Commentary - 2 Chronicles 20:35-37

Bird's-eye view

This brief account at the end of Jehoshaphat's reign serves as a potent and melancholy postscript. After the glorious victory God granted him earlier in this very chapter, a victory won without a sword being lifted, we find Jehoshaphat stumbling over the same stone twice. His besetting sin appears to be a desire for ecumenical partnerships with the apostate northern kingdom. He had previously allied himself with the wicked Ahab, a venture that nearly cost him his life and earned him a sharp rebuke from the prophet Jehu (2 Chron. 19:2). One would think he had learned his lesson. But here we see him, "afterwards," making a business alliance with Ahab's son, Ahaziah, a man walking in the footsteps of his father. The result is predictable: divine displeasure, prophetic rebuke, and economic ruin. This passage is a stark reminder that God's people must not be unequally yoked, whether in marriage, in war, or in business. God's blessing does not follow worldly compromise.

The story is straightforward. A good king makes a bad alliance. He undertakes a commercial venture with a wicked partner. A prophet of God pronounces judgment on the project because of the unholy partnership. God enforces the judgment, and the ships are destroyed before they can even set sail. It is a lesson in the folly of seeking worldly advantage through disobedience. God is not mocked; what a man sows, that he will also reap. Jehoshaphat sowed a compromised alliance and reaped a shattered fleet.

Outline

Context In 2 Chronicles

This incident is placed at the very end of the narrative of Jehoshaphat's reign, just before the summary of his life and his death. Its placement is significant. Chapter 20 opens with a massive threat from a pagan coalition, and Jehoshaphat responds with exemplary faith, fasting, and prayer. God grants a miraculous deliverance, and the chapter is filled with praise and worship. The kingdom has rest. But then we come to this. It is a jarring transition from spiritual triumph to spiritual failure. The Chronicler's purpose seems to be to provide a balanced and realistic portrait of even the best of kings. Jehoshaphat was a great reformer, a man of God, but he was not perfect. He had a particular weakness for these entanglements with Israel, a blind spot that repeatedly brought him trouble. This serves as a warning to the post-exilic community, for whom the book was written, about the dangers of assimilation and compromise with unbelievers. They were to be a holy people, set apart for Yahweh, and this story powerfully illustrates the consequences of forgetting that calling.

Key Issues

Commentary

Verse 35: Afterwards, Jehoshaphat king of Judah allied himself with Ahaziah king of Israel. He acted wickedly in so doing.

The word "afterwards" is heavy with meaning. After what? After the stunning victory over the Moabites and Ammonites. After the display of God's covenant faithfulness. After the songs of praise in the valley of Beracah. It is right on the heels of a great spiritual high that Jehoshaphat makes this disastrous decision. This is a perpetual warning for the saints. We are often most vulnerable right after a great victory. When the pressure is off and we are coasting on the memory of God's deliverance, our guard can come down. Pride and a false sense of security can set in, leading to foolish choices.

He "allied himself with Ahaziah king of Israel." This was not just a treaty; the Hebrew word suggests a binding together, a partnership. And who was Ahaziah? He was the son of Ahab and Jezebel, a card-carrying member of the house of Baal worship. 1 Kings 22:52-53 tells us plainly that "he did evil in the sight of Yahweh and walked in the way of his father and in the way of his mother." This was not a gray area. Jehoshaphat, the king who had sent out Levites to teach the Law of Yahweh throughout Judah, was now joining hands with a man who represented everything he was supposed to be fighting against. The text does not mince words. The divine assessment is delivered immediately and bluntly: "He acted wickedly in so doing." This was not a mere political miscalculation. It was sin. It was a violation of the fundamental principle of separation that God requires of His people. You cannot serve God and mammon, and you cannot build the kingdom of God with the tools of the kingdom of darkness.

Verse 36: So he allied himself with him to make ships to go to Tarshish, and they made the ships in Ezion-geber.

