon’s prayer of dedication in particular (ch. 6) was shown by “fire” that “came down from heaven” on the altar. It was in this same way that God had inaugurated the sacrificial services at the Mosaic tabernacle (Lev 9:24) and at the Davidic altar on Moriah some forty years earlier (1Ch 21:26).
3 Now all the people also saw “the glory of the LORD above the temple,” which constituted a greater manifestation of what had already been revealed to the priests inside (5:13–14). Thus they knelt on “the pavement,” which was associated with the outer, lower court (Eze 40:17; 42:3), and repeated the familiar refrain about the Lord’s faithfulness to his covenant promises (v.6; cf. 5:13). King Solomon then added a blessing of his own on the congregation (1Ki 8:55–61; omitted here, perhaps because by the time of Ezra the only priests did this).
4–5 In the festivities that followed, the large numbers of animals sacrificed–22,000 cattle and 120,000 sheep (cf. 35:7)—are confirmed by 1Ki 8:63. They are defined as “fellowship offerings” (v.7), to be eaten by the people (cf. 1Ch 16:1; 29:21). They provided the basis for fifteen full days of feasting (2Ch 7:9–10).
6 The Levitical musicians stood east of the altar (5:12) away from the temple (cf. 1Ch 6:31; 16:4; 25). The priestly trumpeters were stationed “opposite” them and were therefore west of the altar, between it and the temple.
7 “The fat” of the fellowship (= peace) offerings, along with certain other choice pieces, was presented as a token sacrifice to God, prior to the feasting on the part of the people (Lev 3). Concerning the “burnt offerings” (Lev 1) and “grain offerings” (Lev 2), see 1Ch 21:23.
8 Solomon had delayed the temple’s dedication for a number of months (cf. comment on 5:3) so that it might be celebrated along with the harvest Feast of Tabernacles, when at the latter season all Israel would be coming in pilgrimage to Jerusalem (Ex 23:16–17). They therefore gathered “from Lebo Hamath” in Lebanon, toward the Euphrates River in the northeast (cf. on 1Ch 13:5), down “to the Wadi of Egypt,” i.e., the Wadi el Arish, midway between Palestine and Egypt to the southwest (Jos 15:5, 47).
9 The “eighth day” marked the final convocation of the Feast of Tabernacles (Lev 23:36; Nu 29:35), on the twenty-second day of the seventh month. The special dedication feast, in other words, had lasted “for seven days,” from the eighth of the month to the fourteenth, including the great Day of Atonement on the tenth (Lev 16), which was followed by the regular Feast of Tabernacles “for seven days more,” from the fifteenth to the twenty-second.
10 The Chronicler’s statement that “on the twenty-third day” Solomon “sent the people to their homes” constitutes a summary of the more detailed information of 1Ki 8:66, that on the eighth “day he sent the people away. They blessed the king and then went home, joyful.”
11 Chapter 7 concludes with the Chronicler’s description of the Lord’s appearance to the king, so as to assure him personally that his prayers on behalf of the temple would be answered. But this event occurred only after the king had also completed his “royal palace” (cf. on 1Ch 14:1), some thirteen years later (1Ki 7:1; 9:10). The interval brings us down to Solomon’s twenty-fourth year, or to 947/946 B.C.
12–13 This was the Lord’s second appearance to Solomon (1Ki 9:2), the first having occurred at Gibeon at the start of his reign (2Ch 1:3–13). God’s speaking of times when he would “shut up the heavens,” etc., specifically recalls the wording of the petitions in Solomon’s dedicatory prayer (e.g., 6:26, et al.), which the Lord here promised to answer.
14–15 For a comment on the expression “my people, who are called by my name,” see comment on 6:32. The sentence, as it continues, forms what is probably the best known and most loved verse in all Chronicles. It expresses the stipulations that God lays down for a nation to experience his blessing, whether that nation be Solomon’s, Ezra’s, or our own. Those who have been chosen to be his people must cease from their sins, turn from living lives of proud self-centeredness, pray to the Lord, and yield their desires to his Word and his will. Then, and only then, will he grant heaven-sent revival.
16 Concerning the significance of God’s “Name” being “there,” see comments on 6:6; 1Ch 22:7.
17–18 The Lord’s promise that the Davidic dynasty would “never fail to have a man to rule over Israel” emphasizes the messianic hope that characterizes the Chronicler’s eschatology. This same wording reappears elsewhere (e.g., in Mic 5:2). God’s covenant to “establish” (GK 7756) the throne of David harks back to 1Ch 17 (vv.12, 14); but in the remaining verses of the present revelation, the divinely imposed condition of faithful obedience, which was first revealed in 2Sa 7:14b, is made just as explicit as in the parallel passage of 1Ki 9:6–9.
19–22 The possibility that Solomon and his successors (cf. NIV note) might “go off to serve other gods” was what actually happened (1Ki 11:1–8; 2Ch 36:16); and it led to the very results (vv.20–22; 36:20) that the king had himself anticipated (6:36).
C. Solomon’s Kingdom (8:1–9:31)
1. Its achievements (8:1–18)
The Spirit of God guided Ezra to encourage his people by rehearsing in 1 Chronicles the history of King David’s God-given power (cf. introduction to 10:1–20:8). This book now contains a corresponding presentation of the results of serving God as these are exhibited by Solomon with all his glory. The Chronicler thus concludes his record about David’s son by outlining the achievements of his kingdom (ch. 8), followed, in turn, by illustrations of the splendor that surrounded his rule (ch. 9). Ezra’s account corresponds to the material found in 1 Kings, except that he omits the following sections about the king’s enlarged but bureaucratic organization (1Ki 4), his extravagant palace complex (7:1–12), the idolatry that resulted from his gross polygamy (11:1–8), and the political deterioration that resulted during his latter years (vv.9–40)—probably because they would not have contributed to his goal of strengthening Judah’s theocracy. The present chapter parallels 1Ki 9, with its catalog of Solomon’s successful enterprises. These include his expansion, both civil and military (vv.1–6); his organization of manpower (vv.7–10); his guidance of public worship (vv.11–16); and his commercial achievements (vv.17–18).
1 The date, after “twenty years,” was 946 B.C. (cf. comment on 7:11).
2 The reference to “villages that Hiram had given” to the king assumes without further comment the unhappy record preserved in 1Ki 9:11–13, about how Solomon had previously had to surrender twenty non-Israelite towns in Galilee to the Tyrian, apparently because of unpaid building debts (cf. 2Ch 2:10, 15). Hiram, moreover, found this collateral so poor that Solomon seems to have had to take back the territory. He did then alleviate the poverty of the towns by “settling Israelites in them” and thus succeeded in expanding his borders.
3 Solomon’s only recorded military campaign resulted in his conquest of “Hamath” in Lebanon, perhaps for having abandoned its former friendship (1Ch 18:9–10) and breaking the peace. Hamath bordered on “Zobah,” which had already been occupied by the Hebrews (see 18:3); and the two place names are combined, since by Ezra’s day they had been joined into the one Persian province.
4 “Tadmor in the desert” lay 150 miles northeast of Damascus, midway on the caravan route to Mari on the Euphrates River. It thus controlled the trade on this desert “cut-off” to Babylon.
5 The two “Beth Horons” were located on the border between Ephraim and Benjamin and controlled a major pass, northwest of Jerusalem, that led down to the port of Joppa.
6 “Baalath” lay nearby in Dan (Jos 19:44; cf. 1Ch 13:6), and other cities rebuilt by Solomon are listed in 1Ki 9:15–18. Concerning his chariot cities, see comment on 1:14.
7–10 On Solomon’s force of “conscripted” Canaanite labor, see comment on 1Ch 22:2.
11 Early in his reign (1Ki 3:1), Solomon had married a daughter of “Pharaoh.” But despite the attendant prestige and political advantages, such marriages introduced foreign idolatries and, eventually, apostasy into Israel (11:1–4). At this point Solomon still retained enough spiritual sensitivity to keep her residence out of “places” made “holy.”
12–13 Solomon “sacrificed,” but only through priestly mediators (cf. comment on 1Ch 16:1). He would not have assumed the right to do so directly, any more than he personally would have “built the altar” (cf. vv.1–6). The “requirement for offerings” on special days had been spelled out by Moses (Lev 23:37–38).
14–16 Solomon was careful to maintain the organization of the priests, Levites, musicians, and others, in their twenty-four respective “divisions,” as these had been developed by David (1Ch 23–25; cf. 26).
17 “Ezion Geber and Elath” were ports at the north end of the Gulf of Aqaba that provided a strategic commercial access southward into the Red Sea and beyond. While earlier archaeological judgments about the presence of copper smelters at the former site have had to be revised, some final refining may have indeed been performed here on metals that were mined farther north in the Arabah valley.
18 Solomon’s refineries provided a product for export, to be exchanged for gold from “Ophir.” Ophir (location uncertain) was thus reached via the Gulf of Aqaba and the Red Sea. The statement that “Hiram sent him ships commanded by his own officers” means that the Tyrians constructed ships from materials that had been sent overland to Ezion Geber. They then guided the less experienced Hebrews so they could navigate the ships, making an expedition in three years (9:21). The revenue from each trip amounted to about seventeen tons of gold.
2. Its splendor (9:1–31)
Jesus spoke of “Solomon in all his splendor” (Mt 6:29), and 2Ch 9 documents his glorious rule with a series of historical illustrations: the visit he enjoyed from the queen of Sheba (vv.1–12); the revenue he obtained, together with the shields, throne, and other luxury items that this produced (vv.13–21); and the extent of the fame and power that he achieved (vv.22–28). The chapter concludes with a summary of his reign as a whole. It closely parallels 1Ki 10.
1–3 The partly Semite and partly Hamite kingdom of “Sheba” (1Ch 1:9, 22) lay at the southwestern point of the Arabian peninsula and on across the Red Sea into eastern Ethiopia. Excavations at Marib, its capital at this time, and elsewhere have confirmed its cultural developments. Sheba was famed for its commerce in gold and spice, and it simply could not allow Israel’s expanding trade from Ezion Geber (described in 8:18) to go unnoticed. Its queen, accordingly, visited Solomon, with commerce as an underlying issue, but also “to test” his God-given wisdom (1Ki 10:1; cf. 4:29–34) “with hard questions.” Such verbal interchange remains a familiar Arabic custom up to the present.
4–6 The NIV reading—of the “burnt offerings [Solomon] made” (cf. 8:12)—is based on the ancient versions and on 1Ki 10:5; it is probably the preferred reading. The Hebrew of Chronicles seems to suggest a procession by the royal party for temple worship. On “the greatness” of the king’s “wisdom,” see v.23 and 1:12.
7–8 Even Solomon’s pagan visitor was led to recognize that “the LORD” was the one by whom Solomon had been placed on Israel’s throne and for whom he was ruling (cf. on 1Ch 28:5). The king’s desire “to maintain justice and righteousness” had, indeed, been the purpose of his request for wisdom in the first place (cf. comment on 1:10).
9 The queen’s gift, also recorded in 1Ki 10:10, amounted to over four and a half tons of gold.
10–11 On “Ophir” see 8:18. “Algumwood” is probably a variant for almugwood (see 2:8).
12 The Hebrew that underlies the NIV wording “he gave her more than she had brought” (to the king) is compressed and difficult; but it should probably be rendered either “every wish she desired, he gave her a return for,” or, according to what “she had brought” (cf. 1Ki 10:13). The statement has usually been interpreted as describing the completion of a satisfactory commercial transaction or as an expression of Solomon’s munificence. In Ethiopic and Jewish tradition, it is maintained that the queen of Sheba subsequently bore a son to Solomon.
13–14 Solomon’s annual revenue in gold was approximating twenty-five tons, as had been previously mentioned in 1Ki 10:14.
15–16 The unit of weight, by which the gold that was applied to the king’s “large” and “small shields” was counted, does not appear in the Hebrew text. The NIV assumes the “beka,” or half-shekel, so that the figure of 300 for the smaller shields would approximate the amount recorded in 1Ki 10:17. Yet unstated weights in Hebrew usually assume the unit of “shekels.” Furthermore, since Kings and Chronicles are in exact agreement on the amount of gold in the large shields, it is probable that they agree on the amount (half as much) in the smaller as well—though in Kings this is expressed in a differing unit of measure, i.e., the heavy mina, equaling 1000 shekels. Solomon’s “Palace of the Forest of Lebanon,” where the shields were placed, was located in Jerusalem but received its name from its rows of Lebanese cedar pillars (1Ki 7:2–5).
17–21 Solomon’s fleet of “trading ships” (v.21) are designated in 1Ki 10:22 as “ships of Tarshish” (NIV note). Since, according to 1Ki 9:26–27 they actually navigated the Red Sea, it seems unlikely that they “went to Tarshish,” in the western Mediterranean (perhaps referring to Sardinia). Perhaps they were “Tarshish-type” ships (cf. NIV note; see 20:36). As is usual in Semitic time-reckoning, the “three years” occupied by the expedition need include only the last part of the first year and the first part of the last year, so that the minimum trip time need have consumed only a little over one year.
22–24 Solomon was wealthy by anyone’s standard. The term for “weapons” (v.24) describes “armor” as well.
25 Solomon’s “four thousand stalls for horses” accords well with both the archaeological evidence (cf. 1:14) and the reference in 1Ki 10:26 to “fourteen hundred chariots” (cf. 1Ki 9:19). The parallel passage in 1Ki 4:26, however, which reads “forty thousand stalls,” should probably be attributed to scribal corruption.
26 The observation that Solomon’s rule extended as far as the Euphrates “River” (cf. NIV note; see comment on 1Ki 4:21, 24) corresponds to the limit that God had promised to Abraham over a millennium earlier (Ge 15:18).
27 Concerning the “foothills,” see 1Ch 27:28.
28 On Solomon’s imported horses, see 1:16.
29–31 The Chronicler’s references to documents by Nathan, Ahijah, and Iddo are taken up in the introduction. In 1Ki 11:41, “The book of the annals of Solomon” is mentioned by the author.
IV. The Kingdom of Judah (10:1–36:23)
The work of the Chronicler falls into four major parts. The last of these, which makes up chs. 10–36, concerns the kingdom of Judah. After Solomon’s death in 930 B.C., the southern area, Judah, became separated from the northern area, Israel. This section of Chronicles has three unequal sections: (1) on the division (chs. 10–11); (2) on the rulers, good and bad, of the people of Judah (13:1–36:16); and (3) on its ultimate fate of exile into Babylon (36:17–23).
The final editor of 1 and 2 Kings, writing midway in the Exile, recognized this tragedy as the outworking of the moral righteousness of the Lord, as he rendered to his faithless people exactly what their deeds deserved (2Ki 17:7–23; 24:1–4). But the Chronicler, writing after the restoration of 538–536, recognized how God had been at work throughout these four centuries of Judah’s decline, sovereignly accomplishing his holy purposes. The Lord’s faithfulness to David continued steadfast (1Ch 17:13; cf. 2Ch 7:18).
A. The Division of the Kingdom (10:1–11:23)
Even in chs. 10–11, on the initial division, Ezra could say of Rehoboam’s refusal to grant reforms, and of the rebellion at Shechem that resulted: “This turn of events was from God” (10:15; cf. Ge 50:20; Ac 2:23); and on the young king’s attempt to resubdue Israel, he could quote God’s word through the prophet, by which he prevented any such reunion: “This is my doing” (11:4). The overriding divine purpose was to separate the godly in Judah from the apostate in Israel (vv.6–22) and to concentrate in the south those who remained faithful out of the northern tribes: thus “they strengthened the kingdom of Judah” (v.17). The two chapters of this section draw largely on 1Ki 12; but see the comments on 10:19, which calls attention to the omission of the history of the north. Furthermore, 11:5–12 and 18–23 utilized some different, and later lost, source; for they now stand without parallel in the OT.
1 Solomon’s son “Rehoboam went to Shechem” to be crowned ruler of Israel. He had already succeeded his father in Judah (9:31); but even though the Davidic dynasty had been constituted by the Lord’s appointment (1Ch 17:14), each king was still subject to popular confirmation (v.4, cf. 1Ch 11:3). Rehoboam could reign only as a “constitutional” monarch and servant of the people (cf. comment on v.7) under God (cf. comment on 9:8 and 1Ch 28:5). Shechem lay thirty miles north of Jerusalem in Ephraim, on the border of Manasseh (Jos 17:7). It formed a center for the northern tribes and after this event became their first capital (1Ki 12:25).
2 Some years before, Jeroboam I (“son of Nebat”) had been divinely anointed to be ruler over ten-twelfths of the nation of Israel (1Ki 11:26–40). It was because of this that he was “in Egypt,” having “fled from Solomon.”
3–4 The “heavy yoke” to which the northerners objected had resulted from Solomon’s extravagances (1:17) at the expense of his people (cf. Dt 17:17, 20).
5 Without acceding to their request, Rehoboam remained, so far, fair and prudent in his conduct.
6–7 The parallel passage in 1Ki 12:7 quotes even stronger advice by the elders to the king: not simply that he “be kind” and “favorable” to the people, but that he “be a servant” and “serve” them.
8 The “young men” to whom Rehoboam preferred to turn were probably some of Solomon’s many sons, rendered callous by upbringing in the luxurious harem and court at Jerusalem.
9 By his words “How should we answer these people,” Rehoboam already identified himself with autocracy.
10–15 The whole course of events “was from God” (v.15), who had, through his prophet “Ahijah the Shilonite,” ordained the division of the kingdom of Israel as a punishment for Solomon’s decline into idolatry (1Ki 11:29–33).
16–17 The rebellious spirit of the northern Israelites against the Davidic dynasty that God had established was equally sinful (13:5–7). Their cry, literally, of “Every man to your tents,” had been employed before, against David (2Sa 20:1). The situations of life in Palestine are naturally those of geographical isolation; its broken terrain encourages political disruption.
18 In his position over the “forced labor,” Adoniram hardly constituted a wise choice for quieting Israel. He was probably one of the most hated figures in the land, an embodiment of oppression.
19 After this verse that summarizes “Israel’s rebellion” (paralleled by 1Ki 12:19), 1Ki 12:20 proceeds to describe how the northern tribes made Jeroboam their king. Chronicles, however, omits it. Ezra dismisses the history of Israel from this point onward and concentrates on the faithful remnant in Judah.
11:1 As had been prophesied by Ahijah (see 10:15; cf. 1Ki 11:31–32), only the two tribes of “Judah and Benjamin” remained loyal to the Davidic dynasty (vv.3, 12). Their muster of 180,000 men seems to be the largest troop total found in Chronicles (granting the possibility that at some points the term rendered “thousands” may mean “chiefs”; see comments on 1Ch 7:3–4; 12:27), and it corresponds to the sum given in 1Ki 12:21. The figure is a plausible one, in light of the carefully enumerated listing of over 600,000 for the whole nation in Nu 1:46; 26:51. That, of course, was in the days of Moses; but the population would hardly have been less under Solomon than then (cf. the similar expressions of populousness given in Dt 1:10; 10:22; 1Ki 3:8; 4:20).
2 “Shemaiah the man of God” was the same prophet who later confronted Rehoboam, after his unfaithfulness and defeat by Egypt (12:5–7). He also composed one of the source records for his reign (12:15).
3 Ezra’s phrase “all the Israelites in Judah and Benjamin” includes what 1Ki 12:23 specifies as “the rest” of the other tribes, i.e., the godly survivors out of a larger, apostate group (Lev 26:39, 44; Isa 20–23).
4 On the Lord’s word “This is my doing,” see comment on 10:15.
5 Having been prohibited from retaking Israel, Rehoboam proceeded to refortify “towns” in the territory that he still had “in Judah.” In light of the unsettled times that lay ahead for Rehoboam (cf. 12:2, 15), he acted wisely.
