2 Chronicles: A Messianic Jewish Commentary

Before we begin

First Chronicles ended with David asleep and his son seated “on the throne of Hashem” (1 Chronicles 29:23). Second Chronicles opens with the next sentence: “And Solomon the son of David was strengthened in his kingdom” (1:1). In Hebrew there is no break: דִּבְרֵי הַיָּמִים (Divrei HaYamim), “the words of the days,” is one book, which the Greek translators cut in two. Its place in the Tenakh, its authorship and how we cite “Rashi on Chronicles” are set out in the introduction to our 1 Chronicles commentary.

Second Chronicles runs from Solomon at Gibeon to the decree of Cyrus: nine chapters on Solomon and the House of Hashem, then the divided kingdom, with only the kings of Judah followed, to the fire and the exile. It ends with an open door: “Hashem his God be with him, and let him go up” (36:23).

About half of the book retells 1 and 2 Kings, and half is found only here. Like the Chronicler, we assume Kings is known: we give the reference and spend our words on what Chronicles adds, leaves out or changes. His theme is David’s charge to Solomon: “if thou seek him, he will be found of thee; but if thou forsake him, he will cast thee off for ever” (1 Chronicles 28:9). The verb is דָּרַשׁ (darash), “to seek,” and it appears in the first chapter (1:5). Verse numbers follow the Hebrew: in chapters 1–2 the Hebrew 1:18 is KJV 2:1, and Hebrew 2:1–17 is KJV 2:2–18.

How this commentary is built. We read the text first, in Hebrew where it matters, because Torah comes first and the Prophets and Writings are measured by it. Then we hear the sages: the Talmud, the Midrash, Rashi, Radak and Rambam. Then our own teachers: the FFOZ End of Days lessons, Rabbi Efraim Palvanov and Ariel Cohen Alloro, along with our own Benei Avraham classes. Last, we ask what the passage shows us about Mashiach.

A word on our teachers. Rabbi Palvanov and Ariel Cohen Alloro bring a great deal of Kabbalah and gematria. We use their insights as remez, a hint that opens a door, and never as proof. Gematria can show a connection the text already makes, but it cannot make a doctrine by itself. Where a teacher’s framework goes beyond what Benei Avraham confesses (for example, on reincarnation or on the nature of God), we take the insight and leave the framework. “To the Torah and to the testimony” (Isaiah 8:20) is the test for all of it, our own words included.

Scripture is quoted from the King James Version with Hashem in place of LORD, as in our Statement of Faith.

Chapter 1 · Wisdom at Gibeon

Read 2 Chronicles 1 in Hebrew and English →

1:1–6 · Solomon seeks Hashem at Moses’ altar

“And Solomon the son of David was strengthened in his kingdom, and Hashem his God was with him, and magnified him exceedingly” (1:1).

Hebrew lesson: וַיִּתְחַזֵּק (vayitchazek), “was strengthened.” Again and again David told his son חֲזַק (chazak), “be strong” (1 Chronicles 22:13; 28:10, 20), and the first verb of the new book answers him. In Kings, “the kingdom was established in the hand of Solomon” (1 Kings 2:46) only after Adonijah, Joab and Shimei were dealt with (1 Kings 1–2). Chronicles leaves all of that out. Its Solomon is strong because Hashem is with him (see our 1 Chronicles commentary on 29:23–25).

“So Solomon, and all the congregation with him, went to the high place that was at Gibeon; for there was the tabernacle of the congregation of God, which Moses the servant of Hashem had made in the wilderness” (1:3).

Kings tells it with a frown, “only he sacrificed and burnt incense in high places” (1 Kings 3:3), before he goes to Gibeon, “for that was the great high place” (1 Kings 3:4). Chronicles drops the “only” and says why Gibeon was great: Moses’ Mishkan stood there, with “the brasen altar, that Bezaleel the son of Uri, the son of Hur, had made” (1:5), while the Ark was in David’s tent in Jerusalem (1:4). Why Israel worshipped in two places in those years, and when a bamah was permitted, we explained in our 1 Chronicles commentary on 16:37–43. What is new is the pedigree. Bezalel’s line was written in the genealogy of Judah (see our 1 Chronicles commentary on 2:18–24), and the young king of Judah begins at the altar made by Judah’s first builder, before he becomes Judah’s second.

Hebrew lesson: וַיִּדְרְשֵׁהוּ (vayidreshehu), “and they sought it.” “Solomon and the congregation sought unto it” (1:5). It is the verb and the ending of David’s confession, “we enquired not at it (lo derashnuhu) in the days of Saul” (1 Chronicles 13:3; see our 1 Chronicles commentary on 13:3–4). Saul did not seek; David sought the Ark; now all Israel seeks at Moses’ altar. The Hebrew can be read “sought it” or “sought Him”: the altar is where Hashem is sought.

Why this matters. The son of David begins with nothing new, at the altar the Torah commanded, offering “a thousand burnt offerings upon it” (1:6). When the House is finished, the Ark and “the tabernacle of the congregation” are both brought into it (5:5); the Talmud says Moses’ tent was stored away beneath the Sanctuary (Sotah 9a). The House received the Mishkan; it did not replace it.

1:7–13 · “Ask what I shall give thee”

“In that night did God appear unto Solomon, and said unto him, Ask what I shall give thee” (1:7).

Chronicles drops Kings’ dream (1 Kings 3:5, 15) and keeps the verb נִרְאָה (nir’ah), “appeared,” which returns at Moriah (see 3:1–2).

The son prays the father’s prayer. “Let thy promise unto David my father be established” (1:9): יֵאָמֵן (ye’amen), “let it be made sure,” is the word of David’s prayer (1 Chronicles 17:23; see our 1 Chronicles commentary on 17:23–27). Before Solomon asks for himself, he asks Hashem to keep His word to his father.

“Give me now wisdom and knowledge, that I may go out and come in before this people: for who can judge this thy people, that is so great?” (1:10).

Hebrew lesson: חָכְמָה וּמַדָּע (chochmah u-madda), “wisdom and knowledge.” In Kings he asks for לֵב שֹׁמֵעַ (lev shomea), “an understanding heart,” literally “a hearing heart” (1 Kings 3:9). Madda is a late word, used for the learning of Daniel (Daniel 1:17). And chochmah is the craftsman’s word as well as the judge’s: Bezalel was filled “in wisdom, and in understanding, and in knowledge” (Exodus 31:3), and in the next chapter Solomon asks for “a man cunning,” אִישׁ חָכָם (ish chacham), “a wise man” (2:6). He asks for wisdom to judge, and in Chronicles the first thing that wisdom does is build. “That I may go out and come in” is Moses’ prayer for a shepherd (Numbers 27:17).

“Because this was in thine heart” (1:11), says Hashem; Kings has “Because thou hast asked this thing” (1 Kings 3:11). The God who “searcheth all hearts” answers the heart (see our 1 Chronicles commentary on 28:9–10). Solomon receives what he asked, and riches and honor besides (1:12). One thing is missing. Kings adds, “if thou wilt walk in my ways… then I will lengthen thy days” (1 Kings 3:14). Chronicles has neither the condition nor the promise.

Our teachers. FFOZ’s End of Days reads this scene as the model of a Torah king: “Think of the story of King Solomon praying for wisdom so that he might be equipped to administer justice as the judge of Israel… Filled with the spirit of wisdom, knowledge, and discernment, he applied himself to the law of God. The rabbis nominated King Solomon as the greatest Torah scholar of all time” (Lesson 18, “Roar of the Lion”). Wisdom in Israel is Torah applied, and it is given: “For Hashem giveth wisdom” (Proverbs 2:6).

