2 Chronicles 19

Introduction

JEHOSHAPHAT VISITS HIS KINGDOM. (Ch2 19:1-4)

Jehoshaphat . . . returned to his house in peace--(See Ch2 18:16). Not long after he had resumed the ordinary functions of royalty in Jerusalem, he was one day disturbed by an unexpected and ominous visit from a prophet of the Lord [Ch2 19:2]. This was Jehu, of whose father we read in Ch2 16:7. He himself had been called to discharge the prophetic office in Israel. But probably for his bold rebuke to Baasha (Kg1 16:1), he had been driven by that arbitrary monarch within the territory of Judah, where we now find him with the privileged license of his order, taking the same religious supervision of Jehoshaphat's proceedings as he had formerly done of Baasha's. At the interview here described, he condemned, in the strongest terms, the king of Judah's imprudent and incongruous league with Ahab--God's open enemy (Kg1 22:2) --as an unholy alliance that would be conducive neither to the honor and comfort of his house nor to the best interests of his kingdom. He apprised Jehoshaphat that, on account of that grave offense, "wrath was upon him from before the Lord," a judgment that was inflicted soon after (see on 2Ch. 20:1-37). The prophet's rebuke, however, was administered in a mingled strain of severity and mildness; for he interposed "a nevertheless" (Ch2 19:3), which implied that the threatened storm would be averted, in token of the divine approval of his public efforts for the promotion of the true religion, as well as of the sincere piety of his personal character and life.