Bible Commentaries

A HAPPY REIGN

‘The Lord was with Jehoshaphat.’

2 Chronicles 17:3

It is instructive to notice what is said about David’s ways—it was his first ways that Jehoshaphat took for his pattern. We should always be careful to adopt only the good things in others.

I. ‘The Lord stablished the kingdom in his hand.’ God loves to find a man He can trust, a man into whose hand He can put holy interests and know that they will be sacredly cherished.—The Lord established the kingdom in the hands of Jehoshaphat, because Jehoshaphat was true to his trust. In our Lord’s parable of The Talents we are taught that those who prove faithful to their trust receive other things also in trust, while those who are unfaithful even in small things God will not intrust with larger things.

II. ‘His heart was lifted up in the ways of the Lord.’ There is a bad lifting up and a good lifting up. Some people are made vain and self-conceited by prosperity.—The temptation for young people, when first called upon to do any work, and accomplishing it with some measure of success, is to become proud, and to show their vanity by talking too much about themselves and what they have done. Such lifting up not only dishonours God but hurts the person. But Jehoshaphat was lifted up in the ways of the Lord. Too often, as money comes in and prosperity increases, people get so absorbed in these new gifts of God that the Giver Himself fades out of their vision. If only we see the hand of God in every new mercy and goodness that comes to us, our heart will be lifted up in the ways of the Lord.

III. ‘The fear of the Lord fell upon all the kingdoms … so that they made no war against Jehoshaphat.’ The Lord is able to control even the diplomacy and the politics of nations.—When these kingdoms saw the blessing which Jehoshaphat was enjoying in his country, they felt an awe in their hearts—the fear of the Lord fell upon them—and they refrained from making war. God will always find some way to defend His own people in the midst of dangers.