6–12 The fifteen cities that Ezra lists lie toward Judah’s southern and western borders. Their choice seems to have been dictated by threat from Egypt (12:2–4).
13–14 Jeroboam had rejected the Levites (cf. 1Ki 12:31) as part of his total policy of separating Israel from religious dependence on Judah (1Ki 12:26–28). The expression “Jeroboam and his sons,” i.e., his successors, indicates that migrations by the faithful to Judah was a process that continued down through the years.
15 In addition to his golden “calf idols” (1Ki 12:28–29), this Ephraimite also set up images of goats (cf. Isa 13:21; 34:14).
16–17 Jeroboam’s idolatries, though they were sinful in their goal of seeking to supplant the true worship of God in Jerusalem, still accomplished a providential function by driving the godly southward, so that they “strengthened the kingdom of Judah.” The reason their migrations to the south were limited to a period of “three years” may have been simply because the godly became depleted in the north, but it may also have been due to Rehoboam’s own lapse in the south (12:1–2).
18–20 In a summary of the royal family, with which the chapter concludes, Rehoboam’s wife “Maacah” seems to have been a granddaughter of Absalom, through his immediate daughter Tamar, the wife of Uriel (13:2; cf. 2Sa 14:27; 18:18). Mahalath was thus, simultaneously, Rehoboam’s second cousin (via Eliab) and half-cousin (via her father Jeri-moth’s unnamed mother), while Maacah was the king’s half-cousin once removed.
21 By taking “eighteen wives” Rehoboam willfully disregarded the law of God, in respect to both kingly abuse (Dt 17:17) and polygamous marriage (Lev 18:18), not to mention his disregard of the disastrous precedent set by his father, Solomon.
22 The king’s appointment of Abijah (see comment on 12:16) “to be the chief prince” may imply some form of coregency; compare a similar elevation received by Abijah’s grandfather Solomon, when threatened by a disputed succession (cf. 1Ch 23:1; 29:22).
23 Rehoboam “acted wisely,” not simply by delegating to some of his other sons a measure of the authority for national defenses that the divided kingdom of Solomon now required—and by providing them with property and wives—but particularly by “dispersing” them. It was a step that helped ensure the smooth transfer of power to Abijah (v.22).
B. The Rulers of Judah (12:1–36:16)
In the three and one-half centuries between the division of Solomon’s kingdom in 930 B.C. and the Babylonian exile in 586, Judah experienced twenty rulers. The nineteen men and one woman varied in their abilities, from the strongest and best to the weakest and worst. The destiny of any country depends to a great extent on the character of its leaders; and this was particularly the case among the Hebrews, into whose history God chose to intervene more directly than he has for other nations. The Chronicler could thus stimulate the people of his day to a greater devotion by pointing them back to his nation’s more faithful monarchs and to those earlier miracles by which the Lord had delivered Judah.
Yet at the same time, and out of the same historical data, Ezra warns his people against compromise with the world, against disregard for the law of God, and against apostasy from the Lord himself. Judah’s overall history was one of religious decline. Sin became so ingrained that even a ruler like Josiah could not reverse its downward courses. In respect to any particular generation, God “can” cast away his people whom he foreknew (cf. Ro 11:1–2).
By and large 2Ch 12:1–36:16 corresponds to 1Ki 14:22–2Ki 24:20; but significant differences remain. Much of the material found in Kings is omitted from Chronicles, specifically the detailed lives of some of the prophets and, most obviously, the entire history of the northern kingdom (cf. 10:19). To the history, however, of Judah in the south, considerable material from other sources is added. Chronicles thus supplies us with inspiring (and inspired) examples of faith and deliverance that find no echo within the summaries provided by Kings.
1. Rehoboam (12:1–16)
The first ruler of the divided kingdom of Judah was Solomon’s son Rehoboam, who reigned from 931 to 913 B.C. His kingship is the topic of 1Ki 14:21–31 and 2Ch 12. The latter chapter commences with his establishment (v.1a), after the division of Solomon’s kingdom had become permanent (chs. 10–11). Chapter 12 then describes Rehoboam’s punishment for abandoning the law of God (vv.1b–6) and the restoration that followed on his resubmission to him (vv.7–12). It concludes with a summary of the king’s seventeen-year reign (vv.13–16).
1 The term “all Israel” now shifts from pointing to the entire nation (9:30) (1) to its northern half (in contrast to Judah, 11:1), (2) to “all the Israelites in Judah and Benjamin” (11:3), or, (3) as here (cf. NIV note), to Judah alone as constituting the true Israel. Rehoboam “abandoned” God’s law by turning to the immoralities and polytheism of the surrounding Canaanites (1Ki 14:23–24; 15:12). Herein lay the ultimate cause for Egypt’s invasion of Judah.
2 In the king’s “fifth year” (925 B.C.), “Shishak attacked.” Known in Egyptian history as Sheshonk I, he was the founder of the Twenty-Second Dynasty and its most energetic Pharaoh. This particular campaign is documented by a list of conquered Palestinian cities that stands to this day carved on the wall of his temple of Amon at Karnak, Thebes. An immediate cause lay in his desire for plunder, which was directed even more against his former protégé, Jeroboam, in the north (see 10:2) than against Judah.
3 The details preserved in vv.3–8 have no parallel in 1Ki 14. They would seem to derive from Ezra’s special sources, particularly from the records of Shemaiah (v.15). Among Shishak’s troops, the “Sukkites” were likely foreign mercenaries.
4 Concerning Judah’s “captured . . . fortified cities,” the destruction of Lachish is particularly attested by archaeology.
5 On “Shemaiah” see comment on 11:2.
6–7 “When . . . they humbled themselves,” deliverance came soon (v.12). This principle possesses permanent validity for Christian living (cf. 1Pe 5:6), though Rehoboam seems not to have taken his own experience to heart (v.14).
8 The point that God wanted them to grasp was “the difference” between what results from serving the Lord and from serving the world (Mt 11:28–30).
9–11 Rehoboam’s “bronze shields,” with which he was forced to replace the gold ones (cf. 9:15–16), dramatically illustrate how his faithlessness reduced his condition to a mere imitation of the glory that had once been his.
12–14 Concerning God’s putting his Name in Jerusalem (v.13), see 1Ch 22:7 and 2Ch 6:32.
15–16 Of the two literary sources cited by the Chronicler for this reign, it was the “records . . . of Iddo” that particularly dealt “with genealogies.” The son who succeeded Rehoboam, “Abijah” (cf. 11:22–23), appears in 1Ki 14:31; 15:1; et al., under the name “Abijam.” The latter may have been his personal name, as contrasted with his throne name in Chronicles (cf. 1Ch 3:12, 15).
2. Abijah (13:1–14:1a)
Chapter 13 concerns the second man who ruled over post-Solomonic Judah, Rehoboam’s son Abijah (cf. on 12:16). The one prominent event of his three-year reign (913 to 911 B.C.) was his war with Jeroboam (1Ki 15:6–7). But while the parallel record about Abijah that appears in 1Ki 15:1–8 contains only the briefest of summaries, Ezra’s independent sources (cf. 2Ch 13:22 on Iddo) furnished him with the details unique to Chronicles. They describe the bravery against great odds of Judah’s new king, which sprang from his trust in the God whose law he obeyed (vv.3–12), and the triumph over Israel that came as a result (vv.12–21): “The men of Judah were victorious because they relied on the Lord, the God of their fathers” (v.18). The book of Kings does, however, include a negative evaluation of Abijah (1Ki 15:3–5), not reflected in Chronicles, “that his heart was not fully devoted to the LORD.”
1–4 The exact location of “Mount Zemaraim” (v.4) is uncertain. The town of Zemaraim lay within the territory of Benjamin (Jos 18:22); so the battle must have occurred on the border between the “country of Ephraim” (Israel) and Judah, perhaps near Bethel (v.19), on the northern boundary of Benjamin.
5 The Lord had indeed “given the kingship of Israel to David and his descendants” and this was to be “forever” (1Ch 17:14), which seems to be the meaning of the phrase “a covenant of salt.” Salt is well known as a preservative, hence the idea of “everlastingness.”
6–7 The term “scoundrels” represents “the sons of Belial” (GK 1175 & 1201). But even though Belial, by NT times, had come to refer specifically to Satan (2Co 6:15) or the Antichrist (2Th 2:3), this OT word should be taken simply as a common noun, in its literal meaning of “worthlessness.” Abijah recounts how such men “opposed Rehoboam . . . when he was young.” In point of fact his chronological age was forty-one (12:13); but he still was “indecisive,” i.e., immature in his understanding and experience (cf. 10:8–15), so that he was not “strong enough to resist them.”
8–9 Scripture says that Jeroboam made the golden calves to be gods; they were “other gods, idols made of metal” (1Ki 14:9). Jeroboam’s own words in 1Ki 12:28—“Here are your gods, O Israel”—show his attitude toward them.
10 While at this point Abijah’s affirmation “The LORD is our God” rings with sincerity, a longer view of his history requires some modification in evaluation; for “he committed all the sins his father had done before him” (1Ki 15:3, witness his polygamy, described in 2Ch 13:21; cf. Ezra’s earlier evaluation of Rehoboam in 12:1). Also noteworthy is that the prophets of the northern and southern kingdoms had sanctioned the division. So Abijah used religious arguments for his own political ends. Yet since the northern kingdom had acted in unbelief and apostasy, his words carried some conviction.
11 Concerning the king’s loyalty to the ceremonial laws of Moses, see the following comments: on the daily “offerings,” see 1Ch 23:30; 2Ch 4:1; on the “fragrant incense,” 2Ch 2:4; on the “bread” and its “table,” 1Ch 9:32; 2Ch 4:8; on the “gold lampstand,” 2Ch 4:7. Actually, Solomon’s temple contained ten such tables and lampstands (4:7–8); but one of each of these may have been the original article dating back to Moses, hence the singular terminology.
12–14 The “priests with their trumpets” were to “sound the battle cry,” specifically to call the Lord to their rescue (as in fact it came about, vv.14–15; cf. Nu 10:9). The king’s final appeal, “Men of Israel, do not fight against the LORD,” was particularly appropriate for Ezra to include, in light of the opposition that the Jews of his day faced from the Samaritans, in this same area of northern Israel. Jeroboam then attacked.
15 So “God routed Jeroboam,” though whether this was through direct supernatural intervention or through the courage of his embattled people as they saw themselves surrounded by the enemy is not stated.
16–18 The slaughter inflicted on Ephraim of “five hundred chiefs,” even if this term is not rendered as “thousands” (cf. comment on v.3), still represented the loss of over half “among Israel’s” particularly “able men,” a staggering blow for the limited northern kingdom.
19 Abijah “took . . . Bethel,” the actual center for Jeroboam’s calf worship (1Ki 12:29, 33), though the idol itself had probably been removed for safe keeping to some place farther north before the city’s capture. Significantly, some eighteen years later Bethel was reoccupied by the Ephraimites (cf. 16:1). “Jeshanah and Ephron” were located four miles north and northeast of Bethel respectively.
20 Judah’s victory may have encouraged the Arameans of Damascus to enter into a treaty with Abijah (cf. 1Ki 15:19), which would further have impeded Jeroboam from “regaining power.” The details on how “the LORD struck him down” are not elaborated elsewhere. His death occurred in 910 B.C., three years after Ahijah’s own.
21–14:la This particular volume of “the prophet Iddo” (cf. 9:29; 12:15) is called his “annotations” (GK 4535, meaning a “commentary,” perhaps on the king’s official court record).
3. Asa (14:1b–16:14)
This section concerns Asa son of Abijah (cf. 1Ki 15:9–24, the parallel section that has only sixteen verses and does not touch on major sections in 2Ch 14:3–15:15; 16:7–10). Out of the history of Asa’s long reign, 911–870 B.C., Ezra selected four outstanding events for his record: (1) the king’s first reform, dating to his initial ten years of peace (14:1b–8); (2) his victory over Zerah the Cushite in 897 (vv.9–15); (3) Judal’s second reform that came as a result (ch. 15); and (4) the hostile moves made against Asa by Baasha of Israel in 895 and his series of religious deviations that followed (ch. 16). Asa, however, was still the most godly monarch to arise in Judah from the division of Solomon’s kingdom up to this point (1Ki 15:11).
14:1b When Chronicles describes the country as being “at peace for ten years,” this era would cover the first decade of Asa’s rule, from 910 to 900 B.C., i.e., until the days before Zerah’s invasion in 896 (cf. 15:19). Nine years of this period overlapped the reign of Baasha in Israel (909–886). In 1Ki 15:16 we read of war between these two rulers “throughout their reigns.’’But since 2Ch 4:1b explains that he built the cities “since the land was at peace,” his actual conflict with Baasha must have broken out only subsequently. The peace, which may be traced back, in part, to Abijah’s crushing defeat of Israel (13:17, 20), stemmed primarily from Asa’s first reform (14:3–5) because, as he said, “We have sought the LORD our God . . . and he has given us rest” (v.7).
2–6 The king “removed . . . the high places,” in obedience to Dt 12:2–3; but the people seem to have continued to resort to them, despite the royal purge (15:17). The “sacred stones” were Canaanite in origin and were thought quite literally to contain the local fertility gods, the Baalim. The “Asherah poles” were wooden and were associated with Baal’s goddess-consort who bore this name. Both, when carved, became idols (cf. 1Ki 14:15).
7–8 As a conclusion to his description of Asa’s initial reform and of the prosperity that resulted, the Chronicler enumerates Asa’s army, with its three hundred specially trained men from Judah (the word “thousand,” GK 547, should be translated “chief, officer, specially trained warrior”) with “two hundred and eighty” special warriors “from Benjamin” (notice the contextual emphasis on their specialized weapons and their distinction as “brave fighting men”).
9 Turning to the Cushite invasion (vv.9–15), Ezra enumerates the enemy as embracing, by contrast, “a thousand specialists” (cf. NIV note) “and three hundred chariots.” “Cushites” (i.e., Nubians; cf. 1Ch 1:8) served as Egyptian mercenaries and, by the close of the next century, had come to rule all Egypt, as the Twenty-Fifth Dynasty (cf. on 2Ch 32:1). The name “Zerah” may be Osorkon I, second Pharaoh of the Twenty-Second Dynasty, who tried to duplicate the invasion and pillaging of his predecessor Sheshonk (cf. comment on 12:2). His forces may have attracted a mixed following of bedouin Arabs as well (cf. the reference to “camels” in v.15). But the results this time, against godly Asa, were quite the opposite of what had permitted the easy plundering of Rehoboam (12:9).
10 The “Valley of Zephathah” remains unidentifiable; but it did lie “near Mareshah,” which was a town that marks the entrance into the Judean hills and was situated between Gaza and Jerusalem, lying twenty-five miles farther along to the northeast. It was one of the points that Rehoboam had fortified in anticipation of just such an attack as this (11:10).
11 This climactic verse may express the idea, as in the NIV, that “there is no one [person] like you” who can help the powerless but also the mighty. Yet fully as meaningful is the idea (so KJV) that it is no harder for God to help the powerless than the mighty (cf. 1Sa 14:6). The point is that for God the humanly impossible is as nothing (Ge 18:14); and Asa had the faith to commit himself to the Lord and to expect the impossible (cf. Mk 9:23).
12 Thus “the LORD struck down the Cushites,” though again (cf. comment on 13:15) the detailed means that he employed are not stated.
13–14 Asa’s army “pursued them as far as Gerar,” located southeast of Gaza, on their presumed flight back to Egypt. History attests to the fact that “they could not recover”: Israel experienced no more interference from the decadent Twenty-Second and Twenty-Third Egyptian dynasties. Not until 160 years later did Egypt reappear to trouble Israel (2Ki 17:4).
15 Judah also attacked “the camps of the herdsmen” (lit., “tents of cattle”) that belonged to the Philistinized semi-nomadic cattle-tenders who were found in the area (cf. comment on v.9).
15:1 Asa’s second great period of reform (cf. 14:2–8, on his earlier efforts) occupies 2Ch 15. His actions came as a result of the victory in 896 B.C. over the Cushites (14:12–15), and particularly because of the preaching of “Azariah son of Oded,” a prophet who remains unknown apart from this passage.
2 The clause “If you seek him” recalls David’s admonition to Solomon (1Ch 28:9); and Azariah went on to illustrate its truth from Israel’s past history.
3 His words about the “long time” when “Israel was without the true God” probably refer to the lawless, and often faithless, days of the judges (Jdg 21:25). Their being “without the law” was closely connected with their being “without a priest,” since one of the latter’s major functions was “to teach” the law that God had given through Moses (Lev 10:11).
4–7 On God’s being “found by them” when “they sought him” (v.4), see Jdg 2:18. On their situation being such that “it was not safe to travel about,” see Jdg 5:6. The prophet concluded by appealing for resolute faith on their part, with the promise of reward from God.
8 Asa’s renewed reformation involved the removal of Judah’s “detestable idols,” and also of the sexual immoralities that accompanied such originally Canaanite worship (1Ki 15:12). Much had already been accomplished earlier (14:3); but this second stage of reform took care of the yet remaining idolatrous abominations. It was also a more extensive removal, “from the whole land”; for it included areas Asa “had captured in the hills of Ephraim” during the five years of hostility that had immediately preceded (v.10; cf. 14:1). This in turn implies the accomplishment of certain Judean victories, not otherwise recorded, even as there must have been defeats too (cf. on 13:19; 16:1).
9 The statement that “large numbers had come over to him from Israel” illustrates how God’s purpose in dividing Solomon’s kingdom was in fact being achieved (cf. introduction to chs. 10–11; comments on 11:3, 14): a faithful “remnant” was being gathered and preserved. It may also help to explain, however, why Baasha of Israel proceeded to his acts of reprisal soon thereafter (16:1). On the coming of “people from . . . Simeon,” see comments on 1Ch 4:24–43.
10–11 The “third month of” Asa’s “fifteenth year” was May/June 895 B.C. The people may have “assembled at Jerusalem” at that time so as to observe the Feast of Weeks (Pentecost), one of Israel’s three annual pilgrimage celebrations (cf. 1Ch 23:31; also Lev 23:15–21). This assembly probably took place in the year following Zerah’s attack (v.19), since the pursuit, the gathering of plunder (v.11), and the occupying of the surrounding territories by Asa’s forces (14:13–15) must have consumed several months.
12 The “covenant” (GK 1382) referred to here is the one great, everlasting testament of the Lord (see comment on 1Ch 16:15) that he decreed for the redemption of his people. The succeeding verses on Asa’s “covenant renewal” bring out some of its basic features. First, on the objective side God provided for the restoration of fallen people back into fellowship with himself. The reality of this restoration is indicated by the fact that he had become “the God of their fathers.” God thus entered into a saving relationship with his elect (Ge 17:7; Jer 31:34; Jn 17:6).
13–14 Second, on the subjective side, the people were to respond to him in faith and obedience. They therefore swore to “seek the LORD, the God of their fathers, with all their heart and soul” (v.12). Conformity on this particular occasion was enforced on pain of “death” (cf. Dt 17:26). It is preferable for a person to be restrained in this life than for him or her to be lost for eternity (Dt 13:12 15; Mk 9:43–48).
15 Third, the result is an inheritance of peace: “the LORD gave them rest on every side.” The immediate rest granted to Judah was one of relief from her enemies, but it was indicative of a more fundamental rest that comes to all who have been accepted by God. Covenant rest embraces all the joys of redeemed life in the present (Ps 103), of heavenly life beyond the grave (Ps 73:23–26; Heb 4:9–11), and of ultimate life in the kingdom of God on earth (Ps 96:12–13; Rev 20:6; 22:5).
