Bible Study - 2 Chronicles 18:28-32

Jehoshaphat and Ahab Go to Ramoth-Gilead

All right, we are in 2nd Chronicles 18 verses 28 through 32. Please go ahead and turn there. Excuse me. Yes, that's right. 18. So the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, went up to Ramoth Gilead, and the king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, I will disguise myself and go into battle, and you will wear your robes.

And the king of Israel disguised himself, and they went into battle. Now the king of Syria had commanded the captains of his chariots, fight with neither small nor great, but only with the king of Israel.

As soon as the captains of the chariots saw Jehoshaphat, they said, it is the king of Israel. So they turned to fight against him, and Jehoshaphat cried out. And as the Lord helped him, God drew them away from him.

For as soon as the captains of the chariots saw that it was not the king of Israel, they turned back from pursuing him. But a certain man drew his bow at random and struck the king of Israel between the scale armor and the breastplate.

Therefore, he said to the driver of his chariot, turn around and carry me out of the battle, for I am wounded. And the battle continued that day, and the king of Israel was propped up in his chariot, facing the Syrians until evening.

Then at sunset he died. Amen. Okay, so recall what's going on at this point in 2 Chronicles, is that Jehoshaphat has made a marriage alliance between his son, Ahab's daughter, and now he is getting pulled into a war to take back Ramoth-Gilead for Israel.

Rejecting Micaiah's Prophecy for Ahab's War

And on top of getting pulled into this war, as we see, Ahab has now suckered him into pretending to be him. We will see this in the reading, why they were particularly going to attack Ahab, but Ahab has gotten Jehoshaphat to pretend to be Ahab so that Ahab's life would be on the line instead of his.

All right, verse 28. So the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, went up to Ramoth-Gilead. Okay, so why do they go to Ramoth-Gilead? To get it back from the Syrians, because the Syrians had took it.

What is the significance of their decision to do this that they have rejected in the context of this? They've rejected the word of the Lord that came from Micaiah, and they listened to the 400 false prophets.

And then, yeah, so this is a direct rejection of the prophecy that was given formerly. Something that we've seen before is that Ahab is referred to as the king of Israel while Jehoshaphat is referred to by name, Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, which is just a very interesting way that this is being spoken.

It's the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah. All right, verse 29. And the king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, I will disguise myself and go into the battle, but put on your robes. And the king of Israel disguised himself, and they went into the battle.

Ahab's Disguise and the Chronicler's Account

All right, so why does he disguise himself? Well, so that he won't be targeted by Syria. I think he anticipates they'll be looking for him in particular, and he doesn't want to be attacked. And Jehoshaphat does not disguise himself, so he will look like the king, because they probably don't even know that there's been an alliance formed.

So they think one king has got to be Ahab. And maybe it's the case that they know what Ahab looks like such that Jehoshaphat stands a better chance once they get close. We do see that they will notice that it's not Ahab.

I don't know how they figure that out, but they figure it out. So maybe Jehoshaphat has some reason to think that he will be better protected than Ahab would be, but that's the situation. Okay, differences between the passages.

So if you look into, remember we have svrbc .org slash chronicles. You can go and you can look at the differences a lot more easily than just flipping in your Bible. It's a very small difference. I'll read it to you.

This is 1 Kings 22 30. 1 Kings 22 30 says, "...and the king of Israel disguised himself and went into the battle.". And 2 Chronicles 18 29 says, "...and the king of Israel disguised himself and they went into the battle.".

Okay, so one has the king of Israel, Ahab, going into battle. The other talks about them going into battle. Remember, this is the point of the chronicler retelling the story. He drops all the other parts of Ahab's life.

The reason he's talking about this part of Ahab's life is because of Jehoshaphat's complicity in Ahab's attack. And so he talks about not just Ahab going into battle. He talks about them both going into battle.

Why Syria Targeted Ahab

All right, verse 30. "...Now the king of Syria had commanded the captains of his chariot saying, Fight neither with small nor great, only with the king of Israel.". Why? Because he did not want them to be distracted from the main objective.

