Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of 2 Chronicles 20:12

O our God, wilt thou not judge them? for we have no might against this great company that cometh against us; neither know we what to do: but our eyes [are] upon thee.

12. our eyes are upon thee ] Cp. 2Ch 14:11.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

2Ch 20:12

For we have no might against this great company.

Embarrassment

I. There are embarrassments concerning our country.

II. Many good men and women are often greatly embarrassed about the divine inspiration of every sentence in the Bible.

III. Some of us are at times much embarrassed by the circumstances of life. Like a man who looks out of a railway carriage at night and sees nothing, so some of us often look towards to-morrow and see no light. This fear of to-morrow is the wet-blanket of the Christians life. Act rightly now; do your duty to-day, and never mind to-morrow. (W. Birch.)

Moral courage

I. There are often terrible crises in mens lives when moral courage is required. Most men are brought at times to a crisis when they are ready to exclaim, We know not what to do.

1. In the course of secular work. A great company of worldly anxieties.

2. In the course of personal moral culture. Old habits, lusts, propensities.

3. In the process of philanthropic labour.

II. The only source of true moral courage is trust in God. To trust Him is to trust–

1. Love.

2. Wisdom equal to every emergency.

3. Power that can make the weakest mighty. (Homilist.)

The helpless Church and the mighty God

I want to take this as a text to preach the experience of the people of God.

I. An appropriation of God. O our God.

II. The enemy to be judged. Wilt Thou not judge them? The Christian has many enemies, internal, external, and infernal, but self is the greatest enemy the people of God have. Self must be brought under judgment.

III. The sinners powerlessness. We have no might. We are spiritual insolvents. Perfect poverty: all true disciples of Christ must be brought into this state. Like Mary, we have nothing to pay, according to Christs parable, and yet we are pardoned. That is the gospel.

IV. The churchs perplexity. Neither know we what to do. This is often the condition of the Church.

V. Faiths invigorating look. But our eyes are upon Thee. (J. J. West, M.A.)

Jehoshaphat, face to face with one of lifes great emergencies, our model

Say we not well, that prayer is a model for presidents, princes, kings, and rulers for all time? But it has wider applications. The King of Judah is confronted by a great and startling peril;–what does he do?

I. Let us rather mark what he does not do.

1. He does not underestimate his danger. There are some men who think it wisdom to pooh-pooh a difficulty. Jehoshaphat is not one of them. He is at the farthest remove from foolhardiness or a rash contempt of the impending peril. The men who under-estimate risks are not the wise men or the safe men, morally, politically, or spiritually. There are many of this easy-going–if you please, buoyant–disposition who decline to look probable defeat or disaster in the face. They deprecate your fears, advise you to trust to luck, to go on and take the chances with a stout heart. They are willing to do it in politics, suffering the Ship of State to take her chances among the unknown shoals and rocks! They do it in religion. They discount heavily the Divine requirements, the Divine warnings, the Divine hatred of sin, the tremendous Divine penalties pronounced upon it; for them these all mean nothing or very little.

2. So neither did Jehoshaphat over-estimate them. His was no panic fright. Seen through the atmosphere of our fears, a man may become a monster. The King of Judah certainly discerned the danger and appreciated it to the full, but his brave and trustful spirit was as far as possible removed from panic, desperation, or despair. Jehoshaphat, confronted by a danger which seemed certainly to insure the ruin of his throne and kingdom, declines to regard the case as by any means hopeless, refuses to believe that the Lords arm is shortened that it cannot save, or His ear heavy that it cannot hear. Who says Moab and Ammon are stronger than God? Any peril is over-estimated of which men cry: There is no help for him in his God!

