'And Jehoshaphat his son reigned in his stead, and strengthened
himself against Israel. 2. And he placed forces in all the fenced
cities of Judah, and set garrisons in the land of Judah, and in the
cities of Ephraim, which Asa his father had taken. 3. And the Lord was
with Jehoshaphat, because he walked in the first ways of his father
David, and sought not unto Baalim; 4. But sought to the Lord God of
his father, and walked in His commandments, and not after the doings
of Israel. 5. Therefore the Lord established the kingdom in his hand;
and all Judah brought to Jehoshaphat presents; and he had riches and
honour in abundance. 6. And his heart was lifted up in the ways of the
Lord: moreover he took away the high places and groves out of Judah.
7. Also in the third year of his reign he sent to his princes, even to
Ben-hail, and to Obadiah, and to Zechariah, and to Nethaneel, and to
Michaiah, to teach in the cities of Judah. 8. And with them he sent
Levites, even Shemaiah, and Nethaniah, and Zebadiah, and Asabel, and
Shemiramoth, and Jehonathan, and Adonijah, and Tobijah, and
Tobadonijah, Levites: and with them Elishama and Jehoram, priests. 9.
And they taught in Judah, and had the book of the law of the Lord with
them, and went about throughout all the cities of Judah, and taught
the people. 10. And the fear of the Lord fell upon all the kingdoms of
the lands that were round about Judah, so that they made no war
against Jehoshaphat.'--2 CHRON. xvii. 1-10.
The first point to be noted in this passage is that Jehoshaphat
followed in the steps of Asa his father. Stress is laid on his
adherence to the ancestral faith, 'the first ways of his father
David,'--before his great fall,--and the paternal example, 'he sought
to the God of his father.' Such carrying on of a predecessor's work is
rare in the line of kings of Judah, where father and son were seldom
of the same mind in religion. The principle of hereditary monarchy
secures peaceful succession, but not continuity of policy. Many a king
of Judah had to say in his heart what Ecclesiastes puts into Solomon's
mouth, 'I hated all my labour, ... seeing that I must leave it unto
the man that shall be after me. And who knoweth whether he shall be a
wise man or a fool?'
But it is not only in kings' houses that that experience is realised.
Many a home is saddened to-day because the children do not seek the
God of their fathers. 'Instead of the fathers' should 'come up thy
children'; but, alas! grandmother Lois and mother Eunice do not always
see the boy who has known the Scriptures from a child grow up into a
Timothy, in whom their unfeigned faith lives again. The neglect of
religious instruction in professedly Christian families, the
inconsistent lives of parents or their too rigid restraints, or,
sometimes, their too lax discipline, are to be blamed for many such
cases. But there are many instances in which not the parents, but the
children, are to be blamed. An earnest Sunday-school teacher may do
much to lead the children of godly parents to their father's God.
Blessed is the home where the golden chain of common faith binds
hearts together, and family love is elevated and hallowed by common
love of God!
Jehoshaphat's religion was, further, resolutely held in the face of
prevailing opposition. 'The Baalim' were popular; it was fashionable
to worship them. They were numerous, and all varieties of taste could
find a Baal to please them. But this young king turned from the
tempting ways that opened flower-strewn before him, and chose the
narrow road that led upwards. 'So did not I, because of the fear of
God,' might have been his motto. A similar determined setting of our
faces God-ward, in spite of the crowd of tempting false deities around
us, must mark us, if we are to have any religion worth calling by the
name. This king recoiled from the example of the neighbouring
monarchy, and walked 'not after the doings of Israel.' His seeking to
God was very practical, for it was not shown simply by professed
beliefs or by sentiment, but by ordering his life in obedience to
God's will. The test of real religion is, after all, a life unlike the
lives of the men who do not share our faith, and moulded in accordance
with God's known will. It is vain to allege that we are seeking the
Lord unless we are walking in His commandments.
Prosperity followed godliness, in accordance with the divinely
appointed connection between them which characterised the Old
Dispensation. 'Prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament;
adversity is the blessing of the New,' says Bacon. But the epigram is
too neat to be entirely true, for the Book of Job and many a psalm
show that the eternal problem of suffering innocence was raised by
facts even in the old days, and in our days there are forms of
well-being which are the natural fruits of well-doing. Still, the
connection was closer in Judah than with us, and, in the case before
us, the establishment of Jehoshaphat in the kingdom, his subjects'
love, which showed itself in voluntary gifts over and above the taxes
imposed, and his wealth and honour, were the direct results of his
true religion.
