The Victory of Jehoshaphat over the Heathen Nations.
The Threatened Invasion
1It came to pass after this also, some six or seven years before the death of Jehoshaphat, that the children of Moab and the children of Ammon, and with them other beside the Ammonites, namely, the Meunites of Arabia Petraea, all heathen nations east, southeast, and south of the Dead Sea, came against Jehoshaphat to battle. 2Then there came some that told Jehoshaphat, saying, There cometh a great multitude against thee from beyond the sea on this side Syria, rather, from Edom beyond the Dead Sea, for their attack would naturally be made from that side; and, behold, they be in Hazazon-tamar, which is En-gedi, at the middle of the western shore of the Dead Sea, some twenty-five miles from Jerusalem. 3And Jehoshaphat feared, and set himself to seek the Lord, by turning to Him in humble supplication, and proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah, as an act of deep repentance. 4And Judah gathered themselves together, in response to the king’s proclamation, to ask help of the Lord; even out of all the cities of Judah they came to seek the Lord, in a solemn assembly of the people. 5And Jehoshaphat stood in the congregation of Judah and Jerusalem, in the house of the Lord, before the new court, the great or outer court, which had apparently recently been repaired or enlarged, his position being at the entrance of the inner or priests’ court, and said, O Lord God of our fathers, art not Thou God in heaven, the almighty Creator and Preserver, from whom the children of Israel had received all their blessings, and rulest not Thou over all the kingdoms of the heathen, holding all the nations of the world in His hand? And in Thine hand is there not power and might, so that none is able to withstand Thee? 7Art not Thou our God, who didst drive out the inhabitants of this land before Thy people Israel, and gavest it to the seed of Abraham, Thy friend, forever? 8And they dwelt therein, and have built Thee a Sanctuary therein for Thy name, saying, 9If, when evil cometh upon us, as the sword, judgment, or pestilence, or famine, we stand before this house and in Thy presence, as King Solomon had prayed, 1 Kings 8, 33. 37, (for Thy name is in this house,) and cry unto Thee in our affliction, then Thou wilt hear and help. 10And now, behold, the children of Ammon and Moab and Mount Seir, whom Thou wouldest not let Israel invade when they came out of the land of Egypt, but they turned from them and destroyed them not, Deut. 2, 4. 5. 9. 19, 11behold, I say, how they reward us to come to cast us out of Thy possession which Thou hast given us to inherit. 12O our God, wilt Thou not judge them? namely, by letting His punitive justice strike them. For we have no might against this great company that cometh against us, neither know we what to do; they were altogether helpless without His assistance, but our eyes are upon Thee, to see Him give the needed help and deliverance. 13And all Judah stood before the Lord, in the position of suppliants, with their little ones, their wives, and their children, not even the infants having been left at home in this great hour of need.
The Miraculous Overthrow of the Enemies
14Then upon Jehaziel, the son of Zechariah, the son of Benaiah, the son of Jeiel, the son of Mattaniah, a Levite of the sons of Asaph, came the Spirit of the Lord in the midst of the congregation, giving him both the power and the authority to speak in the name of the Lord, 15and he said, Hearken ye, all Judah, and ye inhabitants of Jerusalem, and thou, King Jehoshaphat, Thus saith the Lord unto you, Be not afraid nor dismayed by reason of this great multitude; for the battle is not yours, but God’s; they were not required to fight at all, for the Lord intended to take care of the whole matter. 16To-morrow go ye down against them; behold, they come up by the cliff of Ziz, the ascent from the lowlands near the Dead Sea toward the Wilderness of Judah, and ye shall find them at the end of the brook, before the Wilderness of Jeruel, probably one of the wadies leading down to the Dead Sea. 17Ye shall not need to fight in this battle, they were not only excused from the necessity of fighting, but were forbidden to fight; set yourselves, stand ye still, and see the salvation of the Lord with you, O Judah and Jerusalem, they would be witnesses of the deliverance which the Lord had planned; fear not nor be dismayed; to-morrow go out against them, for the Lord will be with you. 18And Jehoshaphat bowed his head with his face to the ground, in grateful acknowledgment of God’s gracious promise, and all Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem fell before the Lord, worshiping the Lord, in the humility of faith. 19And the Levites of the children of the Kohathites and of the children of the Korhites stood up to praise the Lord God of Israel with a loud voice on high, in an anthem of thanksgiving for the promised deliverance. 