2 Chronicles 21:16
Moreover the LORD stirred up against Jehoram the spirit of the Philistines, and of the Arabians, that were near the Ethiopians:
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EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)
(16) Moreover.And, here equivalent to so.

The Lord stirred up against Jehoram.Isaiah 13:17. The phrase, “stirred up the spirit”—i.e., the will—of a man to an undertaking, is found in Jeremiah 51:11; Haggai 1:14 (Comp. 1Chronicles 5:26; Ezra 1:1.)

The Philistines, and of the Arabians.—These are mentioned together elsewhere as enemies of Judah. (See 2Chronicles 26:7; 2Chronicles 17:11; Jeremiah 25:20.) The invasion of the Philistines and Arabians accords with Joel 3:4-6, and is certainly historical (Thenius on 2Kings 8:23-24).

That were near the Ethiopians.—Literally, At the hand of (i.e., beside) the Cushites. Some tribes. of southern Arabia. There were Cushite settlements on both sides of the Red Sea. LXX., well: τοὺς Ἄραβας καὶ τοὺς ὁμόρους τῶν Αἰθιόπων; Vulg., “qui confines sunt Aethiopum.”

2 Chronicles 21:16. The Lord stirred up against Jehoram the spirit of the Philistines — A people who had been fully subdued and dispirited; but whose spirits and courage God now raised, that they might do his work. And of the Arabians, that were near the Ethiopians — Hebrew, near the Cushites, that is, the Ethiopians properly so called, for they were parted only by the Red sea; or rather a people in Arabia, frequently mentioned in Scripture, and so called either for their likeness in colour and complexion to the Ethiopians, or because one of these tribes was a colony from the other.

21:12-20 A warning from God was sent to Jehoram. The Spirit of prophecy might direct Elijah to prepare this writing in the foresight of Jehoram's crimes. He is plainly told that his sin should certainly ruin him. But no marvel that sinners are not frightened from sin, and to repentance, by the threatenings of misery in another world, when the certainty of misery in this world, the sinking of their estates, and the ruin of their health, will not restrain them from vicious courses. See Jehoram here stripped of all his comforts. Thus God plainly showed that the controversy was with him, and his house. He had slain all his brethren to strengthen himself; now, all his sons are slain but one. David's house must not be wholly destroyed, like those of Israel's kings, because a blessing was in it; that of the Messiah. Good men may be afflicted with diseases; but to them they are fatherly chastisements, and by the support of Divine consolations the soul may dwell at ease, even when the body lies in pain. To be sick and poor, sick and solitary, but especially to be sick and in sin, sick and under the curse of God, sick and without grace to bear it, is a most deplorable case. Wickedness and profaneness make men despicable, even in the eyes of those who have but little religion.The Arabians, that were near the Ethiopians - Probably Joktanian Arabs from the neighborhood of the Cushites. Southern Arabia was originally occupied by Cushites, or Ethiopians Genesis 10:7, whose descendants still exist in a remnant of the Himyaritic Arabs. 13-19. hast made Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem … like to the whoredoms of the house of Ahab—that is, introduced the superstitions and vices of Phœnician idolatry (see on [444]De 13:6-14). On this account, as well as for his unnatural cruelties, divine vengeance was denounced against him, which was soon after executed exactly as the prophet had foretold. A series of overwhelming calamities befell this wicked king; for in addition to the revolts already mentioned, two neighboring tribes (see 2Ch 17:11) made hostile incursions on the southern and western portions of his kingdom. His country was ravaged, his capital taken, his palace plundered, his wives carried off, and all his children slain except the youngest. He himself was seized with an incurable dysentery, which, after subjecting him to the most painful suffering for the unusual period of two years, carried him off, a monument of the divine judgment. To complete his degradation, his death was unlamented, his burial unhonored by his subjects. This custom, similar to what obtained in Egypt, seems to have crept in among the Hebrews, of giving funeral honors to their kings, or withholding them, according to the good or bad characters of their reign. The Philistines; a people fully subdued and dispirited; but God now raiseth their spirits and courage to do his work.

Near the Ethiopians, Heb. near the Cushites, i.e. either the Ethiopians, from whom they were parted only by the Red Sea, each dwelling upon the opposite shores of it; or rather, a people in Arabia, frequently mentioned in Scripture, and so called, either for their likeness in colour and complexion to the Ethiopians properly so called, or because the one of these people were a colony of the other. But the Ethiopians above Egypt were far enough from these other Arabians, being separated from them by the Red Sea.