16 For the remaining verses of ch. 15, the parallel in 1Ki 15:13–16 resumes, thereby attesting to the reality of Asa’s reform. Rehoboam’s second wife, “Maacah” (see 11:20), was not only still living but must have been an influential figure at the Jerusalem court. Asa, however, has left a significant example to us through the way he placed religious loyalty above family loyalties, when he “deposed her from her position.” The Kidron Valley, in which he burned her Asherah pole, is the gorge that lies between the east wall of Jerusalem and the Mount of Olives.
17 That Asa “did not remove the high places from Israel” is a commentary, not on the commendable programs of reform as instituted by the king himself (see comment on 14:3), but on the sad facts of the people’s spiritual condition.
18 The treasures Asa “brought into the temple” (see 5:1) included “articles that he and his father had dedicated,” namely, Abijah’s spoils from Jeroboam (13:19) and his own from Zerah and his allies (14:13–15).
19 The NIV translation of this verse is subject to criticism on two counts. (1) The Hebrew lacks the word “more” and says simply, “There had not been war.” (2) It is known that the king was involved in a serious conflict with Baasha (ch. 16), who died in the twenty-sixth year of Asa’s reign (1Ki 15:16, 33). Baasha had thus been dead for almost a decade before Asa’s thirty-fifth year. Perhaps Ezra’s reference is to the thirty-fifth year after the division of the Solomonic kingdom in 930 B.C. and this verse relates then to Zerah’s invasion in 896. It could thus be rendered, “There had not been war until the thirty-fifth year,” which had reference to Asa’s reign. However, the expression “the thirty-fifth year of Asa’s reign” is exactly the same expression as in 16:1. Thus, it seems unlikely that 15:19 dates from the beginning of the kingdom and 16:1 from the beginning of his own reign. Another suggestion views the figures here and in 16:1 as twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth, respectively (cf. 1Ki 16:8).
16:1 Despite the king’s two reforms and remarkable victory that are recorded in the two preceding chapters, ch. 16 proceeds to describe a series of religious deviations of which he became guilty in his later life: in relation to Israel (vv.1–9), to the prophet Hanani and others of his own people (v.10), and to his final illness (vv.11–14).
The “thirty-sixth year,” which had reference to “Asa’s reign” (see comment on 15:19), was 895 B.C.; and the event in question probably occurred after the assembly in May/June of that year (15:10). At this point Judah was confronted by “Baasha king of Israel.” The latter had overthrown the dynasty of Jeroboam I, usurped the crown, and then reigned in Ephraim from 909 to 886 (1Ki 15:27–29, 33). He had been consistently hostile toward Asa (1Ki 15:16) and now became particularly aroused against him, probably because of the defection of many of his people south to Judah (2Ch 15:9). He advanced southward, apparently capturing Bethel at this time (cf. on 13:19). Baasha then “fortified Ramah,” which lay on the main north-south highway along the Palestinian central ridge, only five miles north of Jerusalem. He thus effectively blockaded all movement into Judah.
2 Asa’s response was to take “silver and gold”—all that he had (1Ki 15:18)—from the Jerusalem temple and palace to purchase help from the Aramean king, Ben Hadad I in Damascus. At one stroke Asa thereby sacrificed the results of his own piety (cf. 2Ch 15:18) and of God’s blessing (14:13–14); he induced a pagan ruler to an act of perfidy (v.3) and precipitated a pattern of Syrian (Aramean) intervention into the affairs of Israel that would have disastrous results throughout the succeeding century (cf. 2Ki 10:32–33; 12:17–18); and, in the most serious deviation of all, he departed from the Lord by placing his primary dependence “on flesh” (Jer 17:5).
3 The earlier Syro-Judean treaty Asa referred to must have existed between Ben-Hadad’s father Tabrimmon, the son of Hezion (1Ki 15:18), and Asa’s father Abijah (cf. comment on 2Ch 13:20). This earlier ruler Hezion may perhaps be Rezon, the adversary of Solomon and the founder of the current kingdom in Damascus (1Ki 11:23–25); so the Arameans themselves had a history of switching allies at their convenience.
4 Ben-Hadad therefore conquered “Ijon,” located east of the Leontes River, as it flows southward out of the Syrian Beka Valley between the Lebanon ranges, shortly before its course turns west into the Mediterranean; Ijon thus lay on a natural route south into Israel. Eight miles farther south, on the headwaters of the Jordan, was “Abel Maim”; and four miles east of it lay “Dan.” The Arameans, indeed, took “all the store cities of Naphtali”—specified in 1 Kings as “all Kinnereth,” meaning the plains on the northwest side of Galilee.
5 Faced with such losses in Israel’s far north, “Baasha abandoned” his operation against the kingdom of Judah in the south, so that for the moment Asa’s stratagem appeared to have succeeded.
6 The men of Judah reused the materials from Ramah to “build up Geba and Mizpah.” Since we do not know the exact location of these cities, Asa was either counterattacking by pushing Judah’s borders northward again or defensively drawing in his lines to the south.
7 Verses 7–10 are unique to Chronicles. “Hanani the seer” was father to Jehu the seer, who would later serve Asa’s son Jehoshaphat (19:2; 20:34). He not only condemned Asa’s loss of faith (see comment on v.2) but went on to speak of the success the king would have enjoyed had he not deviated from trusting God: the Aramean army would have been his. The point is that “Aram,” as Baasha’s ally (v.3), would presumably have joined with Israel in attacking Judah; and God would then have delivered over the entire enemy force to Asa.
8–9 Hanani also reminded the king of the fate of the “Cushites” (see NIV note) and of their accompanying Libyans (cf. 12:3; 14:9, 11). Hanani’s reference to the “eyes of the LORD,” as ranging “throughout the earth” was later repeated by God himself, speaking through a postexilic prophet Zechariah (Zec 4:10). The emphasis is that no problem can arise for God’s people of which the Lord is not aware and from which he cannot deliver them (cf. Ro 8:32), provided their hearts are “fully committed” in respect to him.
But King Asa, from then on, would “be at war”—immediately with Baasha (1Ki 15:32), and, after the latter’s death in 886, with his successors; for the state of constant belligerency between Israel and Judah seems to have terminated only in the reign of Asa’s son Jehoshaphat (18:1), shortly before 865 (cf. comments on 18:2; 22:2).
10 Asa’s reaction was to compound his sin by putting Hanani “in prison.” This is the OT’s first recorded royal persecution of a prophet, but many such instances were to follow (18:26; 24:21; Mk 6:17–18). One sin, moreover, leads to another; and he also “brutally oppressed some of the people.”
11 Ezra here makes his first reference in 2 Chronicles (cf. 1Ch 9:1) to his primary literary source, “the book of the kings of Judah and Israel.” This work cannot be our present 1, 2 Kings, which, instead of providing a fuller description of “the events of Asa’s reign, from beginning to end,” contain only a fraction of what appears in Chronicles (cf. introduction to chs. 14–16). This document seems to have been some extensive court chronicle that is now lost.
12 In his thirty-ninth year (871 B.C.), Asa deviated in still another direction, by seeking help for his foot disease “only from the physicians.” While these may have been pagans, Scripture usually speaks positively of those who heal (Ex 21:19; Jer 8:22); medicine is God’s gift (cf. 2Ki 20:7). The king’s sin lay in having recourse to them only and not seeking “help from the LORD,” who is the ultimate healer of diseases (2Ki 20:5; Ps 103:3).
13–14 Chronicles clarifies the general statement of 1Ki 10:24 that Asa “was buried with [his fathers] in the city of . . . David” by speaking of “the tomb” that he had cut out for himself. The “huge fire,” with “spices” and “perfumes,” was not for cremation but “in his honor.”
4. Jehoshaphat (17:1–20:37)
The regnal years of Asa’s son Jehoshaphat reached from 873 to 848 B.C. (cf. comment on 17:7–9), Many of the features, moreover, that the Chronicler records of Asa’s reign reappear in his description of the reign of his son. These parallels extend even to its organization under four major headings (cf. introduction to chs. 14–16), which, for the career of Jehoshaphat, correspond to the textual divisions found in chs. 17–20. The first of these (ch. 17) reminds one of the account of Asa’s first reform, as it describes how his son in 866 B.C. removed idolatry from Judah, taught God’s law, and strengthened the kingdom. But even as Asa had entered into an unholy alliance with an Aramean king, Ben-Hadad I, so Jehoshaphat allied himself with the Ephraimite ruler, Ahab, and was thereby drawn into a nearly fatal campaign against Ramoth Gilead in 853 (ch. 18).
Furthermore, even as the prophet Azariah had preached to Asa and inaugurated the earlier king’s second reformation, so Jehu son of Hanani directed Jehoshaphat into a further reform in religion and into reorganization in the administration of justice (ch. 19). Finally, just as Asa had had to face the invading Cushites from the southwest, so Jehoshaphat met and overcame a vast army from the east (20:1–30), by trusting in the Lord. A concluding section then summarizes Jehoshaphat’s reign and speaks to the failure of his commercial alliance with Israel (20:31–37). Out of these portions only ch. 18, together with the concluding remarks in 20:13–37, finds a parallel in 1Ki 22:2–49.
1 Jehoshaphat’s strengthening of “himself against Israel” was directed specifically against Ahab (874–853), second king of the dynasty founded by the military leader Omri, infamous for the Baal worship advocated by his wife Jezebel. Asa’s hostility with the northern kingdom thus continued, at least initially, under his son (see comments on 16:9; 18:1).
2 The Ephraimite “towns . . . captured” by Asa included not simply the bastion of Ramah (cf. 16:1), but other communities as well (cf. 15:8).
3 The verse is perhaps better rendered “Jehoshaphat walked in the former ways” of his ancestor David, the Chronicler’s implication being that David’s latter ways were less exemplary (cf. 2Sa 11–21). Concretely Jehoshaphat disdained “the Baals”; each individual field had its own guiding master (baal; GK 1251), i.e., its own fertility spirit.
4–5 The practice of Israel, which Jehoshaphat also avoided, included Jeroboam’s deviations in respect to the priesthood and the calendar, as well as his calf worship (cf. comment on 13:8; cf. 1Ki 12:28–33).
6 Concerning “the high places and the Asherah poles” that Jehoshaphat removed, see comment on 14:3. The introductory adverb “furthermore” is more normally rendered “and again he removed the high places.” That is, Jehoshaphat renewed his father Asa’s earlier opposition to local shrines (14:3; cf. 1Ki 22:46). Yet just as with Asa (see 2Ch 15:17), the king’s official act was not sustained by his subjects: “The people continued to offer sacrifices and burn incense there” on the high places (1Ki 22:43).
7–9 Though Jehoshaphat’s “reign” is said to have covered twenty-five years (20:31), i.e., 872–848 B.C., it can also be said to have terminated in only twenty-two years (eighteen, in 2Ki 3:1, plus four more, in 8:16), i.e., from the death of his father, Asa, in 869. Jehoshaphat must therefore have enjoyed an additional three-year coregency, commencing in 872, a procedure that was probably necessary because of Asa’s illness, which became increasingly serious in the following year (see 16:12). Yet his dispatch of a religious teaching mission (17:7–9) seems sufficiently independent to suggest that what v.7 calls his “third year” must have been that “of his” sole “reign,” or 867.
The mission consisted of five government officials, nine Levites, and two priests, as named. For Jehoshaphat seems to have recognized how important it was for all the leaders of God’s people (cf. Mt 28:20) “to teach” them “the Book of the Law of the LORD” (the Pentateuch, at least Deuteronomy, though it could by this time have included the historical books through 2 Samuel and much of Psalms and Proverbs as well). Teaching was not limited to the professional Levites (Dt 33:10) and priests (Lev 10:11). They “went around to all the towns . . . and taught” (cf. the traveling evangelists mentioned in NT times, 3Jn 7–8).
10–18 The king’s “experienced fighting men” (v.13) that he “kept in Jerusalem” involved five groups, that consisted respectively of 300, 280, 200, 200, and 180 specially trained leaders (reading in each verse “leader,” rather than “thousand”; see comments on 1Ch 7:3–4 and 12:27). The total was thus 1,160 (not 1,160,000).
19 Yet even here, “these . . . who served the king” in the city of Jerusalem were specifically the five commanders, as listed. Portions of their followers would then have been stationed “in the fortified cities throughout Judah.”
18:1 Chapter 18 is taken from 1Ki 22:2–35 and is the only extract from the records of Israel used by Ezra. His reason seems to have been because it involved King Jehoshaphat almost as much as King Ahab of Israel, and also because the message of the prophet Micaiah, about which the chapter centers, had spiritual applications that extended far beyond the career of Ahab (cf. esp. vv.7, 13, 19–20, 27).
Jehoshaphat “allied himself with Ahab.” This act is not only condemned (19:2), but it is also seen as the root of far-reaching consequences, made all too clear by a series of disasters that followed (18:31; 20:37; 21:6; 22:7, 10). Initially it entailed the “marriage” of Jehoshaphat’s son Jehoram to Athaliah, the daughter of Ahab. Their marriage, in turn, furnishes an approximate date for the alliance (c. 865 B.C.), because a child of this union (Ahaziah) was twenty-two at his own accession in 841 (22:2). A major cause that led to the alliance may be found in the growing threat of Assyria in the north. Its ruthless monarch Ashurnasirpal II (884–3859) was already pressing into Lebanon; and his successor, Shalmaneser III, is known to have fought a drawn battle against a coalition of western states, including Damascus and Israel, at Qarqar on the Orontes River in 853.
2–3 Ahab urged Jehoshaphat to join him in a campaign to recover Ramoth Gilead. This was a key city on the eastern edge of Transjordanian Israel, south of the Yarmuk River, astride the Gilead trade route that went north to Damascus and beyond. It had been seized by the Aramean king of Damascus (16:4, or perhaps subsequently; cf. 1Ki 20:34); but Ahab may have felt that the Arameans had been sufficiently weakened by their losses at Qarqar to permit its recapture at this time, later in 853.
4 Though Jehoshaphat had already committed himself to the enterprise and he went on to disregard the divine guidance that was given him (v.28), he still retained the religion of the Lord to the extent that he insisted on seeking “the counsel of the LORD.”
5 Jehoshaphat put little confidence in Ahab’s four hundred court prophets (cf. v.6). These were men who confessedly spoke in the name of the Lord and not of Baal (vv.5, 10). But it was the Lord in the corrupted form of a golden calf (cf. 13:8); and their words were false (v.22), couched in terms that were calculated simply to please the hearers (v.12; cf. Mic 3:5, 11).
6–8 “Micaiah” remains unknown, apart from this incident. He never prophesied anything good about Ahab—because of the character of Ahab. The true prophets of Israel were, indeed, distinguished by the fact that they consistently warned their nation of the results of its sin (Jer 23:22; Mic 3:8).
9 The two kings sat on their thrones at “the gate of Samaria,” the traditional place for rendering judgment (Ge 23:10; Ru 4:1).
10–11 The “iron horns” made by the false prophet Zedekiah were designed to symbolize victory for Ahab (Dt 33:17), but perhaps also to accomplish it, insofar as they were superstitiously believed to contain magical potency.
12–13 The true prophet Micaiah, by contrast, could tell the king “only what . . . God says.” The revelations that he transmitted were objectively received and were distinguishable from the subjective thoughts and desires of his own heart (Jer 14:14; cf. 42:4, 7).
14–15 Micaiah’s words “Attack and be victorious” were spoken in irony, as the tone of his voice must have immediately indicated to Ahab.
16–17 Micaiah’s serious but figurative words “These people have no masters” continue the analogy of flocks and shepherds (cf. Nu 27:16–17); they were a prediction of Ahab’s death in battle (2Ch 18:34). But the Hebrew troops would be free to “go home in peace,” as brought about by the very orders of the Aramean king Ben-Hadad II, that his men were to fight only against Ahab (v.30).
18–19 As “Micaiah continued,” with his vision of heaven itself, he spoke of “the host,” or army, that was standing on either side of the Lord, which consisted of angelic spirits (cf. the “sons of God” in Job 1:6). The Lord’s question in v.19, “Who will lure Ahab . . . to his death?” testifies to the truth that God can work through spirits to incite evil people like Ahab to manifest their sin and thus be led either to punishment or to repentance (cf. 1Sa 16:14–15; 18:10–11).
20–21 The Hebrew that underlies the phrase rendered “a spirit came forward” reads literally, “the [well-known] spirit came forward,” i.e., Satan the tempter (as in Job 1:6–12). Apparently Micaiah seems to have assumed among his hearers a working knowledge of the book of Job, as already recorded in the days of Solomon.
22 The seer’s emphatic phrase “these prophets of yours” underlines their differentiation from God’s true prophets.
23 The way Zedekiah “slapped Micaiah on the face” indicates in itself that the Holy Spirit was not present with him (Jas 3:17; but cf. 2Ki 1:10–12). Yet his brazen claim to possess “the Spirit of the LORD” (NIV note) need not be watered down—though he may not have been personally aware that his optimistic message had in fact been supernaturally implanted in his mind, by Satan. Zedekiah’s next words are difficult. He seems to be acknowledging Micaiah’s claim that the Lord’s Spirit had come “to speak to” him; but he asks, “Which way did the Spirit” actually “go when he went from me?” Not, presumably, to Micaiah!
24 Micaiah’s rejoinder was to predict that Zedekiah would “go to hide in an inner room.” Its fulfillment is unknown; but the prophecy seems to suggest an attempt on his part to escape pursuit, perhaps as Ahab’s family would take vengeance on the false prophets, after the king’s death.
25–26 Ahab’s orders to send Micaiah back to the magistrate “Amon” imply that the prophet had already been put in custody at the time. A precedent for persecution of prophets had been set under Asa (cf. comment on 16:10).
27 The prophet’s final statement, “Mark my words, all you people,” was addressed to a plurality (lit., “peoples, nations”; GK 6639). He was calling all the world to serve as his witness (cf. Mic 1:2).
28–29 Ahab’s plan to “enter the battle in disguise” was a futile attempt to escape the decree of God (v.16), and it failed (v.33).
30 Ben-Hadad’s plan, in turn, to concentrate on no one “except the king of Israel” assumed that if Ahab could once be taken, the war would be won (cf. 2Sa 21:17)—and it was also the means for fulfilling Micaiah’s prophetic vision.
31–32 The words “and the LORD helped [Jehoshaphat]. God drew them away from him” are an addition by Ezra, not found in 1Ki 22:32. However, they (1) show the seriousness of Jehoshaphat’s deviation, how he would have reaped a fatal fruit from his sinful alliance with Ahab, had God not intervened; (2) suggest the reality of his faith, that when “Jehoshaphat cried out,” this was not just an expression of fear on his part but apparently a prayer for divine help; and (3) demonstrate the greatness of the grace of God, rescuing people without a need for man-made alliances, or even, as in this case, in spite of them.
33–34 The arrow then struck King Ahab in a vulnerable spot—between the “scaly mail” armor and its “appendages,” i.e., penetrating the abdomen. With his death, 2Ch 18 closes; 1Ki 22 has five more verses (vv.36–40) with further details, which Ezra omitted as less relevant for his particular audience.
19:1 Jehoshaphat’s safe return from Ramoth Gilead fulfilled a final detail in Micaiah’s prophecy (see comment on 18:16).
2 Hanani the seer had confronted King Asa half a century earlier (see comment on 16:7); and his son Jehu the seer had already condemned the dynasty of Baasha in Israel, some thirty-five years before this occasion in 853 B.C. (1Ki 16:1, 7). Jehu’s message was once again a negative one, opposing Jehoshaphat’s alliance with Israel (see comment on 18:1). But he went beyond the specific matter of this alliance and raised a more general ethical question, “Should you . . . love those who hate the LORD?” (cf. Mt 5:44).
