56. Judah from B.C. 975 to 889

Judah from B.C. 975 to 889

Chapter II

Timeline View:

1. In Judah, the conduct of Rehoboam was without reproach during the three first years of his reign. After that he, and his subjects with him, fell into the same gross idolatry and abominable practices, which had proved the ruin of the Canaanites. To punish them for this apostasy, God allowed an invasion of the land by Shishak, king of Egypt, (b.c. 970), who took some of the fortified towns, entered Jerusalem, and carried off the treasures of the temple and the palace. As this produced repentance, the remainder of the reign was prosperous. Rehoboam reigned seventeen years.

2. Abijah, the son of Rehoboam by a grand-daughter of Absalom, succeeded his father. He was an active and martial prince, and he resolved to endeavour, by force of arms, to bring back the ten tribes to obedience. He raised a large army for that service; and was met by Jeroboam with an army twice as large. Before the battle, Abijah harangued the opposing force from Mount Zemaraim. He asserted the indefeasible right of the house of David to reign over all the tribes; he alleged that, in the revolt, undue advantage had been taken of Rehoboam’s inexperience; and he gathered confidence of success from the adherence of Judah to the theocratical institutions, which Israel had so heinously forsaken. This reliance gained him the victory. Jeroboam lost two-thirds of his immense army, and never recovered the strength he then lost. Abijah was thus enabled to advance his frontier, by taking from Israel several border towns, among which we find the name of Bethel, where was one of the golden calves. We are not, however, told that he destroyed that idol; and it would appear that the town itself was ultimately recovered by Israel; perhaps on the death of Abijah, which soon followed, after a short reign of three years.

3. Asa, who then ascended the throne, was a prince of great piety and virtue. He ruled quietly for ten years, which he employed in the reformation of the abuses of former reigns. He destroyed all idols and their altars, and employed all the means in his power to restore the pure worship of God, and re-establish the principles of the theocratical government. His own adhesion to these principles, which required implicit confidence in the Divine King, was severely tried by an invasion of the country by a vast host of the Cushites (called Ethiopians, under Zerah their king (b.c. 941). Strong in the confidence that it was equally in the Lord’s power to give the victory with few as with many, the pious Asa advanced with a comparatively small force, to his southern frontier, to meet this immense host. In that confidence, the Cushites were totally overthrown before him, and the victory gave him the abundant spoil and numerous cattle of this pastoral horde. This repulsion of a torrent which had threatened to overwhelm all the neighboring states, and which must have been regarded with general apprehension, could not but enhance his credit in the adjoining countries.

4. Five following years of profound peace he employed, under the advice of the prophet Azariah, in pursuing his reformations with a still more vigorous and less sparing hand. Even his own grandmother, the guardian of his youth, was banished from court on account of her idolatries. These reforms put the kingdom in such advantageous contrast with that of Israel, that the well disposed subjects of that kingdom removed in great numbers into Judah. Alarmed at this, Baasha of Israel, took the measures which have been already mentioned to check the communication between the two kingdoms. The conduct of Asa, in hiring the Syrians with the gold of the temple, to make a diversion in his favor, did not become his character, nor evince that confidence in the Great King which he had on more trying occasions exemplified. He also imprisoned the prophet Jehu, the son of Hanani, who reproved him for his conduct on this occasion. His latter years were also stained by several acts of oppression; and when afflicted with a grievous disease in the feet, he manifested more confidence in his physicians, and less in God, than was considered becoming. He died after a reign of forty-one years, and was honored by his subjects with a magnificent funeral; for the Jews, like other Orientals, were in the habit of making known, by funeral testimonials, the estimation in which they held their deceased kings.

5. The excellent father was succeeded by the still more excellent son, Jehoshaphat. The first act of his reign was to remove the high places and the groves, which Asa had left untouched. Then, becoming convinced that the most effectual means of preventing the return of the corruptions which had with so much difficulty been rooted out, was to provide for the suitable instruction of the people, in the third year of his reign, he sent out, through all the cities of Judah, a number of chiefs or “princes,” whose rank and influence secured respect and attention to the priests and Levites who, with them, were to instruct the people in the law of Moses. The king himself made a tour through his kingdom to see that due effect was in this matter given to his intentions.

