2 Chronicles 19:6

_AND SAID TO THE JUDGES, TAKE HEED WHAT YE DO: FOR YE JUDGE NOT FOR MAN, BUT FOR THE LORD, WHO IS WITH YOU IN THE JUDGMENT._ No JFB commentary on these verses....

Verse 2 Chronicles 19:6. _TAKE HEED WHAT YE DO_] A very solemn and very necessary caution; judges should feel themselves in the place of God, and judge as those who know they shall be judged for their judgments....

EXPOSITION The matter of this chapter is preserved for us by the writer of Chronicles alone, and is of much significance. After glancing at the moment's outward "peace" (2 Chronicles 19:1), which Jehoshaphat had on his return to Jerusalem, the narrative, leaving in deep oblivion all he must have thought and felt and may have spoken of the end of his brother-king, and of his own late private intimacy and public alliance with him, tells how he was reined up by Jehu, the son of Hanani the seer (2 Chronicles 19:2, 2 Chronicles 19:3); and thereupon how he wisely revisited his kingdom, as it were through its length and breadth, sought to "bring them back to the Lord God of their fathers

AND SAID TO THE JUDGES, TAKE HEED WHAT YOU DO,.... In judgment, that they judged righteous judgment according to the law of God, without partiality and respect of persons: FOR YE JUDGE NOT FOR MAN, BUT FOR THE LORD; not for man only, but for the Lord; and not so much for man as for the Lord, whom they represented in judgment; whose law was the rule of their judgment, and whose glory their end, and to whom they were accountable: WHO IS WITH YOU IN THE JUDGMENT: as to guide and direct you, so to observe how they behaved, and be a witness for or against them; the Targum is, "ye judge not before men, but before the Word of the Lord, whose Shechinah dwells with you in the affair of judgment.''...

CHAPTER 19 REBUKE AND RESTORATION _ 1. The rebuke by the prophet (2 Chronicles 19:1)_ 2. Further revival and restoration (2 Chronicles 19:4) At sun-down Ahab, the King of Israel died, while his ally Jehoshaphat, saved through the mercy of God, returned to his home in peace in Jerusalem. Then Jelin, the son of Hanani, met him. Asa, the father of Jehoshaphat, had been rebuked by Hanani, and had put him in prison for it. The son of Hanani rebukes Jehoshaphat. We read no answer from the king, but his actions show that the rebuke went home to his conscience. He must have repented of the unholy alliance with the enemy of the Lord. Jehu said to him, “Shouldest thou help the ungodly, and love them that hate the LORD? Therefore is wrath upon thee from before the LORD.”

Jehu the prophet reproves Jehoshaphat for having allied himself with Ahab. These verses are mainly from the Chronicler, but see 1 Kings 16:1 ff. 2 CHRONICLES 19:4. This section, a kind of _midrash_ on the name Jehoshaphat (= Yahweh judgeth), is also from the Chronicler; he imagines the judicial arrangements of his own day to have been already in existence in much earlier times. The section is, in a sense, analogous to 2 Chronicles 17:7....

MAN. Hebrew. _'adam._ App-14. IN THE JUDGMENTS. in the word or matter of judgment....

_Take heed_ R.V. CONSIDER. _who_is _with you in the judgment_ Render, AND HE IS WITH YOU IN GIVING JUDGMENT (cp. R.V. and mg.). The judges in deciding cases against the rich and powerful were to strengthen themselves with the thought "God is with us" ("Immanuel")....

WHO IS WITH YOU IN THE JUDGMENT— _And the judgment shall be determined by your words._ Houbigant. The Targum renders the verse thus: "Take heed what you do; for you do not judge before the sons of men, but before the word of the Lord; and his glorious presence presides among you in the act of judgment." It is a remarkable saying of Cicero, That judges, being sworn to do justice, should remember, when they come to pass sentence, _Deum habere testem, id est, ut ego arbitror, mentem suam, qua nihil homini dedit ipse Deus divinius._ De Offic. l. iii. c. 13., where he has left us this excellent instruction, that a man must lay aside the person of a friend, when he puts on the person of a judge. See also Hesiod de Oper. et Diebus, line 246. REFLECTIONS.—1st, Imminent was the danger that Jehoshaphat had escaped; yet, through mercy, he arrives at his house in peace, while Ahab was left dead at S...

5. THE REIGN OF JEHOSHAPHAT (17-21:3) TEXT 2 Chronicles 17:1. And Jehoshaphat his son reigned in his stead, and strengthened himself against Israel. 2. And he placed forces in all the fortified cities of Judah, and set garrisons in the land of Judah, and in the cities of Ephraim, which Asa his father had taken. 3. And Jehovah was with Jehoshaphat, because he walked in the first ways of his father David, and sought not unto the Baalim, 4. but sought to the God of his father, and walked in his commandments, and not after the doings of Israel. 5. Therefore Jehovah established the kingdom in his hand; and all Judah brought to Jehoshaphat tribute; and he had riches and honor in abundance. 6. And his heart was lifted up in the ways of Jehovah: and furthermore he took away the high places and the Asherim out of Judah. 7. Also in the third year of his reign he sent his pri