Jehu therefore announced to the king, “The wrath of the LORD is upon you.” In fact, it already had been (18:31), and it still would be (20:1, 37; 22:10). Unlike his father, Asa, however, who had refused to humble himself before God when confronted by Jehu’s father Hanani (cf. 16:10), Jehoshaphat did submit to the judgment of God as conveyed by Jehu. This encounter, indeed, seems to have precipitated the king’s second great reform, both in its religious aspect (v.4) and in its judicial implications (vv.5–11).
3 Jehu himself seems to have anticipated the king’s positive response by his balanced acknowledgment, both of “some good” in him (cf. the approval soon to be granted Jehoshaphat by Elisha, 2Ki 3:14) and of some of the values that had emerged from his first reform, particularly the elimination of the “Asherah poles” (17:6; cf. 14:3).
4–7 Jehoshaphat’s admonition to the newly appointed judges, that they were “not judging for man but for the LORD,” is a standing reminder that good government springs from commitment to God.
8 “In Jerusalem . . . Jehoshaphat appointed some of the Levites” to serve on the central court of appeals and “to settle disputes.” If the chronological order here is correct, Jehoshaphat’s new judges were not appointed at the time the king had gone out (v.4) among the provinces (so as to be able to “return” with him); rather, they were already “in Jerusalem.”
9–10 Israel’s faithful judges were not simply to decide cases and render verdicts but were also to “warn” (GK 2302) their “brothers” against sin in the sight of God. They too were responsible to the Lord, and their ultimate motivation was to live so that divine “wrath” would not “come on” either them or their fellow Hebrews.
11 In the Pentateuch religious, civil, and moral law are juxtaposed, often without differentiation. Among the earlier prophets Samuel had begun to insist on certain priorities: that to obey was better than to sacrifice (1Sa 15:22), though Moses himself put love of God (Dt 6) and faith (Dt 7) before detailed legislation (Dt 12–26). Now, however, a distinction is explicitly made (though perhaps based on Dt 17:9, 12) between matters “concerning the LORD” and “matters concerning the king.” Among the later prophets the difference between moral law and ceremonial law was sharply drawn (Isa 1:11–17; Am 5:21–24). Under Jehoshaphat’s judges, Levites were to “serve as officials” (GK 8835).
20:1 Soon after 853 B.C. (see comments on 18:3; 20:35), Jehoshaphat faced an unexpected invasion by the combined forces of Moab, Ammon, and “the Meunites” (cf. 1Ch 4:41; 2Ch 26:7). These last were a people of Mount Seir in Edom (cf. vv.10, 22–23), perhaps from Maon, near Petra.
2 The enemy forces attacked by means of a little-used route, advancing around the south, or the Edomite end “of the [Dead] Sea,” for they took “En Gedi,” about midway on its western shore.
3–4 Jehoshaphat “proclaimed a fast” to emphasize in the presence of the “LORD” Judah’s distress (cf. Jdg 20:26). Fasting did not exist as an official part of preexilic Hebrew religion (but cf. Lev 16:29–31); yet from the time of Samuel on, it had been employed to stress the sincerity of the prayers of God’s people when they were facing special needs (1Sa 7:6; cf. Ac 13:2–3).
5 The “new courtyard” the king stood before was the temple’s “large court” (see comment on 4:9); and it was probably called this because it was one of the innovations in Solomon’s structure. Under him it had for the first time been separated from the “court of the priests.” It is also possible that Jehoshaphat had recently restored it (cf. 17:12).
6–9 The king’s plea, “If calamity comes upon us,” was a quotation from Solomon’s prayer that had been offered at the temple’s dedication (6:28–30; cf. 7:13–15).
10–11 By referring also to Dt 2:5, which recorded how God would not “allow Israel to invade” the lands of Seir, Jehoshaphat was in effect calling on the Lord to honor Israel’s obedience in this regard. He spoke also of God’s specific bestowal on Israel of the very land that these enemies were in the process of invading.
12 Jehoshaphat’s conclusion—“We have no power . . . but our eyes are upon you”—embodies a faith similar to that demonstrated by his father Asa (14:11).
13–15 Jahaziel’s words, “The battle is not yours, but God’s,” reflect the spirit of David against Goliath (1Sa 17:47).
16–17 From a point seven miles north of En Gedi, “the Pass [ascent] of Ziz” wound inland, up to the Valley of Beracah (v.26), west of Tekoa, which was located south of Bethlehem toward Hebron. “Jeruel” lay on this same route, southeast of Tekoa. Jahaziel’s further words, “Stand firm and see the deliverance the LORD will give you,” reflect the speech of Moses at the Red Sea (Ex 14:13).
18–20 The “Desert of Tekoa” occupies a sharp drop-off, immediately to the east of the town. Jehoshaphat’s words, “Have faith in the LORD your God and you will be upheld” were quoted a century later by Isaiah to King Ahaz (Isa 7:9; cf. 28:16; Mk 9:23).
21 At this point singers “went out at the head of the army,” just as the ark of God and the priestly trumpeters had at Jericho (Jos 6:9). They praised the Lord “in [their] holy array” (cf. 1Ch 16:29), a rendering that seems preferable to that found in the NIV text.
22–30 The “ambushes” that the Lord then set against the invaders are not identified; but they may have consisted of some of the more rapacious Seirites (Edomites), since the men of Ammon and Moab proceeded to turn on the men of Mount Seir. The result was that “they helped to destroy one another,” just as had occurred at the triumph of Gideon (Jdg 7:22). On the location of the Valley of “Beracah” (“blessing” or “praise”), see comment on v.16.
31–33 Here alone, for the concluding portion of ch. 20 (vv.31–37), information parallel to 1Ki 22 appears (vv.41–49). On the acknowledged failure to eliminate Judah’s “high places,” see comment on 17:6.
34 On “the annals of Jehu” being “recorded in the book of the kings,” see comment on 32:32.
35 Jehoshaphat’s “alliance with” Ahab’s son “Ahaziah” belongs to the brief period of the latter’s reign over Israel, 853–852 B.C.
36 On ships being “built at Ezion Geber,” see 8:17. Archaeology indicates that after the demise of the original Solomonic settlement there, the site’s second occupational level dates to the days of Jehoshaphat in the ninth century, though it seems soon to have fallen into Edomite hands (cf. 21:8). The phrase “trading ships” interprets a more literal rendering of the Hebrew, i.e., “ships that could go to Tarshish” (NIV note). The thought is that these vessels belonged to the class of ships that went to Tarshish (see comment on 9:21); their actual destination was Ophir (see comment on 8:18; cf. 1Ki 22:48).
37 The prophet “Eliezer . . . of Mareshah” is unknown apart from this passage. But because of Jehoshaphat’s sin in allying himself with the wicked Ahaziah (v.35), which Eliezer condemned, the ships were wrecked; for God will not honor a compromising alliance. The NIV text says that they were therefore “not able to set sail to trade,” which represents the general idea of the Hebrew; but it may be rendered more closely that they were “never fit to sail to Tarshish” or to anywhere else, including their particular goal of Ophir (cf. v.36). First Kings 22:49 adds that Jehoshaphat then refused Ahaziah’s offer for a joint sailing endeavor.
5. Jehoram (21:1–20)
The sole reign of Jehoshaphat’s son Jehoram extended from 848 to 841 B.C. and forms the subject of 2Ch 21. Dominating the chapter is the sad fact that Jehoram was married to Ahab’s daughter and that he “walked in [their] ways” (v.6). It therefore describes, on the one hand, his viciousness and apostasy (vv.1–11) and, on the other, his condemnation, delivered through the prophet Elijah, and his overwhelming failures, both national and personal that came as a result (vv.12–20). Much of the first half of the chapter corresponds to the same information (though cf. v.2) found in 1Ki 22:50 and 2Ki 8:17–22, with some elaboration by the Chronicler; but the second half (except for a few words in the king’s death notice; cf. 2Ki 8:24) is without biblical parallel.
1 “Jehoshaphat . . . was buried . . . and his son succeeded him” as sole monarch, in 848 B.C. But since Jehoshaphat’s eighteenth year (2Ki 3:1), four years before his death (see comment on 17:7), can simultaneously be designated as his son Jehoram’s second year (2Ki 1:17), it appears that the latter must have been associated with his father on Judah’s throne since 853.
2 Because vv.3–4 have no parallel in Kings, their context would seem to have been drawn from the lost court chronicle mentioned elsewhere by Ezra (20:34; 25:26; cf. comment on 16:11) or from other literary sources.
3 Jehoshaphat’s giving his six younger sons “many gifts,” but also dispersing them throughout the “cities in Judah,” shows that he was following the wise policy established by his great-grandfather Rehoboam (cf. 11:23).
4 When Jehoram, however, proceeded to massacre his brothers (cf. 22:10; Jdg 9:5), along with certain “princes” (or “prominent officials”), he was already demonstrating the unholy influence of his ruthless wife, Athaliah. The latter herself became the instigator of the crime of 22:10 (cf. 1Ki 18:4; 19:2; 21:7–15). The king’s personality had thus become twisted to the point that he apparently suspected others of acting as he would have, if they were given the opportunity. Yet his brothers’ principles were, in fact, much higher than his own (v.13).
5–7 God’s unwillingness “to destroy” the dynasty of David was what had preserved Judah previously as a kingdom, despite Solomon’s sin (1Ki 11:12–13). God had made a covenant with David.
8 At this time, and “because Jehoram had forsaken the LORD” (v.10), “Edom rebelled” against its Hebrew governors (1Ki 22:47); indeed Moab, to Edom’s north, had already become independent (2Ki 1:1).
9 When the king attempted to use force to reimpose his authority, “the Edomites surrounded his chariot commanders,” almost overwhelming the Judean army. Jehoram then not only “broke through”; he also “struck them down” at Zair (2Ki 8:21), a few miles south of the site of his father’s victory at Beracah (2Ch 20:26).
10 Jehoram failed, however, to quell Edom’s “rebellion.” His campaign thus parallels Israel’s failure shortly before, when it had attempted to resubdue Moab (2Ki 3:6–27). Also in revolt at this time was “Libnah,” a semi-Philistine city in the vicinity of Gath.
11 Jehoram built up the “high places,” the very shrines that his father and grandfather had tried to eradicate (cf. 14:3; 17:6), where the people “prostituted themselves.” Though the Canaanite worship thus reintroduced did involve sexual immorality (cf. 1Ki 22:46), the emphasis here is on how the king “led Judah astray” into faithlessness with respect to the Lord, her divine husband.
12–15 That Jehoram “received a letter from Elijah” has been labeled a product of the imagination, on the basis that Elijah had nothing to do with the southern kingdom and clearly was not living at this time (2Ki 3:11 [i.e., before Jehoshaphat’s death and Jehoram’s installation in 848 B.C.]). However, Elijah’s career did involve the south, specifically “Beersheba in Judah” (1Ki 19:3); his flight took him, indeed, as far south as Sinai (v.8). Also, though Elijah’s last dated act occurred in 852 (2Ki 1:3, 17), his translation to heaven (2:11) still need not have occurred till after Jehoram’s accession as sole monarch over Judah and his crimes of slaughtering his brothers and his officials, in the year 848 (8:16). Elijah may, however, have been gone by the time of the delivery of his letter, so that its sentence of doom could have had the force of a voice coming from the dead.
16–17 The land’s fortunes suffered a complete reversal; for “the Philistines,” who had rendered tribute to Jehoram’s father (2Ch 17:11), now “invaded Judah.” They were joined by “the Arabs who lived near the Cushites,” i.e., by nomads from the borderlands between Philistia and Egypt. In the outworkings of God’s justice, the man who began by massacring his own brothers (v.4) ended by suffering the loss of his sons and wives (cf. 22:1).
18–20 The king’s “incurable disease of the bowels” seems to have been some extreme form of dysentery. In further contrast to his father (cf. 16:14), he died without “fire in his honor.” Jehoram’s death was unmourned, without even normal burial “in the tombs of the kings” (cf. 24:25).
6. Ahaziah (22:1–9)
The reign of Jehoram’s son Ahaziah ran its course during the one year of 841 B.C. (cf. v.2). Its theme is once again that of retribution (cf. 21:17); and, in Ahaziah’s case, it was his sinful alliance with the wicked house of Ahab in Israel that brought about its own punishment (22:4) in the form of premature death for the young monarch (v.9). The sequence of events is explained in more detail in the parallel passage of 2Ki 8:25–10:14, though 2Ch 22 adds unique details from its own special sources (vv.1, 9b), as well as certain observations by Ezra (vv.4b, 7a) that are not found in Kings.
1 The Chronicler’s supplementary notice that Ahaziah was made king by “the people of Jerusalem” suggests that there was some uncertainty about the succession (cf. 23:13; 2Ki 23:30), perhaps because of the threat of Ahaziah’s own mother, the ruthless Athaliah (cf. v.10). Concerning “the raiders who . . . had killed all” Jehoram’s “older sons,” see 21:17.
2 The reading found in the LXX and 2Ki 8:26 for Ahaziah’s age (NIV note) of “twenty-two years” is to be adopted, rather than the Hebrew text’s “forty-two,” which would make him older than his father (cf. 21:20). His reign of “one year” fell entirely within the twelfth year of Joram of Israel (2Ki 8:25; cf. 3:1), whose death occurred at the same time as his own (9:24, 27), so that his rule must actually have been only a few months.
3–4 The way that Ahaziah’s mother “encouraged him in doing wrong” is explained by this queen’s patronizing of the Phoenician Baal worship of her stepmother Jezebel (cf. 23:17), and is a further testimony to the dominating influence of both these evil women
(21:6; cf. 21:4 and Dt 7:3). Ahaziah was not only encouraged to do evil by his mother, but he also followed the bad advice of the members of the house related to him through his mother. This was “to his undoing.”
5 The Transjordanian Israelite city of “Ramoth Gilead” had been seized by the Arameans (18:2), and Ahab’s attempt at its recovery in 853 had led instead to his own death (18:34). Yet with the murder of the Aramean king Ben Hadad II by Hazael some ten years later (2Ki 8:7–15), Ahab’s son “Joram” recaptured the city, but only to be attacked in 841 by Hazael (2Ki 9:14), who wounded Joram there.
6 Joram returned from Ramoth to Jezreel, at the head of the Esdraelon Valley, where his father Ahab’s palace was located (1Ki 21:1) and where his nephew Ahaziah “went down to see him.”
7 The full record of how “the LORD had anointed Jehu to destroy the house of Ahab” is contained in 2Ki 9.
8 It was only after Ahaziah’s own death (v.9) that Jehu killed the forty-two relatives of Ahaziah (2Ki 10:12–14).
9 This verse should probably begin “he also [not he then] went in search of Ahaziah.” The final movements of Ahaziah are difficult to trace but may perhaps be reconstructed as follows: he fled south from Jezreel so as to hide “in Samaria. He was brought to Jehu,” who fatally wounded him near Ibleam (between Jezreel and Samaria); he fled by chariot northwest to Megiddo, where he died (2Ki 9:27); and his body was carried by Ahaziah’s servants to Jerusalem (9:28), where they buried him.
7. Athaliah (22:10–23:21)
This section draws on its canonical source in 2Ki 11 and follows it rather closely. It shows how Jehoshaphat’s marriage alliance with the house of Ahab (18:1) eventually resulted in an attempt to exterminate the dynasty of David and in the official paganizing of Judah. For after the death of her last remaining son (22:1, 9), Athaliah proceeded to slaughter her own royal grandchildren—so as to ensure the throne for herself—and to establish the sort of Baal worship her mother Jezebel had been devoted to as the state religion of the southern kingdom. Under the protection, however, of the high priest Jehoiada, a single, one-year-old son of Ahaziah, named Joash, survived (22:10–12). Finally, when the lad had become seven, Jehoiada carried through a revolt that brought about the coronation of Joash (23:1–11), the execution of Athaliah (vv.12–15), and the extirpation of her false worship (vv.16–21).
10 The reign of Israel’s only queen, Athaliah the mother of Ahaziah, extended for six full years, from 841 to 835 B.C. (cf. 22:12; 23:1).
11–12 “Jehosheba” (cf. 2Ki 11:2), a sister of the late king Ahaziah, rescued her infant nephew Joash by hiding him “in a bedroom,” i.e., in one of the palace rooms where mattresses and bedding were stored. Chronicles reveals the fact, otherwise unrecorded, that she was also the “wife of the [high] priest Jehoiada,” who must have been many years her senior (cf. 24:15). The two of them later removed Joash to “the temple of God” for safety.
23:1 As explained in 2Ki 11:4, the five “commanders of units of a hundred” were the officers of the Carites (cf. the Cherethites, 1Ch 18:17) and of other elements of the royal guard.
2 The gathering of “the Levites and [clan] heads” is not mentioned in 2Ki 11, but such an action is not thereby rendered suspect. It must have been accomplished with considerable secrecy, since the uprising caught Queen Athaliah wholly by surprise (v.13).
3 “The covenant with the king” was made specifically with Jehoiada as his protector (v.1; 2Ki 11:4). Once again we see the requirement of popular confirmation, which played so prominent a part in the history of the succession of Israel’s “constitutional monarchs” (cf. 1Ch 11:3; 2Ch 10:1).
4–7 The situation of the “priests and Levites” as “going on duty on the Sabbath” was that which concerned the changing of the Levitical courses in their temple service (cf. 1Ch 24:4, 20). The sentence reads literally, “the third [of you priests . . .]” —with the definite article in the Hebrew—since, as 2Ki 11:5–7 makes clear, this group contrasts with the other two-thirds, who were going off duty. The former were “to keep watch at the doors,” both of the palace (2Ki 11:5) and of the temple, to prevent any unauthorized, non-Levitical personnel from entering the sanctuary (2Ch 23:6).
Verse 5, as shown by 2Ki 11:5b–6, constitutes a parenthesis that identifies the three parts of the third who were coming on duty: (1) those “at the royal palace” (which might mean simply “the house of the king,” i.e., his chamber in the temple, 22:12, for Athaliah’s palace remained open, 23:12); (2) those “at the Foundation Gate” (called the Sur Gate in 2Ki 11:6, a temple gate of uncertain location); and (3) those “in the courtyards of the temple” (specified in Kings as stationed at the gate behind the guard).
8–9 Ezra here introduces the two companies of Levites “who were going off duty”: they had not been released but instead were assigned to guard the temple for the king (2Ki 11:7) with the weapons that were being kept there.
10 When Jehoiada is said to have “stationed all the men,” this company must have included the non-Levitical clan heads (v.2) and such of the royal guard as may have been considered faithful by the five commanders who had entered into the covenant with him (v.1).
11 The “copy of the covenant” that Joash was given (lit., “the testimony”; GK 6343) may have been simply the terms of the contract under which he was to rule but was more likely the required scroll of the law of Moses, which testified both to his royal position under God and to his responsibilities for godly conduct while in office (Dt 17:18–19). Chronicles adds to 2Ki 11:12 that it was the high priest “Jehoiada and his son” who “anointed” Joash.
12–13 In support of Joash there came “all the people of the land,” who are here distinguished from the military officers. They did not form a party or a social class (though in postexilic times the expression did come to designate the non-Jewish inhabitants of Palestine, who hindered the work of restoration by the returning exiles).
14–16 Along with Jehoiada’s political revolution came a corresponding religious revival—that king, priest, and citizenry would together “be the LORD’s people” (v.16). This included their reaffirmation of the southern kingdom’s limited monarchy, in which all its social elements pledged allegiance to God as their ultimate Sovereign (cf. vv.3, 11).
17 The execution of “Mattan the priest of Baal” carried out the requirement of God’s Word directed against those who should lead others into false religion (Dt 13:5–10).
18–21 The priests then reestablished the true worship, according to the prescriptions of Moses and of David for the Levitical priests (1Ch 23) and for the singers (ch. 25).