Moreover, the Lord stirred up against Jehoram the spirit of the Philistines,.... Which had been depressed in the times of Jehoshaphat, to whom they brought their presents and tribute willingly, 2 Chronicles 17:11.

and of the Arabians that were near the Ethiopians; not the Ethiopians of Africa, as the Targum, for the Arabians were not near them, but the Chusaean Arabs or Midianites, see Numbers 12:1. The Targum is, the Word of the Lord did this.

Moreover the LORD stirred up against Jehoram the spirit of the Philistines, and of the Arabians, that were near the {l} Ethiopians:

(l) There were other Arabians in Africa southward toward Egypt.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)
16, 17 (no parallel in Kings). The Invasion of the Philistines and Arabians

16. Moreover] R.V. And.

stirred up … the spirit] Cp. 2 Chronicles 36:22 and 1 Chronicles 5:26.

that were near the Ethiopians] Render, which are beside the Cushites; cp. R.V. and 2 Chronicles 14:9 (note).

Verse 16. - The moreover of this verse is simply the conjunction "and;" it is not the m of ver. 11, for instance. Our Authorized Version "moreover" obscures the purport of the verse. Better the simple "and," as in the Revised Version. The Lord stirred up. Reference may again be made to 2 Chronicles 17:10-12. The things then gained are now being lost. The Arabians... near the Ethiopians. The Ethiopians, i.e. Cushites, fully fifteen centuries before the date of those original treatises from which the writers of Kings and Chronicles respectively borrowed their materials, or some of them, are recorded both genealogically and geographically in Genesis 10:6-8. They had their location very early in the south of Arabia, as also to the south of Egypt, speaking generally, with the Red Sea on the east, the Libyan desert on the west, and Abyssinia on the south, whilst Syene marked conspicuously a site on the line of the northern bounds between them and Egypt (Ezekiel 29:9-11; Isaiah 18:1, 2; Isaiah 45:14; Zephaniah 3:10). They are almost invariably connected with Africa, from whence it is now that stress is laid upon those of them to whom the Arabians, on the other side of the Red Sea, were contiguous. 2 Chronicles 21:16The prophet Elijah's letter against Joram, and the infliction of the punishments as announced. - 2 Chronicles 21:12. There came to him a writing from the prophet Elijah to this effect: "Thus saith Jahve, the God of thy father David, Because thou hast not walked in the ways of Jehoshaphat, ... but hast walked in the way of the kings of Israel, ... and also hast slain thy brethren, the house of thy father, who were better than thyself; behold, Jahve will send a great plague upon thy people, and upon thy sons, and thy wives, and upon all thy goods; and thou shalt have great sickness, by disease of thy bowels, until thy bowels fall out by reason of the sickness day by day." מכתב, writing, is a written prophetic threatening, in which his sins are pointed out to Joram, and the divine punishment for them announced. In regard to this statement, we need not be surprised that nothing is elsewhere told us of any written prophecies of Elijah; for we have no circumstantial accounts of his prophetic activity, by which we might estimate the circumstances which may have induced him in this particular instance to commit his prophecy to writing. But, on the other hand, it is very questionable if Elijah was still alive in the reign of Joram of Judah. His translation to heaven is narrated in 2 Kings 2, between the reign of Ahaziah and Joram of Israel, but the year of the event is nowhere stated in Scripture. In the Jewish Chronicle Seder olam, 2 Chronicles 17:45, it is indeed placed in the second year of Ahaziah of Israel; but this statement is not founded upon historical tradition, but is a mere deduction from the fact that his translation is narrated in 2 Kings 2 immediately after Ahaziah's death; and the last act of Elijah of which we have any record (2 Kings 1) falls in the second year of that king. Lightfoot, indeed (Opp. i. p. 85), Ramb., and Dereser have concluded from 2 Kings 3:11 that Elijah was taken away from the earth in the reign of Jehoshaphat, because according to that passage, in the campaign against the Moabites, undertaken in company with Joram of Israel, Jehoshaphat inquired for a prophet, and received the answer that Elisha was there, who had poured water upon the hands of Elijah. But the only conclusion to be drawn from that is, that in the camp, or near it, was Elisha, Elijah's servant, not that Elijah was no longer upon earth. The perfect יצק אשׁר seems indeed to imply this; but it is questionable if we may so press the perfect, i.e., whether the speaker made use of it, or whether it was employed only by the later historian. The words are merely a periphrasis to express the relationship of master and servant in which Elijah stood to Elisha, and tell us only that the latter was Elijah's attendant. But Elisha had entered upon this relationship to Elijah long before Elijah's departure from the earth (1 Kings 19:19.). Elijah may therefore have still been alive under Joram of Judah; and Berth. accordingly thinks it "antecedently probable that he spoke of Joram's sins, and threatened him with punishment. But the letter," so he further says, "is couched in quite general terms, and gives, moreover, merely a prophetic explanation of the misfortunes with which Joram was visited;" whence we may conclude that in its present form it is the work of a historian living at a later time, who describes the relation of Elijah to Joram in few words, and according to his conception of it as a whole. This judgment rests on dogmatic grounds, and flows from a principle which refuses to recognise any supernatural prediction in the prophetic utterances. The contents of the letter can be regarded as a prophetic exposition of the misfortunes which broke in, as it were, upon Joram, only by those who deny priori that there is any special prediction in the speeches of the prophets, and hold all prophecies which contain such to be vaticinia post eventum. Somewhat more weighty is the objection raised against the view that Elijah was still upon earth, to the effect that the divine threatenings would make a much deeper impression upon Joram by the very fact that the letter came from a prophet who was no longer in life, and would thus more easily bring him to the knowledge that the Lord is the living God, who had in His hand his breath and all his ways, and who knew all his acts. Thus the writing would smite the conscience of Joram like a voice from the other world (Dchsel). But this whole remark is founded only upon subjective conjectures and presumptions, for which actual analogies are wanting.