And this is most strategically effective. Also, Ahab has caused them particular offense. So there might be something going on there. We'll read about that in a minute. And why is this to the chariots?

Well, they're going to be able to get there much faster. And you know, others can, others aren't going to be able to rush, you know, if they're on foot. But those who are in the chariots are going to be able to find him and get past everything else.

They're not going to be stopped by other soldiers. And they can get much farther. All right, so let's go ahead and look at this other passage. 1 Kings 20, and this is a large portion. But maybe I can read the most important part here.

Okay, I thought this was going to be a short passage. Let's see, 32. Yeah, I'll start at the beginning here. Ben-Hadad, the king of Syria, gathered all his army together. 32 kings were with him in horses and chariots.

And he went up and closed in on Samaria and fought against it. And he sent messengers into the city to Ahab, king of Israel, and said to him, Thus says Ben-Hadad, your gold and your silver are mine. Your best wives and children are also mine.

All right, and then he responds, As you say, my lord, O king, I'm yours and all that you have. So Ahab initially responds by saying that this is, yes, I will give you whatever you want. I'm surrendering.

But if you skip down to verse 13, And behold, a prophet came near to Ahab, king of Israel, and said, Thus says the Lord, have you seen all this great multitude? Behold, I will give it into your hand this day, and you shall know that I am the Lord.

Okay, so God tells him that he's going to have victory. Verse 16, and they went out noon while Ben-Hadad was drinking himself drunk in the booths. He and the 32 kings who helped him, the servants of the governors of the districts, Went out first, and Ben-Hadad sent out scouts, and they reported to him, Men are coming out from Samaria.

He said, if they had come out for peace, take them alive. Or if they come out for war, take them alive. And then Ahab, of course, ends up defeating him after Ben-Hadad had already been celebrating with his 32 with his 32 men, his 32 kings.

So that is why this passage in Chronicles drops the 32. The 32 is important if you've been reading Kings, because you have the context of the 32 kings. But now here in Chronicles, he hadn't gone through that narrative, so there's no reason to talk about there being 32 captains.

But these are the charioteers, right? They're the ones who are the most offended by Ahab, that he had basically surrendered and then turned back on that while they were drunk. And they weren't able to defend themselves.

So they've all been pretty directly shamed by Ahab. And it seems like there's a personal thing too. This isn't just a strategic measure to go after the king, cut the head off the snake, right? This also seems to be personal.

All right, 31a. It came to pass when the captains of the chariots saw Jehoshaphat, they said, it is the king of Israel. So they turned about the fight against him, but Jehoshaphat cried out. All right, so why did the captains think that Jehoshaphat is the king of Israel?

Obviously, he's wearing royal robes, no one else's. And why do they go after him? Because they're trying to, they've been given instruction to just go after the king. What does it mean that he cried out?

It might not be obvious just in that verse. But the fact that he's answered by God means that he's praying. Okay, he's not just saying, ah, like a Wilhelm scream or anything. This is, he is calling out to God for help.

God Rescues Jehoshaphat and Shows Mercy

God answers him, giving him mercy. All right, 31b. And Jehovah helped him and God moved them to depart from him. Why does God help Jehoshaphat? Because he calls out to him. So God is faithful to those who call out to him in mercy.

And how does God help him? By compelling them to go after Ahab instead. And why does the chronicler add this detail? To show that God is good to his people and his providence over Judah. So if you were to look at the diff once again, there's several things that are a little different here.

But this whole phrase is added by the chronicler. And Jehovah helped him and God moved them to depart from him. Okay, so that's not a phrase that was in Kings. We just find out that he cried out, they went away.

The chronicler makes it very explicit that God is helping him, right? The whole framing of this book is about the kings of Judah and their faithfulness. And if they seek God, God will be found. And so here Jehoshaphat is seeking God and God is found.

32, and it came to pass when the captains of the chariots saw that it was not the king of Israel, that they turned back from pursuing him. All right, so they see something about it that it's not the king.

