The Expositor's Bible: The First Book of KingsFarrar, F. W. (Frederic William)
Religion
The Expositor's Bible: The First Book of Kings
Farrar, F. W. (Frederic William)
Bible. Kings, 1st -- Commentaries
We see enough in the Book of Kings to show the greatness and goodness
of Jehoshaphat, and later on we shall hear details of his military
expeditions.[566] The chronicler, glorifying him still more, says that
he sent princes and Levites and priests to teach the Book of the Law
throughout all the cities of Judah; that he received large presents
and tribute from neighbouring peoples; that he built castles and stone
cities; and that he had a stupendous army of 160,000 troops under four
great generals. He also narrates that when an immense host of Moabites,
Ammonites, and Meunim came against him to Hazezon-Tamar or Engedi, he
took his stand before the people in the Temple in front of the new
court and prayed. Thereupon the Spirit of the Lord came upon "Jahaziel
the son of Zechariah, the son of Benaiah, the son of Jeiel, the son of
Mattaniah the Levite, of the sons of Asaph," who told them that the
next day they should go against the invader, but that they need not
strike a blow. The battle was God's, not theirs. All they had to do was
to stand still and see the salvation of Jehovah. On hearing this the
king and all his people prostrated themselves, and the Levites stood
up to praise God. Next morning Jehoshaphat told his people to believe
God and His prophets and they should prosper, and bade them chant the
verse, "Give thanks unto the Lord, for His mercy endureth for ever,"
which now forms the refrain of Psalm cxxxvi.[567] On this Jehovah
"set liers in wait against the children of Ammon, Moab, and Mount
Seir." Intestine struggles arose among the invaders. The inhabitants
of Mount Seir were first destroyed, and the rest then turned their
swords against each other until they were all "dead bodies fallen to
the earth." The soldiers of Jehoshaphat despoiled these corpses for
three days, and on the fourth assembled themselves in the valley of
Beracah ("Blessing"), which received its name from their tumultuous
rejoicings.[568] After this they returned to Jerusalem with psalteries
and harps and trumpets, and God gave Jehoshaphat rest from all his
enemies round about. Of all this the historian of the Kings tells us
nothing. Jehoshaphat died full of years and honours, leaving seven
sons, of whom the eldest was Jehoram.[569] His reign marks a decisive
triumph of the prophetic party. The prophets not only felt a fiercely
just abhorrence of the abominations of Canaanite idolatry, but wished
to establish a theocracy to the exclusion on the one hand of all local
and symbolic worship, and on the other of all reliance on worldly
policy. Up to this time, as Dean Stanley says in his usual strikingly
picturesque manner, "if there was a 'holy city,' there was also an
'unholy city' within the walls of Sion. It was like a seething caldron
of blood and froth 'whose scum is therein and whose scum has not gone
out of it.' The Temple was hemmed in by dark idolatries on every
side. Mount Olivet was covered with heathen sanctuaries, monumental
stones, and pillars of Baal.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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