Messianic reading. The psalm “for Solomon” begins, “Give the king thy judgments, O God, and thy righteousness unto the king’s son” (Psalm 72:1), and the Targum reads “the king” as the King Messiah. Our Statement of Faith quotes Solomon’s prayer (1 Kings 3:9) and “they saw that the wisdom of God was in him, to do judgment” (1 Kings 3:28) to show how a son of David judges: by wisdom Hashem gives, not by being Hashem. So with Yeshua. At twelve, the age the sages give Solomon at his crowning (see our 1 Chronicles commentary on 22:2–5), he sat in the Temple, and “all that heard him were astonished at his understanding and answers” (Luke 2:47). He said, “a greater than Solomon is here” (Matthew 12:42), and Paul says he “of God is made unto us wisdom” (1 Corinthians 1:30): of God, from God.

“Then Solomon came… to Jerusalem… and reigned over Israel” (1:13). Here Kings tells of the two mothers (1 Kings 3:16–28). Chronicles leaves it out; in this book Solomon’s wisdom is shown by the House he builds.

1:14–17 · Horses out of Egypt

“And Solomon gathered chariots and horsemen… And the king made silver and gold at Jerusalem as plenteous as stones… And Solomon had horses brought out of Egypt” (1:14–16).

Kings has this list just before “But king Solomon loved many strange women” (1 Kings 10:26–11:1). Chronicles gives it twice (again at 9:25–28), and the first time puts it straight after “I will give thee riches” (1:12), as the promise kept, and even adds the gold (Kings has silver alone, 1 Kings 10:27). But a reader who knows the Torah hears the law of the king: “he shall not multiply horses to himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt… neither shall he greatly multiply to himself silver and gold” (Deuteronomy 17:16–17).

What the sages say.

Rabbi Yitzchak said: Why were the reasons of the Torah not revealed? Because in two verses the reasons were revealed, and the greatest man in the world stumbled over them. It is written, “He shall not multiply wives.” Solomon said: I will multiply and not turn away. And it is written, “his wives turned away his heart.” It is written, “He shall not multiply horses.” Solomon said: I will multiply and not return. And it is written, “And a chariot came up and went out of Egypt for six hundred shekels.” (Sanhedrin 21b)

That last verse (1 Kings 10:29) is our 1:17. The Chronicler leaves out the wives and idols of 1 Kings 11, but not the horses. He lets the reader who knows Deuteronomy hear the warning. FFOZ states the law: “The Torah warns the king of Israel not to amass wives, wealth, or power like the kings of this world. Instead, the Jewish king makes a copy of the Torah, keeps it with him at all times, studies it continuously” (End of Days, Lesson 18, “Roar of the Lion”). The danger was the wisest man in the world deciding he understood a commandment well enough to step around it.

Messianic reading. Zechariah’s King comes “lowly, and riding upon an ass,” and Hashem says, “I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim, and the horse from Jerusalem” (Zechariah 9:9–10). Our Sukkot 5787 shiur “The Son of David” told the Talmud’s story of the Persian king who mocked Shmuel: “You say your Messiah comes on a donkey? I will send him one of my fine horses!” (Sanhedrin 98a). The Son of David came without Solomon’s horses.

1:18 · “An house for the name of Hashem”

“And Solomon determined to build an house for the name of Hashem, and an house for his kingdom” (1:18; KJV 2:1).

Two houses, in that order. Kings describes the palace at length, and notes that the Temple took seven years but “Solomon was building his own house thirteen years” (1 Kings 6:38; 7:1); Chronicles never describes it. The House is “for the name of Hashem,” the place He would choose “to cause his name to dwell there” (Deuteronomy 12:11), as Nathan promised: “He shall build an house for my name” (2 Samuel 7:13; see our 2 Samuel commentary on chapter 7).

Chapter 2 · Cedar from Tyre, a Craftsman from Dan

Read 2 Chronicles 2 in Hebrew and English →

2:1–5 · “Who is able to build him an house?”

“And Solomon told out threescore and ten thousand men to bear burdens, and fourscore thousand to hew in the mountain, and three thousand and six hundred to oversee them” (2:1; KJV 2:2). We come back to these numbers at 2:16–17.

“And Solomon sent to Huram the king of Tyre, saying, As thou didst deal with David my father… even so deal with me” (2:2). Huram is Hiram, David’s old friend (see our 1 Chronicles commentary on 14:1–2). In Kings, Hiram sends first, and Solomon’s reply is about the wars that kept David from building (1 Kings 5:1–4). In Chronicles, Solomon writes first, and his letter is about worship.

“Behold, I build an house to the name of Hashem my God, to dedicate it to him, and to burn before him sweet incense, and for the continual shewbread, and for the burnt offerings morning and evening, on the sabbaths, and on the new moons, and on the solemn feasts of Hashem our God. This is an ordinance for ever to Israel” (2:3).

What the House is for. Solomon tells a Gentile king that the building exists for the Torah’s calendar: incense (Exodus 30:7–8), showbread “by an everlasting covenant” (Leviticus 24:8), the daily lambs (Numbers 28:3), Shabbat, Rosh Chodesh and the festivals. Then לְעוֹלָם זֹאת עַל־יִשְׂרָאֵל (le-olam zot al Yisrael), “an ordinance for ever to Israel.” The Chronicler’s readers had restored much of this list (Ezra 3:5; on the Levites’ part, see our 1 Chronicles commentary on 23:28–32). “For ever” does not mean “until the Messiah”; the prophets see the same calendar in the days to come: “from one new moon to another, and from one sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me” (Isaiah 66:23). Our Statement of Faith confesses that the Torah will not be replaced; the Chronicler wrote it into a royal letter.

“But who is able to build him an house, seeing the heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain him? who am I then, that I should build him an house, save only to burn sacrifice before him?” (2:5; KJV 2:6).

The builder of the greatest house in the world says first that it cannot hold its Owner (and again at the dedication, 6:18). It is a place “to burn sacrifice before him,” and Hashem will call it just that, “an house of sacrifice” (7:12).

What the sages say. When Hashem commanded the Mishkan, the Midrash says, Moses was astonished: the glory of the Holy One fills the upper and lower worlds, and He says, Make Me a sanctuary? Hashem answered: not as you think; “I will descend and contract My Shechinah among you below” (Shemot Rabbah 34:1).

Messianic reading. Stephen quoted Isaiah, “Heaven is my throne… what house will ye build me?” (Acts 7:48–50; Isaiah 66:1), and some read him as calling the Temple a mistake. But Solomon said the same while building it: Hashem is greater than the House, and the House is not wrong. Our Statement of Faith draws the line: “the Shekhinah dwelt in the Mishkan and Temple, yet the building was not God.” So with Mashiach: when Yeshua spoke of “the temple of his body” (John 2:21), he spoke of a vessel in which Hashem’s presence and purpose rested, for Hashem “cannot be contained by flesh or matter.”

2:6–9 · “Send me now a man cunning to work”

“Send me now therefore a man cunning to work in gold, and in silver, and in brass, and in iron, and in purple, and crimson, and blue, and that can skill to grave with the cunning men that are with me in Judah and in Jerusalem, whom David my father did provide” (2:6; KJV 2:7).

Solomon wants a man who knows metal and thread together: purple, karmil (crimson, a word found only in Chronicles) and techelet (blue), the colors of the Mishkan’s veil (Exodus 26:31), which we will see again at 3:14. The craftsmen David provided are those of 1 Chronicles 22:15 (see our 1 Chronicles commentary on chapter 22).

