Bible Study - 2 Chronicles 13:19-14:1

Second Chronicles chapter 13. Let me go ahead and begin reading in verse 13.

Jeroboam had sent an ambush around to come upon them from behind. Thus his troops were in front of Judah and the ambush was behind them.

And when Judah looked, behold the battle was in front of and behind them. And they cried to the

Lord and the priests blew the trumpets. Then the men of Judah raised the battle shout. And when the men of Judah shouted,

God defeated Jeroboam and all Israel before Abijah and Judah. The men of Israel fled before Judah and God gave them into their hand.

Abijah and his people struck them with a great force. So there fell slain of Israel five hundred thousand chosen men.

Thus the men of Israel were subdued at that time. The men of Judah prevailed because they relied on the Lord, the God of their fathers.

And Abijah pursued Jeroboam and took cities from him. Bethel with its villages, and Jeshunah with its villages, and Ephron with its villages.

Jeroboam did not recover his power in the days of Abijah and the Lord struck him down and he died. But Abijah grew mighty and he took 14 wives and had 22 sons and 16 daughters.

The rest of the acts of Abijah, his ways and his sayings are written in the story of the prophet Ido. Abijah slept with his fathers and they buried him in the city of David.

And Asa, his son, reigned in his place. In his days the land had rest for ten years.

Amen. All right so this is the last portion that we will be doing in 2nd

Chronicles for a while. We will continue in 2nd Chronicles in some time but there will be a little bit of gap in between and I will talk later about what that gap will include.

But moving in directly here to verse 19. And Abijah pursued after Jeroboam and took cities from him.

Bethel with the towns thereof, and Jeshunah with the towns thereof, and Ephron with the towns thereof. So what's the significance of taking

Bethel? Hopefully someone knows more than just it's a city.

Yes. Okay. Yes.

Yeah I don't think we necessarily need to read into the names that much but that's an interesting observation.

There is something more directly about it being a house of God though that is relevant here regardless of its name.

I actually don't know what the association of those two is. There's something more important to Israel.

Like there's a significance of this city in the northern kingdom. Nobody's got it?

There's something that Israel has two of that are pretty significant. Here's one of them.

It's it's yes. Yeah this is where the first golden calf is. So it's in Bethel.

So the fact that he makes the Bethel shows the weakness of their idolatry. It's also interesting that they maintain this idolatry because that means

Judah did not take the opportunity to destroy it while they took over the place which is uh that's a shame.

But yes they took over they took over Bethel. And then when it mentions

Shin or sorry Jeshunah this is likely Shin from 1st Samuel 7 12. Just a random note which is north of Bethel and Ephron lies between the two to the east.

So that's significant basically that during Abijah's life they're moving the border northward.

Remember there's a big civil war and there's a boundary line. The fact that they're getting some land back is pretty significant stuff.

Okay and how does this relate to the previous passage? Well all this is the result of his trusting in the

Lord here. Okay where is do

I have a pen? Can you get me a pen for my drawer Deacon? Thank you. All right verse 20.

Neither did Jeroboam recover strength again in the days of Abijah and Jehovah smote him and he died.

So why does Jeroboam not recover strength in the days of Abijah? Yeah he retains their cities in the during the length of his reign and then also this is presented in such a way that it's because of Abijah's trusting in the

Lord that God's giving him this this continued victory and even the way that it's phrased

Jeroboam died is suggesting that. Right neither did

Jeroboam recover any strength again in the days of Abijah and Jehovah smote him and he died. Right like it sounds like those are related the fact that Abijah's there he doesn't recover in fact he dies.

But then we have 1st Kings 19 through 20 which 1st

Kings 14 19 through 20 verse 19. Now the rest of the acts of Jeroboam how he warred and how he reigned behold they are written in the book of the

Chronicles of the kings of Israel and the time that Jeroboam reigned was 22 years and he slept with his fathers and Nadab his son reigned in his place.

Okay so when did Jeroboam die according to this Jeroboam time that Jeroboam reigned was 22 years.

So what that entails is that he died two years after Abijah when you tally it all up.