A really devout man must be a propagandist. True faith cannot be hid
nor be dumb. As certainly as light must radiate must faith strive to
communicate itself. So the account of Jehoshaphat's efforts to spread
the worship of Jehovah follows the account of his personal godliness.
'His heart was lifted up in the ways of the Lord.' There are two kinds
of lifted-up hearts; one when pride, self-sufficiency, and
forgetfulness of God, raise a man to a giddy height, from which God's
judgments are sure to cast him down and break him in the fall; one
when a lowly heart is raised to high courage and devotion, and 'set on
high,' because it fears God's name. Such elevation is consistent with
humility. It fears no fall; it is an elevation above earthly desires
and terrors, neither of which can reach it, so as to hinder the man
from walking in 'the ways of the Lord.' This king was lifted to it by
his happy experience of the blessed effects of obedience. These
encouraged him to vigorous efforts to spread the religion which had
thus gladdened and brightened his own life. Is that the use we make of
the ease which God gives us?
Jehoshaphat had to destroy first, in order to build up. The 'high
places and Asherim' had to be taken out of Judah before the true
worship could be established there. So it is still. The Christian has
to carry a sword in the one hand, and a trowel in the other. Many a
rotten old building, the stones of which have been cemented in blood,
has to be swept away before the fair temple can be reared. The Devil
is in possession of much of the world, and the lawful owner has to
dispossess the 'squatter.' No one can suppose that society is
organised on Christian principles even in so-called 'Christian
countries'; and there is much overturning work to be done before He
whose right it is to reign is really king over the whole earth. We,
too, have our 'high places and Asherim' to root out.
But that destructive work is not to be done by force. Institutions can
only be swept away when public opinion has grown to see their evils.
Forcible reformations of manners, and, still more, of religion, never
last, but are sure to be followed by violent rebounds to the old
order. So, side by side with the removal of idolatry, this king took
care to diffuse the knowledge of the true worship, by sending out a
body of influential commissioners to teach in Judah. That was a new
departure of great importance. It presents several interesting
features. The composition of the staff of instructors is remarkable.
The principal men in it are five court officers, next to whom, and
subordinate, as is shown not only by the order of enumeration, but by
the phrase 'with them,' were nine Levites, and, last and lowest of
all, two priests. We might have expected that priests should be the
most numerous and important members of such a body, and we are led to
suspect that the priesthood was so corrupted as to be careless about
religious reformation. A clerical order is not always the most ardent
in religious revival. The commissioners were probably chosen, without
regard to their being priests, Levites, or 'laymen,' because of their
zeal in the worship of Jehovah; and the five 'princes' head the list
in order to show the royal authority of the commission.
Another point is the emphasis with which their function of teaching is
thrice mentioned in three verses. Apparently the bulk of the nation
knew little or nothing of 'the law of the Lord,' either on its
spiritual and moral or its ceremonial side; and Jehoshaphat's object
was to effect an enlightened, not a forcible and superficial, change.
God's way of influencing actions is to reveal Himself to the
understanding and the heart, that these may move the will, and that
may shape the deeds. Wise men will imitate God's way. Jehoshaphat did
not issue royal commands, but sent out teachers. In chapter xix. we
find him despatching 'judges' in similar fashion throughout Judah.
They had the power to punish, but these teachers had only authority to
explain and to exhort.
The present writer accepts the chronicler's statement that the
teachers had 'the Book of the Law' with them, though he recognises it
as possible that that 'Book' was not identical with the complete
collection of documents which now bears the name. But, be that as it
may, the incident of our text is remarkable as being the only recorded
systematic and complete attempt to diffuse the remedy against idolatry
throughout the kingdom, as putting religious reformation on its only
sure ground, and as hinting at deep and widespread ignorance among the
masses.
'When a man's ways please the Lord, He maketh even his enemies to be
at peace with him.' So Judah found. 'A terror of the Lord fell upon
all the kingdoms' around. No doubt, the news filtered to them of how
Jehovah was exerting His might on the nation, and a certain
indefinable awe of this so potent god, who was defeating the Baalim,
made them think that peace was the best policy. Each nation was
supposed to have its own god, and the national god was supposed to
fight for his worshippers; so that war was a struggle of deities as
well as of men, and the stronger god won. Here was a god who had
reconquered his territory, and had cast out usurpers. Prudence
dictated keeping on good terms with him. But it never occurred to any
of these peoples that their own gods were any less real than Judah's,
or that Judah's God could ever become theirs.