This verse lays out the specifics of their joint venture. It was a commercial enterprise. They were going to build a fleet of ships to sail to Tarshish. Tarshish was a proverbial "get rich quick" destination, famous for its mineral wealth, particularly silver, iron, tin, and lead. This was a business deal, a plan to increase the national treasuries of both Judah and Israel. On the surface, it might have seemed like a shrewd economic move. Judah had the port at Ezion-geber on the Red Sea, and Israel perhaps had the shipbuilding know-how or capital. Why not pool resources for mutual benefit?

This is how worldly wisdom always presents itself. It is pragmatic. It is sensible. It is profitable. But it leaves God out of the calculation. The problem was not the desire for economic prosperity. The problem was the partner. Jehoshaphat was attempting to secure God's blessings through a partnership that God had forbidden. He was yoking the temple of God, which he had so carefully cleansed, with an idolater. The project itself was tainted from the start because the alliance was unholy. They built the ships in Ezion-geber, the very place where Solomon had built his great fleet. Perhaps Jehoshaphat was trying to recapture the glory days of Solomon's empire. But he forgot that Solomon's glory came from his initial obedience to Yahweh, not from his later compromises.

Verse 37: Then Eliezer the son of Dodavahu of Mareshah prophesied against Jehoshaphat saying, “Because you have allied yourself with Ahaziah, Yahweh has destroyed your works.” So the ships were broken and could not go to Tarshish.

When God's people go astray, He does not abandon them. He sends correction. Here, the correction comes in the form of a prophet named Eliezer. We know nothing else about him, but he stands in the great tradition of men like Elijah and Micaiah, speaking truth to power. His message is a model of prophetic clarity. It has a reason and a result.

The reason for the judgment is stated plainly: "Because you have allied yourself with Ahaziah." God goes right to the heart of the sin. It was not the shipbuilding, it was not the desire for trade, it was the unholy alliance. This is a crucial distinction. We are often tempted to blame our circumstances, our methods, or our bad luck when things go wrong. God points to the root issue: our disobedience, our compromised loyalties.

The result is equally clear: "Yahweh has destroyed your works." Notice the verb tense. It is a prophetic perfect. From God's perspective, the destruction is so certain it is spoken of as already accomplished. And God is the agent. This is not a random storm or a case of shoddy workmanship. This is the direct, disciplinary hand of God. God Himself will smash the project. He will not allow His people to profit from disobedience. The verse concludes with the historical fulfillment of the prophecy. "So the ships were broken." God's word came to pass. The entire fleet, the product of all that investment and labor, was wrecked before it ever left port. The grand venture to Tarshish ended in a pile of splinters at Ezion-geber. It was a total loss. This is a temporal judgment, a fatherly discipline. God is teaching His child, Jehoshaphat, a hard but necessary lesson about the high cost of cheap compromise.

Application

The lesson of Jehoshaphat's broken ships is a timeless one. The prohibition against being "unequally yoked" with unbelievers (2 Cor. 6:14) is not an arbitrary rule designed to make our lives difficult. It is a guardrail rooted in the very character of God, designed for our protection and blessing. This principle applies across the board, to business partnerships, to romantic relationships, and to ecclesiastical unions. When we join ourselves in common cause with those who hate the Lord, we are inviting trouble.

This does not mean we retreat into a monastic isolation. We are to be salt and light in the world. There is a place for what we might call co-belligerence, working alongside unbelievers for a limited, common good, like opposing abortion. But an alliance is different. An alliance, like this one between Jehoshaphat and Ahaziah, implies a shared identity and a common mission. We cannot have a common mission with those whose ultimate loyalty is to a different god.

We must also learn that disobedience is always bad business. It never pays in the long run. We may think a little compromise here, a little ethical corner-cutting there, will lead to great gain. But God is the one who gives the increase. And He will not bless ventures that are founded on a denial of His lordship. Better to have a small fishing boat with God's blessing than a fleet of Tarshish-bound ships that have God's judgment pronounced over them. We must trust that obedience to God's Word, even when it seems impractical or unprofitable by the world's standards, is always the wisest and most profitable course of action.