Bird's-eye view
We come now to a moment of high drama in the history of the divided kingdom. This is not merely a border skirmish between two petty near-eastern kings. This is a covenantal lawsuit, played out on the field of battle. On one side, you have Jeroboam, the apostate king of the northern tribes, the man who set up the golden calves and institutionalized rebellion against the house of David and the worship of God in Jerusalem. On the other side, you have Abijah, a king of Judah, a descendant of David, but a man who is, as we shall see, a very mixed bag. The Chronicler is setting the stage for a great contest. It is a contest between raw, brute force and a flickering, faltering, but nevertheless legitimate, covenant claim. It is a contest God has arranged to show that He does not need perfect vessels to accomplish His purposes, and that He will not abandon His promises, even when His people give Him every reason to.
Outline
- 1. The Setting of the Conflict (2 Chron 13:1-2)
- a. The Accession of Abijah (v. 1)
- b. The Brief Reign and Messy Lineage (v. 2a-b)
- c. The Inevitable War (v. 2c)
- 2. The Assembling of the Armies (2 Chron 13:3)
- a. Judah's Force: The Covenant Remnant (v. 3a)
- b. Israel's Force: The Apostate Multitude (v. 3b)
1 In the eighteenth year of King Jeroboam, Abijah became king over Judah.
The Chronicler begins by anchoring us in redemptive history. The timeline is not set by the reigns of pharaohs or emperors, but by the reign of Jeroboam, the great schismatic. This is significant. Jeroboam is the standard of rebellion, the man "who made Israel to sin." His reign is the backdrop against which the drama of Judah unfolds. Abijah's ascent to the throne is not a political accident; it is a divine appointment. In the midst of Israel's full-blown apostasy, God raises up another son of David to sit on the throne in Jerusalem. This is God's faithfulness on display. The northern kingdom has abandoned the covenant, but God has not abandoned His covenant with David. He is still maintaining a lamp for His anointed in the holy city.
2 He reigned three years in Jerusalem; and his mother’s name was Micaiah the daughter of Uriel of Gibeah.
A three-year reign is not long. Abijah is a transitional figure, not one of the great reforming kings. He is a weak link in the chain, and yet the chain holds. This is a profound gospel truth. The strength of God's covenant does not depend on the moral quality of every king in the line. It depends entirely on the God who made the covenant. The mention of his mother, Micaiah, is also important. The Chronicler is meticulous about genealogies because lineage matters. Legitimacy matters. This connects Abijah to the fabric of Judah's history. Now, there is a textual wrinkle here. 1 Kings 15:2 calls his mother Maacah, the daughter of Absalom. This is not a contradiction to stumble over. It is likely that "daughter" is used in the sense of "granddaughter," linking Abijah's maternal line to David's rebellious son, Absalom. The line of promise is traced through a messy, tangled family tree of sinners, which only serves to magnify the grace of God in preserving it until the coming of the one perfect Son of David, Jesus Christ.
Now there was war between Abijah and Jeroboam.
Of course there was. War is the necessary, logical, and spiritual consequence of apostasy. When a people tear themselves away from the true worship of God, they inevitably turn on one another. The civil war between Judah and Israel is the outward expression of a spiritual divorce. Jeroboam had rejected the temple, the priesthood, and the Davidic throne. He had declared spiritual independence from God's ordained order. The result is not peace and prosperity, but bloodshed. This is a standing principle. A nation that declares war on God will find itself at war with itself. The conflict is between the kingdom that has abandoned the covenant and the kingdom that, for all its deep flaws, still formally possesses it.
3 And Abijah began the battle with a military force of mighty men, 400,000 chosen men, while Jeroboam arranged them all for battle against him with 800,000 chosen men who were mighty men of valor.
Here the Chronicler sets the odds. We are not meant to quibble with the numbers like some modernist historian. We are meant to see the theological point. Judah is outnumbered two to one. From a human perspective, this is a fool's errand. Abijah is leading his men into a slaughter. But God is the master strategist, and He delights in these kinds of odds. He is arranging the affair so that no man can boast in his own strength. When the victory comes, and it will, the glory cannot go to the generals or the soldiers of Judah. The glory must go to God. This is the pattern throughout Scripture, from Gideon's tiny band to David's sling. God's strength is made perfect in weakness. Notice that both armies are described with honorable terms, "mighty men" and "chosen men." But the valor of the north is the valor of the flesh, trusting in numbers and strength. The hope of the south, as Abijah is about to declare, rests on something else entirely. The stage is set for a confrontation that will test where true strength is to be found.
Application
This passage sets before us a foundational principle of spiritual warfare. The people of God will often find themselves outmanned, outgunned, and outnumbered by the forces of this world. The world trusts in its horses and chariots, its numbers and its noise. But we are called to trust in the name of the Lord our God.
Abijah was an imperfect king leading a compromised people, yet because he stood on the covenant promises of God, he was on the winning side. This should be a tremendous encouragement to us. Our standing before God does not depend on our own flawless performance, but on the finished work of Christ, the true Son of David. We are part of His kingdom, and though it may often look small and beleaguered, it is the kingdom that will triumph in the end.
This text also reminds us that apostasy has consequences. When we abandon the clear teaching of Scripture for man-made religion, as Jeroboam did, the result is conflict and division. True peace is found only in submission to the one true King. We must therefore be diligent to worship God as He has commanded, and to stand firm on His covenant, even when the odds seem impossibly stacked against us. For the battle is not ours, but God's.