So he's dying two years after Abijah but the way the chroniclers framing it is still

Abijah's it's it seems from the effect of Abijah's reign has something to do with the

Lord smiting Jeroboam. So just the way this is is framed it's like the the victory of Judah over the northern kingdom through their trusting in God even though there's actually a delay of two years it's not mentioned here in 2nd

Chronicles. See and yeah and notice that Jeroboam's death is mentioned even before to give you that effect to give you that impression that it's it's the effect of his reign.

Why does the chronicler not include the passage from first Kings once again he's only recording the lives of the kings of Judah it's he doesn't go through the death of the other prophets sorry the other kings of Israel despite whatever overlap it has with his narrative about the kings of Judah which here it does.

So the even the fact that he's mentioning it all indicates that he's trying to get you to relate them.

All right 21 but Abijah waxed mighty and took himself took to himself 14 wives and father 22 sons and 16 daughters.

Okay so the fact that he has 14 wives makes him a strong king you know the the picture we keep getting of these kings with their many wives is that they're yeah they're able to have a large reign because they have so many sons to rule under them and so many so many alliances formed by all the wives and things like that.

Yeah the fact that his reign was only three years means that he almost certainly married them before he rose to the power of the throne.

Once again remember that Solomon's wives not mentioned now Abijah's wives mentioned.

That's that seems significant he doesn't mention Solomon's wives but he mentions Rehoboam's wives he mentions Abijah's wives.

If you remember the point of mentioning all of Solomon's wives and kings was to show that this was the reason for the downfall of the nation and so he skipped all that but now he's mentioning it for the others because it's not as a condemning.

All right these wives and offspring are all less than Rehoboam's however the ratio of sons to daughters is higher and it demonstrates his strength.

Okay verse 22, and the rest of the acts of Abijah in his ways and his sayings are in the commentary of the prophet

Ido. Yeah I don't know if it's pronounced Ido, Ido, Ido. I'll just keep saying

Ido I guess even though two D's I guess it should be Ido. All right so what is the commentary of Ido?

That is some work where he recorded the life of Abijah. It's not entirely clear but in 929 he had described

Ido as a seer who wrote history right a seer is a prophet and he wrote chronicles in 1215 and by chronicles

I mean just like lowercase C the genre he wrote chronicles of things. Yeah seer and prophet are synonyms.

It's not clear whether these works that are being listed are different things or the same thing but he's it said that he's written a history, he's written chronicles, he's written a commentary.

The word used for commentary midrash refers to a story so maybe these are all one thing maybe these are all just histories.

Yes go for it. Oh I'm not really trying to link them but that is the parallel passage in first Kings like that when

Kings when the author of Kings writes he says that he gets Abijah's life from the

Chronicles of the Kings of Judah when the Chronicler writes afterward he says that he gets it from Ido so maybe they are the same thing it's possible but the

Chronicles of the Kings of Judah are mentioned a number of times and they might even be written after the lifetime of Ido so in that case it wouldn't be

I'd have to I'd have to look more to be able to confirm that. Yeah I would guess not given that those are mentioned significantly later

I think in Kings as well. All right there's a number of phrases that you see changed here

I think this just represents idiomatic differences in the era of the author of the

Kings and the author of Chronicles but just to point it out the Chronicler speaks of his ways and his sayings instead of all that he did he has consistently removed the phrase all that he did from first Kings and replaced it with other sayings this is the first time he talks about his ways but yeah the phrase all that he did for some reason the

Chronicler always drops that and replaces it with something else I assume it just wasn't as idiomatic during his time

I can't think of any other reason why he would do that. I do think that the notion of sayings being mentioned here right and that's something distinct from what you see in first Kings 15 7 the faction that mentioned sayings who do you think of as a king who is recorded as having many sayings

