The Pulpit Commentary — 2 Chronicles — Section 155

the recently rended and bleeding kingdom, of which a very brief etntement only had been mnde, nt the closo of the history of Rehohoam's reign, whether here or in the pnrnllel. It is olso, and most chiefly, distinguished by the graphic description of the very forcible manifesto, so dramatically delivered as well, in the name and right of religion, and of the truth handed down to him by his fathers, by Abijah Kina of Judah before, as it were, all the dissenting and separate congregation of Israel antl"'their kin/ This subject awaits below some further analysis. And once more, so far as our Book of Chronicles goes, the narrative of this short reign and public career of Abijah is remarkable, in that we should have supposed certainly, when we shut our book that they were, as nearly as might be, immaculate every way to the honour of God, a;d by his grace to the credit of the man and the king, with his heroic challenge to a.II Israel's conscience, towering in the midst of all the rest. The parallel, meanwhile, in Kin"s undeceives us unwelcomely in this impression, and mournfully disabuses our mind, where with startling precision it is recorded that "Abijah walked in all the sins of his father, which he had done before him: and his heart was not perfect with the Lord his God, as the heart of David his father." Whether the unrelated sins of his private life, or the chances of war, or the directer judgment of God, brought his career to so early a close, we are not told. Meanwhile the contents of this chapter are most interesting. They read like an episode almost unique among even the many and varied, the concise and telling monographs that abound in the pages before us. War is waged, armies are ready, and are already face to face; battle itself is ready to begin, or has already be~un, when-no spectral figure-King Abijah himself stands on Mount Zemaraim; the King of Israel, and the army of Israel, and, as it were, all the rended-off nation of Israel, fortunately and conveniently congregated before him. If ever man "preached," Abijah preached, and for the day and the occasion lifted up his voice worthily, and was "not afraid," Truth and facts are unmistakably on his side. We seem, for a moment, to be under the spell of an Old Testament Demosthenes, and to be listening to the snatch of an earlier philippic. If we seek some analysis of this mingled argument, denunciation, appeal, we notice- I. THE SAFE GROUND OF THE CASE 111.A.DE AGAINST ISBAEL AND JEROBOAM. "The Lord God of Israel gave the kingdom over Israel to David for ever-to him and to his sons by a covenant of salt." Perhaps, indeed, Abijah remembered well the solemn proviso of that covenant, emphatically made, and put into psalm as well, "If thy children will keep my covenant and my testimony that I shall teach them, their children shall also sit upon thy throne for evermore" (Ps. cxxxii. 12). Though he neglected to quote it into his argument, and let us say probably by design, yet it was substantially true that the perpetual kingdom was made over so, by divinest engage- ment, to Judah, as against all other comers whomsoever, and up to the coming of the Lord Jesus himself, of whose kingdom there should be indeed no end. For Abijah might, if challenged, have gone on also to quote (Ps. lxxxix. 33-37), "Nevertheless my loving-kindness will I not utterly take from him, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail. My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips. Once have I sworn by my holiness that I will not lie unto David. His seed shall endure for ever, and his throne as the sun before me. It shall be established for ever as the moon. and as a faithful witness in heaven." Bo Abijah begins successfully, putting Israel and Jeroboam essentially in the wrong. I!. THE MORAL ELEMENT FLUNG SO EFFECTIVELY AND OPPORTUNELY BY ABIJAB INTO THE ARGUMENT. "Ought ye not to know this, that the Lord God of Israel gave the kingdom over Israel to David for ever?" Israel and Jeroboam did know it, knew it well; and Abijah and all Judah knew that their separated brethren knew it, and knew it well. It was a well-conceived addition to the argument of the king of the true line. How many persons know the right most assuredly, to whom, for neglecting to do it, the most telling and most stinging expostulation and rebuke might well be couched in the same form of question, " Ought ye not to know ? " III. 'l'HE PATENT AGGRAVATIONS OF THE CONDUCT OF JEROBOAM. Viz. that: 1. It was a case of a subject rebelling against his own king (ver. 6), not of one foreign to the kingdom obtaining sway by conquest over a portion of it. 2. It was a case of that subject also taking advantage of the youth and inexperience of the rightful monarch Rehohoam, who was actually in possession of the throne at the time of the schism.  156 Tl!E SECOND BOOK OF THE C1t:1toNICLES. (crt. xrtt. 1-~t