2. The Date. — The war between Asa and Zerah ap- pears to have taken place soon after the tenth (2 Chron. xiv, 1) or early in the tifteenth year of Asa (xv, 10). It therefore occurred in about the same year of Usarken II, fourth king of the twenty-second dynasty, who be- gan to reign about the same time as the king of Judah. We may therefore date the invasion in B.C. 939.
3. The Event.— The first ten years of Asa's reign were undisturbed by war. Then Asa took counsel with his subjects, and walled and fortified the cities of Judah. He also maintained an army of 580,000 men, 300,000 spearmen of Judah, and 280,000 archers of Benjamin. This great force was probably the whole number of men able to bear arms (2 Chron. xiv, 1-8). At length the anticipated danger came. Zerah the Ethiopian, with a mighty army of a million, Cushim and Lubim, with three hundred chariots, invaded the kingdom, and ad- vanced unopposed in the field as far as Mareshah. As the invaders afterwards retreated by way of Gerar, and Mareshah lay on the west of the hill-coinitry of Judah, where it rises out of the Philistine plain, in the line of march from Egypt to Jerusalem, it cannot be doubted that they came out of Egypt. Between the border on the side of (ierar and Mareshah lay no important city but Gath. Gath and Mareshah were both fortified bj' Rehoboam before the invasion of Shishak (xi, 8), and were no doubt captured and probably dismantled by that king (comp. xii, 4), whose list of conquered towns, etc., shows that he not only took some strong towns, but that he subdued the country in detail. A delay in the capt- ure of Gath, where the warlike Philistines may have opposed a stubborn resistance, would have removed the only obstacle on the way to Mareshah, thus securing the retreat that was afterwards made by this route. From Mareshah or its immediate neighborhood was a route to Jerusalem, presenting no difficulties but those of a hilly country ; for not one important town is known to have lain between the capital and this outpost of the tribe of Judah. The invading army had swarmed across the border and devoured the Philistine fields before Asa could march to meet it. The distance from Gerar, ot
the southwestern border of Palestine, to Mareshah was not much greater than from I\Iarcshah to Jerusalem, and, considering the nature of the tracts, would have taken about the same time to traverse; and only such delay as would have been caused by the sieges of Gath and Mareshah could have enabled Asa hastily to collect a levy and march to relieve the beleaguered town or hold the passes. " In the valley of Zephathah at Ma- reshah" the two armies met. We cannot perfectly de- termine the site of the battle. Mareshah, according to the Onoinasticon, lay within two miles of Eleutheropolis, and Dr. Robinson has reasonably conjectured its posi- tion to be marked by a remarkable " tell," or artificial mound, a mile and a half south of the site of the latter town. Its signification, " that which is at the head," would scarcely suit a position at the opening of a val- ley. But it seems that a narrow valley terminates, and a broad one commences, at the supposed site. The val- ley of Zephathah, " the watch-tower," is supposed by Dr. Robinson to be the latter, a broad wady, descending from Eleutheropolis in a northwesterly direction to- wards Tell es-S(iJieh, in which last name he is disposed to trace the old appellation (Bibl. Res. ii, 31). The two have no connection whatever, and Robinson's conjecture is extremely hazardous. See Zephathah. If this identification be correct, we must suppose that Zerah re- tired from before IMareshah towards the plain, that he might use his "chariots and horsemen" with effect, in- stead of entangling them in the narrow valleys leading towards Jerusalem. From the prayer of Asa we may judge that, when he came upon the invading army, he saw its hugeness, and so that, as he descended through a valley, it lay spread out beneath him. The Egj'p- tian monuments enable us to picture the general dispo- sition of Zerah's army. The chariots formed the first corps in a single or double line ; behind them, massed in phalanxes, were heavy-armed troops ; probably on the flanks stood archers and horsemen in lighter forma- tions. Asa, marchii^g down a valley, must have at- tacked in a heavy column ; for none but the most high- ly disciplined troops can form line from column in the face of an enemy. His spearmen of Judah would have composed this column : each bank of the valley would have been occupied by the Benjamite archers, like those who came to David, " helpers of the war, armed with bows, and [who] could use both the right hand and the left in [hurling] stones and [shooting] arrows out of a bow " (1 Chron. xii, 1, 2). No doubt the Ethiopian, confident in his numbers, disdained to attack the He- brews or clear the heights, but waited in the broad val- lej', or the plain. Asa's prayer before the battle is full of the noble faith of the age of the Judges : " Lord [it is] alike to thee to help, whether the strong or the weak : help us, O Lord our God ; for we rest on thee, and in thy name we go against this multitude. O Lord, thou [art] our God; let not man prevail against thee." From the account of Abijah's defeat of Jeroboam, we may suppose that the priests sounded their trumpets, and the men of Judah descended with a shout (2 Chron. xiii, 14, 15). The hills and mountains were the favor- ite camping-places of the Hebrews, who usually rushed down upon their more numerous or better-disciplined enemies in the plains and valleys. If the battle were deliberately set in array, it would have begun early in the morning, according to the usual practice of these times, when there was not a night-surprise, as when Goliath challenged the Israelites (1 Sam. xvii, 20-23), and when Thothmes III fought the Canaanites at Me- giddo; and, as we may judge from the long pursuits at this period, the sun would have been in the eyes of the army of Zerah, and its archers would thus have been useless. The chariots, broken by the charge and with horses made unmanageable by flights of arrows, must have been forced back upon the cumbrous host behind. " So the Lord smote the P^thiopians before Asa, and be- fore Judah ; and the Ethiopians fled. And Asa and the people that [were] with him pursued them unto Gerar: