August 16

II Chronicles 12:1-13:22, I Kings 15:1-8; Romans 10:1-21

Thought from Today's Old Testament Passage:

[2 Chron. 13] Verses 13-22 We do not find that Jeroboam offered to make any answer at all to Abijah's speech. Though it was much to the purpose, he resolved not to heed it, and therefore he heard it as though he heard it not. He came to fight, not to dispute. The longest sword, he thought, would determine the matter, not the better cause. Let us therefore see the issue, whether right and religion carried the day or no.

I. Jeroboam, who trusted to his politics, was beaten. He was so far from fair reasoning that he was not for fair fighting. We may suppose that he felt a sovereign contempt for Abijah's harangue. "One stratagem,'' thinks he, "is worth twenty such speeches; we will soon give him an answer to all his arguments; he shall soon find himself overpowered with numbers, surrounded on every side with the instruments of death, and then let him boast of his religion and his title to the crown.'' A parley, it is probable, was agreed on, yet Jeroboam basely takes the advantage of it, and, while he was treating, laid his ambushment behind Judah, against all the laws of arms. What honour could be expected in a servant when he reigned? Abijah was for peace, but, when he spoke, they were for war, Ps. 120:7.

II. Abijah and his people, who trusted in their God, came off conquerors, notwithstanding the disproportion of their strength and numbers.

Matthew Henry, Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Bible (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers) 1997 
 

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