§ 3. Jehoshaphat
We must now go back to the history of Jehoshaphat, Ahab’s contemporary in the kingdom of Judah, the successor of Asa,—to those events which occurred during the reign of Ahab, but were not interwoven with the history of Israel, and have therefore not yet been mentioned. While the author of the books of the Kings, 1:22, only gives a few brief notices, the author of Chronicles, 2:17 ff., draws from the common source at greater length. Jehoshaphat zealously strives to walk in the way of the Lord. For this reason the kingdom of Judah was flourishing and powerful at the same time when the kingdom of Israel sank down completely. The love of his subjects was so great, that by rich voluntary contributions, in addition to the ordinary taxes, they placed him in a position to pay those debts which had probably been incurred by his father in his wars. Jehoshaphat’s zeal increased when he found that the Lord blessed all his undertakings. The dwellers in the country had succeeded in concealing some idolatrous altars and groves from the search made by Asa, or in restoring them after they had been overthrown. Jehoshaphat destroyed this last residue of idolatry. But he also did what was still more advantageous: he sent Levites through the whole land, with authority to instruct the people in the law, and to reform everything according to the direction of the law. It was this which gave the first foundation for the visitation of the churches. In order to give greater authority to these spiritual members, he appointed them to several of the highest state offices. The commission always carried with them the book of the law, as the rule by which the visitation was held and reform undertaken. One result of the flourishing state of the kingdom is to be found in the circumstance that the Philistines, who had been made tributary by David, but had neglected the payment of the tribute under the former weak governments, now voluntarily returned to their allegiance. Some Arabian nationalities also, who had probably been subdued by David, and had continued to pay tribute to Solomon, comp. 1 Kings 10:15, sent presents in order to propitiate the powerful king. Jehoshaphat tried to strengthen his military power by organizing a kind of militia, to which all belonged who were able to bear arms, in addition to the standing army which occupied the fortresses. Yet Jehoshaphat was not free from error. One of these was the close connection into which he entered with King Ahab. He saw how injurious the former enmity between Judah and Israel had been to both kingdoms, and this knowledge led him to the other extreme. He sought to consolidate the union by an alliance of Athaliah, the daughter of Ahab and Jezebel, with his son Jehoram. In spite of the warning of Micaiah, he accompanied Ahab in his campaign against the Syrians. The Lord had patience with his weakness, and allowed him to escape with his life, but at the same time administered a sharp rebuke on his return to Jerusalem, through the prophet Jehu. This was in every respect deserved. Jehoshaphat acted wisely in striving to put an end to the war with Israel, but he was greatly to blame for entering into close alliance and friendship with an enemy of God, and being on familiar terms with him; for giving his son a wife who had had so bad an example in her parents, and who, as the result showed, was fully worthy of them; and for joining himself with the ungodly Ahab in common undertakings, although he ought to have known that they must necessarily end in failure. He showed that at times a false wisdom outweighed higher considerations. Yet the way in which he accepted the censure proved that he had erred only from weakness. He redoubled his zeal for the spread of the true fear of God, and for the establishment of a settled administration of justice, which seems to have been very inferior in earlier times. He represented to the judges the loftiness of their calling, since they were destined under Israel to administer justice as the instruments of God. The way in which he did this testifies to the depth and force of his spiritual life, and shows that he formed a true estimate of his own position in its distinction from that of the heathen kings. He set up a supreme court of judicature at Jerusalem, half composed of civil and half of spiritual members, whose business it was to administer justice to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to receive appeals from the inferior tribunals throughout the whole land. Formerly, it seems, the final appeal had been to the king in person. Here also he had regard to the highest aim of the theocratic administration of justice. The judges were to instruct the parties respecting right and wrong from the word of God, and by this means to prevent the crime which led to sentence of punishment. This court of justice had a spiritual president for the settlement of spiritual affairs, and a temporal one for temporal affairs. A great danger which soon afterwards threatened the kingdom of Judah was only intended to strengthen the nation and king in their pious disposition, by the glorious deliverance vouchsafed. Jehoshaphat received news of the approach of a large hostile army, which had already occupied Engedi on the western shore of the Dead Sea. In 2 Chronicles 20:1, they