2 Chronicles 13
The events related in this chapter are passed over in silence in 1 Kings 15. The latter limits itself to mentioning that there was war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam all the days of his life and that the same thing was so between Abijah and Jeroboam. It adds that Abijah "walked in all the sins of his father, which he had done before him; and his heart was not perfect with Jehovah his God, as the heart of David his father. But for David's sake Jehovah his God gave him a lamp in Jerusalem, setting up his son after him, and establishing Jerusalem; because David did that which was right in the sight of Jehovah, and turned not aside from anything that He commanded him all the days of his life, except in the matter of Urijah the Hittite" (1 Kings 15:3-5). In this passage, it is on account of David that God gives a godly successor to Abijah in the person of Asa, his son, and also on account of Jerusalem which God had chosen as the city of His Anointed. Here, there is nothing of the kind. As always, in this part of Chronicles it is grace ruling in spite of everything. At most, Abijah's conduct is characterized in 2 Chron. 13:21 as that in which he imitated King Solomon's walk as the book of Kings reveals it to us: "But Abijah... took fourteen wives, and begot twenty-two sons and sixteen daughters."
The battle between Abijah and Jeroboam, omitted in the book of Kings, gives us serious, solemn instruction as to Abijah's moral condition. Jeroboam, twice as strong as Abijah, had 800,000 chosen men against Judah's 400,000. We find the same proportion in Luke 14:31: "Or what king, going on his way to engage in war with another king, does not, sitting down first, take counsel whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him coming against him with twenty thousand?" Only Abijah does not sit down here to calculate. He counts on his religion which is the true one to resist Jeroboam with his false religion. His speech on Mount Zemaraim, for he had already invaded the territory of the ten tribes, proves it. The argument with which he opposes Jeroboam (2 Chron. 13:5-12) is composed of five points in which Judah was perfectly justified:
1. The Lord's covenant with Judah, through David, was forever. God's counsels concerning the royal line could never be reversed. Abijah was right to claim the unchangeable counsels of God against his enemy.
2. The ten tribes through their king were in open rebellion against the seed of David, the Lord's Anointed: "But Jeroboam the son of Nebat, the servant of Solomon the son of David, rose up and rebelled against his lord. And vain men, sons of Belial, gathered to him and strengthened themselves against Rehoboam the son of Solomon, and Rehoboam was young and faint-hearted, and did not show himself strong against them" (2 Chron. 13:6-7).
3. Moreover, they were idolaters and were counting on their false gods to gain the victory: "And now ye think to show yourselves strong against the kingdom of Jehovah in the hand of the sons of David; and ye are a great multitude, and ye have with you the golden calves that Jeroboam made you for gods." (2 Chron. 13:8).
4. And furthermore, they had completely abandoned the worship of Jehovah; they had driven away the priests, and had established new ones according to their liking. "But as for us," Abijah adds, "Jehovah is our God, and we have not forsaken Him." All this condemned Israel and her king; all this was true.
5. Judah, for her part, had God at her head, and His priests, and His trumpets which were used to assemble the people; and in fact, what Jeroboam was doing was making war against God. Once again, all this was true. What was Judah lacking? Only this: Judah had the true religion, but without realizing her sin and disgrace. What she lacked was an awakened conscience.
Is it not the same in our day? One may, for example, be a Protestant, have God's Word, have knowledge of the true God, understand perfectly what is lacking in Catholicism, that semi-idolatrous religion, be able to refute its errors victoriously, possess all the truths that make up Christianity — and nevertheless be very far from God, without strength to withstand the twenty thousand. One has not first sat down to deliberate upon his own forces. Everything that Abijah brought forth was insufficient and could not give him the victory. He lacked something: an affected conscience; the realization of his own guilt, not in comparison to others and their errors, but rather by himself having to do with God.
The rest of this account bears this out. Jeroboam's 800,000 men are able to completely surround Abijah's 400,000 men. The result is that Judah is lost; it had to begin there. "And Judah looked back, and behold, they had the battle in front and behind; and they cried to Jehovah, and the priests sounded with the trumpets. And the men of Judah gave a shout" (2 Chron. 13:14-15). It is only from this point: I am lost, that the loud-sounding trumpets can sound against the enemy (2 Chron. 13:12). Instead of confiding in his trumpets against the adversaries it is necessary to cry out to God for himself, and it is only then that the trumpets can resound, that is to say, that the testimony can be effective. Salvation can only come from Him and not from even the most orthodox forms of religion. We must always begin with our own condition, not with that of others; we then find that the cross is our only resource and, having found this for ourselves, we can apply it to all those who have as urgent a need of it as we. "Out of the depths do I call upon Thee, Jehovah," says the Psalmist. "Lord, hear my voice; let Thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplication. If Thou, Jah, shouldest mark iniquities, Lord, who shall stand? But there is forgiveness with Thee, that Thou mayest be feared..." and only then does he cry: "Let Israel hope in Jehovah... He will redeem Israel from all his iniquities" (Psa. 130).
If this is so for the testimony, it is the same for the combat. From the moment we realize our lost condition and cry to the Lord, victory is ours. Judging others can not save ourselves; the secret of victory is in the conviction that sin robs us of all strength and makes us incapable of withstanding the enemy. This victory is not due to any effort on our part, since we are incapable; it can only come from God Himself: "God smote Jeroboam and all Israel before Abijah and Judah. And the children of Israel fled before Judah; and God delivered them into their hand" (2 Chron. 13:15-16). From this moment on, the children of Judah no longer relied on their religion: "[They] were strengthened, because they relied upon Jehovah the God of their fathers" (2 Chron. 13:18). From that moment on all Jeroboam's strength dwindled, "and Jehovah smote him, and he died" (2 Chron. 13:20).
The realization of their complete lack of power brings Abijah and his people something even more important than victory: they recover Bethel, Jeshanah, and Ephron — but especially Bethel, the place where the faithful God had given promises to Jacob. Indeed, the way to acquire God's promises is to begin by recognizing one's self to be lost and crying out to the Lord. Our unfaithfulness has separated us from the place of promises, but if we acknowledge ourselves as lost and cry out to God, we will recover them all, for Christ has secured them for us, He, the Yea and Amen of all the promises of God. Without Bethel, Judah was morally decapitated, as it were. Moreover, Bethel was the place where one could not present himself before God without having buried his false gods (Gen. 35:2-4). It was therefore a momentary restoration of this poor people and their poor king — a very partial restoration, for Abijah still continued to follow a path (2 Chron. 13:21) which had brought on the division of the kingdom.