For the same reason we cannot regard the remark of Menken as very much to the point, when he says: "If a man like Elias were to speak again upon earth, after he had been taken from it, he must do it from the clouds: this would harmonize with the whole splendour of his course in life; and, in my opinion, that is what actually occurred." For although we do not venture "to mark the limits to which the power and sphere of activity of the perfected saints is extended," yet we are not only justified, but also bound in duty, to judge of those facts of revelation which are susceptible of different interpretations, according to the analogy of the whole Scripture. But the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments know nothing of any communications by writings between the perfected saints in heaven and men; indeed, they rather teach the contrary in the parable of the rich man

(Note: "Neque enim," says Ramb., "ulla ratione credibile est, Deum in gratiam impii regis ejusmodi quid fecisse, cujus nullum alias exemplum exstat; immo quod nec necessarium erat, quum plures aliae essent rationes, quibus Deus voluntatem suam ei manifestare poterat; coll. Luc. 16:27, 29." And, still more conclusively, Calov. declares: "Non enim triumphantium in coelis est erudire aut ad poenitentiam revocare mortales in terra. Habent Mosen et prophetas, si illos non audiant, neque si quis ex mortius resurrexerit, nedum si quis ex coelis literas perscripserit, credent Luc. 16:31.")

(Luke 16:31)

There are consequently no sufficient grounds for believing that the glorified Elijah either sent a letter to Joram from heaven by an angel, or commissioned any living person to write the letter. The statement of the narrative, "there came to him a writing from Elijah the prophet," cannot well be understood to mean anything else than that Elijah wrote the threatening prophecy which follows; but we have no certain proof that Elijah was then no longer alive, but had been already received into heaven. The time of his translation cannot be exactly fixed. He was still alive in the second year of Ahaziah of Israel; for he announced to this king upon his sick-bed that he would die of his fall (2 Kings 1). Most probably he was still alive also at the commencement of the reign of Joram of Israel, who ascended the throne twenty-three years after Ahab. Jehoshaphat died six or seven years later; and after his death, his successor Joram slew his brothers, the other sons of Jehoshaphat. Elijah may have lived to see the perpetration of this crime, and may consequently also have sent the threatening prophecy which is under discussion to Joram. As he first appeared under Ahab, on the above supposition, he would have filled the office of prophet for about thirty years; while his servant Elisha, whom he chose to be his successor as early as in the reign of Ahab (1 Kings 19:16), died only under Joash of Israel (2 Kings 13:14.), who became king fifty-seven years after Ahab's death, and must consequently have discharged the prophetic functions for at least sixty years. But even if we suppose that Elijah had been taken away from the earth before Jehoshaphat's death, we may, with Buddaeus, Ramb., and other commentators, accept this explanation: that the Lord had revealed to him Joram's wickedness before his translation, and had commissioned him to announce to Joram in writing the divine punishment which would follow, and to send this writing to him at the proper time. This would entirely harmonize with the mode of action of this great man of God. To him God had revealed the elevation of Jehu to the throne of Israel, and the extirpation of the house of Ahab by him, together with the accession of Hazael, and the great oppressions which he would inflict upon Israel, - all events which took place only after the death of Joram of Judah. Him, too, God had commissioned even under Ahab to anoint Jehu to be king over Israel (1 Kings 19:16), which Elisha caused to be accomplished by a prophetic scholar fourteen years later (2 Kings 9:1.); and to him the Lord may also have revealed the iniquity of Joram, Jehoshaphat's successor, even as early as the second year of Ahaziah of Israel, when he announced to this king his death seven years before Jehoshaphat's death, and may have then commissioned him to announce the divine punishment of his sin. But if Elijah committed the anointing of both Hazael and Jehu to his servant Elisha, why may he not also have committed to him the delivery of this threatening prophecy which he had drawn up in writing? Without bringing forward in support of this such hypotheses as that the contents of the letter would have all the greater effect, since it would seem as if the man of God were speaking to him from beyond the grave (O. v. Gerlach), we have yet a perfect right to suppose that a written word from the terrible man whom the Lord had accredited as His prophet by fire from heaven, in his struggle against Baal-worship under Ahab and Ahaziah, would be much better fitted to make an impression upon Joram and his consort Athaliah, who was walking in the footsteps of her mother Jezebel, than a word of Elisha, or any other prophet who was not endowed with the spirit and power of Elijah.

