Bible Commentaries

2 Chronicles 14:3. Altars of the strange… The author of this book, like Moses, Deuteronomy 32:16, would not pollute his text with the unhallowed name of idols.

2 Chronicles 14:8. Out of Benjamin—two hundred and fourscore thousand. Josephus following the Septuagint says, “Two hundred and fifty thousand.” The mode of numbering in Hebrew subjected the scribes to make frequent mistakes, which in very many places embarrass the sacred text.

REFLECTIONS.

Of Zerah’s great army, and of Asa’s victory over it, we had no account in the book of kings; nor are we told in what year of his reign he was invaded; but it probably happened in his early and more prosperous days. Whether this Zerah was an Ethiopian king who had overrun Egypt, and advanced with a million of men into Palestine, or whether he was an Arabian prince, which does not seem improbable, is wholly uncertain. But this is evident, that he met with shame instead of glory, and ruin instead of booty. From the immense slaughter of the ten tribes in the last reign, and the like slaughter of the heathen in this, we clearly perceive that while Jerusalem remained in close covenant with God, all that meddled with it, meddled to their own hurt; and their unavailing malice tended only to make the Lord’s anointed rich and powerful in the earth, and more confident of his protection. To the christian, this should be a most encouraging consideration to abide in Christ.