6. Having made this the first object of his care, Jehoshaphat found leisure to examine and reform the abuses which had crept into various departments of the state, and to develop the civil and military resources of the country. His cares were rewarded by the increasing numbers and prosperity of his people, by their happiness, and by the exemption from war which his manifest preparedness for it secured. All the men fit to bear arms were regularly enrolled, and were found to be no less than 1,160,000—being not materially fewer than the number returned for all the tribes (except Levi and Benjamin) in the time of David. Of these a certain proportion was kept in service, to act as royal guards at Jerusalem, to garrison the fortresses, and to protect the northern frontier from the kings of Israel. The effective order which the king thus established throughout his kingdom procured for him the respect of foreign states, while Edom was retained in its subjection, and the Philistines dared not withhold their tribute.

7. The grand error of Jehoshaphat’s reign was the alliance which he contracted with the idolatrous Ahab, king of Israel, who thought it safer to have the king of Judah for a friend than an enemy, and therefore paid court to him. The alliance was soon cemented by a marriage between Ahab’s daughter Athaliah, and Jehoram the son of Jehoshaphat. In consequence of this connection a friendly intercourse was established between the two kings; and on a visit paid by Jehoshaphat to the court of Ahab he allowed himself to be persuaded to accompany him in an expedition to recover Ramoth-Gilead from the Syrians. In that action Ahab was killed, and Jehoshaphat narrowly escaped with his life to Jerusalem. On his arrival he was severely reproved by the prophet Jehu for so injurious and improper a connection. The king testified his repentance in the best possible way by prosecuting his reformations with renewed vigor. A personal tour through the kingdom evinced the sincerity of his endeavour to bring his subjects into a right state of feeling towards the God of their fathers. In this tour the king discovered many abuses and irregularities in the administration of justice; and he therefore established local courts in every important town, with a right of appeal to the superior courts at Jerusalem. To all these courts competent judges were appointed; and they were dismissed to their duties with a plain and forcible charge from the king.

8. The next undertaking of Jehoshaphat was an attempt to reopen the maritime traffic which Solomon had carried on by way of the Red Sea. But he unfortunately allowed Ahaziah, the king of Israel, to become a partner in the enterprise, in consequence of which the Lord refused to prosper the design, and the ships were destroyed by a storm almost as soon as they had left the port of Ezion-Geber. Ahaziah wished to renew the attempt; but Jehoshaphat .t refused, and appears to have abandoned the project altogether.

9. Very soon after this, Jehoshaphat obtained a very signal deliverance from a formidable and quite unexpected invasion from the south, by a large force composed of Moabites and Ammonites, together with some Arabian tribes whom they had engaged in the enterprise. They came by the way of Edom, and had arrived as far as En-gedi before Jehoshaphat was well aware of their presence. He had no resource but to throw himself unreservedly upon the covenanted protection of the Great King; and this confidence was rewarded by the promise of deliverance. In fact, the Judahites had no occasion to draw a sword; for there arose such a spirit of discord among the invaders, that after the Ammonites and Moabites had quarreled with and destroyed their Arabian auxiliaries, they repeated the same process between themselves; so that the people under Jehoshaphat had nothing to do but collect the spoil which they left. This was so large that it took three days to gather it together; after which they returned with great joy to Jerusalem, and before they entered the city held a solemn thanksgiving in the valley of Shaveh.

10. The king of Judah was probably induced, by his resentment at the invasion of the Moabites, to give his aid to the king of Israel, Jehoram, in the attempt to re-establish over that people the dominion of Israel, from which they had revolted on the death of Ahab. The allies got into a position of imminent danger, and their deliverance was declared to be solely owing to the divine favor towards Jehoshaphat. b.c. 895.

11. Not long after this Jehoshaphat died, having lived sixty years, and reigned twenty-five. He was undoubtedly the greatest of the Hebrew kings since Solomon, and the most faithful since David. b.c. 889.