2 Chronicles 13:17

_AND WHEN JUDAH LOOKED BACK, BEHOLD, THE BATTLE WAS BEFORE AND BEHIND: AND THEY CRIED UNTO THE LORD, AND THE PRIESTS SOUNDED WITH THE TRUMPETS._ No JFB commentary on these verses....

Verse 2 Chronicles 13:17. _SLAIN - FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND CHOSEN MEN._] Query, _fifty_ _thousand_? This was a great slaughter: 2 Chronicles 13:3, where all these numbers are supposed to be overcharged....

SLAIN - The word means strictly “pierced,” and will include both the killed and the wounded. It is translated “wounded” in Lamentations 2:12....

EXPOSITION The career of _Abijah _begins and ends with this chapter, the twenty-one verses of which are paralleled by only eight in 1 Kings 15:1. The difference is caused by the fact that the writer of Kings only mentions that there was war between Abijah and Jeroboam, while the writer of Chronicles, besides giving particulars of the war, rehearses the splendid, dramatic, rhetorical address and appeal of Abijah on Mount Zemaraim to the people of the ten tribes. 2 CHRONICLES 13:1 IN THE EIGHTEENTH YEAR. Reading this literally, it will appear that Rehoboam had completed a full seventeen years. 2 Chronicles 13:2

AND ABIJAH AND HIS PEOPLE SLEW THEM WITH A GREAT SLAUGHTER,.... As they fled, pursuing them: SO THERE FELL DOWN SLAIN OF ISRAEL FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND CHOSEN MEN; such a slaughter as is not to be met with in any history, as Josephus s observes; though Abarbinel wonders he should say so, and affirms that he had read of larger numbers slain at once; but he is the only man that ever pretended to it; Jerom t makes the number but 50,000, and some copies of the Vulgate Latin u, and Josephus Ben Gorion, as Abarbinel w relates; but the true Josephus, the Targum, and all the ancient versions, agree with the Hebrew text; more than half Jeroboam's army was cut off, and 100,000 more than Abijah had in his. s Antiqu. l. 8. c. 11. sect. 3. t Trad. Heb. fol. 84. M. u So that of Sixtus V. in James's Corruption of the Fathers, p. 294. w Comment in 1. Reg. xv. 6. fol. 250. 3....

FIVE (_ See Scofield) - ( 1Co_ 10:8). _...

CHAPTER 13 THE REIGN OF ABIJAH _ 1. The beginning of his reign (2 Chronicles 13:1)_ 2. War with Jeroboam (2 Chronicles 13:3) 3. Death of Jeroboam (2 Chronicles 13:20) 4. Abijah's family (2 Chronicles 13:21) Abijah is called in Kings, Abijam, and in 2 Chronicles 13:21, Abijahu (Hebrew text). His reign was not of a long duration; he outlived his father Rehoboam only three years. His mother was Maachah ...

THE REIGN OF ABIJAH. MOST of this section has nothing corresponding to it in 1 K., though references to the history of this reign occur in 1 Kings 15:1. 2 Chronicles 13:1 f. _Cf._ 1 Kings 15:1 f., where the name of Abijah's mother is given as Maacah; so, too, 2 Chronicles 11:20. 2 Chronicles 13:4 ff. The representation of Abijah here (contrast 1 Kings 15:3) as a God-fearing champion of the Levitical worship is

_five hundred thousand_ Contrast this statement with 2 Chronicles 28:6, _a hundred and twenty thousand in one day_. The absence of the phrase _in one day_from the present passage is significant. It seems probable, when we consider the small interest taken by the Chronicler in military matters as such and the consequent looseness of his language regarding them, that he may intend 500,000 to represent the losses, not of a single battle, but of the whole campaign. That some farther fighting took place is suggested by 2 Chronicles 13:19. Even so the losses are doubtless exaggerated....

3. THE REIGN OF ABIJAH. (Chapter 13) TEXT 2 Chronicles 13:1. In the eighteenth year of king Jeroboam began Abijah to reign over Judah. 2. Three years reigned he in Jerusalem: and his mother's name was Micaiah the daughter of Uriel of Gibeah. And there was war between Abijah and Jeroboam. 3. And Abijah joined battle with an army of valiant men of war, even four hundred thousand chosen men: and Jeroboam set the battle in array against him with eight hundred thousand chosen men, who were mighty men of valor. 4. And Abijah stood up upon Mount Zemaraim, which is in the hill-country of Ephraim, and said, Hear me, O Jeroboam and all Israel: 5. Ought ye not to know that Jehovah, the God of Israel, gave the kingdom over Israel to David for ever, even to him and to his sons by a covenant of salt? 6. Yet Jeroboam the son of Nebat, the servant of Solomon the son of David, rose up, a