8. Joash (24:1–27)
Joash, the young son of Ahaziah and grandson of Athaliah, reigned over Judah for forty years, from 835 to 796 B.C. His rule, moreover, serves as a characterization in miniature for the historical course of his entire nation. During the earlier years of his reign, Joash lived uprightly, honoring the Lord and providing for the temple, whose structure and sacrificial services depicted God’s eternal plan of salvation (vv.1–14). But in later years he departed both from the Lord and from his sanctuary (vv.15–19; cf. Mt 21:13); he murdered the prophet who rebuked him, who was the son of the very priest who had preserved, enthroned, and guided him up to this point (vv.20–22; cf. Mt 21:38); he suffered a humiliating subjugation to the forces of Damascus (vv.23–24; cf. Lk 19:43–44); and he died incapacitated by battle wounds and slain by his own officials for his crimes (vv.25–27; cf. Mt 21:41). Just as Asa’s rejection of the prophetic word resulted in God’s judgment, military troubles, downfall, and, ultimately, death (presumably from his diseased foot), so was the fate of Joash. This chapter stands in general parallel to 2Ki 12, but with supplements of varying length—ranging from the one verse summary of Joash’s family (v.3) to the four paragraphs concerning his lapse at the death of Jehoiada (vv.15–22)—which probably derived from Ezra’s special source called the “annotations” (cf. v.27).
1–2 Joash began his career by doing “what was right in the eyes of the LORD,” except that he had no success in removing Judah’s high-place shrines (cf. 14:3; 2Ki 12:3); and he continued in his uprightness “all the years of Jehoiada” (cf. v.14), i.e., until some time after the twenty-third year of his reign, datable to 813 (2Ki 12:6). Following the death of his protector, however, he fell into serious sin (vv.17–18).
3 The fact he had “two wives” was censurable (cf. Dt 17:17), though Jehoiada may have felt that this was an improvement over the state of some of his royal predecessors (cf. 1Ch 14:3; 2Ch 11:21).
4–5 After the acts of vandalism and sacrilege committed under Athaliah (v.7), it had become necessary “to restore the temple.” For this purpose he collected “money” (lit., “silver”; GK 4084); coinage entered the ancient world only during Israel’s exilic period. “But the Levites did not act at once,” both because of natural inertia (still true even of Christian workers) and because of the priestly demands that seem to have exhausted the normal revenues for current operations and for their own support (2Ki 12:7; cf. Nu 18:19). Yet the Chronicler, at least at this point, seems to view the priests in an overall better light than the Levites.
6 Concerning the “tax imposed by Moses,” 2Ki 12:4 specifies three sources of revenue: “money collected in the census,” a half-shekel per head (Ex 30:14; 38:26; Mt 17:24; cf. Ne 10:32); “money received from personal vows,” in substitutionary redemption payments, varying from three to fifty shekels (Lev 27:1–8; Nu 18:15–16); and “money brought voluntarily to the temple.”
7 On “the Baals,” see comment on 17:3.
8 So Jehoiada (as stated in 2Ki 12:9) “made a chest,” with an opening in its lid to receive the donations. The priests agreed to surrender responsibility, both for taking collections and for making repairs for the temple (12:8); their needs were henceforth to be met by “the money from the guilt offerings and sin offerings” (12:16; cf. Lev 5:16). The high priest then had it “placed outside, at the [south] gate of the temple,” that is, to the right of the altar (2Ki 12:9).
9–12 A “proclamation was then issued” to publicize the new procedures (v.5) and to insure the payment of the Mosaic tax (v.6).
13–14 Thus “they rebuilt the temple”; for none of the precious metal that was received was converted into sacred equipment (2Ki 12:13), at least not till the repairs were finished. The author of 2Ki 12:15 brings out the commendable honesty and faithfulness of the workers.
15 The notice of the death of Jehoiada “at an age of a hundred and thirty” has led some to charge the Chronicler with a fictitious figure. But the literal count corresponds to actual history. The precise placement of this priest within the gap that occurs in the Aaronic genealogy (cf. 1Ch 6:10) between Ahimaaz’s grandson Johanan (born c. 960 B.C.) and Azariah II (in 751, 2Ch 26:17) is unknown. If Jehoiada succeeded the high priest Amariah II (in 853, 2Ch 19:11; cf. 1Ch 6:4) at an age of 85, he would have expired in 808, some time before the death of his protégé Joash in 796. Jehoiada’s span of life was unique at this period, but not impossible, particularly for a man specially blessed of God.
16 Jehoiada had become by marriage a brother-in-law to Joash’s royal father Ahaziah (2Ch 22:11); but burial “with the kings” was still a marked honor, which stands in distinct contrast to Joash’s own eventual fate (24:25).
17–18 The “officials of Judah,” to whom Joash now listened, were of the class most attracted by the materialism of Baal worship (cf. Zep 1:8). They were also the first to suffer God’s penalty for it (cf. v.23). Concerning “Asherah poles,” see comment on 14:3.
19 Among the prophets sent to testify against Israel, some of the earlier ones, such as Shemaiah and Jehu, had been heeded (11:2; 12:5; 19:2); but the later ones—Hanani, Micaiah, and now Zechariah (16:7; 18:16; 24:20)—increasingly were not.
20 The expression that the Spirit “came upon” Zechariah means literally that he “clothed himself with” him (cf. 1Ch 12:18).
21–22 The expression that Joash did not remember Jehoiada’s “kindness” (GK 2876) means the latter’s “faithfulness.” The king owed his power and position, and indeed his very life, to this priest’s loyalty (ch. 23). Joash’s murder of Jehoiada’s son Zechariah has sometimes been interpreted as the event to which Jesus referred (Lk 11:51) as the last-recorded martyrdom in the OT canon; but this appears improbable. Our Lord’s allusion most likely was to Zechariah the son of Berekiah (Mt 23:35; cf. Zec 1:1), coming at the close of the minor prophets.
Zechariah’s dying prayer, “May the LORD see this and call you to account,” is one of imprecation rather than of forgiveness; but it is justified because of Zechariah’s position as the Lord’s prophet and because of the king’s wickedness in going against the Lord.
23–24 The invading Arameans are first said to have killed Judah’s “leader” (GK 8569). They then sent to Damascus “all the plunder” of Jerusalem. Joash had stripped from the temple all the treasures that had been accumulated since the days of Asa (cf. 2Ki 12:18), whose sin thus reaped its final reward (cf. comments on 2Ch 16:2, 9). “Only a few” Arameans overcame “a much larger” Judean army, just as Moses had threatened (Lev 26:17).
25 The king’s “officials” then assassinated him “in his bed” at the house of Millo (2Ki 12:20), probably in Jerusalem (cf. 1Ch 11:8). Chronicles adds that the reason for the conspiracy was to avenge Zechariah. But their act was still murder and is condemned (cf. 25:3). In 2Ki 12:21 Joash’s s burial is described as being “with his fathers in the City of David”; but while Chronicles confirms this as to its general location, Ezra also specifies that it was “not in the tombs of the kings” (contrast v.16).
26–27 The “many prophecies” about Joash probably refer to such prophetic threatenings as are noted in vv.19–20. The Chronicler’s literary source for this reign, “the annotations on the book of the kings,” suggests some interpretation of the more basic court chronicle (cf. 13:22).
9. Amaziah (25:1–28)
This chapter concerns the reign of Joash’s son Amaziah (796–767 B.C.). Except for an introduction on Amaziah’s succession (vv.1–4) and a conclusion on his death (vv.25–28), it concentrates on two wars that he undertook and on the lessons to be learned from them: (1) his reconquest of Edom, through obedience to the Lord (vv.5–16); and (2) his ensuing defeat by Israel, in punishment for engaging in a form of idolatry to which he succumbed after his earlier victory (vv.1724). His demise repeats a familiar theme: Rejecting God’s prophetic word results in divine judgment, military defeat, downfall, and ultimately death. These data depend on and closely follow 2Ki 14:1–20. They are considerably augmented, however, by fresh material concerning the king’s Ephraimite mercenaries (vv.5–10, 13) and his Edomite idolatry (vv.14–16, 20), presumably as drawn from the Chronicler’s larger source cited in v.26.
1–2 Amaziah “did what was right” (cf. vv.4, 10), “but not wholeheartedly” (see vv.14, 16, 20). Notice also 2Ki 14:4, on how he allowed the high places to remain standing.
3–4 Though Amaziah executed his father’s murderers, he spared “their sons,” as had been prescribed by Moses (Dt 24:16).
5 Because of such losses as had been suffered under his father, Joash (24:23), Amaziah’s muster of able men with “spear and shield” fell considerably short of the enumerations made under Asa and Jehoshaphat (see comment on 14:8; 17:14–18); but it still recorded the “three hundred” specially trained warriors (cf. comment on 1Ch 7:3–4; 12:37, that “thousand” should be rendered “chief”).
6 Amaziah then “hired a hundred” more “from Israel,” at the cost of an equal number of silver “talents.” At twelve hundred ounces each, this sum meant something over three and three-fourths tons. But no support that is purchased from the ungodly, such as these Ephraimites were, could enjoy the Lord’s blessing.
7–10 A man of God confronted the king, reminding him that it is God who has the controlling “power to help or to overthrow.” Amaziah then asked what he should do with his hired mercenaries. On the prophet’s advice, Amaziah dismissed them, who, despite their payment, were furious over the loss of what they had anticipated as further plunder. But the king was placing his trust in God, just as his fathers had done (cf. 14:11; 20:12).
11–12 “Seir,” or Edom, had now continued independent from Judah for half a century (21:8); and it was ruthlessly subjugated. The decisive battle occurred at “the Valley of Salt,” which had been the scene of David’s victory two hundred years before (1Ch 18:12). It probably lay at the southern end of the Dead Sea. Amaziah eventually occupied the Edomite capital of Sela (2Ki 14:7)—the later famed city of Petra.
13 The Ephraimite mercenaries “that Amaziah had sent back” proceeded to vent their rage by pillaging Judah’s frontier towns in northwestern Benjamin. Thus Amaziah’s initial reliance on human beings (vv.6–7) brought about its own punishment.
14–15 The futility of “gods, which could not save their own people” should have been obvious, but people still often tend to worship that which is demonstrably inadequate.
16 The king’s silencing of the Lord’s prophet at least involved no more than threats (contrast 16:10; 24:21).
17–19 Amaziah’s pride over defeating Edom led him to challenge the far stronger kingdom of Jehoash (798–782) in Israel, the senselessness of which the latter proceeded to portray by his fable.
20–21 The battle was joined at “Beth Shemesh,” fifteen miles west of Bethlehem, on Amaziah’s own picked ground. This town lay “in Judah” on its Danite border (Jos 15:10).
22–24 The disaster that resulted for the king included the destruction of the least defensible portion of Jerusalem’s wall, namely, the part facing north, “from the Ephraim Gate,” on its west side, “to the Corner Gate,” facing northeast. It also included the loss of the temple treasures that were “in the care of Obed-Edom,” i.e., of the old Levitical family of gatekeepers and musicians that bore his name.
25–27 As a further divine punishment on Amaziah (cf. v.20), these losses led to a mounting conspiracy “against him in Jerusalem.” At a preliminary stage his sixteen-year-old son Uzziah was elevated first to a twenty-three year coregency in 790 (26:1). A final stage was precipitated by Amaziah’s flight to Lachish, twenty-five miles southwest of Jerusalem on the route to Egypt, in 767. If this represented an attempt by the ex-ruler to recover his throne, it failed; for his pursuers “killed him there.”
28 Amaziah was buried in the “City of Judah” (i.e., Jerusalem), a later term for “the City of David” (2Ki 14:20).
10. Uzziah (26:1–23)
This chapter concerns Amaziah’s son Uzziah, whose total reign extended from 790 to 739 B.C. His career runs parallel to those of his father, Amaziah, and grandfather, Joash: for the earlier portion of all three of these long reigns was marked by piety and by a corresponding prosperity (see vv.1–15). But the latter part of each introduced some more or less serious religious deviation, which in Uzziah’s case resulted in his suffering a stroke of leprosy, a banishment from his own palace, and, eventually, death (vv.16–23). Yet his failure was less far reaching than the outright idolatry practiced by his immediate predecessors, and his achievements mark him off as one of the half-dozen leading monarchs of Judah. The content of most of ch. 26 is unique to Chronicles, since 2Ki 14:21–22; 15:1–7 present little more than a summary of his reign.
1 The new king’s designation, “Uzziah,” was apparently his throne name. His personal name, Azariah (NIV note), appears in eight of the twelve references that are made to him in Kings, and also in the genealogical recapitulation found in 1Ch 3:12, perhaps because the use of his personal name may have been resumed after he became a leper. Since he was sixteen years old at his accession as coregent in 790 (see comment on 25:25–27), he must have been born when his father was fifteen (25:1). Early marriages were not uncommon in the ancient Near East.
2–3 The “Elath” that Uzziah “rebuilt” has been identified with Period III of Tell el Kheleifeh. The statement that this occurred only after Amaziah’s death (in 767) confirms the reconstruction of Uzziah’s accession, noted under 25:27, as occurring some time prior to the demise of his father.
4 “He did what was right,” even though 2Ki 15:4 cautions that the high places still remained. Furthermore, below the surface prosperity that was enjoyed by both kingdoms at this time, the contemporaneous preaching of Hosea and Amos indicates the presence of serious moral and spiritual decay.
5 Uzziah’s mentor, Zechariah, though apparently familiar to Ezra, can no longer be identified today. The God-given success that resulted for Uzziah is borne out historically. The four decades that marked his overlapping reign with Jeroboam II in the north, from 790 to 750 B.C., have been called Israel’s “Indian summer” (cf. vv.8, 15): a time when the Assyrians, who had weakened Israel’s Aramean enemies at Damascus on its northeastern border (cf. 2Ki 12:17–19; 13:3–5), had not yet begun their own destruction of the Hebrew states (cf. 15:19, 29). Yet by the time of Uzziah’s death, the prophets were expressing forebodings about what lay ahead (Isa 6:1, 11–12).
6 In his western offensive, the king overpowered three Philistine centers: “Gath,” the most inland city (and the most exposed to Hebrew attack), whose destruction left the Philistines with only four main cities thereafter (cf. Am 1:6–8; Zep 2:4); “Ashdod,” near the Mediterranean, the one that lay almost directly west of Jerusalem; and the smaller town of “Jabneh,” which stood about ten miles farther north, between Ekron and the Sea (Jos 15:11).
7–8 “The Arabs” from the unknown site of “Gur Baal” and “the Meunites” seem to have been nomadic enemies of Judah, inhabiting its southeastern border.
9 “The Corner Gate” (25:23), “the Valley Gate,” and “the angle of the wall” were located at northeastern, southwestern, and eastern points, respectively, of Jerusalem’s fortifications (Ne 3:13, 19, 31).
10 The reality of Uzziah’s “towers in the desert” (of arid southern Judah) has been validated by the discovery of an eighth-century tower at Qumran. Concerning “the foothills,” see comment on 1Ch 27:28. “The plain” then refers to the plateau of Transjordan; for though this area had formerly been under Ephraimite control, Uzziah seems to have regained it from the Ammonites, who had occupied it (v.8).
11–12 To muster Judah’s troops, Maaseiah held the post of “officer” (GK 8853), a scribal or mustering official (Ex 5:6).
13–14 While a figure of 2,600 for the “family leaders” placed “over the fighting men” (v.12) seems appropriate for a strong kingdom like Uzziah’s, the enumeration of his more professional soldiers should probably be taken to read 300 special warriors (the same number as Amaziah’s; see comment on 25:5), together with 7,500 “men trained for war.”
15 The description of his “machines . . . on the towers . . . to hurl stones” has been interpreted to mean devices from which to hurl stones; i.e., they were shielding mantles, used to cover defending troops as they repelled enemies seeking to scale the walls; for question exists about the use of catapult machines at this time.
16 In the chapter’s latter section, on Uzziah’s religious deviation, his sin in entering the temple to burn incense consisted not simply in usurping what was an exclusively priestly prerogative (v.18; Ex 30:7–8; cf. Nu 18:7), but perhaps also in arrogating to himself a Canaanite type of office, of semi-divine priest-king (see Ge 14:18; cf. Nu 12:10).
17–18 “Azariah the priest,” who withstood the king, is probably Azariah II, as listed in 1Ch 6.
19–21 The “separate house” Uzziah as a leper had to stay in is literally “house of [the] freedom” (cf. NIV note). His son “Jotham” assumed coregency in the palace. The date of this transfer of power is 751 B.C., since Jotham’s twentieth year (2Ki 15:30) was equivalent to his son Ahaz’s twelfth (16:2), which is 732.
22 “The prophet Isaiah” recorded the other events of Uzziah’s reign, though this work is now lost, even as Isaiah later did for those of Hezekiah’s reign (see comment on 32:32).
23 Rather than suggesting that Uzziah was buried only “near” his fathers because “he had leprosy,” one might more naturally render the Hebrew as that he was “buried with” them, and then conclude the thought either negatively—“in a field for burial . . . for” he was a leper—or more positively—“with them, although” he was a leper; that is, he was honored in death despite his malady.
11. Jotham (27:1–9)
The official sixteen-year kingship of Uzziah’s son Jotham extended from 751 to 736 B.C., but it overlapped the reigns of his predecessor (cf. comment on 26:19–21) and successor (see comment on v.8) to such a degree that he himself is left with little independent notice in Scripture. The nine verses here furnish some elaboration on the even briefer notices that relate to this monarch in the parallel passage of 2Ki 15:32–38; and they most notably concern his victory over the Ammonites, together with its evaluation (vv.5–6). Jotham was a good king, and God rewarded his righteousness (vv.2, 6).
1 Since Jotham’s reign lasted for a total of “sixteen years,” the reference to its “twentieth year” in 2Ki 15:30 must be prophetic—for Jotham’s successor had not yet been introduced in Kings at this point, or even Jotham himself.
2 The “corrupt practices” of his people are explained elsewhere in Scripture as consisting of sacrificial services carried out on Judah’s high places, with accompanying immoralities, idolatries, and superstitions (2Ki 15:35; cf. Isa 1–6, which pertains to this period).
3–4 The temple’s “Upper Gate” (cf. 23:20), which “Jotham rebuilt,” was situated on its north side (Jer 20:2; Eze 9:2). The “hill of Ophel,” on the other hand, lay to its south, in the upper part of the old city of David.
5 Included in the tribute that the king gained from Ammon was a considerable sum of silver.
6 A testimony to Jotham’s “power” has been the discovery of his official seal at Ezion Geber, Judah’s outpost that continued under Hebrew control throughout his reign.
7 The reference to “all” Jotham’s wars suggests that prior to the Ammonite campaign (v.5), for which as king he had sole responsibility, he may have served as field commander for the alliance that was conceived by his quarantined father, Azariah-Uzziah (26:21), and which is mentioned in Assyrian annals (but not in the OT) as overcome by Tiglath-pileser III about 743 B.C.
8–9 Though “he reigned sixteen years” (cf. v.1), it was after only eight of these, in 743, that Jotham seems to have associated his son Ahaz with him on the throne (comment on 26:21), perhaps because of his defeat by Tiglath-pileser (see comment on 28:5; cf. 2Ki 15:37).