are characterized as the Moabites, Ammonites, and מהעמונים. This can only mean “nations living at a distance from the Ammonites,” beyond them. Besides the Ammonites and Moabites, who are expressly named in Psalms 83 as the instigators, there were great swarms of the inhabitants of Western Arabia in the army, whom the author does not designate more exactly, because they had no common nomen proprium. In 2 Chronicles 20:2 they are spoken of as a great multitude from beyond the sea on this side Syria, i.e. from the district east of the country which is bounded on the north by Syria, on the south by the Dead Sea, and therefore from Western Arabia, whose hordes invariably made Palestine the object of their predatory incursions. This therefore exactly corresponds to the expression, beyond the Ammonites. In all probability the matter stands thus. Instigated by the Moabites and Ammonites, a movement arose among the tribes of the wilderness similar to that at the time of the migration of the nations. They wished to exchange their waste dwelling with the fruitful Palestine. They attempted what they afterwards finally accomplished in the middle ages, while the Arabs of the wilderness continued to overrun Palestinian Syria, till at last they had dislodged almost all the older inhabitants. For it is evident that the reference here is not merely to passing strife and robbery, from the fact that in 2 Chronicles 20:11 Jehoshaphat expressly says, “The enemy come to cast us out of the possession which Thou hast given us to inherit.” According to Psalms 83:5, the enemy intended nothing less than to do to Israel what Israel had formerly done to the Canaanites. Moreover, the immense booty which the Israelites made shows that the enemy had gone out with bag and baggage. The sons of the wilderness now turned to the country of the Ammonites, by whom they had been stirred up. In them, as well as in a portion of the Edomites, they found willing allies. Respecting their further march Robinson observes, part ii. p. 446: “Without doubt they travelled south of the Dead Sea to Engedi, by the same route, as it appears, which is now taken by the Arabs in their predatory excursions along the shore as far as Ain Idy, then up the pass, and so northwards to below Thekoa.” “The way,” he says, p. 485, “which we took to-day is the great Arabian street through the wilderness, the Dead Sea, by which the Arabs of the south-west, and those who come round from the east by the southern end of the sea, are able to penetrate far north without the tribes or villages which lie farther west knowing anything of their movements.” The consideration that in this way alone they could get rid of their troublesome guests without injury to themselves, must in itself have been a strong inducement to the Edomites to join the movement; but how much more the hope of enriching themselves by the overthrow of their hereditary enemy, for whom they could have been no match by themselves, and the prospect of being safe from them in the future, and receiving a portion of their land! Probably the object of the enemy in going so far south, instead of entering by the pass on the Jordan, as the Israelites had done, was to conceal the aim of their expedition. This explains why Jehoshaphat heard nothing of it until the enemy had already occupied Engedi. Josephus thinks that they passed through the Dead Sea at Engedi, for there are places which can be waded through, so that even now the Arabs wade through with their camels. But it is more probable that the enemy travelled as far as the southern extremity of the sea, then suddenly turned and entered Palestine from the south-east; for the sea is only wadeable in the south, and although this ford very much shortens the way from the east to Judea, it is but little used, since the march through the brine is very difficult for naked feet. But if wading through the sea present difficulties even to individuals, it is the less probable that the heavily laden army of the enemy should have purchased the small shortening of the march at such a price. Moreover, we learn from what follows that some of the Edomites had joined the enemy, which seems to presuppose that they had touched their land also. Jehoshaphat was indeed in great dismay at the beginning, but he sought help where it was to be found. He appointed a fast-day, that by true repentance the nation might remove the only cause which could deprive them of divine assistance. He then besought the help of the Lord in a solemn public prayer, and received the promise of it through Jahaziel, of the sons of Asaph, probably the author of the eighty-third psalm, in which the help of the Lord is entreated in that danger. Firmly trusting in the promise, he marched at the head of his people towards Tekoa, a city to the south-east of Jerusalem, where the wilderness of Judah begins, through which the enemy must march against Jerusalem. Jehoshaphat’s faith was so strong, that he made the Levites go before the army in their sacred garments, singing psalms of praise and thanksgiving, placing equal value on the help which was promised and on that which had already been vouchsafed. The enemy were swept away by bloody discord, which arose among them before the eyes of the Israelites without any intervention on their part. This very