Lesson 10 – King Jehoshaphat in Judah

¹King Asa reigned for a relatively long time in Judah. He witnessed many kings come and go in his northern neighbor, Israel. Towards the end of his reign (when Ahab was on the throne in Israel), he experienced a disease of his feet. We don’t know what the disease was, but it became severe enough that he had to get help. While he has followed God throughout his reign, in this one matter he did not rely on God. Instead he turned to his physicians to treat him. Based on the text it does not look like that approach served to heal him. And two years after the advent of the disease, he died.

²Asa’s son Jehoshaphat succeeded him in Judah. One of his first items of business was to garrison troops in all the fortified cities along the border with Israel. Ahab reigned in Israel at this time, and Jehoshaphat wanted to be sure that Judah would be seen as “easy pickings” for an aggressive neighbor.

³Jehoshaphat followed in the footsteps of his ancestor, David. He feared God and rejected the worship of idols. He sought after God and obeyed His commandments. In this he was the opposite of the Kingdom of Israel to the North.

Once he was settled on the throne, Jehoshaphat sent teams of officials and Levities out to the towns of Judah with a copy of the Law. They were to read the Law of Moses in the towns so that the people would understand what God expected of them.

⁴God rewarded Jehoshaphat with great honor in the region.. All the kingdoms around him understood that he was faithful to a powerful God, and they feared him and his God. He enjoyed a period of peace where none of his neighbors attacked him. The Philistines and Arabians brought tribute to him as a way of showing honor. Jehoshaphat’s reign was a mini new golden age for Judah, remembering back to the time of Solomon.

⁵2 Chronicles 18 and 1 Kings 22 tell an almost identical story. The main difference is that 2 Chronicles gives the story from the perspective of King Jehoshaphat. In it we learn that he cried out to God when the commanders of the Syrian army were drawn to his kingly attire on the battlefield. God then helped him to avoid capture or harm from the king-hunters.

⁶When he returned to Jerusalem from the battle with the Syrians where Ahab was killed, the prophet Jehu sought him out with a word from God. Because Jehoshaphat had allied himself with such a wicked king in Ahab, God was upset with him. God would pour out His wrath on Jehoshaphat. However, God did acknowledge that Jehoshaphat had a good heart in him for putting away idols and choosing to follow God and His law.

⁷When Jehoshaphat learned that a great army from the east, Moab and Ammon, had marched against him, he was afraid. But in that fear he did not act foolishly or under his own power. Instead he turned to God and called a great fast. He gathered people together before the temple of God and prayed to God for deliverance. In this prayer, he reminded God that it was God who had driven out the former inhabitants of the land and given it to the descendants of Abraham. And that is exactly what had happened, and Jerusalem had become the location of God’s sanctuary. Since God had done this, He intended it to be permanent but now these foreigners were coming to destroy God’s people, and they were not strong enough to resist. So Jehoshaphat called on God for deliverance.

God answered through one of the priests at the ceremony. he said that the battle was God’s and they did not need to worry about how to defeat the army. They only had to go out to meet the enemy on faith that God would protect them.

⁸When Jehoshaphat and the people heard God’s message, he bowed himself to the ground in response to God. All the people with him did the same. Together they worshipped the Lord and gave praise to Him for the deliverance that He had promised to provide. Even though it had not happened, they treated it with the same confidence as if it had already occurred.

⁹When the army of Judah arrived at the spot where God said He would deliver them, they found the dead bodies of their enemies lying on the ground. We don’t know how they died. Perhaps God sent an angel who killed them. Perhaps they attacked one another over some source of disagreement between their leaders. The method didn’t matter. The result was that God protected the people of Judah just as He said He would.

¹⁰When the people discovered the dead armies, they spent three days collecting all the spoils of the battle and took it all back to Jerusalem. This was an extraordinary amount of goods that they simply picked up. Not only did God protect them physically, but He provided for them through all the spoils that they were able to collect.

After worshipping God, the people of Judah and Jerusalem returned to Jerusalem. As they went they played music and sang praises to God. And Jehoshaphat let the way both in returning and in worshipping.

¹¹Because of this defeat of the Ammonites and Moabites, all the nations around feared God. None of their idols had ever defeated an army like this before. Every kingdom wondered if they would suffer a similar fate if they were to attack Judah. So Jehoshaphat enjoyed greater fame in the region and experienced a time of peace and calm.

¹²The final summary of Jehoshaphat’s reign was positive. He consistently walked in a way that pleased God. He did the things that God wanted, and did not turn away from it in his later years. However we did see that he earned the wrath of God because of his dealings with the wicked king of Israel. He let the people continue to offer sacrifices in high places around the kingdom rather than exclusively at the temple in Judah.

¹³Jehoshaphat made three alliances with the kings of Israel.

1. He made an marriage alliance with Ahab, the King of Israel.
2. He made a military alliance with Ahab to fight against Syria.
3. Later he developed a commercial partnership with Ahaziah, King of Israel to send trading ships to Tarshish and collect treasure.

¹⁴Each time Jehoshaphat allied himself with Israel, bad things happened.

1. Looking ahead in 2 Chronicles 21, we can see that this daughter of Ahab (and Jezebel) caused his son and successor to deviate from walking a path that pleased God. This daughter of Ahab will also bring additional consequences in a subsequent lesson.
2. In the military alliance, Ahab died, and Jehoshaphat received a rebuke that God’s wrath was coming because he aligned himself with such a wicked king.
3. The ships were ultimately wrecked and never set off on the expedition.

¹⁵Every time Jehoshaphat allied himself with Israel, bad things happened. But when he focused on God instead, he experienced God’s favor. This has an obvious lesson that God does not bless His people when they align with wicked partners. It does not matter what good we might think will come from the partnership. God has determined that we should pursue a path of reliance on Him.