Solomon right and what is the consistent emphasis of this so you know

David and Solomon they're the the model kings and all these others are you know sort of like them in different ways and that's why that needs to be why the kingdom needs to be restored is because David and Solomon need to be restored so the more ways that you can connect them to those former kings you just see him pull out a lot of that I think even mentioning his sayings is is showing his similarities to his grandfather here okay 14 1 so by just slept with his father's and they buried him in the city of David significance of him sleeping with his father's is he's honored in his death later on there will be kings who are not buried with their fathers because they were so wicked also the significant of significance of them being buried in the city of David same thing he's honored it also shows the stability of the kingdom you know later on they're gonna be exiled from the city of David and then how does this compare to the description of Rehoboam he omitted the statement from first Kings that Rehoboam was buried with his father but now he has yeah perhaps that was omitted it in order to bring it in alignment with the badge of giving

Rehoboam not honor above him that could be yeah but he had omitted it with Rehoboam before all right and then 1b and Asa his son reigned in his stead in his days land was quiet ten years so the promise continues right there's a there's a promise made to David that his son would sit on the throne we keep seeing this fulfilled each time that there's another son of David who sits on the throne in the northern kingdom of Israel you see that it's consistently handed off from different Kings Jeroboam's lined ends and then

Omri comes in and then Omri's lined in I line ends and then nay oh it starts with an

N there's some other line that begins yeah the land was quiet for ten years he adds that here once again

I think this is to show the impact of a by just rain when you read Kings on a by Joe it's not a very pretty picture here you get this whole scene with the trumpets and then the suggestions that Jeroboam's downfall as long as the quiet that comes afterward his very short reign is three -year reign the quiet that comes afterwards seems to be due to him and remember that's what happened with David and Solomon David made peace for Solomon so Solomon got to live in peace that seems to be what's happening here as a badge is passing off the throne to Asa all right any questions about this passage before the reflection question yes yeah rest because that sounds more idiomatic in English I'm guessing that quiet is the more literal one without looking it up at the moment yeah yeah basically and having peace for that many years etc yeah yeah well yeah

I think it's typically the other way around if it's more idiomatic than probably the translators wanted to say that instead yeah that's one of the canons of textual criticism too is that the harder reading is most likely the correct one all right why does faithful what does faithfulness the

Lord look like what does his faithfulness to us look like what impact can your faithfulness have on the next generation

I think that is an important thing to think about faithfulness to the

Lord and the impact on the next generation I think part of the reason and there are a hundred different factors but part of the reason why so many people seem very depressed and anxious and is because they're purposeless and part of the reason they're purposeless is because they're not thinking about anything beyond themselves like they're only just thinking of their own existence and if you are thinking about the impact that you're going to have on the next generation it really changes a lot of things but you do see here the impact that a bija has on the next generation having given the land quiet for ten years being instrumental in the northern kingdom losing some of its power and that's something we can pass off to our children too or and by our children

I don't even just mean your own children but just the next generation in general we can pass them off a better heritage we can leave the church even in the global sense in a better state you know think back to when you came to the faith maybe it wasn't that long ago but I think back when

I came to the faith and for example the prevalent prevalence of Calvinism is much greater than it was at that time the there are a lot of ways that the state of the church has actually improved even if wickedness has also increased in other ways there are some ways that the prevalence of a good a good spiritual inheritance has increased and that is something that we can continue but what you see here the the example of faithfulness is a bija trusting the

Lord not fighting this on his own strength but bringing the trumpets yeah trusting the

Lord for for victory okay any questions all right let's go ahead yes it's not pure downhill there's some good guys there's some bad guys some will not reflect the kingdom of David very well in the

I'm still studying a lot of this but it seems like what the Chronicler the way he is trying to frame it is it's particularly those ones where there was a marriage alliance between Ahab's kingdom and theirs and so the products of that he's treating them as not children of as not children of David so much as children of Ahab right and so what you need is the son of David sitting on a throne not a son of Ahab sitting on the throne you know that kind of thing so there will be some pretty bad guys they come along that don't get to sleep with their fathers etc but that I believe the

Chronicler continues to frame it in a way where the hope is like a real son of David sitting on the summit on the throne of David okay all right let's go ahead and pray dear

Heavenly Father we thank you for the son of David we thank you for Jesus Christ he sits on the throne he reigns wonderfully he has given us a great peace we have the right kind of quiet in our land of course we look forward to a greater peace and we ask that he would provide that as well a fully manifest peace in Jesus name