1 After him, his son Jehoshaphat became king. He acted valiantly in Israel.
- The son of Aes knew the workings of government and possessed the necessary expertise. He had a clear idea of what a good king should do and was not afraid to put it into practice.
- The King’s aim must not be populism – his actions are not (and never will be) intended to please everyone; his aim is not to curry favour, but to govern well.
- In this respect, the position of those currently in power is far more difficult – good governance is almost always unpopular, and voters usually punish good leaders at the next election. This is a major weakness of democracy, that is, government by the people.
- It truly takes courage not to be swayed by public opinion and to do what is right.
2 He stationed troops in all the fortified towns of Judah and posted garrisons throughout the territory of Judah, as well as in the towns of Ephraim which his father Asa had conquered.
- He had no intention of losing those territorial gains again. He secured them. He supported and built up the army.
3 The Lord was with Jehoshaphat, because (he followed in the footsteps of his father David) and did not consult the Baals,
- n.: original;
- [meant, of course, in the broader sense;
- n~: He lived as his father David had done at the beginning of his reign;
- He sought the Lord, came to know the Lord, and obeyed the Lord. He evidently had a ‘Davidic’ personal relationship with God.
- The Lord ‘heeds’ this sort of approach.
- At least Ása succeeded in bringing up his son without any ‘buts’.
4 Yet he sought the God of his fathers and lived according to his commandments, and not according to the practices of Israel.
- He was not interested in the opinion of the Baals, but in God’s opinion.
- And once he had discovered it, he adhered to it.
- In this respect, it differed greatly from the Northern Kingdom, where no one was still seeking the Lord.
5 The Lord established the kingdom in his hands, and all the people of Judah brought gifts to Jehoshaphat, so that he had great wealth and honour.
- God rewarded his servant with a successful reign.
- It seems the people also held their king in high regard.
6 When she (gained greater courage in following the Lord’s ways,) He also removed the high places and the sacred pillars from Judah.
- h.: his heart was lifted up … (here in a positive sense – in contrast to Jer 13:15, etc.);
- It takes some time to develop a relationship with God. Walking with God is something one needs to practise. You don’t become a spiritual superman straight away. Experience is irreplaceable in this area too.
- It is likely that, as well as developing and strengthening his relationship with God, the king also needed to work on consolidating his royal power. Once he was sufficiently confident that he could overcome the resistance to religious reform (there will always be people who do not wish to follow God), he set about eradicating idolatry.
- It seems that making pilgrimages to sacred sites was also fairly common amongst the Judeans.
- We can picture this popular ‘piety’ – or rather idolatry – as, for example, religious pilgrimages to images of the Virgin Mary or the saints. These festivals were introduced on a massive scale by the Jesuits during the recatholisation of the Czech lands following the Battle of White Mountain.
7 In the third year of his reign, he sent his officials Ben-haïl, Obadiah, Zechariah, Nethanel and Micah to teach in the towns of Judah. 8 With them were the Levites Shemaiah, Nethanel, Zebadiah, Asael, Shemiramoth, Jonathan, Adonijah, Tobijah and Tob-Adonijah, Levites, and with them the priests Elishama and Joram. 9 They taught in Judah and should have They carried with them the Book of the Law of the Lord. They went from town to town throughout Judah, teaching the people.
- Information about God needs to be ‘brought to the people’. When people know God’s word, it will subsequently do its work by itself (it will not return empty-handed).
- It is important not to limit the teaching of the Scriptures to the elite or a select group, but to include all believers.
- In certain historical periods, it was the case that A Czech peasant woman knows the Bible better than an Italian prelate.
- That was also the reason why, for a long time, the Roman Catholic Church sought to prevent ordinary believers from accessing the Bible, for example by banning translations into national languages.
- That is why Jehoshaphat arranged for ‘seminars’ on God’s Law to be held throughout the land.
- The following people took part in the series of seminars:
- 5 princes
- 9 Levites
- 2 priests
10 Fear it The Lord’s wrath fell upon all the kingdoms of the lands which were around Judah, and did not fight against Jehoshaphat.
- n.: so their inhabitants did not fight;
- Well-known ‘the rule of priorities’ from the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 6:33: ‘But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you’) proved true once again.
- Jehoshaphat sought God for his people, and God ensured their external security.
11 Some The Pelishites brought tribute and a load of silver to Jehoshaphat. The Arabs, too, brought him tribute: seven thousand seven hundred rams and seven thousand seven hundred goats.
- Certainly not of their own free will, but under duress. If they wanted to maintain ‘peace’ with the powerful King Jehoshaphat and, where necessary, ensure their protection, they had to pay taxes.
12 Jehoshaphat (he continued to grow very wealthy,) So he built fortresses and towns in Judea for storehouses. 13 He had large stores in the towns of Judah and warriors in Jerusalem, (brave heroes.)
- He used his wealth wisely to strengthen the kingdom.
- He did not neglect the army.
14 This were their numbers according to their fathers’ houses: from Judah, the commanders of thousands: Commander Adna and, with him, three hundred thousand valiant heroes; 15 Next to him was the commander Jehohanan, with one hundred and eighty thousand men; 16 next to him was Amasiah, son of Zikri, a volunteer of the Lord, with two hundred thousand valiant warriors; 17 from Benjamin, the valiant warrior Eljad, with two hundred thousand men armed with bow and shield; 18 next to him was Jozabad, with one hundred and eighty thousand armed soldiers. 19 These served the king, in addition to those whom the king had stationed in the fortified towns throughout Judah.
- Regardless of the exact figure for the ‘thousands’ (there were 1,060,000 soldiers in total – Judah could hardly have had an army of a million at that time), it was certainly a formidable force.
- Commanders Adna, Johanan, Amaziah, Eljada and Jozabad were valiant heroes, that is, men in their rightful places – were held in high regard by their men.
- Who is A volunteer for the Lord We do not know for certain. (According to Ellicott, this may be an allusion to some noble act of self-sacrifice which was recorded in greater detail in the source from which the chronicler drew this brief account.)
- He may not have been one of the men subject to conscription – and yet he joined the army and rose through the ranks to become a commander.
- The Benjaminites specialised in archers and shield-bearers