3. Again, if Jehoshaphat does not underestimate or over-estimate his dangers, so neither does he place any false reliance upon human power–his resources, his aids, or himself. Some men trust God when they are bereft of every other ground of confidence, but not till then. They brave it out till ruin stares them in the face, and then run to cover. Not so Jehoshaphat. The nation had scarcely known a more prosperous and potent reign than his. He had a great army at his command, and, it would appear from the record (2Ch 17:12-19), could bring upward of a million of men into the field, a drilled and organised militia capable of effective service in emergency. Many a man in his position, and with such military and national resources behind him, would have given God altogether the go-by, and chosen, like Napoleon Bonaparte, to trust in the heaviest battalions.

II. Turning from this negative to a positive view, we ask, then what did he do? Where was his real confidence? If ever there was a man who offered effective and ample illustration of the Psalmists words–Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we will remember the name of the Lord our God–that man was Jehoshaphat of Judah. What then did he do? He turned to God! And observe how he did this.

1. It was publicly done. The King of Judah made no secret of his dependence on the King of kings. He proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah–And out of all the cities of Judah they came to seek the Lord–And all Judah stood before the Lord, with their little ones, and their wives, and their children.–And Jehoshaphat stood in the congregation of Judah and Jerusalem, and said. What announcement of national and personal need and reliance upon Jehovah could be more distinctly open and unreserved than this?

2. And it was as humble and self-renouncing as it was public in its character. National grief is an affecting spectacle. You have it here: All Judah, their little ones, their wives, their children, stood before the Lord. While speaking in their name, Jehoshaphat exclaimed: O our God we have no might against this great company, neither know we what to do. Lowly-mindedness and self-abasement in a whole people, as certainly as in a man, goes far to secure–as truly as it solicits–the Divine favour.

3. Jehoshaphats plea for Judah was further marked by an unreserving trust in God. With Jehoshaphat Jehovah is all and enough. Art not Thou God in heaven, and rulest not Thou over all the kingdoms of the heathen? and in Thine hand is there not power and might, so that none is able to withstand Thee? Never a thought here of limitation, or weakness in Him; never a suspicion that He is unable or unwilling to rescue those that trust in Him to the uttermost. No association of His name with any other. He is not to be a helper, a partner, a contributor. He is to be all, to do all! The royal, the national reliance on Jehovah is entire.

4. This brings us to note finally that Jehoshaphats plea is marked by the fullest recognition of the Divine Sovereignty and Providence. A writer, quoted in one of our leading weeklies, says that, No secular history would be read in our schools to-day or in the schools of any enlightened community in which the fortunes of nations were represented as controlled by special Divine intervention. The man who wrote that sentence would, we fancy, have been treated with rather scant courtesy if he had chanced in the court of Jehoshaphat.

5. More than this, the King of Judah appeals to the Covenant. Now God loves to be plied with His own promises and reminded of the gracious relations He occupies to us. The Psalmist founded a claim to Divine help and mercy upon the ground of a godly parentage: O Lord, I am the son of Thine handmaid. Our best resource, our true help, is not in alliances, in circumstances, in capacities, in luck, in others, in ourselves, but ever and only in the name of the Lord. (W. T. Sabine, D.D.)

Leaving the vote with God

Sir Fowell Buxton, who shared with Wilberforce the labours which secured the emancipation of the slaves in the West Indies, ascribed their triumph directly to the power of prayer. Writing to his daughter when all was over, he said, I firmly believe that prayer was the cause of that division (vote in the House of Commons}. You know how we waited upon God for guidance, with these words in our hearts, O our God, we have no might against this great company that cometh against us, neither know we what to do; but our eyes are upon Thee; and the answer, Ye shall not need to fight in this battle; stand still and see the salvation of the Lord. You will find the whole story in 2Ch 20:1-37. Turn to my Bible; it will open of itself to the place. We had no preconceived plan; the course we took appeared to be the right one, and we followed it blindly.

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Verse 12. Wilt thou not judge them] That is, Thou wilt inflict deserved punishment upon them.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

Thus he speaks, partly though he had great armies to be drawn together in due time upon great occasions, 2Ch 17:14, &c.; yet he seems to have been surprised by these men before his forces were in readiness to oppose them; and partly because he well knew, and piously and wisely considered, that no human forces, though numerous and valiant, were able to defend him without Gods assistance, which he feared by his sins he had forfeited, and then he had really been as weak as water.