12. Ahaz (28:1–27)
The official reign of Jotham’s apostate son Ahaz extended from 743 to 728 B.C. He was, indeed, one of the weakest and most corrupt of all the twenty rulers of Judah. His record in 2Ch 28 is illumined by the prophecies of Isaiah that belong to this period (chs. 7–12), and it runs parallel to the history in 2Ki 16. But apart from the opening four verses and the concluding formula in vv.26–27 (cf. 2Ki 16:19–20), and a few words in v.16 (2Ki 16:7), the composition of these two historical chapters remains distinct. Both report the reign of Ahaz through two stages: (1) his apostasy from the Lord and the defeat that he suffered as a result, at the hands of Syro (Aramean)Ephraimite attacks (2Ch 28:1–7); and (2) his subsequent appeal and capitulation to Assyria, which led him into even further corruption and idolatry (vv.16–25). Between these sections, however, the Chronicler inserts a discussion of how the prophet Oded succeeded in rescuing a group of Judean captives out of Ephraim (vv.8–15), though none of this has been preserved in 2 Kings.
1 Since “Ahaz was twenty years old” when he acceded to coregency in 743 (cf. on 26:21; 27:8), and since his father, Jotham, had been twenty-five at his own accession eight years previously (27:1), the time interval separating their births must have been only thirteen years. Jotham, and then Ahaz himself, have the lowest ages of paternity that are recorded for the Hebrew kings (cf. comments on 26:1; 29:1).
2–4 On the “Baals” see comment on 17:3. The “Valley of Ben Hinnom” descended eastward below the southern edge of the city of Jerusalem; and it became noted as the scene of Judah’s most revolting pagan practices (33:6). It was later defiled by King Josiah and converted into a place of refuse for the city (2Ki 23:10); thus the perpetual fires of “Gehenna” became descriptive of hell itself (Mk 9:43). While 2Ki 16:3 had recorded that Ahaz “sacrificed his son [sing.] in the fire,” Ezra adds that it was sons (p1.); that rendered his conduct even worse. The Canaanite practice of child sacrifice had been forbidden to Abraham (Ge 22:12), and under Moses it was made a capital offense (Lev 20:1–5). For the “high places” (v.4), see comment on 14:3.
5–7 The kings of “Aram” and of “Israel” to whom God handed Ahaz over were, respectively, Rezin and Pekah (752–732 B.C.). These two may have turned against Judah because of the failure of the alliance that Uzziah had directed against Assyria (see comment on 27:7) and because of the sufferings that had resulted for them and their people (2Ki 15:19; cf. v.37), but from which Judah had escaped unscathed. In what has been called the Syro (Aramean)-Ephraimite counteralliance, they besieged but could not capture Jerusalem (2Ki 16:5; Isa 7:1). Rezin did, however, take Elath (2Ki 16:6; cf. the comments on 2Ch 26:2; 27:6); and it was not regained by Israel till A.D. 1948.
8 Even as v.6 should probably be understood as recording that in one day Pekah killed 120 specially trained warriors (cf. comments on 1Ch 7:3–4; 12:27), so too v.8 should best be treated as stating that the Israelites took captive from their kinsmen 200 trained warriors, plus “wives, sons and daughters”—a more plausible rendering than to think of 200,000 women, etc.
9–11 The northern prophet “Oded” is otherwise unknown, but he was God’s spokesman for warning the Ephraimites that those who serve as the Lord’s instruments for punishment must not exceed their appointed mission (cf. Isa 10:5–19). Their own standing, he observed, was hardly guiltless (2Ch 28:10, 13).
12–14 The fact that Pekah’s “soldiers gave up the prisoners and plunder” (v.14) testifies to the feelings of brotherhood that still existed between the two Hebrew kingdoms, to the authority of Israelite prophecy, and to the grace that God employed in his treatment of the nation of the worthless Ahaz.
15 Those who were “designated” to be responsible then “provided” for the prisoners, in accordance with the OT standard of showing love, even toward one’s enemies (Ex 23:4; Pr 24:17; 25:21; cf. Mt 5:44).
16 In 734 B.C., in an act that amounted to a breach of faith with God (cf. comments on 16:2, 9; 25:6, 10), Ahaz threw himself at the feet of Assyria’s rulers for rescue and help. Isaiah had opposed this ill-advised act as being both useless and faithless (Isa 7:4–7). What Ahaz really did was to place Judah under the iron heel of Tiglath-pileser, to cause the deportation of three and one-half of the tribes of Israel to Assyria in 733 (2Ki 15:29), followed by the remaining six and one-half tribes eleven years later (17:6), and eventually, in 701, to bring about Judah’s own devastation by the armies of Sennacherib (18:13).
17 Again “the Edomites . . . attacked Judah,” for they seemed ever on the alert to capitalize on Judah’s calamities (cf. 20:10–11; 21:8). Their incursions of 735 B.C. and their seizure of prisoners may have been the occasion for the prophecies of Obadiah (v.11) and Joel (3:19).
18–21 “The Philistines” did not simply rebel from Judean control, but they also “raided towns in the foothills . . . of Judah.” Even a gift to the Assyrians “did not help” Ahaz; for though the rebellions were put down, the states involved were not returned to Judah but organized into Assyrian provinces.
22–23 The reverence Ahaz paid “to the gods of Damascus” took a particular form; he sacrificed on an altar patterned after the one found there (2Ki 16:10–13). Since “the kings of Aram” were by this time Assyrian (16:10a), interpreters until recently had assumed that the price of a nation’s submission to the empire of Assyria included their compulsory worship of its deities. Recent studies, however, have indicated that such was not necessarily the case.
24–25 The paganism of Ahaz was designed not simply to supplement the worship of the Lord, but to supplant it and close the Lord’s temple.
27 The death of Ahaz occurred in the same year as that of “the rod that struck” the Philistines, i.e., of Tiglath-pileser III (Isa 14:28–29); and the official accession of “his son Hezekiah” is thus dated to 727/726 B.C. (cf. comment on 31:1). Yet since Ahaz’s sixteen-year reign actually terminated in 728, it would appear that popular dissatisfaction must have forced his abdication and Hezekiah’s assumption of de facto rule at least a year prior to the end of the king’s life (cf. 2Ki 18:9–10). Correspondingly, even though Ahaz “rested with his fathers and was buried in . . . Jerusalem,” his body “was not placed in the tombs of the kings” (see comment on 24:25).
13. Hezekiah (29:1–32:33)
The twenty-nine-year reign (see comment on 29:1) of Ahaz’s son Hezekiah was counted officially from 726 to 697 B.C. (see comment on 28:27). Hezekiah’s trust in the Lord (2Ki 18:5) and strength of character, moreover, formed an exact antithesis to the apostasy and surrender to expediency that had stigmatized his father’s rule. In the area of religion, where Ahaz had converted Jerusalem into a center for idolatry and its accompanying immoralities and atrocities, Hezekiah’s first official act was to cleanse the Lord’s temple of its pollution (ch. 29). He celebrated an epoch-making Passover (ch. 30); and he campaigned far and wide to stamp out the idolatrous high places and to establish the pure religion of the OT (ch. 31). Then in the area of politics, where Ahaz had shortsightedly surrendered himself and his kingdom to the empire of Assyria, Hezekiah planned and fought for Judah’s welfare and freedom—not always wisely, but with eventual success (ch. 32).
1 Hezekiah’s “twenty-nine year” reign includes a divinely granted extension of fifteen years (2Ki 20:6), revealed to him in his fourteenth year (712 B.C., 18:13; 20:1), just before Merodach-Baladan’s embassy, and embracing God’s promise to deliver Jerusalem from Assyria (an event that occurred eleven years later, in 701). The king’s recorded accession is thus placed at 726; for even though this specification leaves a technical interregnum (actually, a regency by Hezekiah; cf. 2Ki 18:1) that lasted over a year following the removal of Ahaz (see comment on 2Ch 28:27), it also allows for Hezekiah, whose age was then twenty-five, to have been born when his father was about thirteen (cf. comment on 28:1).
2 Hezekiah not only did “what was right,” but he so trusted in the Lord (cf. Isa 26:3–4) that “there was no one like him among all the kings of Judah, either before him or after him” (2Ki 18:5).
3 “The first year of his reign” must refer to the one that followed his official accession in 726 rather than to the one at the time of his rise to power two years before (see comments on v.1; 28:27). “His first month” would then have been March/April 725. He then “opened the doors of the temple,” which had been shut up by the apostate Ahaz (v.7; 28:24), “and repaired them,” a project that included overlaying them with gold (2Ki 18:16).
4 After this initial act, the king’s cleansing of the temple proceeded through four stages: (1) reconsecrating the Levitical personnel (vv.4–14); (2) directing them to purify the temple itself (vv.15–19); (3) rededicating the sanctuary and altar (vv.20–30); and (4) encouraging the populace to renew their presentation of sacrifices (vv.31–36). To institute the first stage, he assembled the priests and Levites “in the square on the east side,” presumably in the wide space in front of the temple (Ezr 10:9).
5 Concerning the Levites consecrating themselves (also in v.15), see comment on 1Ch 15:12.
6–11 The places to which Hezekiah could say that God had scattered the sons of Judah “in captivity” (v.9) included Damascus, Samaria, Edom, and Philistia (28:5, 8, 17–18). What the king desired is summed up as “a covenant” renewal (see comment on 15:12). Hezekiah proceeded to address the Levites and priests paternalistically as “my sons.” He reminded the former that God had chosen them to serve him (Nu 3:7–8; Dt 10:8) and the latter that they possessed the special function of “burning incense” or, more properly rendering the Hebrew, of offering sacrifices (cf. v.21).
12–14 Kohath, Merari, and Gershon were the three clans that made up the tribe of Levi (1Ch 6:1). Separate mention, however, is given to “Elizaphan,” a man who had been the leader of the Kohathites in the days of Moses (Nu 3:30) and whose family had subsequently developed to almost assume the status of a subclan (cf. 1Ch 15:8). “Asaph,” “Heman,” and “Jeduthun” were the founders of the three families of the Levitical musicians (1Ch 25).
15 Hezekiah’s orders for cleansing the temple are said to have followed “the word of the LORD,” for they were issued in conformity to the inspired Mosaic law (cf. Dt 12:2–4).
16–17 When the priests are said to have “brought out . . . everything unclean” that they found in the temple, this included not simply accumulated rubbish, but specifically the filthy idols and their accompanying equipment that King Ahaz had introduced (2Ki 16:15). The Levites then “carried it out to the Kidron Valley,” east of the temple. This was the same place where Asa had burned his queen-grandmother’s repulsive Asherah object over a century and a half before (cf. comment on 15:16).
18–19 The faithless “Ahaz” had “removed,” and even partially destroyed, “the articles” used in the Lord’s worship (28:24; 2Ki 16:17).
20–22 On the “sin offering” and its ritual that marked the temple’s rededication, see Lev 4:1–5:13. On the sprinkling of the blood of the slain animals, see Lev 17:6; Nu 18:17.
23 For the assembly to lay their hands on the goats of the sin offering was to designate these as substitutes for their own lives and to transfer their sins to the animal victims (Nu 27:18–21; cf. 8:18–19). The goats thus served as types of Christ’s death in the sinner’s stead (2Co 5:21).
24 The blood of the slaughtered offerings was effective “to atone for all Israel” (as in Lev 4:13; 16:30). The verb Ezra used (GK 4105) means basically to “appease” or “pacify” (Ge 32:20; Pr 16:14), and hence to avert punishment by paying a ransom. Ultimately what saved the Israelites was their anticipation of Christ’s death on the cross, who bore the wrath of God that had been incurred by all human beings as sinners (Mk 10:45; Ro 3:25).
25–26 On the “instruments” of David, see comment on 1Ch 23:5.
27–30 On the “burnt offering,” see Lev 1. The Hebrew that lies behind the phrase “singing to the LORD” is literally “the song of the LORD,” which suggests a specific writing, i.e., perhaps including the canonical Psalms that were then available for use in worship. By Hezekiah’s day this would have included the Psalter’s Davidic Books I and IV and its Solomonic Book II (Pss 42–72). Also mentioned are some of the compositions “of Asaph the seer” (whose name appears with Pss 50; 73–83).
31–33 Concerning the final resumption of sacrifice (cf. v.4 comment), the Chronicler observes that those who were particularly “willing brought burnt offerings” (v.31); for these were wholly consumed on the altar. In contrast were the more numerous “sacrifices” (the “consecrated” offerings of v.33, or “fellowship offerings” of v.35), which were largely eaten by the sacrificers in feasts that followed the services of presentation (cf. comment on 1Ch 29:21). The “thank offerings” were a subcategory within the fellowship offerings (Lev 7:12–15).
34 The lower-ranked Levites, somewhat surprisingly (see 24:5; Eze 48:11), now showed themselves “more conscientious . . . than the priests” (but cf. 30:3 and the lack of principle evinced by the high priest Uriah only nine years before this, 2Ki 16:10–11). The truest faith is often found among the humble; and throughout history “professional” religious leaders have too often been among those least willing to submit to Christ and to the Word (cf. Jn 7:48).
35 The choice, and burnable, “fat of the fellowship offerings” was presented to God on the altar prior to the time of the people’s feasting. On the “drink offerings,” see Nu 15:5, 7, 10.
36 Thus Hezekiah and the people rejoiced at what the Lord had brought about, for in the last analysis all spiritual achievements find their origin in God’s grace (30:12; 1Ki 18:37; Ac 11:18).
30:1 Chapter 30 concerns Hezekiah’s epoch-making Passover Feast: first the preparations for it (vv.1–12) and then its observance (vv.13–27). The king “sent word” throughout Judah, but also sent letters inviting Ephraim and Manasseh, i.e., Israel, to come to Jerusalem for its celebration. Any such compliance had been prohibited during the two centuries that had followed Jeroboam’s division of the Solomonic empire (vv.5, 26; 1Ki 12:27–28). But now King Hoshea’s capital in Samaria was subject to Assyrian siege (v.6; 2Ki 17:5), and the northern ruler was powerless to interfere. The Assyrians, furthermore, would probably have encouraged anything that suggested defection from their rebelling vassal. The sincerity of Hezekiah’s concern for Israel is suggested by his subsequent naming of his son and crown prince Manasseh.
2 A Passover celebrated in the second month would be a month late. But such a delay had been authorized by Moses himself when circumstances made it necessary (Nu 9:10–11), as was indeed the case here (cf. 2Ch 29:17).
3–5 The people were not able to celebrate the Passover during the first month (29:3), and particularly on its prescribed fourteenth day (cf. 29:17). Concerning the priests’ not consecrating themselves, see comments on 29:34 and 1Ch 15:12. That the feast “had not been celebrated in large numbers” (v.5) meant, among other things, celebrated as a united kingdom (see v.1).
6–9 The ruler wrote, “Come to the sanctuary” (v.8); Passover was one of the three annual pilgrimage feasts that required the presence of every male at the temple (see comment on 1Ch 23:31). His word of assurance that their exiled brothers “will be shown compassion . . . and will come back” was based on this same prediction, as made by Moses (Lev 26:40–42).
10–12 Many of the northerners—particularly those of Ephraim—still “scorned and ridiculed” the king’s appeal (but see vv.11, 18): human depravity is so total that people will resist a gospel call even on the brink of disaster (cf. Am 4:10; Rev 9:20).
13 The “Feast of Unleavened Bread” continued for a full seven days beyond the actual date of the Passover (Lev 23:5–6). It served to remind the Israelites of their hasty departure from Egypt and of their perpetual need to maintain lives separated from sin (Ex 12:11, 34; 1Co 5:7).
14 Jerusalem’s idolatrous “altars” (28:24) were thrown “into the Kidron Valley” (cf. comment on 15:16; 29:16).
15 The ceremony of the “slaughtered . . . Passover lamb” functioned as (1) a memorial to God’s past deliverance of Israel from the tenth plague in Egypt (Ex 12:27); (2) a symbol of his present and continuing claim over sinners, which was met by a rite of redemption (Ex 13:15); and (3) a type of his future, ultimate justification for his people procured through the substitutionary death of Christ, the Lamb of God (1Co 5:7). The religious leaders apparently were put to shame by the zeal of some of the people and responded accordingly.
16 “The priests sprinkled the blood” as it was “handed to them by the Levites,” though normally it would have been presented to them directly by the head of each household (cf. Lev 1:11).
17 But here “the Levites had to kill the Passover lambs,” because “many in the crowd had not consecrated themselves,” so that they could not stand before God in ritual purity (cf. Nu 9:6). The value of the sacrificial service, as a propitiation of God, depended on its typifying the perfect ransom of Christ (Heb 9:14).
18–20 “Yet they [did eat] the Passover”: because of Hezekiah’s prayer of intercession, the people were to this extent enabled to share in the feast. If they really sought God in their hearts, their failures in regard to outward conformity—at least on this first occasion—could be “healed” (v.20; GK 8324), i.e., pardoned. The situation reflects the biblical principle that faith takes precedence over ritual (Jn 7:22–23; 9:14–16).
21–23 The extension of “the festival” for “seven more days” (v.23) parallels the way Solomon joined a special seven-day celebration for dedicating the temple with the regular week for the fall Feast of Tabernacles (see comment on 7:9).
24 The generous quantity of animals provided by the king and his officials for the fellowship offerings (see comment on 29:31) may even have contributed to the decision to extend the feast. The Chronicler’s combined totals of two thousand bulls and seventeen thousand sheep, have been criticized as too big. Yet on a similar (but less hurried) occasion, King Josiah and his officials were able to provide twice this number (35:7–9).
25–27 The phrase “the priests and the Levites” (v.27) may here be rendered as “the Levitical priests,” since these were the priests whom Moses had authorized “to bless the people” (Nu 6:23–27; cf. Lev 9:22).
31:1 Chapter 31 moves on to describe Hezekiah’s campaign to eradicate Canaanite idolatry from Israel and to reestablish true OT religion. The majority of its contents (vv.4–19) concern the king’s efforts to ensure material support for the Levites, who constituted the nation’s religious personnel. Only the opening sentence (v.1a) finds a parallel in 2 Kings (18:4); but just as in the Chronicler’s two previous chapters (cf. introduction to ch. 29), this lack furnishes no warrant for questioning its authenticity. In his reforms the king had the support of his contemporary Judean prophets, Micah and Isaiah (Isa 13–27 applies particularly to Hezekiah’s reign between 728 and 712 B.C.). They were respected by the kings (32:20; cf. 2Ki 19:2; Jer 26:18–19), and their writings illumine the entire period (cf. Isa 22:1–14; 24:1–13).
The monarch’s crusade in Judah against “the Asherah poles” and “the high places” is attested by the summary in 2Ki 18:4a. He was also compelled to destroy Nehushtan, the brazen serpent of Moses, which the people had perverted into an object of idolatry (18:4b). His campaign extended northward as well; for some of the Ephraimites had repented, after two centuries of apostasy (30:11, 18), and the presence of Assyrian troops rendered those who remained obdurate incapable of opposing Hezekiah.
2 The Hebrew for Hezekiah’s assigning the priests to divisions is definite: he “appointed the divisions of the priests” (NASB, emphasis mine). He reestablished the twenty-four rotating courses (see comment on 8:14; 23:4) that had been set up by David (1Ch 25) to ensure orderly worship. The word used for the Lord’s “dwelling” (lit., “camp”; GK 4722) reflects the desert situation under Moses (see comment on 1Ch 9:18).
3 Just as Solomon had done (see comment on 2:4), “the king contributed” the regular “burnt offerings” for the temple. Specifications in this regard had, indeed, been set forth by Moses (Nu 28–29). Concerning “the morning and evening burnt offerings” and those for the “appointed feasts,” see comment on 1Ch 23:29–31.
4 Remuneration for “the priests” was derived primarily from certain designated parts of the sacrifices (cf. Lev 6–7) and from “the best of the firstfruits of your soil” (Ex 23:19; cf. Nu 18:12), while that for the “Levites” came from tithes that were contributed by the other tribes (Lev 27:30–33; Nu 18:21–24; cf. v.5). They “could devote themselves” to God’s work, unhindered by secular pursuits, only if they received these portions regularly (cf. Ne 13:10).