“Send me also cedar trees, fir trees, and algum trees, out of Lebanon… and, behold, my servants shall be with thy servants” (2:7). Rabbi Palvanov, in his class “Lebanon & Iran in the End of Days,” sums up what Tyre gave: the Temple “was built with Arzei Levanon, the cedars of Lebanon. And on top of that, they brought artisans, they brought dyes… Much of what they needed to build the Temple actually came from Lebanon.”

The wages differ from Kings (2:9; 1 Kings 5:11); the commentators read them as two payments, wages for the woodcutters here and provisions for Hiram’s household there.

2:10–15 · Huram’s blessing, and Huram-abi of Dan

“Then Huram the king of Tyre answered in writing… Because Hashem hath loved his people, he hath made thee king over them. Huram said moreover, Blessed be Hashem God of Israel, that made heaven and earth, who hath given to David the king a wise son” (2:10–11; KJV 2:11–12).

A Gentile king blesses the God of Israel by name, as Maker of heaven and earth. The first king in Scripture to bless that way was Melchizedek: “Blessed be Abram of the most high God, possessor of heaven and earth” (Genesis 14:19). The Queen of Sheba will repeat Huram’s words (9:8). And the royal wedding psalm, which the Targum reads of the King Messiah (as our Sukkot 5787 shiur “The Son of David” noted), has a line for him: “And the daughter of Tyre shall be there with a gift” (Psalm 45:12).

“And now I have sent a cunning man, endued with understanding, of Huram my father’s, The son of a woman of the daughters of Dan, and his father was a man of Tyre, skilful to work in gold, and in silver, in brass, in iron, in stone, and in timber, in purple, in blue, and in fine linen, and in crimson; also to grave any manner of graving, and to find out every device which shall be put to him” (2:12–13; KJV 2:13–14).

Hebrew lesson: חוּרָם אָבִי (Huram avi). The man’s name is Huram, and avi, “my father,” is a title of honor, as Joseph was “a father to Pharaoh” (Genesis 45:8); at 4:16 he is “Huram his father.” From this Hebrew the Freemasons took their “Hiram Abiff” and built on him a legend of a murdered master and a lost secret word, none of it in Scripture. Ariel Cohen Alloro, in his video “The Lost Word of the Freemasonry – Part 1,” names his method with the Masonic Hiram legend: “to find the point of truth in the lie.” Here the point of truth is plain. The builder had no secret to lose: his skill was Hashem’s gift to the wise-hearted (Exodus 31:6), and the plan was written for anyone to read (1 Chronicles 28:19).

Dan or Naphtali? Kings calls him “a widow’s son of the tribe of Naphtali” (1 Kings 7:14). The commentators answer that his mother was of Dan and his father of Naphtali, and that “a man of Tyre” means he lived there. Ariel Cohen Alloro, in his video “New World Order – Hiram and the Freemasons – Part 3,” gives the same answer: “It’s not meant that he was not Jewish… She was from the tribe of Dan, but the father, he was from the tribe of Naphtali. But he lived in Tzor.” Rabbi Palvanov, in his class “Lebanon & Iran in the End of Days,” takes “a man of Tyre” at face value: “he had a Phoenician… father and an Israelite mother,” a sign of how close the two peoples were.

Bezalel and Oholiav again. Huram-abi’s skills are the Mishkan builders’ skills (Exodus 31:4–5; 38:23), and “to find out every device,” לַחְשֹׁב כָּל־מַחֲשָׁבֶת (lachshov kol machashavet), is the Torah’s phrase for Bezalel, “to devise cunning works” (Exodus 31:4). The Mishkan was built by Bezalel of Judah and Oholiav of Dan. Rashi on Exodus 35:34 notes that Dan was among the lowliest tribes, sons of the handmaids, and Hashem set Oholiav beside Bezalel of the greatest tribe, to fulfill “nor regardeth the rich more than the poor” (Job 34:19). Now the House is built by Solomon of Judah and Huram-abi of Dan, and a midrash draws the same line.

“And we will cut wood out of Lebanon… and we will bring it to thee in flotes by sea to Joppa; and thou shall carry it up to Jerusalem” (2:15; KJV 2:16).

Joppa. The Chronicler’s readers knew this route: for the Second Temple they paid Tyre and Sidon “to bring cedar trees from Lebanon to the sea of Joppa” (Ezra 3:7). Jonah fled through Joppa (Jonah 1:3); at Joppa Peter was sent to a Gentile’s house (Acts 10:5, 20). The cedar came in through Joppa to the House; from Joppa the word went out to the nations.

2:16–17 · The strangers counted

“And Solomon numbered all the strangers that were in the land of Israel, after the numbering wherewith David his father had numbered them; and they were found an hundred and fifty thousand and three thousand and six hundred” (2:16; KJV 2:17).

Seventy thousand, eighty thousand and 3,600 make 153,600 (2:17): the whole workforce of 2:1 is גֵּרִים (gerim), strangers, first counted by David (1 Chronicles 22:2; on who they were, see our 1 Chronicles commentary on 22:2–5). David’s census of Israel brought a plague (1 Chronicles 21). Solomon’s census of strangers brings work on the House.

What Chronicles changes. Kings also tells of a levy of thirty thousand “out of all Israel” (1 Kings 5:13); Chronicles names only the strangers, which fits Kings’ own later note, “of the children of Israel did Solomon make no bondmen” (1 Kings 9:22). Kings has 3,300 overseers and 550 chief officers (1 Kings 5:16; 9:23); Chronicles has 3,600 and 250 (2:17; 8:10). Both total 3,850, and a well-known reconciliation is that the books divided the same officers differently between the ranks.

Messianic reading. Paul told Gentiles who had come to the God of Israel, “ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God” (Ephesians 2:19). They do not replace Israel; they are brought in to build alongside it.

Chapter 3 · The House on Moriah

Read 2 Chronicles 3 in Hebrew and English →

3:1–2 · “In mount Moriah, where Hashem appeared unto David”

“Then Solomon began to build the house of Hashem at Jerusalem in mount Moriah, where Hashem appeared unto David his father, in the place that David had prepared in the threshingfloor of Ornan the Jebusite” (3:1).

This is the only verse in the Tenakh outside Genesis 22 that says Moriah. Abraham was sent to “one of the mountains which I will tell thee of” (Genesis 22:2) and was never told its name. The Chronicler tells us: it is the threshing floor David bought.

Hebrew lesson: נִרְאָה (nir’ah), “appeared.” Abraham named the place Hashem yir’eh, “Hashem will see,” “as it is said to this day, In the mount of Hashem it shall be seen” (Genesis 22:14). One root, רָאָה (ra’ah), “to see” (on that verb at Ornan’s floor, see our 1 Chronicles commentary on 21:14–17). What Genesis said would be seen here, Chronicles says was seen: “where Hashem appeared unto David,” the verb of 1:7 as well. The Talmud gives two readings of the name: the mountain from which hora’ah, instruction, went out to Israel, or mora, awe, to the nations (Taanit 16a).

What the sages say. Rambam builds the law of the altar on this verse:

The altar’s place is very exact, and it is never moved from its place, as it says, “This is the altar of the burnt offering for Israel.” And in the Sanctuary Isaac our father was bound, as it says, “Get thee into the land of Moriah,” and it says in Chronicles, “in mount Moriah, where Hashem appeared unto David his father.” (Hilchot Beit HaBechirah 2:1)

The rest of the tradition, and the purchase and the fire, we gave in our 1 Chronicles commentary on 21:18–25 and 21:26–30. The Mishnah ends the Mishkan’s journey (see our 1 Chronicles commentary on 16:37–43) at this House. After Gilgal, Shiloh, Nob and Gibeon: “They came to Jerusalem, and the high places were forbidden, and they were never again permitted, and it was the inheritance” (Mishnah Zevachim 14:8). Gibeon was the last lawful bamah; the Torah’s “rest and… inheritance” (Deuteronomy 12:9) has arrived.