concise narrative has recently been quite misinterpreted by Ewald and Bertheau (Com. on Chron.), who make the מארבים in 2 Chronicles 20:22 a kind of evil spirits sent forth by God against the enemy. The following is the explanation: Only a part of the Idumeans had joined the enemy, the rest thinking it more advisable to remain true to the king of Judah, to whom they were tributary,—the revolt of the Idumeans under Solomon had not quite destroyed their relation of dependence,—and when opportunity offered, to attack the enemy, whose spoil promised greater satisfaction to their rapacity, and by whom they probably feared to be attacked even in their dwellings after they would be in possession of Palestine. The Idumeans might have been joined also by rapacious swarms of tribes from Waste and Stony Arabia. They concealed themselves in the mountains which surrounded the Dead Sea. The sound of the singing told them of the approach of the Israelites, and gave them the signal of attack. But since the Judeans did not at once fall upon the enemy, as they had expected, it would have been easy for the latter to slay the troops who were so few in comparison with themselves. But now the enemy turned their arms against each other. Because the assailants were mainly composed of Idumeans, the rest began to suspect that the Idumeans associated with themselves had only entered into the alliance for purposes of treachery, and had an understanding with their opponents. They therefore fell upon them and slew them. And suspicion soon extended still further. Each nation believed that the others had joined it merely for treachery sake and only awaited the attack of the Judeans to carry out its plan. Thus a general slaughter ensued, and those who remained took to flight, leaving all their possessions, because the attack of Judah was momentarily expected. When the Judeans, therefore, reached an elevation commanding a view of the wilderness, they saw the remarkable spectacle of a camp destitute of enemies, and covered with corpses and rich spoil. After having taken possession of the latter, they held a great thanksgiving feast, first in the neighbourhood of the battle-field, and then at Jerusalem. On the former solemn occasion Psalms 47 was sung; on the latter, Psalms 48. The place where the first thanksgiving was held, the valley of blessing or praise, has been discovered by recent travellers, Robinson and others, in a wadi and a place called Bereikut, in the vicinity of the ancient Tekoa; comp. Ritter, part xv. p. 635. Little more is told of the subsequent life of Jehoshaphat, to which we pass on at once by way of sketch, although the narrative extends into the following section. By the event last narrated, the Idumeans were again completely subject to Jehoshaphat. In 1 Kings 22:47, we read that they had no independent king, but only a deputy. This observation, as well as the whole subsequent narrative, presupposes an event such as that which has been related, an event by which the Idumeans were again placed in the same relation to the kingdom of Judah into which they had been brought by David. Hence the important harbour Ezion-geber on the Ælanitic gulf of the Red Sea, the present Assium, which had formerly been at the command of Solomon, was now again in the hands of Jehoshaphat; comp. Burckhardt, part ii. p. 831. He would not leave this advantage unused, and entered into an agreement with Ahaziah, king of Israel, to build a merchant fleet. One part of the fleet was to leave the Ælanitic Gulf for Ophir, another was destined for Tartessus. The latter was not intended to circumnavigate Africa, as Michaelis assumes, but was to be transported across the small neck of land which separates the Heroopolitan arm of the Arabian Gulf from the Mediterranean Sea, the isthmus of Suez,—an attempt which was afterwards made with more numerous and doubtless with larger ships; comp. the compilations in Vitringa on Isaiah 1, p. 84, Keil on the Hiram-Solomonic voyage to Ophir and Tarshish, Dorpat, 1834, p. 8 ff. But immediately on leaving the harbour the fleet was destroyed by a storm. The harbour of Ezion-geber is full of rocks, and was afterwards quite abandoned on account of the frequent shipwrecks. Ahaziah tried to persuade Jehoshaphat to build a new fleet. But Jehoshaphat, warned by a prophet, would not, by union with an ungodly king, expose himself a second time to the misfortune which must inevitably befall such undertakings, and gave up his design of renewing the Solomonic trade. The short notices of the commercial enterprises of Jehoshaphat in 1 Kings 22:48, and 2 Chronicles 20:36 ff., contain many difficulties, on which comp. Keil, p. 21 ff., whose solution, however, seems to be incorrect. Notwithstanding all his zeal, Jehoshaphat was unable to do away with the practice of worshipping the true God on the heights, owing to the stubbornness of the people, which clothed itself in a pious garment, but all traces of idolatrous worship were happily destroyed. He died, after having reigned for twenty-five years, including the years of the co-regency of his son Jehoram. He was guilty of grievous error in taking Athaliah the daughter of Ahab as a wife for his son. By this means he helped towards the destruction of that which it had been the highest aim of his life to build up.