20And they rose early in the morning and went forth into the Wilderness of Tekoa; and as they went forth, Jehoshaphat stood and said, in a final appeal to their confidence in the Lord, Hear me, O Judah and ye inhabitants of Jerusalem! Believe in the Lord, your God, placing their trust in Him alone, so shall ye be established; believe His prophets, as they had just heard one of them, so shall ye prosper. 21And when he had consulted with the people, advising, encouraging, strengthening them in their trust in God, he appointed singers unto the Lord, to lead the procession as they went forth to battle, and that should praise the beauty of holiness, in holy attire, in sacred ornaments, as they went out before the army, and to say, Praise the Lord, for His mercy endureth forever, probably Ps. 136. 22And when they began to sing and to praise, in a singular service before battle, the Lord set ambushments against the children of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir which were come against Judah, and they were smitten. It seems that certain divisions of the invading hordes, greedy for booty, set out from the camp in advance of the rest, anxious to get their share first. 23For the children of Ammon and Moab stood up against the inhabitants of Mount Seir, instigated thereto, without doubt, by God, utterly to slay and destroy them; and when they had made an end of the inhabitants of Seir, thus gaining confidence in their plan of annihilation, every one helped to destroy another, so that the armies of both the Moabites and the Ammonites were annihilated. 24And when Judah, the procession of the Jews with the army in the rear, came toward the watch-tower in the wilderness, on an elevation not far from Tekoa, they looked unto the multitude, searching for the enemies which they had come to meet, and, behold, they were dead bodies fallen to the earth and none escaped, not one of the enemies had been able to save his life. 25And when Jehoshaphat and his people came to take away the spoil of them, they found among them in abundance both riches with the dead bodies, costly dress-goods and garments, and precious jewels, which they stripped off for themselves, more than they could carry away, more than they could easily transport to Jerusalem, so that they returned several times to the scene of the battle for the rich booty. And they were three days in gathering of the spoil, it was so much.
Summary of Jehoshaphat’s Reign
26And on the fourth day they assembled themselves in the Valley of Berachah (blessing, praise); for there they blessed the Lord, with songs of praise for His deliverance and for the rich booty; therefore the name of the same place was called the Valley of Berachah unto this day. 27Then they returned, every man of Judah and Jerusalem, the entire host which had gone forth to witness the Lord’s deliverance, and Jehoshaphat in the forefront of them, as their leader, to go again to Jerusalem with joy; for the Lord had made them to rejoice over their enemies, who had really fallen over one another. 28And they came to Jerusalem with psalteries and harps and trumpets, the usual instruments used in religious services, unto the house of the Lord. 29And the fear of God was on all the kingdoms of those countries, on all the heathen nations of the surrounding countries, when they had heard that the Lord fought against the enemies of Israel. 30So the realm of Jehoshaphat was quiet; for his God gave him rest round about. 31And Jehoshaphat reigned over Judah, over the southern kingdom only; he was thirty and five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned twenty and five years in Jerusalem. And his mother’s name was Azubah, the daughter of Shilhi. 32And he walked in the way of Asa, his father, following the path of godliness marked out by him, and departed not from it, being even more consistently faithful to Jehovah than his father, doing that which was right in the sight of the Lord. 33Howbeit, the high places were not taken away, chap. 17, 6; for as yet the people had not prepared their hearts unto the God of their fathers, their adherence to the God of the covenant was still not as full and undivided as it should have been. 34Now, the rest of the acts of Jehoshaphat, first and last, behold, they are written in the Book of Jehu, the son of Hanani, who is mentioned in the Book of the Kings of Israel, 1 Kings 16, 1. 7. 35And after this did Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, join himself with Ahaziah, king of Israel, as he had made a league with his father before him, who did very wickedly. 36And he joined himself with him to make ships to go to Tarshish, most likely Tartessus in Spain, after Ahaziah had overcome the reluctance of Jehoshaphat, 1 Kings 22, 49; and they made the ships in Ezion-gaber, the harbor at the head of the Elanitic Gulf. 37Then Eliezer, the son of Dodavah of Mareshah, prophesied against Jehoshaphat, saying, Because thou hast joined thyself with Ahaziah, the Lord hath broken thy works. And the ships were broken, wrecked before they left the harbor, that they were not able to go to Tarshish. God has ways and means to keep men from yielding too much to pride and arrogance and thus losing their trust in Him.