“And he began to build in the second day of the second month, in the fourth year of his reign” (3:2). Kings counts from the Exodus, “the four hundred and eightieth year” (1 Kings 6:1); Chronicles leaves that out and dates the House by the reign of David’s son alone. And the month mattered to its readers: Zerubbabel began the Second Temple “in the second month” too (Ezra 3:8).

Our teachers. Rabbi Palvanov, in his class “Understanding Mashiach ben Yosef, Part 2,” sees the son on the altar as the first picture of the suffering Messiah: “Yitzchak went up Har Moriah and was willing to be sacrificed… Itzhak is really seen as the first possible Messiah ben Joseph.” He adds that יִצְחָק (Yitzchak) is 208, and so is בֶּן יוֹסֵף (ben Yosef): a hint, and a fitting one. Our class “Messiah, Akedah & the Lamb of God” called the Akedah “the core biblical narrative in which the suffering or death of a righteous son, specifically a son, brings blessings to the world,” and noted that “the sacrifices, the sages say, are built on the Akedah.” Every morning and evening a lamb went up on this mountain (2:3), where Abraham had said, “God will provide himself a lamb” (Genesis 22:8).

Messianic reading. “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). Abraham offered his son “accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead” (Hebrews 11:19), and Yeshua said, “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day” (John 8:56). Notice the verb in 3:1: “Solomon began to build.” Our Sukkot 5787 shiur “The Son of David” read Rambam’s test for the Messiah in two steps, presumed while he is working and certain when he has “built the Sanctuary in its place” (Hilchot Melachim 11:4; see our 1 Chronicles commentary on 22:6–10), and said that Yeshua “has begun that work as the son of Yosef and will finish it as the son of David.”

3:3–9 · The House, after the first measure

“Now these are the things wherein Solomon was instructed for the building of the house of God. The length by cubits after the first measure was threescore cubits, and the breadth twenty cubits” (3:3).

“Instructed” translates הוּסַד (husad), from יָסַד (yasad), “to found”: these are the foundations Solomon laid. Sixty by twenty is twice the Mishkan’s thirty by ten. “After the first measure”: the commentators understand it as the old cubit of Moses’ day, larger than the cubit used after the exile (compare Ezekiel’s “cubit and an hand breadth,” Ezekiel 40:5). The porch’s “hundred and twenty” (3:4) has no parallel in Kings (1 Kings 6:3), and the commentators struggle to picture it.

“And the greater house he cieled with fir tree, which he overlaid with fine gold, and set thereon palm trees and chains. And he garnished the house with precious stones for beauty… and graved cherubims on the walls” (3:5–7).

Hebrew lesson: לְתִפְאָרֶת (le-tif’aret), “for beauty.” It is the word of the high priest’s garments, “for glory and for beauty” (Exodus 28:2). The House is dressed like the high priest, and its walls are a garden. The palms are the psalm’s: “The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree… planted in the house of Hashem” (Psalm 92:12–13). The cherubim once stood “at the east of the garden of Eden… to keep the way of the tree of life” (Genesis 3:24). FFOZ’s End of Days explains: “The crossover between cosmic temple and paradisical garden explains the Edenic imagery woven into the Tabernacle’s curtains and furnishings (Exodus 26:1). The Temple on earth, adorned with cherubim and resplendence, was a shadow and a reflection of the ‘greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands’” (Lesson 1, “The Beginning of Days”; Hebrews 9:11).

“And he made the most holy house… twenty cubits, and the breadth thereof twenty cubits: and he overlaid it with fine gold, amounting to six hundred talents” (3:8). Kings adds the height, twenty cubits (1 Kings 6:20): a perfect cube. FFOZ follows the cube to the end of the Bible: “The Temple in Jerusalem doubled the size of the sacred geometry… The dimensions of New Jerusalem amplify the cube to a cosmic scale” (End of Days, Lesson 41, “New Jerusalem”). John saw a city whose “length and the breadth and the height of it are equal” (Revelation 21:16): the whole city a Holy of Holies.

Our teachers. This chapter names the three parts of the House: the אוּלָם (ulam), the porch (3:4); the הֵיכָל (heichal), the temple (3:17); and the דְּבִיר (devir), the oracle (3:16). Ariel Cohen Alloro, in his video “The Lost Word of the Freemasonry – Part 1,” counts them: “The Devir, the Hechal, and the Ulam,” 216, 65 and 77, “together is 358. What is Mashiach?” מָשִׁיחַ (Mashiach) is 358. We take it as remez, and it points where Zechariah points: “Behold the man whose name is The BRANCH… he shall build the temple of Hashem” (Zechariah 6:12).

3:10–13 · The cherubim

“And in the most holy house he made two cherubims of image work, and overlaid them with gold… The wings of these cherubims spread themselves forth twenty cubits: and they stood on their feet, and their faces were inward” (3:10, 13).

These are not the Ark’s cherubim, which were of one piece with the mercy seat (Exodus 25:18–19). Solomon’s stood on the floor, ten cubits tall (1 Kings 6:23), their wings reaching wall to wall and touching over the Ark.

Hebrew lesson: וּפְנֵיהֶם לַבָּיִת (u-feneihem la-bayit), “and their faces toward the house.” The KJV says “inward,” but the Hebrew has them facing the house, out toward the Holy Place. Moses’ cherubim faced “one to another” (Exodus 25:20). The Talmud answers: they faced each other when Israel did the will of the Omnipresent, and turned toward the house when Israel did not (Bava Batra 99a). The sages also tell that at the festivals the curtain was drawn back and the pilgrims were shown the cherubim intertwined: “See your love before the Omnipresent, like the love of male and female” (Yoma 54a).

The room that took no room. The wings filled the Holy of Holies, yet the sages kept a tradition: “the place of the Ark is not part of the measure” (Megillah 10b). It is 2:5 again: He whom the heaven of heavens cannot contain made Himself a place on earth, and the place did not hold Him.

3:14 · The veil

“And he made the vail of blue, and purple, and crimson, and fine linen, and wrought cherubims thereon” (3:14).

One verse, found only in Chronicles. Kings describes doors of olive wood before the Holy of Holies (1 Kings 6:31–32) and “a partition by the chains of gold” (1 Kings 6:21), and no curtain; the commentators hold there were both. The Chronicler’s readers knew the curtain well: in the Second Temple the Holy of Holies was closed off by curtains, two of them with a cubit between (Mishnah Yoma 5:1).

Hebrew lesson: פָּרֹכֶת (parochet), “veil.” It is the Torah’s word: “thou shalt make a vail of blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine twined linen of cunning work: with cherubims shall it be made… and the vail shall divide unto you between the holy place and the most holy” (Exodus 26:31, 33). The same four materials, the same cherubim, and the right hands: Huram-abi was skilled “in purple, in blue, and in fine linen, and in crimson” (2:13), as Oholiav of Dan was “an embroiderer in blue, and in purple, and in scarlet, and fine linen” (Exodus 38:23). Moses’ veil had a craftsman of Dan at work beside Bezalel (Exodus 36:35; 38:22–23), and so did Solomon’s.

