The section(338) to which the chronicler attaches so much importance describes a striking episode in the chronic warfare between Judah and Israel. Here Israel is used, as in the older history, to mean the northern kingdom, and does not denote the spiritual Israel—_i.e._, Judah—as in the previous chapter. This perplexing variation in the use of the term “Israel” shows how far Chronicles has departed from the religious ideas of the book of Kings, and reminds us that the chronicler has only partially and imperfectly assimilated his older material. Abijah and Jeroboam had each gathered an immense army, but the army of Israel was twice as large as that of Judah: Jeroboam had eight hundred thousand to Abijah’s four hundred thousand. Jeroboam advanced, confident in his overwhelming superiority and happy in the belief that Providence sides with the strongest battalions. Abijah, however, was nothing dismayed by the odds against him; his confidence was in Jehovah. The two armies met in the neighbourhood of Mount Zemaraim, upon which Abijah fixed his camp. Mount Zemaraim was in the hill-country of Ephraim, but its position cannot be determined with certainty; it was probably near the border of the two kingdoms. Possibly it was the site of the Benjamite city of the same name mentioned in the book of Joshua in close connection with Bethel.(339) If so, we should look for it in the neighbourhood of Bethel, a position which would suit the few indications of place given by the narrative. Before the battle, Abijah made an effort to induce his enemies to depart in peace. From the vantage-ground of his mountain camp he addressed Jeroboam and his army as Jotham had addressed the men of Shechem from Mount Gerizim.(340) Abijah reminded the rebels—for as such he regarded them—that Jehovah, the God of Israel, had given the kingdom over Israel to David for ever, even to him and to his sons, by a covenant of salt, by a charter as solemn and unalterable as that by which the heave-offerings had been given to the sons of Aaron.(341) The obligation of an Arab host to the guest who had sat at meat with him and eaten of his salt was not more binding than the Divine decree which had given the throne of Israel to the house of David. And yet Jeroboam the son of Nebat had dared to infringe the sacred rights of the elect dynasty. He, the slave of Solomon, had risen up and rebelled against his master. The indignant prince of the house of David not unnaturally forgets that the disruption was Jehovah’s own work, and that Jeroboam rose up against his master, not at the instigation of Satan, but by the command of the prophet Ahijah.(342) The advocates of sacred causes even in inspired moments are apt to be one-sided in their statements of fact.