JEHOSHAPHAT, (FOURTH) KING OF JUDAH - The Reproof and Prophey of - Jehu - Resumption of the

Reformation in Judah - Institution of Judges and of a Supreme Court in Jerusalem - Incursion of the Moabites and their

Confederates - National Fast and the Prayer of the King - Prophecy of Victory - The March to Tekoa - Destruction of

the Enemy - The Valley o f Berakhah - Return to Jerusalem and to the Temple.

(2 Chronicles 19, 20:1 -34)

BEFORE continuing the history of Israel, we turn aside to complete that of Jehoshaphat, king of Judah. It will be

remembered  82 that he had succeeded his father Asa in the fourth year of King Ahab's reign.

At that time Jehoshaphat was thirty-five years old; and as his reign lasted for twenty-five years (1 Kings 22:42; 2

Chronicles 20:31), it follows that he died at the age of sixty, which, when we consider the annals of the royal houses of

Judah and Israel, must be considered a protracted life. A few other particulars are given us connected with

Jehoshaphat's accession. Thus we learn that his mother's name was Azubhah,83 the daughter of Shilchi. Again, we

gather how energetically he took in hand at the beginning of his reign the religious reformation commenced by his

father Asa.84

But the want of true sympathy on the part of his subjects prevented the full success of his measures. The idol-groves

and heights, dedicated to Baal and Astarte, were indeed destroyed (2 Chronicles 17:6), but it was found impossible to

abolish the corrupt worship of Jehovah celebrated on "the high places" (1 Kings 22:43; 2 Chronicles 20:33). Beyond

these brief notices, the narrative in the Book of Kings only indicates that at that period there was no king in Edom, but

that the country was ruled by a governor. This is manifestly stated in order to explain how the maritime expedition to

Ophir could have been undertaken without provoking resistance on th e part of Edom, in whose territory Ezion-Geber

was situate. But the sacred text affords no information to account for this state of matters in Edom. 85

The scanty details about the reign of Jehoshaphat furnished in the Book of Kings - which deals mainly with the history

of the northern kingdom - are supplemented in the Book of Chronicles. The compilers of the latter had evidently before

them, amongst other sources of information, a prophetic history of that reign: "The Chronicles [or, the words] of Jehu,

the son of Hanani, which are inserted in the book of the Kings of Israel"  86 (2 Chronicles 20:34, comp. 1 Kings 22:45).

It was this Jehu, who, on the return of Jehoshaphat from the expedition against Ramoth-Gilead, announced to the king

the Divine displeasure. Better than any other would he be acquainted with the spiritual declension in the northern

kingdom, since it was he who had been sent to pronounce on Baasha, king of Israel, the judgment that should overtake

him and his people for their apostasy (1 Kin gs 16:1, etc.). And who so fit to speak fearlessly to Jehoshaphat as the son

of him who had formerly suffered imprisonment at the hands of Asa, the father of Jehoshaphat, for faithfully delivering

his commission from God (2 Chronicles 16:7-10)? The message which he now brought was intended to point out the

incongruity of Jehoshaphat's alliance with Ahab.

The punishment which the prophet announced as its sequence, came when the king experienced the effects of that other

unholy alliance, in which Ammon and Moab combined against Judah (2 Chronicles 20). Again had Jehoshaphat to

learn in the destruction of his fleet at Ezion-Geber (2 Chronicles 20:37) that undertakings, however well-planned and

apparently unattended by outward danger, can only end in disappoin tment and failure, when they who are the children

of God combine with those who walk in the ways of sin.

But in Jehoshaphat the warning of the prophet wrought that godly repentance which has not to be repented of Jehu had

declared how God, in His condescension, acknowledged that "nevertheless there are good things found in thee" - and

this, not merely as regarded his public acts in the abolition of open idolatry in his country, but also that personal piety

which showed itself in preparing his own heart to seek after God. And now the sense of his late inconsistency led him

all the more earnestly to show that he did not regard the religious condition of his late allies as a light matter. Once

again he took in hand the religious reformation begun at the comme ncement of his reign. (2 Chronicles 17:7-10)  87