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2 Chronicles 18:1-27 Bible in Basic English (BBE)

1 Now Jehoshaphat had great wealth and honour, and his son was married to Ahab's daughter.

2 And after some years he went down to Samaria to see Ahab. And Ahab made a feast for him and the people who were with him, putting to death great numbers of sheep and oxen; and he got Jehoshaphat to go with him to Ramoth-gilead.

3 For Ahab, king of Israel, said to Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, Will you go with me to Ramoth-gilead? And he said, I am as you are, and my people as your people; we will be with you in the war.

4 Then Jehoshaphat said to the king of Israel, Let us now get directions from the Lord.

5 So the king of Israel got together all the prophets, four hundred men, and said to them, Am I to go to Ramoth-gilead to make war or not? And they said, Go up: for God will give it into the hands of the king.

6 But Jehoshaphat said, Is there no other prophet of the Lord here from whom we may get directions?

7 And the king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, There is still one man by whom we may get directions from the Lord, but I have no love for him, because he has never been a prophet of good to me, but only of evil: he is Micaiah, the son of Imla. And Jehoshaphat said, Let not the king say so.

8 Then the king of Israel sent for one of his unsexed servants and said, Go quickly and come back with Micaiah, the son of Imla.

9 Now the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, were seated on their seats of authority, dressed in their robes, by the doorway into Samaria; and all the prophets were acting as prophets before them.

10 And Zedekiah, the son of Chenaanah, made himself iron horns and said, The Lord says, Pushing back the Aramaeans with these, you will put an end to them completely.

11 And all the prophets said the same thing, saying, Go up to Ramoth-gilead, and it will go well for you, for the Lord will give it into the hands of the king.

12 Now the servant who had gone to get Micaiah said to him, See now, all the prophets with one voice are saying good things to the king; so let your words be like theirs, and say good things.

13 And Micaiah said, By the living Lord, whatever the Lord says to me I will say.

14 When he came to the king, the king said to him, Micaiah, are we to go to Ramoth-gilead to make war or not? And he said, Go up, and it will go well for you; and they will be given up into your hands.

15 And the king said to him, Have I not, again and again, put you on your oath to say nothing to me but what is true in the name of the Lord?

16 Then he said, I saw all Israel wandering on the mountains like sheep without a keeper; and the Lord said, These have no master: let them go back, every man to his house in peace.

17 And the king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, Did I not say that he would not be a prophet of good to me, but of evil?

18 Then he said, Give ear now to the word of the Lord: I saw the Lord seated on his seat of power, and all the army of heaven in their places, at his right hand and at his left.

19 And the Lord said, How may Ahab, king of Israel, be tricked into going up to Ramoth-gilead to his death? And one said one thing and one another.

20 Then a spirit came forward and took his place before the Lord and said, I will get him to do it by a trick. And the Lord said to him, How?

21 And he said, I will go out and be a spirit of deceit in the mouth of all his prophets. And the Lord said, Your trick will have its effect on him: go out and do so.

22 And now, see, the Lord has put a spirit of deceit in the mouth of these prophets of yours; and the Lord has said evil against you.

23 Then Zedekiah, the son of Chenaanah, came near and gave Micaiah a blow on the side of his face, saying, Where is the spirit of the Lord whose word is in you?

24 And Micaiah said, Truly, you will see on that day when you go into an inner room to keep yourself safe.

25 And the king of Israel said, Take Micaiah and send him back to Amon, the ruler of the town, and to Joash, the king's son;

26 And say, By the king's order this man is to be put in prison, and given prison food till I come back in peace.

27 And Micaiah said, If you come back at all in peace, the Lord has not sent his word by me.

Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Keil & Delitzsch Commentary » Commentary on 2 Chronicles 18