Our teachers. FFOZ’s End of Days reads the veil as a map of the ages: “In the Second Temple Era, a double-hung curtain separated the two sacred spaces. The two curtains had a cubit of open space between them through which the high priest could pass.” With Hebrews, the holy place is the present age and the Holy of Holies the World to Come, and “that cubit of space between the sanctuaries belongs to both the holy place and the holy of holies. Likewise, the Messianic Era creates a partition between this world and the World to Come, and it shares elements of both” (Lesson 19, “Banner on a Mountain”).

Messianic reading. When Yeshua died, “the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom” (Matthew 27:51): from the top, from Hashem’s side. Until then “the way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest” (Hebrews 9:8); now we have “boldness to enter into the holiest… By a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh” (Hebrews 10:19–20). But the torn veil did not close the House or retire the kohanim. Afterward the disciples were “continuing daily with one accord in the temple” (Acts 2:46), and Paul went there “until that an offering should be offered for every one of them” (Acts 21:26). The tearing opened a way to the throne above; it did not abolish the House below, which the prophets still see standing in the days of the Messiah (Ezekiel 40–46) and which, our Statement of Faith confesses, the son of David will rebuild. The veil teaches both halves: a holiness approached with fear, and a way in that Hashem Himself has opened.

3:15–17 · Yachin and Boaz

“Also he made before the house two pillars of thirty and five cubits high, and the chapiter that was on the top of each of them was five cubits. And he made chains, as in the oracle, and put them on the heads of the pillars; and made an hundred pomegranates, and put them on the chains” (3:15–16).

Kings says each pillar was “eighteen cubits high apiece” (1 Kings 7:15), and Jeremiah agrees (Jeremiah 52:21). Chronicles says אֹרֶךְ (orech), “length,” and gives one figure for “two pillars.” The commentators harmonize the books, and the plainest reading is that thirty-five is both together, about seventeen and a half each, which Kings rounds to eighteen. The pomegranates, which also hung on the high priest’s hem (Exodus 28:33), carry a saying of the sages: even the emptiest in Israel are full of mitzvot as a pomegranate is full of seeds (Berakhot 57a, on Song of Songs 4:3).

“And he reared up the pillars before the temple, one on the right hand, and the other on the left; and called the name of that on the right hand Jachin, and the name of that on the left Boaz” (3:17).

Hebrew lesson: יָכִין (Yachin), “He will establish,” and בֹּעַז (Boaz), “in it is strength.” Yachin is from כּוּן (kun), the verb of Nathan’s promise, “I will establish his kingdom” (2 Samuel 7:12), and of Moses’ song, “the Sanctuary, O Lord, which thy hands have established” (Exodus 15:17). Boaz is be-oz, “in strength.” Psalm 93, the Levites’ psalm for Friday (Mishnah Tamid 7:4), has both: “Hashem is clothed with strength (oz)… the world also is stablished (tikon),” and it ends, “holiness becometh thine house, O Hashem, for ever” (Psalm 93:1, 5). The pillars preached the psalm: Hashem will establish it, in strength. Boaz is also David’s great-grandfather (Ruth 4:21–22; see our 1 Chronicles commentary on 2:9–17), and his name stands at the door of the House his descendant built.

Our teachers. Ariel Cohen Alloro, in his video “Elisha the Prophet – Part 3,” reads the two pillars as two offices: “Yachin is the Kohen… Boaz always has to do with kingdom,” and he ties Boaz to oz le-malko, Hannah’s “he shall give strength unto his king, and exalt the horn of his anointed” (1 Samuel 2:10). We take it as remez, and Zechariah gives it a text: the Branch “shall sit and rule upon his throne; and he shall be a priest upon his throne: and the counsel of peace shall be between them both” (Zechariah 6:13). Priest and king at the door, and shalom, the root of Solomon’s name, between them.

Messianic reading. Yeshua promised, “Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out” (Revelation 3:12), and Paul named James, Peter and John those “who seemed to be pillars” (Galatians 2:9). “The temple of my God”: the Son of David speaks as one who serves in his Father’s House. Yachin and Boaz stood before the House, and their names told everyone who came in: He will establish it, and in Him is the strength.

Drawing it together

1. Seek first. Solomon’s reign begins with all Israel seeking Hashem at Moses’ altar (1:5), the verb the Chronicler will use again for the kings who do right. He asks for wisdom and receives riches too: “seek ye first the kingdom of God… and all these things shall be added unto you” (Matthew 6:33).

2. Wisdom builds, and it is given. The chochmah Solomon asked for to judge is the word for Bezalel’s and Huram-abi’s skill. Wisdom that reasons past the Torah, as with the horses from Egypt, stops being wisdom. One “greater than Solomon” is made “of God” our wisdom.

3. Judah and Dan, Israel and the nations. The House was built by the greatest tribe and the least, by Israel’s craftsmen and Tyre’s, and by strangers counted for the work. The nations bring their gifts to Hashem’s House; they do not take Israel’s place in it.

4. The House holds what it cannot contain. “The heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain him” (2:5), and the Ark took up no room. So we confess the Shechinah in the Temple, and so we confess Yeshua: the vessel and agent of Hashem’s presence and purpose, not Hashem contained.

5. Moriah: where it shall be seen. The mountain of the Akedah became the mountain of the daily lamb, and the veil torn from the top opened a way in without closing the House. At the door stand Yachin and Boaz: He will establish it, in strength. Solomon began; the Son of David will finish.

Questions for discussion

1. What does Chronicles change in the Gibeon story (1 Kings 3:3–4), and why does it mention Moses’ Mishkan and Bezalel’s altar?
2. Compare “we enquired not at it in the days of Saul” (1 Chronicles 13:3) with “Solomon and the congregation sought unto it” (1:5). What does darash tell us about the Chronicler’s message?
3. What does the word chochmah have to do with Bezalel and Huram-abi? What did Hashem promise Solomon in Kings that He does not promise in Chronicles (1 Kings 3:14)?
4. According to Sanhedrin 21b, why does the Torah usually not give its reasons? How do 1:14–17 and Zechariah 9:9–10 bear on the answer?
5. How do Shemot Rabbah 34:1 and our Statement of Faith explain a God whom heaven cannot contain meeting Israel in a House?
6. Why is Huram-abi’s mother from Dan in Chronicles and Naphtali in Kings? What does the pairing of Judah and Dan teach (Rashi on Exodus 35:34)?
7. How does nir’ah, “appeared,” in 3:1 connect to Genesis 22:14? What changed when Israel came to Jerusalem, according to Mishnah Zevachim 14:8?
8. Which way did the cherubim face in Exodus 25:20 and in 3:13, and how does Bava Batra 99a explain the difference?
9. The veil was torn “from the top to the bottom.” What did that open, and what do Acts 2:46 and 21:26 show that it did not close?
10. What do the names Yachin and Boaz mean, and how do Psalm 93 and Zechariah 6:13 help us hear them?

Sources

Scripture: 2 Chronicles 1–9, 36; 1 Chronicles 2, 13–14, 16–17, 21–23, 28–29; 1 Kings 1–3, 5–7, 9–11; 2 Samuel 7; Genesis 3, 14, 22, 45; Exodus 15, 25–26, 28, 30–31, 35–36, 38; Leviticus 24; Numbers 27–28; Deuteronomy 12, 17; Ruth 4; 1 Samuel 2; Ezra 3; Job 34; Psalms 45, 72, 92, 93; Proverbs 2; Song of Songs 4; Isaiah 66; Jeremiah 52; Ezekiel 40–46; Daniel 1; Jonah 1; Zechariah 6, 9; Matthew 6, 12, 27; Luke 2; John 1–2, 8; Acts 2, 7, 10, 21; 1 Corinthians 1; Galatians 2; Ephesians 2; Hebrews 9–11; Revelation 3, 21.