Our eyes are upon thee, looking to thee only for relief and succour.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

O our God wilt thou not judge them?…. Bring them to thy bar, examine these facts alleged against them, convict them of injustice, and condemn and punish them for it:

for we have no might against the great company that cometh against us; for though the militia of the kingdom of Judah was very numerous, as described 2Ch 17:14 yet on a sudden it might not be easy to gather it together; besides, it was nothing to put trust and confidence in; and if the Lord was not with them, their strength would be weakness, and they not able to withstand this numerous army:

neither know we what to do; whether to attempt to muster the militia, and go out to meet them, or to shut up themselves in Jerusalem, and make the best defence they could:

but our eyes are upon thee; for advice and direction, for help and protection; the eyes of their bodies were lifted up in prayer to him, and the eyes of their souls, of faith, hope, expectation, and desire, were fastened on him.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

(12) Wilt thou not judge them?Exercise judgment in them, i.e., upon them (here only.) LXX., .

This great company.Multitude (2Ch. 14:11) Syriac, for there is not in us might to stand before them: bring the sword of Thy judgment against them.

Neither know we.And for our part we know not what to do.

But our eyes are upon thee.For our eyes are towards thee (al=el). We neither know nor deliberate upon a suitable plan of resistance, for our whole thought is centred upon Thee and Thine omnipotence. For the metaphor, comp. Psa. 25:15, Mine eyes are ever toward (el) Jehovah, and Psa. 123:2; Psa. 141:8.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

2Ch 20:12. Wilt thou not judge them That is, inflict judgments upon them, or punish them. When Jehoshaphat speaks of having no might against this great company, we must understand that they came upon him unprovided and unawares; for we have seen before, that he had more than eleven hundred thousand fighting men.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

2Ch 20:12 O our God, wilt thou not judge them? for we have no might against this great company that cometh against us; neither know we what to do: but our eyes [are] upon thee.

Ver. 12. For we have no might against this great company. ] Pray we the same; at the hour of death especially, when beset with legions of evil spirits.

But our eyes are toward thee. ] Our hope is, that where human help faileth divine help will appear, as Philo the Jew said, when cast out by Caligula the emperor.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

2 Chronicles

A STRANGE BATTLE

2Ch 20:12 .

A formidable combination of neighbouring nations, of which Moab and Ammon, the ancestral enemies of Judah, were the chief, was threatening Judah. Jehoshaphat, the king, was panic-stricken when he heard of the heavy war-cloud that was rolling on, ready to burst in thunder on his little kingdom. His first act was to muster the nation, not as a military levy but as suppliants, ‘to seek help of the Lord.’ The enemy was camping down by the banks of the Dead Sea, almost within striking distance of Jerusalem. It seemed a time for fighting, not for praying, but even at that critical moment, the king and the men, whom it might have appeared that plain duty called to arms, were gathered in the Temple, and, hampered by their wives and children, were praying. Would they not have done better if they had been sturdily marching through the wilderness of Judah to front their foes? Our text is the close and the climax of Jehoshaphat’s prayer, and, as the event proved, it was the most powerful weapon that could have been employed, for the rest of the chapter tells the strangest story of a campaign that was ever written. No sword was drawn. The army was marshalled, but Levites with their instruments of music, not fighters with their spears, led the van, and as ‘they began to sing and to praise,’ sudden panic laid hold on the invading force, who turned their arms against each other. So when Judah came to some rising ground, on which stood a watch-tower commanding a view over the savage grimness of ‘the wilderness,’ it saw a field of corpses, stark and stiff and silent. Three days were spent in securing the booty, and on the fourth, Jehoshaphat and his men ‘assembled themselves in the Valley of Blessing,’ and thence returned a joyous multitude praising God for the victory which had been won for them without their having struck a blow. The whole story may yield large lessons, seasonable at all times. We deal with it, rather than with the fragment of the narrative which we have taken as our text.