Maybe with their previous encounters, they know what Ahab looks like or what he sounds like. Maybe it's in the way that he's calling out to the Lord. Maybe he's saying, Lord help me, they think that I'm Ahab.

I don't know. Something else. Maybe they'd expect Ahab to call out to the Baals and they realize that someone who's calling out to Yahweh is the king of Judah instead. All right, so the Lord, but the Lord helps Jehoshaphat.

Jehoshaphat's Foolish Alliance and Judah's Mercy

All right, so how are the Lord's people targeted by enemies today? How are the Lord's people spared from danger? And how should this passage motivate your prayers? I think also what's interesting here is how Jehoshaphat puts his life on the line for an ill cause, right, for a wicked man.

It's not, yeah, it's very foolish of him to do that. A lot of people make bad company and then they will make sacrifices for the sake of those friendships, and so it's a kindness, but it's a very foolish kind of kindness.

It's to the wrong person and it's a sacrifice. It's for harm rather than good. God required something different from him. I believe that he could have gotten out of this at any point. He's going to be rebuked for this very shortly in Chronicles.

I believe it's in the next chapter. Jehu, the son of Hanani, goes to him and he says, Should you help the wicked and love those who hate the Lord? Because of this wrath has gone out against you from the Lord.

So yeah, it's not clear to me that he should have kept any of these agreements. And it seems clear that before the battle, he was free to say no about the battle, even though they had made a marriage alliance.

It doesn't mean that every single conquest that Ahab goes on to, he has to help with. Those kinds of alliances are usually primarily for defense. But anyway, that's not to say that every foolish such alliance shouldn't be kept because you do have the Gibeonites and Joshua protecting them.

So yeah, it is a little complicated, but it seems that at least before he went out the battle, he did have the option of not going out the battle. But yeah, my deepest thought on this is about how many people make friendships with the wicked rather than with the righteous and then feel that God is calling them to certain kindnesses and sacrifices and all that seems very good, but it's for the wrong people.

So it's actually not good. But why should you? Why should you help the wicked and love those who hate the Lord?

All right. Any questions? Any thoughts? Yes.

Jehoshaphat's Royal Robes and Judah's Greater Dignity

Yeah. Yeah. So to repeat that in a way that will be picked up on the recording, Jehoshaphat in wearing the royal robes and Ahab not is somewhat ironic because it shows that even unintentionally, Jehoshaphat has the greater dignity and honor than Ahab and Judah, therefore, than Israel.

Judah being the true Israel, as is one of the repeated points in Chronicles. Okay. Anything else? Yes. No, we haven't gotten there yet. We will. I don't remember if those details are included in here.

The Kings Account of Ahab's Death

Right. It is in Kings, but I think that, yeah, it's intentionally dropped all from here. We haven't gotten to Ahab's death yet either. That's coming up next time. Yeah. I think we will read the parallel passages when we get there, but yes.

So I gave some speculations as to why they could tell it's not the king of Israel. Okay. So for the second one, though, it's just they had a main objective. They were supposed to only go after Ahab, right?

They aren't really concerned about just taking out a king. They want to take out Ahab, and it seems because there's a personal offense that Ahab has committed against them in having surrendered, but then attack them when they were celebrating.

It's kind of like Washington crossing the Delaware or something, you know? And then what are the implications of this for the nation of Judah? What I wrote down here is, This mercy on Jehoshaphat is ultimately a mercy on the nation of Judah, because the Lord has spared him despite the folly of joining with Ahab.

Judah will be permitted to continue in some measure of prosperity. So it's, yeah, it is, he's gotten himself into quite the pickle here. It's not clear that he would be just permitted to exit out of it, but God has been merciful and has, yeah, let those people recognize that it's not him, and they moved away.

All right. Okay, well, let's go ahead and close in prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word. We ask that it would lead us in prayer as we come to you, knowing that you are the only one who can give help, that you can take our enemies away, though they are pointed at us.

In Jesus' name, Amen.