The Expositor's Bible: The Books of ChroniclesBennett, W. H. (William Henry)
Religion
The Expositor's Bible: The Books of Chronicles
Bennett, W. H. (William Henry)
Bible. Chronicles -- Commentaries
And so Judah, a pilgrim caravan rather than an army, went on to its
Divinely appointed tryst with its enemies, and at its head the Levitical
choir sang the Temple hymns. It was not a campaign, but a sacred function,
on a much larger scale a procession such as may be seen winding its way,
with chants and incense, banners, images, and crucifixes, through the
streets of Catholic cities.
Meanwhile Jehovah was preparing a spectacle to gladden the eyes of His
people and reward their implicit faith and exact obedience; He was working
for those who were waiting for Him. Though Judah was still far from its
enemies, yet, like the trumpet at Jericho, the strain of praise and
thanksgiving was the signal for the Divine intervention: “When they began
to sing and praise, Jehovah set liers in wait against the children of
Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir.” Who were these liers in wait? They could not
be men of Judah: _they_ were not to fight, but to be passive spectators of
their own deliverance. Did the allies set an ambush for Judah, and was it
thus that they were afterwards led to mistake their own people for
enemies? Or does the chronicler intend us to understand that these “liers
in wait” were spirits; that the allied invaders were tricked and
bewildered like the shipwrecked sailors in the _Tempest_; or that when
they came to the wilderness of Jeruel there fell upon them a spirit of
mutual distrust, jealousy, and hatred, that had, as it were, been waiting
for them there? But, from whatever cause, a quarrel broke out amongst
them; and they were smitten. When Ammonite, Moabite, and Edomite met,
there were many private and public feuds waiting their opportunity; and
such confederates were as ready to quarrel among themselves as a group of
Highland clans engaged in a Lowland foray. “Ammon and Moab stood up
against the inhabitants of Mount Seir utterly to slay and destroy them.”
But even Ammon and Moab soon dissolved their alliance; and at last, partly
maddened by panic, partly intoxicated by a wild thirst for blood, a very
Berserker frenzy, all ties of friendship and kindred were forgotten, and
every man’s hand was against his brother. “When they had made an end of
the inhabitants of Seir, every one helped to destroy another.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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