I. We see here the confidence of despair.

Jehoshaphat’s prayer had stayed itself on God’s self-revelation in history, and on His gift of the land to their fathers. It had pleaded that the enemy’s hostility was a poor ‘reward’ for Israel’s ancient forbearance, and now, with a burst of agony, it casts down before God, as it were, Judah’s desperate plight as outnumbered by the swarm of invaders and brought to their last shifts-’we have no might against this great company . . . neither know we what to do.’ But the very depth of despair sets them to climb to the height of trust. That is a mighty ‘But,’ which buckles into one sentence two such antitheses as confront us here. ‘We know not what to do, but our eyes are upon Thee’-blessed is the desperation which catches at God’s hand; firm is the trust which leaps from despair!

The helplessness is always a fact, though most of us manage to get along for the most part without discovering it. We are all outnumbered and overborne by the claims, duties, hindrances, sorrows, and entanglements of life. He is not the wisest of men who, facing all that life may bring and take away, all that it must bring and take away, knows no quiver of nameless fear, but jauntily professes himself ready for all that life can inflict. But there come moments in every life when the false security in which shallow souls wrap themselves ignobly is broken up, and then often a paroxysm of terror or misery grips a man, for which he has no anodyne, and his despair is as unreasonable as his security. The meaning of all circumstances that force our helplessness on us is to open to us Jehoshaphat’s refuge in his-’our eyes are upon Thee.’ We need to be driven by the crowds of foes and dangers around to look upwards. Our props are struck away that we may cling to God. The tree has its lateral branches hewed off that it may shoot up heavenward. When the valley is filled with mist and swathed in evening gloom, it is the time to lift our gaze to the peaks that glow in perpetual sunshine. Wise and happy shall we be if the sense of helplessness begets in us the energy of a desperate faith. For these two, distrust of self and glad confidence in God, are not opposites, as naked distrust and trust are, but are complementary. He does not turn his eyes to God who has not turned them on himself, and seen there nothing to which to cling, nothing on which to lean. Astronomers tell us that there are double stars revolving round one axis and forming a unity, of which the one is black and the other brilliant. Self-distrust and trust in God are thus knit together and are really one.

II. We see here the peaceful assurance of victory that attends on faith.

A flash of inspiration came to one of the Levitical singers who had, no doubt, been deeply moved and had unconsciously fitted himself for receiving it. Divinely breathed confidence illuminated his waiting spirit, and a great message of encouragement poured from his lips. His words heartened the host more than a hundred trumpets braying in their ears. How much one man who has drunk in God’s assurance of victory can do to send a thrill of his own courage through more timorous hearts! Courage is no less contagious than panic. This Levite becomes the commander of the army, and Jehoshaphat and his captains ‘bow their heads’ and accept his plan for to-morrow, hearing in his ringing accents a message from Jehovah. The instructions given and at once accepted are as unlike those of ordinary warfare as is the whole incident; for there is to be no sword drawn nor blow struck, but they are to ‘stand still and see the salvation of the Lord.’ They are told where to find the enemy and are bid to go forth in order of battle against them, and they are assured ‘that the battle is not theirs, but God’ s.’ No wonder that the message was hailed as from heaven, and put new heart into the host, or that, when the messenger’s voice ceased, his brother Levites broke into shrill praise as for a victory already won. With what calm, triumphant hearts the camp would sleep that night!