Talmud and Midrash: Sotah 9a; Sanhedrin 21b, 98a; Taanit 16a; Bava Batra 99a; Yoma 54a; Megillah 10b; Berakhot 57a; Mishnah Yoma 5:1; Mishnah Zevachim 14:8; Mishnah Tamid 7:4; Shemot Rabbah 34:1; Targum to Psalm 72:1.

Commentators: Rashi on Exodus 35:34; Rambam, Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Beit HaBechirah 2:1 and Hilchot Melachim 11:4.

Our teachers and materials: First Fruits of Zion, End of Days (5786), Lesson 1, “The Beginning of Days”; Lesson 18, “Roar of the Lion”; Lesson 19, “Banner on a Mountain”; Lesson 41, “New Jerusalem”; Rabbi Efraim Palvanov, “Lebanon & Iran in the End of Days” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOUTSoOJA4c) and “Understanding Mashiach ben Yosef, Part 2” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmrYeHRoiBE); Ariel Cohen Alloro, “New World Order – Hiram and the Freemasons – Part 3” (https://youtu.be/Z0saJiKkgCs), “The Lost Word of the Freemasonry – Part 1” (https://youtu.be/mAIAew7tOAw) and “Elisha the Prophet – Part 3” (https://youtu.be/ekIbL_jn4ps); Benei Avraham class “Messiah, Akedah & the Lamb of God” (https://youtu.be/20D5pUmsQZw); our Sukkot 5787 shiur “The Son of David”; our 1 Chronicles commentary on 2:9–17, 2:18–24, 13:3–4, 14:1–2, 16:37–43, 17:23–27, 21:14–17, 21:18–25, 21:26–30, chapter 22, 22:2–5, 22:6–10, 23:28–32, 28:9–10 and 29:23–25; our 2 Samuel commentary on chapter 7; Benei Avraham Statement of Faith.

Before we begin

The House stands on Moriah (chapters 1–3, above). Now it is furnished, filled and prayed over. Chapter 4 is an inventory: the bronze altar, the Sea on twelve oxen, the lavers, lampstands and tables, Huram’s bronze and Solomon’s gold.

At Sukkot the Levites carry the Ark up from Zion, the singers and trumpets sound “as one,” “For he is good; for his mercy endureth for ever,” and a cloud fills the House. Solomon kneels before the people and prays seven petitions “toward this place,” and he ends not as Kings does, with Egypt, but with Psalm 132: “remember the mercies of David thy servant.” Hashem’s chesed that endures for ever (5:13) and the chasdei David (6:42) give us our title.

The first readers had a rebuilt House with no Ark and no cloud, and had come home from the captivity Solomon’s last petition describes. In these chapters the Hebrew and English verse numbers are the same.

How this commentary is built. We read the text first, in Hebrew where it matters, because Torah comes first and the Prophets and Writings are measured by it. Then we hear the sages: the Talmud, the Midrash, Rashi, Radak and Rambam. Then our own teachers: the FFOZ End of Days lessons, Rabbi Efraim Palvanov and Ariel Cohen Alloro, along with our own Benei Avraham classes. Last, we ask what the passage shows us about Mashiach.

A word on our teachers. Rabbi Palvanov and Ariel Cohen Alloro bring a great deal of Kabbalah and gematria. We use their insights as remez, a hint that opens a door, and never as proof. Gematria can show a connection the text already makes, but it cannot make a doctrine by itself. Where a teacher’s framework goes beyond what Benei Avraham confesses (for example, on reincarnation or on the nature of God), we take the insight and leave the framework. “To the Torah and to the testimony” (Isaiah 8:20) is the test for all of it, our own words included.

Scripture is quoted from the King James Version with Hashem in place of LORD, as in our Statement of Faith.

Chapter 4 · The Vessels of the House

Read 2 Chronicles 4 in Hebrew and English →

4:1 · The bronze altar

“Moreover he made an altar of brass, twenty cubits the length thereof, and twenty cubits the breadth thereof, and ten cubits the height thereof” (4:1).

Kings mentions “the brasen altar” (1 Kings 8:64) but never describes its making or gives its size; this verse is found only in Chronicles. Moses’ altar was five cubits by five, and three high (Exodus 27:1). Solomon’s is twenty by twenty, sixteen times the surface, and the Mishnah gives the Second Temple’s altar thirty-two cubits square at its base (Mishnah Middot 3:1). Even so, on the day of dedication it was “too little” for the offerings (1 Kings 8:64; we will read it at 7:7).

Why this matters. The worshipper met the altar first, on the floor where the fire came down for David (see our 1 Chronicles commentary on 21:26–30). The Chronicler’s readers had rebuilt it before anything else: “they set the altar upon his bases” (Ezra 3:3), while “the foundation of the temple of Hashem was not yet laid” (Ezra 3:6).

4:2–6 · The Sea on twelve oxen, and the lavers

“Also he made a molten sea of ten cubits from brim to brim… and a line of thirty cubits did compass it round about… It stood upon twelve oxen, three looking toward the north, and three looking toward the west, and three looking toward the south, and three looking toward the east” (4:2, 4).

The Talmud learns its working rule for a circle from this Sea: three around is one across (Eruvin 14a). The oxen, three to each side, stand like the camp in the wilderness, three tribes on each side of the Mishkan (Numbers 2). Where Kings has gourd-shaped “knops” under the brim (1 Kings 7:24), Chronicles has “the similitude of oxen” (4:3).

“And it received and held three thousand baths” (4:5). Kings says “it contained two thousand baths” (1 Kings 7:26). The Talmud answers that two thousand baths of liquid are three thousand of dry measure, which is heaped (Eruvin 14b).

“He made also ten lavers, and put five on the right hand, and five on the left, to wash in them: such things as they offered for the burnt offering they washed in them; but the sea was for the priests to wash in” (4:6).

Only Chronicles says what the lavers and the Sea were for. The lavers were for the offering: “his inwards and his legs shall he wash in water” (Leviticus 1:9). The Sea was for the men: “Aaron and his sons shall wash their hands and their feet thereat… that they die not” (Exodus 30:19–20). On Yom Kippur the high priest immersed five times and washed his hands and feet ten times (Mishnah Yoma 3:3).

Messianic reading. Yeshua washed his disciples’ feet and said, “He that is washed needeth not save to wash his feet” (John 13:10). Hebrews keeps the order of the court: “Let us draw near with a true heart… and our bodies washed with pure water” (Hebrews 10:22). The washing does not replace the service; it prepares for it.

4:7–10 · Ten lampstands, ten tables, and the court of the priests

“And he made ten candlesticks of gold according to their form, and set them in the temple, five on the right hand, and five on the left. He made also ten tables” (4:7–8).

Moses made one lampstand and one table; David’s pattern already had them in the plural (see our 1 Chronicles commentary on 28:11–19). Kings has the lampstands, five on each side (1 Kings 7:49), but “the table of gold” (1 Kings 7:48); the ten tables are Chronicles’ detail.

Hebrew lesson: כְּמִשְׁפָּטָם (ke-mishpatam), “according to their form.” Literally, “according to their ordinance.” The number grows; the law of the lampstand does not change.

“Furthermore he made the court of the priests, and the great court, and doors for the court, and overlaid the doors of them with brass” (4:9). Kings calls the first “the inner court” (1 Kings 6:36; 7:12); the name “the court of the priests” appears only here.

