The panic that laid hold on the enemy, and turned their swords against
each other, was more natural in an undisciplined horde such as these
irregular levies of ancient times, than it would be in a modern army.
Once started, the infection would spread, so we need not wonder that
by the time that Judah arrived on the field all was over. How often a
like experience attends us! We quiver with apprehension of troubles
that never attack us. We dread some impending battlefield, and when we
reach it, Jehoshaphat's surprise is repeated, 'and, behold they were
dead bodies, fallen to the earth.' Delivered from foes and fears,
Judah's first impulse was to secure the booty, for they were keen
after wealth, and their 'faith' was not very pure or elevating. But
their last act was worthier, and fitly ended the strange campaign.
They gathered in some wady among the grim cliffs of the wilderness of
Judah, which broke the dreariness of that savage stretch of country
with perhaps verdure and a brook, and there they 'blessed the Lord.'
The chronicler gives a piece of popular etymology, in deriving the
name, 'the valley of blessing,' from that morning's worship. Perhaps
the name was older than that, and was given from a feeling of the
contrast between the waste wilderness, which in its gaunt sterility
seemed an accursed land, and the glen which with its trees and stream
was indeed a 'valley of blessing.' If so, the name would be doubly
appropriate after that day's experience. Be that as it may, here we
have in vivid form the truth that all our struggles and fightings may
end in a valley of blessing, which will ring with the praise of the
God who fights for us. If we begin our warfare with an appeal to God,
and with prayerful acknowledgment of our own impotence, we shall end
it with thankful acknowledgment that we are 'more than conquerors
through Him that loved us' and fought for us, and our choral song of
praise will echo through the true Valley of Blessing, where no sound
of enemies shall ever break the settled stillness, and the host of the
redeemed, like that army of Judah, shall bear 'psalteries and harps
and trumpets,' and shall need spear and sword no more at all for ever.