May we not take that inspired Levite’s message as one to ourselves in the midst of our many conflicts both in the outward life and in the inward? If we have truly grasped God’s hands, and are fighting for what is accordant with His will, we have a right to feel that ‘the battle is not ours but God’ s,’ and to be sure that therefore we shall conquer. Of course we are not to say to ourselves, ‘God will fight for us, and we need not strike a blow,’ Jehoshaphat’s example does not fit our case in that respect, and we may thank God that it does not. We have a better lot than to ‘stand still and see the salvation of God,’ for we are honoured by being allowed to share the stress of conflict and the glow of battle as well as in the shout of victory. But even in the struggles of outward life, and much more in those of our spiritual nature, every man who watches his own career will many a time have to recognise God’s hand, unaided by any act of his own, striking for him and giving him victory; and in the spiritual life every Christian man knows that his best moments have come from the initiation of the Spirit who ‘bloweth where He listeth.’ How often we have been surprised by God’s help; how often we have been quickened by God’s inbreathed Spirit, and have been taught that the passivity of faith draws to us greater blessings than the activity of effort! ‘They also serve who only stand and wait,’ and they also conquer who in quietness and confidence keep themselves still and let God work for them and in them. The first great blessing of trust in God is that we may be at peace on the eve of battle, and the second is that in every battle it is, in truth, not we that fight, but God who fights for and in us.

III. We learn here the best preparation for the conflict.

When the morning dawned, the array was set in order and the march begun, and a strange array it was. In the van marched the Temple singers singing words that are music to us still: ‘Give thanks unto the Lord, for His mercy endureth for ever,’ and behind them came the ranks of Judah, no doubt swelling the volume of melody, that startled the wild creatures of the wilderness, and perhaps travelled through the still morning as far as the camp of the enemy. The singers had no armour nor weapons. They were clad in ‘the beauty of holiness,’ the priestly dress, and for sword and spear they carried harps and timbrels. Our best weapons are like their equipment.

We are most likely to conquer if we lift up the voice of thanks for victory in advance, and go into the battle expecting to triumph, because we trust in God. The world’s expectation of success is too often a dream, a will-o’-the-wisp that tempts to bogs where the beguiled victim is choked, though even in the world it is often true; ‘screw your courage to the sticking point, and we’ll not fail.’ But faith, that is the expectation of success based on God’s help and inspiring to struggles for things dear to His heart, is wont to fulfil itself, and by bringing God into the fray, to secure the victory. A thankful heart not seldom brings into existence that for which it is thankful.

IV. We see here the victory and the praise for it.

The panic that laid hold on the enemy, and turned their swords against each other, was more natural in an undisciplined horde such as these irregular levies of ancient times, than it would be in a modern army. Once started, the infection would spread, so we need not wonder that by the time that Judah arrived on the field all was over. How often a like experience attends us! We quiver with apprehension of troubles that never attack us. We dread some impending battlefield, and when we reach it, Jehoshaphat’s surprise is repeated, ‘and, behold they were dead bodies, fallen to the earth.’ Delivered from foes and fears, Judah’s first impulse was to secure the booty, for they were keen after wealth, and their ‘faith’ was not very pure or elevating. But their last act was worthier, and fitly ended the strange campaign. They gathered in some wady among the grim cliffs of the wilderness of Judah, which broke the dreariness of that savage stretch of country with perhaps verdure and a brook, and there they ‘blessed the Lord.’ The chronicler gives a piece of popular etymology, in deriving the name, ‘the valley of blessing,’ from that morning’s worship. Perhaps the name was older than that, and was given from a feeling of the contrast between the waste wilderness, which in its gaunt sterility seemed an accursed land, and the glen which with its trees and stream was indeed a ‘valley of blessing.’ If so, the name would be doubly appropriate after that day’s experience. Be that as it may, here we have in vivid form the truth that all our struggles and fightings may end in a valley of blessing, which will ring with the praise of the God who fights for us. If we begin our warfare with an appeal to God, and with prayerful acknowledgment of our own impotence, we shall end it with thankful acknowledgment that we are ‘more than conquerors through Him that loved us’ and fought for us, and our choral song of praise will echo through the true Valley of Blessing, where no sound of enemies shall ever break the settled stillness, and the host of the redeemed, like that army of Judah, shall bear ‘psalteries and harps and trumpets,’ and shall need spear and sword no more at all for ever.

Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren

wilt Thou not . . . ? Figure of speech Erotesis. App-6.

judge = bring judgments. Put by Figure of speech Metonymy (of Cause), for the judgments themselves.

company = rout.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

wilt: Deu 32:36, Jdg 11:27, 1Sa 3:13, Psa 7:6, Psa 7:8, Psa 9:19, Psa 43:1, Isa 2:4, Isa 42:4, Joe 3:12, Rev 19:11

we have: 2Sa 14:11, 1Sa 14:6, 2Co 1:8, 2Co 1:9

neither: 2Ki 6:15

our eyes: Psa 25:15, Psa 121:1, Psa 121:2, Psa 123:1, Psa 123:2, Psa 141:8, Jon 2:4

Reciprocal: Gen 32:9 – Jacob Deu 20:1 – horses Jdg 16:28 – called 1Sa 23:26 – away 1Ki 1:20 – the eyes 1Ch 5:20 – for they cried 2Ch 13:8 – a great multitude 2Ch 14:11 – them that 2Ch 24:24 – delivered Psa 20:7 – but we Psa 30:11 – turned Psa 33:16 – no king Psa 108:13 – Through Isa 45:22 – Look Isa 50:10 – let Zec 9:1 – when Mat 8:25 – save

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

A WORD TO THE DISCOURAGED

O our God, we have no might against this great company that cometh against us; neither know we what to do: but our eyes are upon Thee.

2Ch 20:12

I. Human helplessness in the presence of overwhelming foes is an everyday experiencemore especially to the Christian worker. His foes are so real and so strong, and his resources apparently so few and so poor: just a few words out of a Book, a few truths that men might doubt, a few experiences of his own about which he might be mistaken. But to him comes the message which the prophet brought to Jehoshophat: The battle is not yours, but Gods. Think of the foes which Christianity has to facenot merely the known vices, but the contented ignorance, the dont-care indifference and the stolid irresponsiveness of the people. The army of Judah had no foes to compare with those that confront Christianity to-day. These enemies avoid a pitched battle: they hide themselves in a thick fog, and we do not know where to find them. No wonder the clergy feel discouraged.

II. But, after all, the resources of the Christian are not limited by what men see.At the back of the praying man are tremendous resources, invisible, it may be, but real. The praying man is the strongest fighting man. Prayer never lost a battle. Discouraged and depressed, the Christian rises from his knees with fresh hopes and renewed energy.

Illustration

Needs and perils, beyond human aid or self-help, are Gods opportunities. They bring home to us our weakness and dependence. By them God invites the appeal of trust, and so makes His relationship to us, as our Almighty, pitying Father, felt. Moral education could scarcely go forward but for the trials of human life. The Apostle Paul saw this so clearly that he gloried in his infirmities as occasions for the display of Christs power. Whatever brings the reality of Divine aid nearer to our feeling lifts us into communion with God, and is cheaply purchased by the strain which the presence of want or danger puts upon us.

Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary

2Ch 20:12. O our God, wilt thou not judge them? He appeals to the justice of God, the righteous Judge, who rights those that suffer wrong, especially when they have no helper. Wilt thou not give sentence against them, and execute it upon them? For to judge, in this place, signifies to punish, as it also does in many other passages. The justice of God is the refuge of those that are wronged. We have no might against this great company It may seem strange that he should say they had no might, when he had so many hundred thousand men at command as are mentioned 2Ch 17:14-16, &c. But it may be observed, that this was probably such a sudden invasion, that he had not time to gather any considerable body to oppose them; or rather, he distrusted the greatest army, and acknowledged it to be of no force if God were not with him, on whom he entirely relied, and not on the number and valour of his soldiers, though both were very great.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

20:12 O our God, wilt thou not judge them? for we have no might against this great company that cometh against us; neither know we what to do: but our eyes {g} [are] upon thee.

(g) We only put our trust in you, and wait for our deliverance from heaven.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes