Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of 2 Chronicles 13:17
And Abijah and his people slew them with a great slaughter: so there fell down slain of Israel five hundred thousand chosen men.
17. five hundred thousand ] Contrast this statement with 2Ch 28:6, a hundred and twenty thousand in one day. The absence of the phrase in one day from the present passage is significant. It seems probable, when we consider the small interest taken by the Chronicler in military matters as such and the consequent looseness of his language regarding them, that he may intend 500,000 to represent the losses, not of a single battle, but of the whole campaign. That some farther fighting took place is suggested by 2Ch 13:19. Even so the losses are doubtless exaggerated.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Slain – The word means strictly pierced, and will include both the killed and the wounded. It is translated wounded in Lam 2:12.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 17. Slain – five hundred thousand chosen men.] Query, fifty thousand? This was a great slaughter: 2Ch 13:3, where all these numbers are supposed to be overcharged.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
A vast number: but it hath been oft observed and recorded by sacred and profane historians, that in those ancient times there were very numerous armies, and ofttimes very great slaughters; and if this slaughter was more than ordinary, there is nothing strange nor incredible, because the Almighty God fought against the Israelites.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
And Abijah and his people slew them with a great slaughter,…. As they fled, pursuing them:
so there fell down slain of Israel five hundred thousand chosen men; such a slaughter as is not to be met with in any history, as Josephus s observes; though Abarbinel wonders he should say so, and affirms that he had read of larger numbers slain at once; but he is the only man that ever pretended to it; Jerom t makes the number but 50,000, and some copies of the Vulgate Latin u, and Josephus Ben Gorion, as Abarbinel w relates; but the true Josephus, the Targum, and all the ancient versions, agree with the Hebrew text; more than half Jeroboam’s army was cut off, and 100,000 more than Abijah had in his.
s Antiqu. l. 8. c. 11. sect. 3. t Trad. Heb. fol. 84. M. u So that of Sixtus V. in James’s Corruption of the Fathers, p. 294. w Comment in 1. Reg. xv. 6. fol. 250. 3.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
(17) Slew them with a great slaughter.Literally, Smote in them a great smiting. Num. 11:33.
Five hundred thousand chosen men.Or more than half of Jeroboams entire army.
It is hardly true to say that there is nothing in the original to indicate that this slaughter was all on one day. (Speakers Commentary.) On the contrary, it is perfectly evident from the whole narrative that this verse describes the issue of a single great and decisive encounter of the rival hosts.
The result is certainly incredible, if the numbers be pressed; but it seems more reasonable to see in them only a numerical expression of the belief of contemporaries of the war, that both kings had made a levy of all the fighting men in their respective realms, and that Jeroboam was defeated with such slaughter that he lost more than half his warriors (Keil). The Syriac reads five thousand.
The number of slain on the other side is not stated. But it is absurd to talk as Reuss does, of Abijahs 400,000 as being still intact, and then to ask why they did not proceed to reduce the northern kingdom.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
17. There fell down slain of Israel five hundred thousand chosen men These many slain ( , pierced, wounded) probably include both killed and wounded during the whole war; not those who fell in any one engagement.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
2Ch 13:17 And Abijah and his people slew them with a great slaughter: so there fell down slain of Israel five hundred thousand chosen men.
Ver. 17. So there fell down slain of Israel five hundred thousand. ] A monstrous and matchless slaughter, far beyond that of Tamerlane when he took Bajazet, or Aetius, the Roman prefect, when he fought with Attilas and his Huns in the fields of Catalaunia, where were slain on both sides one hundred and sixty-five thousand. See on 2Ch 13:3 .
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
five
(See Scofield “1Co 10:8”).
Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes
five hundred: 2Ch 13:3, 2Ch 13:12, 2Ch 28:6, Isa 10:16-19, Isa 37:36, Nah 1:5, 1Co 10:22
Reciprocal: Jos 10:20 – had made Jdg 8:10 – fell an hundred 1Sa 4:10 – a very great 2Sa 18:7 – twenty thousand men 1Ki 12:19 – Israel 1Ki 20:29 – an hundred thousand 2Ch 15:6 – nation Pro 17:14 – beginning Pro 18:19 – brother Pro 24:22 – their Luk 11:17 – Every Jam 3:6 – the tongue