Commentary on 2 Chronicles 18 Keil & Delitzsch Commentary


Verse 1

Jehoshaphat's marriage alliance with Ahab, and his campaign with Ahab against the Syrians at Ramoth in Gilead . - 2 Chronicles 18:1. Jehoshaphat came into connection by marriage with Ahab through his son Joram taking Athaliah, a daughter of Ahab, to wife (2 Chronicles 21:6); an event which did not take place on the visit made by Jehoshaphat to Ahab in his palace at Samaria, and recorded in 2 Chronicles 18:2, but which had preceded that by about nine years. That visit falls in the beginning of the year in which Ahab was mortally wounded at Ramoth, and died, i.e., the seventeenth year of Jehoshaphat's reign. But at that time Ahaziah, the son of Joram and Athaliah, was already from eight to nine years old, since thirteen years later he became king at the age of twenty-two; 2 Kings 8:26, cf. with the chronol. table to 1 Kings 12. The marriage connection is mentioned in order to account for Jehoshaphat's visit to Samaria (2 Chronicles 18:2), and his alliance with Ahab in the war against the Syrians; but it is also introduced by a reference to Jehoshaphat's riches and his royal splendour, repeated from 2 Chronicles 17:5. In the opinion of many commentators, this is stated to account for Ahab's willingness to connect his family by marriage with that of Jehoshaphat. This opinion might be tenable were it Ahab's entering upon a marriage connection with Jehoshaphat which is spoken of; but for Jehoshaphat, of whom it is related that he entered into a marriage connection with Ahab, his own great wealth could not be a motive for his action in that matter. If we consider, first, that this marriage connection was very hurtful to the kingdom of Judah and the royal house of David, since Athaliah not only introduced the Phoenician idolatry into the kingdom, but also at the death of Ahaziah extirpated all the royal seed of the house of David, only the infant Joash of all the royal children being saved by the princess, a sister of Ahaziah, who was married to the high priest Jehoiada (2 Chronicles 22:10-12); and, second, that Jehoshaphat was sharply censured by the prophet for his alliance with the criminal Ahab (2 Chronicles 19:2.), and had, moreover, all but forfeited his life in the war (2 Chronicles 18:34.), - we see that the author of the Chronicle can only have regarded the marriage connection between Jehoshaphat and Ahab as a mistake. By introducing this account of it by a second reference to Jehoshaphat's riches and power, he must therefore have intended to hint that Jehoshaphat had no need to enter into this relationship with the idolatrous house of Ahab, but had acted very inconsiderately in doing so. Schmidt has correctly stated the contents of the verse thus: Josaphatus cetera dives et gloriosus infelicem adfinitatem cum Achabo, rege Israelis, contrahit . With which side the proposals for thus connecting the two royal houses originated we are not anywhere informed. Even if the conjecture of Ramb., that Ahab proposed it to Jehoshaphat, be not well founded, yet so much is beyond doubt, namely, that Ahab not only desired the alliance, but also promoted it by every means in his power, since it must have been of great importance to him to gain in Jehoshaphat a strong ally against the hostile pressure of the Syrians. Jehoshaphat probably entered upon the alliance bono animo et spe firmandae inter duo regna pacis (Ramb.), without much thought of the dangers which a connection of this sort with the idolatrous Ahab and with Jezebel might bring upon his kingdom.