5 Though the other commodities listed among the dedicated “firstfruits” could be used in Israel’s offerings, the “honey” could not, even in the grain offerings that accompanied the other (animal) sacrifices (Lev 2:11). But it was still an acceptable gift for supporting the priests.
6 The “tithe of the holy things” may be a general term for these token portions of the offerings that became the property of the priests who presented them (cf. Nu 8:8–11).
7–8 The Israelites began bringing their contributions “in the third month” (May/June), the time of the Feast of Pentecost and of the grain harvest (Ex 23:16a), and they finished in the seventh month (Sept./Oct.), the time of the Feast of Tabernacles and of the ingathering of the fruit and vine harvests at the end of the agricultural year (Ex 23:16b).
9–10 The high priest Azariah III (also mentioned at the end of v.13; cf. 1Ch 6:4) is probably not the Azariah (II) who resisted Uzziah (2Ch 26:17) almost thirty years prior to this.
11–13 Conaniah’s office (v.12) dated back to David, who had first organized some of the temple gatekeepers so as to have charge of the dedicated gifts (see 1Ch 26:20, 26).
14 The gatekeeper “Kore” (cf. 1Ch 9:19) was the Levite responsible for “distributing the contributions”—whether of the “consecrated gifts” (cf. v.4) or of the additional “freewill offerings”—to their legitimate priestly recipients (Lev 7:14).
15 Deputy administrators carried out a final distribution locally, “in the towns of the priests,” as these had been determined by Joshua, throughout the tribes of Israel (Jos 21:9–19). A more precise rendering of the statement that they “assisted him faithfully” might be that they “assisted him in their positions of trust” (cf. 1Ch 9:22).
16 Portions were granted to “males three years old or more . . . who would enter the temple to perform the . . . various tasks.” Assignments for work within the operational units of the Levites had originally been based on a minimum age of thirty (1Ch 23:3); but if there is not a copyist’s error here, the priests’ children as young as three must have accompanied their fathers in the service and so received their portions, directly, in the temple.
17 Such reestablished distributions obviously gave a renewed, practical significance to “the genealogical records.” On the reasons for service by “Levites twenty years old or more,” see comment on 1Ch 23:24.
18 Thus Kore and his associates consecrated themselves, and the Hebrew adds “in holiness” (GK 7731). It was no light responsibility, particularly in view of the numbers of women and children involved (cf. Ac 6:1), as they fulfilled “their positions of trust” (cf. comment on v.15).
19–21 “In everything” the king “worked wholeheartedly” (v.21), in obedience to the law of Moses; “so he prospered” (cf. 2Ki 18:6–7).
32:1–3 After recounting all of Hezekiah’s religious reforms (chs. 29–31), the Chronicler summarizes his political activity, generally on the assumption of the reader’s knowledge of the more detailed accounts that are found in 2Ki 18:7–20:21 and Isa 36–39. He records how in 701 B.C. Sennacherib king of Assyria “invaded Judah”; but behind this deed lay a whole sequence of events.
Assyrian domination had come about in 734, through the specific invitation of Hezekiah’s father, Ahaz (28:20–21). In 715 Ashdod and certain other Palestinian states had rebelled, urged on by Egypt (cf. 2Ki 17:4) and by Babylon; for Ezra also records the latter’s embassy to Hezekiah (2Ch 32:31). But in 711 the Assyrians resubdued Ashdod (Isa 14:28–31, 20:1); and Hezekiah yielded to the will of God (20:2–6) by submitting to Sargon II, who called himself the subjugator of Judah.
On Sargon’s death in 705, Hezekiah disregarded the Lord’s word through Isaiah and became involved in plots with Egypt (Isa 30:1–5; 31:1–3). He assumed leadership in a western revolt and even imprisoned the Philistine king of Ekron, who had refused cooperation (2Ki 18:8). The result was the invasion by Sargon’s son Sennacherib. His “thinking to conquer” Judah’s “fortified cities” did in fact succeed (2Ki 18:13; Isa 36:1), except in the case of Jerusalem.
4–5 To aid in their capital’s defense, the Hebrews blocked all the springs, especially the Gihon (see v.30), directly east of city, “and the stream that flowed” from it into Jerusalem. Concerning the king’s “reinforced supporting terraces,” see NIV note; comment on 1Ch 11:8.
6–7 The Hebrew words for “he . . . encouraged them” are literally “he spoke to their heart.” The king’s statement that “there is greater power with us than with” Sennacherib recalls an earlier assurance made by Elisha (2Ki 6:16); it reflects the basic meaning of the name of Israel’s covenant God, Yahweh (“He is present [with us],” Ex 3:12, 14; cf. Isa 7:14; Mt 1:23).
8 Hezekiah’s disparagement of the Assyrian, that “with him is only the arm of flesh,” seems traceable to Isaiah (Isa 31:3), and was later quoted by Jeremiah (Jer 17:5). But Hezekiah’s own “hard work” (v.5) had been criticized by Isaiah (Isa 22:9–10) because of the king’s reliance on human beings rather than on the Lord (22:11; 30:15–16). In his annals for 701, Sennacherib was thus able to boast that he “shut up [the king] like a caged bird inside Jerusalem”; that Hezekiah was deserted by his Arabian mercenaries and compelled to release Sennacherib’s pro-Assyrian Philistine vassal so as to be restored to his throne in Ekron; and finally that Hezekiah himself had to capitulate, paying a huge indemnity and surrendering over two hundred thousand captives to Assyria. These facts are assumed without comment in Chronicles, though the last two elements are elaborated by other Scriptures.
9–11 “Later,” i.e., after Hezekiah’s payment of the stipulated tribute (2Ki 18:14), the treacherous Assyrian proceeded to scrap the just negotiated peace treaty (cf. Isa 33:7–8), to lay “siege to Lachish,” twenty-five miles southwest of Jerusalem, and to make further demands on the beleaguered Hezekiah. To enforce them Sennacherib “sent his officers,” including his supreme commander (2Ki 18:17), with a large army “to Jerusalem.” In view of the final results (v.21), it is not surprising that Sennacherib’s annals say nothing further about this later aspect to his campaign. Indeed, the very insolence of his message that follows (cf. vv.10–15 with 2Ki 18:19–25, 28–35; Isa 36:4–10, 13–20) begins to provide justification for the stirring hopes expressed earlier by Hezekiah (vv.7–8; cf. v.11).
12 By his question, “Did not Hezekiah himself remove this god’s high places?” Sennacherib must have been hoping to take advantage of any popular dissatisfaction that was felt against Hezekiah’s reforms.
13–15 More straightforward was Sennacherib’s blasphemy against the Lord—as if God were no more “able to save his people” from Assyria than had been the false deities of those nations that the aggressor’s ancestors had already destroyed (cf. v.19; Isa 10:15).
16–19 “Sennacherib’s officers spoke further against the LORD,” excerpts of which appear in vv.18–19 (cf. the fuller record in 2Ki 18:27–35). Sennacherib “also wrote letters,” since he had had to withdraw his troops attacking Jerusalem (see comment on v.9) to meet an advance by an Egyptian force under Tirhakah, younger brother of the current Twenty-Fifth Dynasty ruler and himself later to become Pharaoh, from 690 to 664 B.C. (2Ki 19:8–9).
20 For details on the anguished pleas and yet ringing affirmations of faith with which Hezekiah and Isaiah “cried out in prayer,” see 2Ki 19:1–7, 14–34. This verse, it should be noted, is the only reference in Chronicles to the deeds of the prophet Isaiah (26:22 and 32:32 refer to his writings about Uzziah and Hezekiah).
21–23 Then “an angel . . . annihilated all the fighting men . . . of the Assyrian king,” specifically, 185,000 in one night (2Ki 19:35). The proposal has been advanced that a plague carried by rodents was what struck down the invaders. This is based on an Egyptian legend—which does confirm the general fact of a miraculous deliverance—that Tirhakah (and Hezekiah) owed victory to field mice that ate up the Assyrians’ weapons.
But while God can indeed make use of natural means for delivering his elect (cf. Ex 14:21; 1Sa 6:4), the rapidity and intensity of this disaster render the plague proposal inadequate as an explanation for what happened in 701 B.C. The event ranks, in fact, with Israel’s crossing of the Red Sea as one of the two greatest examples of the Lord’s intervention to save his people. So Sennacherib “withdrew to his own” land and was slain (2Ki 19:36–37; Isa 37–38).
24 “In those days”—fifteen years before his actual death (2Ki 20:6), or in 712—Hezekiah, seriously ill, prayed. “The LORD . . . answered him,” promising him recovery (2Ki 20:4–6), “and gave him a miraculous sign” of the shadow that moved backward (2Ki 20:8–11).
25–26 “But Hezekiah’s heart was proud” (cf. v.31); and the result was “the LORD’s wrath,” as declared through Isaiah’s threat of impending exile to Babylon (2Ki 20:16–18; Isa 39:6–7). But because “Hezekiah repented . . . the LORD’s wrath did not come upon them” in his days (cf. 2Ki 20:19; Isa 39:8; Jer 26:19).
27–30 To ensure a permanent water supply within his capital’s walls, “Hezekiah . . . channeled” the flow of “the Gihon spring” through a 1,700 foot tunnel cut into the rock beneath Jerusalem (v.30). Archaeological confirmation of this engineering feat came in 1880, with the discovery, at its lower portal, of the Siloam Inscription, written in old Hebrew by the very workers who accomplished it.
31 The envoys of Babylon, to which Ezra here refers, were those sent by Marduk-apaliddina, the Merodach-Baladan of 2Ki 20:12–13. Their mission appears to have been not simply to inquire about the king’s illness and about its accompanying “miraculous sign” (v.24)—of understandable interest to astrologers such as the Babylonians—but also to arrange practical measures against Sargon’s aggression, which did overpower Ashdod and the West in the following year and drove Marduk-apal-iddina from his throne in the East two years after that. The experience served “to test” (GK 5814) Hezekiah, whether he would place his trust in human treaties or in God; and it was his eagerness for the treaties that incurred the Lord’s wrath (v.25).
32 Ezra’s description of his main literary source as being “the vision of the prophet Isaiah” (cf. Isa 1:1) “in the book of the kings” (cf. 20:34) indicates that at least chs. 36–39 of Isaiah (which are reproduced within 2Ki 18–20) must have been incorporated into that larger court chronicle from which both he and the writer of Kings, prior to him, were accustomed to draw.
33 The NIV translation that Hezekiah was buried “on the hill where the tombs . . . are” is literally, “in the going up [or ascent] of the tombs of.” But this expression could as well be rendered “in the upper section of the tombs,” on the hypothesis of some additional excavation at a higher level, when the lower tombs had become occupied.
14. Manasseh (33:1–20)
Manasseh, evil son of the godly Hezekiah, had the longest reign of all the Hebrew monarchs, from 697 to 642 B.C.; and he more than any other single person was responsible for the final destruction of the kingdom of Judah (2Ki 23:26; 24:3; Jer 15:4). Most of his fifty-five-year reign was devoted to thoroughgoing paganism, religiously, and to a renewed subjection to Assyria, politically. This part of his record (vv.1–10) closely parallels its literary source in 2Ki 21:1–10. During his closing years, a personal crisis did bring back Manasseh to repentance; but it was too late to produce a significant national effect (2Ch 33:11–20). Most of this material, moreover, is unique to the Chronicler.
1–3 Concerning the “high places . . . Baals, and . . . Asherah” poles, see comments on 14:3; 17:3. The king’s apostate worship of “the starry host” had evil precedents going as far back as the time of Moses (Dt 4:19; Ac 7:42), but such practices were a particular sin of Assyro-Babylonians, with their addiction to astrology. Whether the Assyrians made it a policy to force their religion on the nations that became subject to their empire is open to question (cf. 28:23), but it is a fact that when Sennacherib’s son Esarhaddon advanced westward against Egypt, Manasseh did weakly submit himself to him, in 676, which must have provided some stimulus for the astral worship in Judah.
4–5 On the Lord’s “Name” remaining in Jerusalem forever, see comments on 1Ch 22:7; 2Ch 6:2, 6; on the two temple “courts,” see comment on 2Ch 4:9.
6 Manasseh “sacrificed his sons in the fire in the Valley of Ben Hinnom,” just as his grandfather Ahaz had (28:3); and he “practiced sorcery,” etc., attempting to communicate with the dead by using “mediums”—which Scripture uniformly condemns as contrary to faith in God (Ex 22:18; Dt 18:10–12). The Hebrew word for “spiritist” (GK 3362) is literally “a knowing one.” It referred originally to ghosts, who were supposed to possess superhuman knowledge; but it came to be applied to those who claimed power to summon them forth, i.e., to witches. The king also engaged in tyranny, shedding “much innocent blood” (2Ki 21:16).
7–9 The Lord had promised not to remove the Israelites but stipulated: “if only they will . . . do everything I commanded them . . . through Moses” (see comment on 7:14, 19).
10 “The LORD spoke” to Judah by “his servants the prophets,” threatening their destruction (2Ki 21:10–15); “but they paid no attention.”
11 The occasion on which “the king of Assyria . . . took Manasseh prisoner . . . to Babylon” may have arisen in the year 648, when Ashurbanipal finally overcame a revolt that had been led in that city for four years by his own brother. Egypt, under a new dynasty (the twenty-sixth), had taken this opportunity to escape the Assyrian yoke; and Manasseh may have been tempted to try the same thing. But because Judah lay closer to Assyria, or because it lacked Egypt’s greater resources, this attempt failed.
12–13 In any event, “in his distress he . . . humbled himself greatly before God”; for it sometimes takes a crisis to drive a person to God and to become converted (cf. Ac 9:3–5).
14 On “Gihon” and “Ophel,” see comments on 32:30; 27:3. The king’s rebuilt fortifications extended as far as “the Fish Gate,” in Jerusalem’s north wall (Ne 3:3).
15–17 In his remaining years, Manasseh did what he could to reverse his years of apostasy. Ezra explains that “the people, however, continued to sacrifice at the high places,” because half a century of paganism could not be counteracted by a half dozen years of reform. It is true that Judah presented the offerings “only to the LORD their God,” but the high places were still contrary to Moses’ law for a central sanctuary (cf. comment on 1:2–4). In practice, moreover, worship on those sites meant little more than applying a new name to the old Baal worship, with all its debased rites.
18–20 The king’s “prayer to his God” is no longer preserved. This text did, however, provide a basis on which someone shortly before the time of Christ composed the fifteen verses that make up the apocryphal Prayer of Manasseh, a book that appears in some manuscripts of the LXX.
15. Amon (33:21–25)
The remainder of ch. 33 deals with the brief reign of Manasseh’s son Amon (642–640 B.C.). This man was the reflection of his father’s essentially pagan life, not of his repentant last years and death. Under the new king, Judah quickly relapsed into the superstitious practices of Manasseh before his conversion. After only two years Amon died at the hands of his own courtiers. His record follows and somewhat abbreviates its earlier source in 2Ki 21:19–26.
21–23 When the Chronicler says that “Amon worshiped . . . all the idols Manasseh had made,” this seems to suggest either that their removal (v.15a) had not involved their destruction, or that Manasseh’s concentration on bringing about reform in Jerusalem (v.15b) had left intact those relics of his former paganism that characterized the local high places (v.17).
24–25 Concerning “the people of the land,” who took vengeance on Amon’s assassins and restored order to Judah, see comment on 23:13.
16. Josiah (34:1–35:27)
In contrast to his father, Amon, Josiah proved to be a good king over the people of Judah (640–609 B.C.). He was the last such, sad to say; but he was also in some respects their greatest (v.2). Josiah instituted the most thorough of all the OT reforms, dating to 622, and one that restored Israel’s commitment to God’s book. It was this faith in holy Scripture that was then able to keep the nation’s hope alive during the Exile through most of the succeeding century (cf. Da 9:2), during the difficult century of restoration that followed (Ezr 7:10; Mal 4:4), and during the next four hundred, silent years until the appearance of John the Baptist (Mal 3:1; 4:5–6) and the kingdom of Jesus the Messiah, God’s personal Word, who fulfilled the written Word (Mt 5:17–18).
Within 2 Chronicles Josiah’s record occupies the two chapters that immediately precede the closing chapter of the book; and they deal with four primary topics: (1) the earlier stages of the king’s reforms (34:1–7); (2) the great reformation that occurred in the eighteenth year of his reign, beginning with the repair of the Jerusalem temple and climaxing with the discovery of the Mosaic Book of the Law and with Judah’s responses to it (34:8–33); (3) Josiah’s unsurpassed Passover observance (35:1–19); and (4) his tragic death (35:20–27).
1–2 Josiah “did what was right,” particularly in his devotion to “all the Law of Moses” (2Ki 23:25), so that in this respect (see comment on 29:2, on the “trust” that was Hezekiah’s area of strength) “neither before nor after Josiah was there a king like him” (2Ki 23:25).
3 In the “eighth year” of his rule, in 632 B.C., when “he was still young,” just sixteen, he began to seek the Lord personally; and in his “twelfth year,” in 628, he began to purify Judah nationally of its high places and related paganisms (see 33:3). The latter date identifies a particular time of chaos that occurred throughout the ancient Near East, one that was precipitated by an invasion from the north of barbaric, nomadic horsemen known as the Scythians (628–626 B.C.). Their incursions wrought terror among complacent Jews (Jer 6:22–24; Zep 1:12); and, though they never actually raided much beyond the open plains of coastal Palestine—where they were eventually stopped by the Egyptians—they did produce two major effects that concerned Judah.
(1) In the area of religion, the Scythian presence seems to have conditioned the calls of the contemporary prophets Jeremiah (Jer 1:2, 14) and Zephaniah (Zep 1:2, which refers to local Judean threats, vv.3–4). It further correlates with the above noted second stage of Josiah’s revival; but this latter went far beyond the momentary fear usually associated with superficial “fox-hole” type religion (cf. 2Ch 34:3–7).
(2) In the area of politics, the Scythian hordes succeeded in sweeping away the Assyrian imperial domination that had been Judah’s nemesis throughout the preceding half century. Indeed, after Ashurbanipal’s death about 631, and as a result of the barbarian tidal wave in 628, the way was cleared for Josiah to reestablish a united kingdom of Israel to the extent that it had occupied when it had first chosen David almost three centuries before. Whether the king’s achievement of political freedom involved a corresponding religious repudiation of Assyrian idolatry is open to question; only Canaanite forms appear as the objects of Josiah’s purge.
4 The term for “idols” means ones “cut out, carved,” while the “images” were “cast.”
5–7 Josiah’s campaign against idolatry included not simply Judah and Jerusalem, but extended also into “Manasseh” and “Ephraim,” just as Hezekiah’s reform had a century earlier. On “Simeon” see the introductory discussion to 1Ch 4:24–43. That Josiah’s endeavor “reached as far as Naphtali” in Galilee shows that he recovered most of the formerly Assyrian province of Israel (cf. v.9), a fact that is archaeologically attested by seventh-century inscriptions from the land itself.
8 On Joah’s position as “recorder,” see comment on 1Ch 18:15. “Shaphan” is identified in 2Ki 22:8 as “secretary” (see comment on 1Ch 18:16).
9–10 The officials gave Hilkiah the high priest the money the Levitical doorkeepers had collected from the people of Ephraim, etc. Presumably the people brought the silver as far as the temple gate (2Ki 22:4)—perhaps to deposit it in a chest similar to the one once provided by King Joash (see 2Ch 24:8); the Levites collected it from there.
11–13 The builders did the work so faithfully that no audit was required (2Ki 22:7), just as had been true under Joash (2Ki 12:15).