Elijah's writing pointed out to Joram two great transgressions: (1) his forsaking the Lord for the idolatrous worship of the house of Ahab, and also his seducing the people into this sin; and (2) the murder of his brothers. For the punishment of the first transgression he announced to him a great smiting which God would inflict upon his people, his family, and his property; for the second crime he foretold heavy bodily chastisements, by a dreadful disease which would terminate fatally. ימים על ימים, 2 Chronicles 21:15, is accus. of duration: days on days, i.e., continuing for days added to days; cf. שׁנה על שׁנה ספוּ, Isaiah 29:1. ימים Berth. takes to mean a period of a year, so that by this statement of time a period of two years is fixed for the duration of the disease before death. But the words in themselves cannot have this signification; it can only be a deduction from 2 Chronicles 21:18. These two threats of punishment were fulfilled. The fulfilment of the first is recorded in 2 Chronicles 21:16. God stirred up the spirit of the Philistines and the Arabians (רוּח את העיר, as in 1 Chronicles 5:26), so that they came up against Judah, and broke it, i.e., violently pressed into the land as conquerors (בּקע, so split, then to conquer cities by breaking through their walls; cf. 2 Kings 25:4, etc.), and carried away all the goods that were found in the king's house, with the wives and sons of Joram, except Jehoahaz the youngest (2 Chronicles 22:1). Movers (Chron. S. 122), Credner, Hitz., and others on Joel 3:5, Berth., etc., conclude from this that these enemies captured Jerusalem and plundered it. But this can hardly be the case; for although Jerusalem belonged to Judah, and might be included in בּיהוּדה, yet as a rule Jerusalem is specially named along with Judah as being the chief city; and neither the conquest of Judah, nor the carrying away of the goods from the king's house, and of the king's elder sons, with certainty involves the capture of the capital. The opinion that by the "substance which was found in the king's house" we are to understand the treasures of the royal palace, is certainly incorrect. רכוּשׁ denotes property of any sort; and what the property of the king or of the king's house might include, we may gather from the catalogue of the אוצרות of David, in the country, in the cities, villages, and castles, 1 Chronicles 27:25., where they consist in vineyards, forests, and herds of cattle, and together with the המּלך אוצרות formed the property (הרכוּשׁ) of King David. All this property the conquering Philistines and Arabians who had pressed into Judah might carry away without having captured Jerusalem. But המּלך בּית denotes here, not the royal palace, but the king's family; for המּלך לבית הנּמצא does not denote what was found in the palace, but what of the possessions of the king's house they found. נמצא with ל is not synonymous with בּ נמצא, but denotes to be attained, possessed by; cf. Joshua 17:16 and Deuteronomy 21:17. Had Jerusalem been plundered, the treasures of the palace and of the temple would also have been mentioned: 2 Chronicles 25:24; 2 Chronicles 12:9; 2 Kings 14:13. and 1 Kings 14:26; cf. Kuhlmey, alttestl. Studien in der Luther. Ztschr. 1844, iii. S. 82ff. Nor does the carrying away of the wives and children of King Joram presuppose the capture of Jerusalem, as we learn from the more exact account of the matter in 2 Chronicles 22:1.

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