Verses 2-34

The campaign undertaken along with Ahab against the Syrians at Ramoth in Gilead, with its origin, course, and results for Ahab, is narrated in 1 Kings (in the history of Ahab) in agreement with our narrative, only the introduction to the war being different here. In 1 Kings 22:1-3 it is remarked, in connection with the preceding wars of Ahab with the Syrians, that after there had been no war for three years between Aram and Israel, in the third year Jehoshaphat king of Judah came up to the king of Israel; and the latter, when he and his servants had determined to snatch away from the Syrians the city Ramoth in Gilead, which belonged to Israel, called upon Jehoshaphat to march with him to the war against Ramoth. In the Chronicle the more exact statement, “in the third year,” which is intelligible only in connection with the earlier history of Ahab, is exchanged for the indefinite שׁנים לקץ , “at the end of years;” and mention is made of the festal entertainment which Ahab bestowed upon his guest and his train ( עמּו אשׁר העם ), to show the pains which Ahab took to induce King Jehoshaphat to take part in the proposed campaign. He killed sheep and oxen for him in abundance, ויסיתהוּ ,ecnadn , and enticed, seduced him to go up with him to Ramoth. הסית , to incite, entice to anything (Judges 1:14), frequently to evil; cf. Deuteronomy 13:7, etc. עלה , to advance upon a land or a city in a warlike sense. The account which follows of the preparations for the campaign by inquiring of prophets, and of the war itself, vv. 4-34, is in almost verbal agreement with 1 Kings 22:5-35. Referring to 1 Kings for the commentary on the substance of the narrative, we will here only group together briefly the divergences. Instead of 400 men who were prophets, 2 Chronicles 18:5, in 1 Kings 22:5 we have about 400 men. It is a statement in round numbers, founded not upon exact enumeration, but upon an approximate estimate. Instead of אהדּל אם ... הנלך , 2 Chronicles 18:5, in Kings, 1 Kings 22:6, we have אהדּל אם ... האלך , both verbs being in the same number; and so too in 2 Chronicles 18:14, where in Kings. 1 Kings 22:15, both verbs stand in the plural, notwithstanding that the answer which follows, והצלח עלה , is addressed to Ahab alone, not to both the kings, while in the Chronicle the answer is given in the plural to both the kings, והצליחוּ עלוּ . in 2 Chronicles 18:7 , “he prophesies me nothing good, but all his days (i.e., so long as he has been a prophet) evil,” the meaning is intensified by the כּל־ימיו , which is not found in 1 Kings 22:8. In 2 Chronicles 18:9, the ויושׁבים , which is introduced before the בּגרן , “and sitting upon the threshing-floor,” is due to difference of style, for it is quite superfluous for the signification. In 2 Chronicles 18:15, the ambiguous words of Micah,' and Jahve will give into the hand of the king” (1 Kings 22:15), are given in a more definite form: “and they (the enemy) shall be given into your hand.” In 2 Chronicles 18:19, in the first כּכה אמר זה , the אמר after the preceding ויּאמר is not only superfluous, but improper, and has probably come into the text by a copyist's error. We should therefore read only בּכה זה , corresponding to the כּכה זה of 1 Kings 22:20 : “Then spake one after this manner, and the other spake after another manner.” In 2 Chronicles 18:23, the indefinite אי־זה of 1 Kings 22:24, is elucidated by הדּרך זה אי , “is that the manner” (cf. 1 Kings 13:12; 2 Kings 3:8)., and the verb . עבר follows without the relative pronoun, as in the passages cited. In 2 Chronicles 18:30, only הרכב שׂרי of the king are mentioned, without any statement of the number, which is given in 1 Kings 22:31, with a backward reference to the former war (1 Kings 20:24). In 2 Chronicles 18:31, after the words, “and Jehoshaphat cried out,” the higher cause of Jehoshaphat's rescue is pointed out in the words, “and Jahve helped him, and God drove them from him,” which are not found in 1 Kings 22:32; but by this religious reflection the actual course of the event is in no way altered. Bertheau's remark, therefore, that “the words disturb the clear connection of the events,” is quite unwarrantable. Finally, in 2 Chronicles 18:34, מעמיד היה , he was holding his position, i.e., he held himself standing upright, the Hiph. is more expressive than the Hoph. מעמד (1 Kings 22:35), since it expresses more definitely the fact that he held himself upright by his own strength. With Ahab's death, which took place in the evening at the time of the going down of the sun, the author of the Chronicle concludes his account of this war, and proceeds in 2 Chronicles 19:1-11 to narrate the further course of Jehoshaphat's reign. In 1 Kings 22:36-39, the return of the defeated army, and the details as to Ahab's death and burial, are recorded; but these did not fit into the plan of the Chronicle.