14–15 At this point in the year 622, Hilkiah found “the Book of the Law”—called the “Book of the Covenant” in v.30, which suggests Ex 19–24 (cf. 24:7). Yet the curses that the book contained (2Ch 34:24) suggests Lev 26 and Dt 28; and the ensuing stress on the central sanctuary (2Ki 23:8–9) implies Dt 12. “The Book” thus was at the least the book of Deuteronomy. It is called “the covenant” in Dt 29:1, for example. It contained the curses (Dt 28); it alone called for a central sanctuary that was stored at the temple, usually by the side of the ark (Dt 31:25–26). “The Book” seems to have become misplaced during the apostate administrations of the previous kings, Manasseh and Amon, under whom the ark had been moved about (2Ch 35:3).
The book is described as “the Law of the LORD that had been given through Moses” (lit., “by the hand of” Moses). For though all the passages in the Pentateuch do not claim to have been written down (cf. Ex 17:14; 24:4; 34:27; Lev 18:5 [Ro 10:5]; Nu 33:2; Dt 31:9, 22) or even spoken by Moses (compare Dt 33 with 34), Scripture is nevertheless clear that all its contents do belong to a historical period no later than his (Dt 4:2; 12:32), and that they were composed under the guidance of Moses. Indeed, our Lord declared that those who refuse to believe Moses’ words cannot consistently accept his own either (Jn 5:47).
16–19 In response to hearing what was written in “the Book,” the king “tore his robes,” personally convicted by the immediate and terrifying relevance of threats such as those inscribed in Dt 28:36 (cf. Lev 26:32–33; 2Ch 34:21, 24, 27), prophecies that were “written there concerning us” (2Ki 22:13).
20–22 Ezra’s almost casual reference to the “Huldah” prophetess indicates how foreign the idea of discrimination based on sex was to the spirit of the OT (cf. Jdg 4:4; 2Sa 20:16). Huldah’s location in the second district can no longer be identified; but the name suggests one of the extensions to Jerusalem, either to the north or to the west.
23–25 The Lord confirmed that he would “bring disaster on . . . Judah,” that he would “not turn away from the heat of his fierce anger . . . because of all that Manasseh had done to provoke him” (2Ki 23:26).
26–28 Josiah, however, was told that his eyes would “not see all the disaster” (v.28). Postponements of divine wrath had been granted previously to King Hezekiah (cf. on 32:26) and even to King Ahab of Israel (1Ki 21:29), when they too displayed humility and repentance. Josiah would “be buried in peace,” i.e., before the disastrous fall of Judah that constitutes the point at issue here. Though the king was buried in honor, he did, in fact, die from battle wounds (35:23–24).
29–31 “The covenant” that Josiah “renewed” was the one contained in the Book of the Covenant, specifically the revelation of God’s older testament—the pre-Christian revelation that was the Lord’s eternal instrument for the redemption of his elect people. During this rite in the temple, the king stood “by his pillar,” as in 23:13.
32–33 The Chronicler reports briefly that “Josiah removed all detestable idols.” For more details on his thorough purging of the land of its high places—with their accompanying immoralities—of its astral worship, of its spiritism, and of its other paganisms, see 2Ki 23:4–14, 24. His field of action included “all the territory belonging to the Israelites” (cf. its enumeration by tribes in v.6). In particular the king destroyed the altar of Jeroboam I at Bethel, along with the other high places of Samaria, and he killed such of the priests as remained (2Ki 23:15–20, exactly as had been predicted in 1Ki 13:2, over three hundred years before).
In summary Ezra says of the Israelites under Josiah that “as long as he lived, they did not fail to follow the LORD.” Yet the testimony of Jeremiah, who actively supported the king’s reform (Jer 11:1–5), shows that for many this “following” may have consisted more in external compliance than in commitment from the heart (11:9–13).
35:1 The Chronicler’s third major topic concerning the reign of Josiah (cf. introduction to chs. 34–35) describes how the king celebrated a great Passover (35:1–19). Its observance served to provide a public confirmation to his reform as a whole; it resulted, indeed, from Judah’s obedience to that same rediscovered divine Law, “as it is written in the Book of the Covenant” (2Ki 23:21). “The first month,” to which the celebration is dated, is March/April within Josiah’s climactic eighteenth year (2Ch 35:18), namely 622 B.C.; contrast the way in which Hezekiah had had to postpone the keeping of his Passover to the second month (cf. 30:2).
2–3 On the teaching office of Judah’s “Levites,” see comment on 17:7. Josiah told them to “put the sacred ark in the temple,” because during the dark days of Manasseh and Amon (33:7; cf. 28:24) it seems to have been removed by these faithful ministers and carried elsewhere for its protection (cf. comment on 34:14).
4 Concerning their “divisions, according to the directions written by David . . . and by . . . Solomon,” see 1Ch 24:4, 20; 2Ch 8:14.
5–6 By directing the Levites to “slaughter the Passover lambs,” the king continued the practice that had been worked out by Hezekiah (see comment on 30:17). Josiah’s goal was to prevent the sort of confusion that had arisen during the more precipitous reform and Passover of his great-grandfather, some 103 years earlier (cf. 30:16–18).
7–9 The historicity of the quantities of animals provided by Josiah has been even more criticized than for those recorded in reference to Hezekiah’s celebration (see comment on 30:24). Yet when one considers that Josiah had careful advanced planning, that the animals were prepared for “all Judah and Israel who were there,” and that it was an unprecedented affair, which “none of the kings of Israel had ever celebrated . . . as did Josiah” (v.18), then his “thirty-thousand sheep and goats . . . and also three thousand cattle” appear to fall well within the category of the explainable. Furthermore, when compared with the numbers of sacrificial animals that the Chronicler quotes from other Scriptures (cf. 2Ch 7:5’s citation of 1Ki 8:63, about Solomon’s dedication of the temple as requiring 120,000 sheep and 22,000 cattle), his own unique listing here for Josiah pales into relative insignificance.
While the flocks of sheep and goats provided for the paschal lambs, the cattle must have served for fellowship offerings, for the feasting throughout the days of Unleavened Bread that followed the Passover (see comments 30:24; 1Ch 29:21).
10–15 Ezra’s statement that “they set aside the burnt offerings” (v.12) suggests that the Levites saved certain choice parts of the Passover lambs “to offer to the LORD” (cf. v.14), somewhat after the pattern of the fellowship offerings (Lev 3). Then the people roasted and ate the Passover itself (as in Dt 16:7).
16–19 Concerning “the Feast of Unleavened Bread,” see 30:13. To the time span of v.18, that “the Passover had not been observed like this . . . since the days of . . . Samuel,” 2Ki 23:22 adds what could be an even longer interval, “since the days of the judges.” The point is that Josiah’s feast came up to the Bible’s ceremonial standards as no others had since those in the era of Moses and Joshua.
20 The phrase “After all this” introduces Ezra’s final topic on Josiah: the king’s death, dated 609 B.C. The cause lay in a military advance by “Neco King of Egypt,” a leading Pharaoh of the Twenty-Sixth Dynasty, as he made an active bid to succeed to the rule of the Assyrian Empire in the west. Nineveh had fallen three years before, in 612; and the Egyptians opposed the rival claims of Babylon by going up the Euphrates River “on behalf of” the king of Assyria (2Ki 23:29). Neco’s immediate objective was to cross the river and retake the city of Haran. This town lay east of Carchemish, which constituted in its turn a key center on the westernmost bend of the Euphrates.
21 The Pharaoh addressed Josiah: “It is not you I am attacking”; for Neco desired, without further delay, to march along the Palestinian coast and so meet “the house with which I am at war,” namely, the Babylonian army under the capable crown prince Nebuchadrezzar. His words for persuading Josiah, that “God has told me to hurry,” would have had a special appeal for a godly king concerned about keeping God’s word.
22 Josiah, like King Ahab at Ramoth Gilead, then “disguised himself” for protection against his fate (cf. 18:29). For though this next truth might have come as a surprise to the king, “what Neco had said” actually had come “at God’s command.” The Lord’s consistent message to his people had been that they must rely on him and, correspondingly, keep themselves from involvement in the international power politics of their day (cf. on 16:2, 9; 28:16; 32:1, 5).
The reality of the contest at “Megiddo” has received archaeological confirmation from the ruins of the site’s Stratum II. This level belonged to an unwalled town during the time of Josiah, and it evidences a measure of contemporaneous destruction. Megiddo lies on the strategic pass through the ridge that separates Palestine’s coastal plain from the Esdraelon Valley to its northeast. It has been the scene of key battles from the fifteenth century B.C. down to World War I. The conflict of the ages, against Christ at his second coming, will be joined at “Armageddon” (Rev 16:16)—lit. translated, “the mountain of Megiddo.”
23–27 Josiah died in the conflict. “Jeremiah composed laments for Josiah,” whom he highly esteemed (Jer 22:15–16). These dirges are then said to be “written in the Laments”—a book that is no longer extant and which must not be confused with the prophet’s later laments over Josiah’s sons (22:10, 20–30) or Jerusalem’s fall (Lamentations).
17. Jehoahaz (36:1–4)
The reign of the godly king Josiah’s son Jehoahaz lasted only three months (609 B.C.), following the death of his father in battle (35:24). But while the Chronicler includes no direct moral evaluation of Jehoahaz, the fuller account in 2Ki 23:30–35, which served as Ezra’s source, makes it clear that the young sovereign “did evil in the eyes of the LORD” (v.32). He, in fact, established a pattern of wrongdoing that characterizes the rest of the kings who make up the subject of this concluding section of 2 Chronicles (12:1–36:16). As a mark of divine justice, it was the removal of Jehoahaz that marked the end of independent government in Israel.
1–2 At his accession in 609, Judah’s new leader, Jehoahaz, “was twenty-three years old,” which made him two years younger than King Jehoiakim, his brother, who succeeded him (v.5). The “people of the land”—its free citizens (see comment on 23:13)—apparently saw more hope in Jehoahaz than in his older brother. His three-month reign continued only till Pharaoh Neco (II) of Egypt could find opportunity to replace him (cf. 35:20–21).
3 Neco also “imposed on Judah” an indemnity of silver and gold (cf. similar amounts listed in 25:6; 27:5), amounting to about three and three-fourths tons and seventy-five pounds respectively.
4 The Egyptian changed the name of Jehoahaz’s brother from “Eliakim,” meaning “God raises up,” to “Jehoiakim,” which means “Jehovah (the LORD) raises up.” This seems to indicate his willingness to continue the status of the religion of the Jews. More tangibly the Pharaoh’s control over the king’s name demonstrated his lordship over his person; indeed, it would be four and a half centuries before the Jews would again be able to exercise political freedom, under the Maccabees. Neco then carried Jehoahaz off to Egypt, where he died (2Ki 23:34; cf. Jer 22:10).
18. Jehoiakim (36:5–8)
The Chronicler’s record about the kingship of Jehoahaz’s older brother Jehoiakim (vv.5–8) again represents an abridgment of the previously written biblical history (2Ki 23:36–24:7). On this occasion Ezra does include a moral judgment against Judah’s new ruler (v.5); and in the political sphere his reign (609–598 B.C.) marked the transference of the Hebrew kingdom from Egyptian control to its ultimately fatal Babylonian domination.
5 During his “eleven years” Jehoiakim “did evil.” As explained in Ezra’s more detailed sources, this king first taxed his land to provide tribute to the Pharaoh (2Ki 23:35)—though he himself lived in luxury (Jer 22:14–15). He perverted justice and oppressed the poor (Jer 22:13, 17); and he persecuted the prophets that God sent to reprove his sin (cf. 2Ch 36:8, 16; Jer 26:21–24; 32:36).
6 After four years the Babylonian leader “Nebuchadnezzar” (whose name is more accurately rendered as Nebuchadrezzar, see Jer 21:2 note) “attacked” westward. In the spring of 605, he and his forces won a decisive victory over Neco at Carchemish (cf. comment on 35:20; Jer 46:2). As a consequence the Egyptians were driven back to their own borders; and the whole western Fertile Crescent, including Palestine, was given into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar (2Ki 24:7). The victor proceeded to bind Jehoiakim “with bronze shackles” to carry him into captivity; such a threat may, however, have been sufficiently effective to render unnecessary his actual removal to Babylon.
7 The fact that “Nebuchadnezzar took to Babylon articles from the temple,” together with an initial captivity of selected Jewish hostages, including the prophet Daniel (cf. Da 1:1–3), marks the beginning of Israel’s seventy-year Babylonian exile, 605–536 B.C. (Jer 29:10).
8 While Ezra refers only to his primary source (Israel’s major court record) for “the other events of Jehoiakim’s reign,” it is known that these events included three years of serving Nebuchadnezzar (until 602), which were followed by a rebellion (2Ki 24:1–2). This presumably occurred in connection with a renewed rivalry between Egypt and Babylon, who fought a battle in the following year that resulted in a draw. Jehoiakim died on December 9,598, just before his punishment could be meted out.
19. Jehoiachin (36:9–10)
In these two verses the Chronicler summarizes the more extensive data about the reign of Jehoiakim’s young son, Jehoiachin, which is found in 2Ki 24:8–17. Like his uncle Jehoahaz of eleven years before (see 2Ch 36:1–4), the current world power permitted Jehoiachin to be king, but only for three months, at the close of 598 and at the beginning of 597 B.C. He thus reaped the bitter fruit of the rebellion that his father had instigated (see comment on v.8).
9 Since Jehoiachin had at least five children by the year 592 (see 1Ch 3:17), the variant reading (cf. NIV note) must be adopted, which says he “was eighteen years old when he became king”—not “eight.” His reign of “three months and ten days” terminated on March 16, 597.
10 On April 22, 597, King Nebuchadnezzar had Jehoiachin deported from Jerusalem; he was “brought . . . to Babylon” along with a second and more extensive deportation (see comment on v.7). This included the prophet Ezekiel and ten thousand of the leaders and skilled workers that made up the backbone of Jewish society (cf. 2Ki 24:10–16).
20. Zedekiah (36:11–16)
“Jehoiachin’s uncle, Zedekiah” (v.10) was appointed to rule over the remnant of Judah by King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. As the last of the twenty monarchs of the southern kingdom, his eleven-year reign extended from 597 to 586 B.C. Through acts of infidelity toward his imperial master, he unwisely touched off the final revolt that brought down the vengeance of the Babylonians on Judah and Jerusalem; and thus both the state and the city were destroyed. Yet ultimately Nebuchadnezzar served only as an instrument for accomplishing the sentence of God against his guilty nation: “The wrath of the LORD was aroused against his people and there was no remedy” (v.16).
11 Being only “twenty-one” at the time of his appointment, Zedekiah was by far the youngest of Josiah’s sons to occupy the throne (see 1Ch 3:15). Furthermore, though “he reigned in Jerusalem,” the fact that seals have been discovered with the inscription “Eliakim steward of Yaukin” indicates that, at the least, his nephew Jehoiachin continued to wield influence as a recognized possessor, even if an absentee one, of royal property and, at the most, that Zedekiah may have ruled to some extent as a regent for his exiled predecessor.
12 The statement that Zedekiah “did not humble himself before Jeremiah” sums up a complex relationship that existed between the king and the prophet. Zedekiah first disregarded Jeremiah’s messages (Jer 34:1–10); he came in time to direct his inquiries to this same prophet (Jer 21); and he finally pled with him for help (Jer 37). But at no point did he sincerely submit to the requirements of the Lord that Jeremiah transmitted to him. King Zedekiah was a weak man, largely controlled by a few vicious nobles who were left, along with the inferior remnant of Judah (Jer 38:1–5).
13–16 At the instigation of Hophra, a new Pharaoh (589–570 B.C.) of the Twenty-Sixth Dynasty in Egypt (cf. Jer 37:5; Eze 17:15), Zedekiah “rebelled against King Nebuchadnezzar, who had made him take an oath in God’s name.” Zedekiah had been bound as a vassal to the Babylonian monarch; and it was his faithlessness that became his own undoing (Eze 17:13–19).
C. The exile (36:17–23)
Unlike the book of Kings, with its central message of stern moral judgments, Chronicles exists essentially as a book of hope, grounded on the grace of our sovereign Lord. The chapters on Judah’s rulers (12:1–36:16) describe some great military victories and reforms, which sprang out of faith in God, even in the midst of the nation’s overall spiritual deterioration. Then after having demonstrated that the Lord could, and did, reject his people for their disobedience (36:17–21), the Chronicler moves on to identify the groundwork by which Judah’s postexilic restoration was effectuated, through the Persian king Cyrus’s decree of 538 B.C. (vv.22–23). Thus, in a repopulated land with a rebuilt temple—that still depicted God’s changeless way of salvation—a nation refined by its trials could more adequately celebrate the Lord’s continuing providence together with his anticipated triumph in the messianic kingdom that yet must come into being. History is a process, not of disintegration, but of sifting, of selection, and of development. When decades of exile had removed the dross, a remnant of purer gold would respond to the appeal for return to the Promised Land: “The LORD his God be with him . . . let him go up” (2Ch 36:23)
17 On January 15, 588, the Lord “brought up” against Judah “the king of the Babylonians”; and on July 28, 586, Jerusalem fell. For greater detail on the city’s capture and pillage, see 2Ki 25:1–21; Jer 39:1–10; 52:4–27. This destruction of Judah is also the subject of the biblical prediction that involves more verses than any other direct prophecy that is to be found within Scripture–608, distributed among seventeen different books of the Bible.
18–19 “The articles from the temple” were “carried to Babylon,” and on August 14 the sanctuary itself was burned.
20 In describing “the remnant [GK 8636], who escaped from the sword,” Ezra omitted, as less relevant to the restored, postexilic community, discussion about the regathering of refugees under Gedaliah and the flight of their remnant to Egypt (2Ki 25:22–26; Jer 40–44), about the small fourth deportation of 582 B.C. (Jer 52:30), and about “the poorest people of the land” who were left scattered in Palestine (2Ki 25:12). He speaks rather of those “carried into exile” in the third and great deportation of 586 (cf. the first and second deportations in vv.7, 10). Correspondingly, archaeology has demonstrated the thorough depopulation of Judah at this time.
Thus the exiles came “to Babylon,” where “they became servants”; and yet, after an initial period of discouragement (Ps 137) and oppressive service (cf. Isa 14:2–3), at least some Jews gained favor and status (2Ki 25:27–30; Da 1:19; 2:49; 6:3). Those who were among the more worldly grew indifferent and drifted away from their faith (Eze 33:31–32), but the more godly increased in their spiritual maturity (cf. Ne 1:4; Est 4:14–16; Da 1:8).
21 The statement that for “seventy years . . . in fulfillment of the word of the LORD spoken by Jeremiah” (see comment on v.7) “the land enjoyed its sabbath rests” seems to correlate the full span of the Exile with an equivalent number of sabbatical years (Lev 25:1–7; 26:34). This produces a total figure of 70 times 7 or 490 years; and the idea is that of making up for half a millennium of neglected sabbatical rests.
22 In October 539 Babylon fell to “Cyrus king of Persia,” as he overthrew Nabonidus and his son Belshazzar, who were its last native rulers (Da 5). Cyrus’s policy of cooperating with local religions and of encouraging the return of exiles has received explicit archaeological confirmation from the inscriptions of the king himself (cf. the famous Cyrus Cylinder).
23 The words authorized by Cyrus, “The LORD, the God of heaven, has given me all kingdoms,” should be recognized, from the viewpoint of Scripture, as constituting inspired truth, though from the viewpoint of contemporary Persian government they were probably understood as diplomatic language. Cyrus could thus address a Babylonian audience, saying, “Marduk, king of the gods [confessedly, the leading deity of the pantheon of Babylon, but not of Persia!] . . . designated me to rule over all the lands” (Cyrus Cylinder; see comment on v.22). But this monarch was still God’s instrument for the providential restoration of Israel (Isa 44:28–45:5). The next book of the Bible, Ezra, picks up the narrative at precisely this point.