Hebrew lesson: עֲזָרָה (azarah), “court.” Kings uses the old word חָצֵר (chatzer). In the Tenakh azarah means a court only here and at 6:13 (in Ezekiel it is a ledge of the altar, Ezekiel 43:14), and it is the Mishnah’s word for the Temple courts. The Chronicler describes Solomon’s House in the language his readers used for their own.

4:11–18 · Huram’s work in bronze

“And Huram finished the work that he was to make for king Solomon for the house of God” (4:11). The list repeats the pillars (4:12–13; see 3:15–17), and the craftsman is “Huram his father” (4:16; on avi, see 2:10–15).

“In the plain of Jordan did the king cast them, in the clay ground between Succoth and Zeredathah” (4:17). Succoth is where Jacob “made booths for his cattle” (Genesis 33:17), as our Sukkot 5787 shiur “Did They Really Dwell in Booths?” reminded us. The bronze was cast at “Booths,” and the House would be dedicated at the feast of booths (5:3). A hint, nothing more.

“Thus Solomon made all these vessels in great abundance: for the weight of the brass could not be found out” (4:18).

Where the bronze came from. David had taken “very much brass, wherewith Solomon made the brasen sea, and the pillars, and the vessels of brass” (1 Chronicles 18:8; see our 1 Chronicles commentary on 18:1–8), and left it “without weight” (1 Chronicles 22:14; see our 1 Chronicles commentary on 22:14–16). When Babylon carried it away, Kings and Jeremiah say the same: “the brass of all these vessels was without weight” (2 Kings 25:16; Jeremiah 52:20). Too much to weigh when it was given, and when it was lost.

4:19–22 · The vessels of gold

“And Solomon made all the vessels that were for the house of God, the golden altar also, and the tables whereon the shewbread was set; Moreover the candlesticks with their lamps, that they should burn after the manner before the oracle, of pure gold” (4:19–20).

Bronze outside, gold within. In the court stand the bronze altar, the Sea and the lavers; inside, the golden altar of incense, the lampstands, the tables, and gold down to the snuffers and the doors (4:21–22). The nearer the Presence, the more precious the metal, as in the Mishkan (Exodus 27:2; 30:3). Chronicles, which alone has the veil, also has “the inner doors thereof for the most holy place” (4:22); on doors and veil together, see 3:14.

Chapter 5 · The Ark Comes Home, and the Cloud

Read 2 Chronicles 5 in Hebrew and English →

5:1 · “The things that David his father had dedicated”

“Thus all the work that Solomon made for the house of Hashem was finished: and Solomon brought in all the things that David his father had dedicated; and the silver, and the gold, and all the instruments, put he among the treasures of the house of God” (5:1).

Hebrew lesson: וַתִּשְׁלַם (va-tishlam), “was finished.” The root is שָׁלֵם (shalem), “whole,” the root of Shlomo. The work of the son of peace is made whole (Kings has the same word, 1 Kings 7:51).

The father’s gifts are not spent but stored: the spoil of David’s wars and the gold of his estate (see our 1 Chronicles commentary on 29:1–5), and dedicated things going back to Samuel and Saul (see our 1 Chronicles commentary on 26:20–28). The son finishes the work and carries in קָדְשֵׁי דָּוִיד (kodshei David), “the holy things of David.” So the Son of David prayed, “I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do” (John 17:4), and gave the glory to the Father.

5:2–6 · At the feast of the seventh month

“Then Solomon assembled the elders of Israel… unto Jerusalem, to bring up the ark of the covenant of Hashem out of the city of David, which is Zion. Wherefore all the men of Israel assembled themselves unto the king in the feast which was in the seventh month” (5:2–3).

Hebrew lesson: יַקְהֵיל (yakhel), “assembled.” It is the verb of hakhel. Moses commanded that every seventh year, “in the feast of tabernacles,” the Torah be read before all Israel: הַקְהֵל אֶת־הָעָם (hakhel et ha-am), “Gather the people together… that they may hear, and that they may learn” (Deuteronomy 31:10–12), and the Mishnah says the king read it (Mishnah Sotah 7:8). Solomon gathers them at that feast, and the Ark holds the tablets of the Torah.

The feast. Kings gives the month’s old name, “the month Ethanim, which is the seventh month” (1 Kings 8:2); Chronicles drops the name, and the feast of the seventh month is Sukkot (Leviticus 23:34). The House was finished in the eighth month (1 Kings 6:38); the dedication waited for the feast of the seventh. The returned exiles kept the same calendar, gathering “as one man to Jerusalem” in the seventh month to keep “the feast of tabernacles” (Ezra 3:1, 4).

Our teachers. 1 Kings 8 is the haftarah of the second day of Sukkot, and our Sukkot 5787 drash “Where Is the Ark” began from it. Our shiur “Did They Really Dwell in Booths?” said what the feast and the scene share: “The cloud that covered the camp came to rest on the house. That is what the festival remembers, and what it waits to see again.”

“And all the elders of Israel came; and the Levites took up the ark” (5:4).

Levites or priests? Kings says “the priests took up the ark” (1 Kings 8:3). Chronicles says the Levites, as David had ruled: “None ought to carry the ark of God but the Levites” (1 Chronicles 15:2; see our 1 Chronicles commentary on 15:1–3 and 15:4–15). The Torah uses both names for the bearers, “the priests the sons of Levi, which bare the ark” and “the Levites, which bare the ark” (Deuteronomy 31:9, 25). In 5:5, where Kings has “the priests and the Levites” (1 Kings 8:4), Chronicles has הַכֹּהֲנִים הַלְוִיִּם (ha-kohanim ha-Levi’im), “the priests the Levites,” Deuteronomy’s phrase (Deuteronomy 17:9). At 5:7 the priests alone carry it into the Holy of Holies, where no Levite could go (Numbers 18:3). The plainest reading: Levites carried it up, priests carried it in.

With the Ark comes “the tabernacle of the congregation” (5:5), Moses’ tent from Gibeon (see 1:1–6 and our 1 Chronicles commentary on 16:37–43). The two centers of worship become one House.

5:7–10 · Under the wings of the cherubim

“And the priests brought in the ark of the covenant of Hashem unto his place, to the oracle of the house, into the most holy place, even under the wings of the cherubims” (5:7). On these cherubim, see 3:10–13.

“And they drew out the staves of the ark, that the ends of the staves were seen from the ark before the oracle; but they were not seen without. And there it is unto this day” (5:9).

The staves. The Torah forbade removing them (Exodus 25:15), so they were drawn forward. How could they be “seen” and “not seen”? The Talmud answers that they pressed against the curtain and showed through it like the two breasts of a woman (Yoma 54a, on Song of Songs 1:13).

“Unto this day.” When the Chronicler wrote, the Ark was gone; in the Second Temple the high priest set the fire pan on a bare stone (Mishnah Yoma 5:2). Our Sukkot 5787 drash “Where Is the Ark” gave the Talmud’s debate: some say the Ark went to Babylon, but Rabbi Yehuda ben Lakish reads “there they are unto this day” (1 Kings 8:8) to mean it was hidden in its place (Yoma 53b–54a), and the Rambam writes that Solomon built a hidden place for it (Hilchot Beit HaBechirah 4:1). The drash ended with Jeremiah 3:16 and this: “The Ark’s return is a gift that crowns the House. It is not a condition for building it.”

“There was nothing in the ark save the two tables which Moses put therein at Horeb, when Hashem made a covenant with the children of Israel, when they came out of Egypt” (5:10).

And Hebrews 9:4? Hebrews describes the ark “wherein was the golden pot that had manna, and Aaron’s rod that budded, and the tables of the covenant.” But it is describing the wilderness Mishkan (“For there was a tabernacle made,” Hebrews 9:2), and the Torah put the jar and the staff “before the Testimony” (Exodus 16:34; Numbers 17:10), not inside it. Our drash put it simply: “By Shlomo’s day, 1 Kings 8:9 says, only the tablets were inside.” The sages add that the broken first tablets lay beside the whole ones (Bava Batra 14b).

Messianic reading. Our Statement of Faith takes the Ark as its example: it “contained the divine commandments, yet the Ark itself was a created object.” The new covenant moves its contents inward: “I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts” (Jeremiah 31:33). The same Torah, from the box to the heart.

5:11–14 · “For he is good”: the cloud fills the house

“(For all the priests that were present were sanctified, and did not then wait by course: Also the Levites which were the singers, all of them of Asaph, of Heman, of Jeduthun… being arrayed in white linen… and with them an hundred and twenty priests sounding with trumpets:)” (5:11–12).

Kings goes straight from the priests coming out to the cloud (1 Kings 8:10). The Chronicler opens a parenthesis and puts the choir inside it. The courses (see our 1 Chronicles commentary on 24:1–6) are set aside and every priest serves, as the Mishnah rules for every pilgrim feast (Mishnah Sukkah 5:7). The singers are David’s three houses (see our 1 Chronicles commentary on 25:1–3), and the trumpets belong to “the sons of Aaron… in the day of your gladness” (Numbers 10:8, 10).

“It came even to pass, as the trumpeters and singers were as one, to make one sound to be heard in praising and thanking Hashem; and when they lifted up their voice with the trumpets and cymbals and instruments of musick, and praised Hashem, saying, For he is good; for his mercy endureth for ever: that then the house was filled with a cloud, even the house of Hashem” (5:13).

Hebrew lesson: כִּי טוֹב כִּי לְעוֹלָם חַסְדּוֹ (ki tov ki le’olam chasdo). David gave this refrain to Asaph when the Ark came to Zion, and the returned exiles sang it over a bare foundation (see our 1 Chronicles commentary on 16:34–36). Psalm 136 repeats ki le’olam chasdo in every verse, and the refrain returns at the fire (7:3). Chesed is covenant love, the faithfulness that keeps a promise. Solomon’s prayer will end with it.

“As one.” The cloud came when trumpets and singers were כְאֶחָד (ke-echad), making “one sound.” The Holy One who “inhabitest the praises of Israel” (Psalm 22:3) came down into praise sung with one voice.

“So that the priests could not stand to minister by reason of the cloud: for the glory of Hashem had filled the house of God” (5:14).

So it was at the Mishkan: “Moses was not able to enter into the tent of the congregation, because the cloud abode thereon” (Exodus 40:35). FFOZ’s End of Days traces the Presence from there: it filled Solomon’s Temple “to such an extent that the priesthood could not enter the Sanctuary to perform their duties,” stayed until Ezekiel saw it leave (Ezekiel 10:18–19), and “did not rest on the Second Temple as it had upon the First Temple (b.Yoma 21b)” (Lessons 22–23, “The Ten Tribes–Shechinah”). Ezekiel saw it return: “behold, the glory of Hashem filled the house” (Ezekiel 43:5). Rabbi Palvanov, in his class “Secrets of Sukkot,” says of this verse, “Just like it happened back then with the First Temple, it’s going to happen again with the forthcoming Third Temple. The clouds of glory will return.” He reads the clouds as angelic craft; we keep the hope and leave the reading.

Messianic reading. “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). Our shiur “Did They Really Dwell in Booths?” noted that “dwelt” is the verb of the booth, and drew the line our Statement of Faith draws: “The Shekhinah rested in the Tabernacle, yet the Tabernacle was not God. The cloud filled Shlomo’s house, yet the house was a house.” FFOZ looks ahead to the Messianic Era: where Moses and the priests “could not endure to stand beneath the full weight of that glory… the risen Messiah shoulders that weight and makes Himself the conduit” (End of Days, Lesson 24, “Table of Abraham”).

Chapter 6 · Solomon’s Blessing and Prayer

Read 2 Chronicles 6 in Hebrew and English →

6:1–2 · “He would dwell in the thick darkness”

“Then said Solomon, Hashem hath said that he would dwell in the thick darkness. But I have built an house of habitation for thee, and a place for thy dwelling for ever” (6:1–2).

Hebrew lesson: עֲרָפֶל (arafel), “thick darkness.” It is the cloud of Sinai: “Moses drew near unto the thick darkness where God was” (Exodus 20:21; compare Deuteronomy 5:22). David sang that when Hashem came down, “darkness was under his feet,” and “he made darkness pavilions round about him” (2 Samuel 22:10, 12), and the word for pavilions is sukkot. Rabbi Palvanov, in “Secrets of Sukkot,” calls that verse “the explicit textual connection between the Sukkot and the clouds of glory.” The cloud that filled the House is the darkness of Sinai, come to rest.

Hebrew lesson: בֵית־זְבֻל (beit zevul), “an house of habitation.” Isaiah uses zevul of heaven: “behold from the habitation of thy holiness” (Isaiah 63:15). The Talmud names one of the seven heavens Zevul, where the heavenly Jerusalem, Temple and altar are built, and proves it from Solomon’s sentence (Chagigah 12b, citing 1 Kings 8:13). The House on Moriah bears the name of the House above, whose pattern it copies (see our 1 Chronicles commentary on 28:11–19).

6:3–11 · “I have chosen Jerusalem… and have chosen David”

The king turns and blesses the people: “Blessed be Hashem God of Israel, who hath with his hands fulfilled that which he spake with his mouth to my father David” (6:4).

“Since the day that I brought forth my people out of the land of Egypt I chose no city among all the tribes of Israel to build an house in, that my name might be there; neither chose I any man to be a ruler over my people Israel: But I have chosen Jerusalem, that my name might be there; and have chosen David to be over my people Israel” (6:5–6).

What Chronicles adds. Kings has: “I chose no city out of all the tribes of Israel to build an house, that my name might be therein; but I chose David to be over my people Israel” (1 Kings 8:16). Chronicles fills in both halves: no city and no man, then Jerusalem chosen, then David chosen. Deuteronomy spoke of “the place which Hashem your God shall choose” (Deuteronomy 12:5) without naming it; here the city and the king are chosen in one verse. The Chronicler’s readers had the chosen city again and no son of David on a throne. The verse told them the two choices belong together.

“Forasmuch as it was in thine heart to build an house for my name, thou didst well in that it was in thine heart: Notwithstanding thou shalt not build the house; but thy son… he shall build the house for my name” (6:8–9). Why David could not build we studied in our 2 Samuel commentary on chapter 7 and our 1 Chronicles commentary on 17:1–6 and 22:6–10. What is new is the comfort, “thou didst well.” The sages teach that when a person intends a mitzvah and is prevented, Scripture counts it as though he did it (Berakhot 6a).

At 6:11 Kings adds that the covenant was made “when he brought them out of the land of Egypt” (1 Kings 8:21); Chronicles drops it, here and at the end of the prayer.

6:12–17 · On his knees before all Israel

“For Solomon had made a brasen scaffold, of five cubits long, and five cubits broad, and three cubits high, and had set it in the midst of the court: and upon it he stood, and kneeled down upon his knees before all the congregation of Israel, and spread forth his hands toward heaven” (6:13).

Only in Chronicles. Kings, like 6:12, has Solomon stand before the altar (1 Kings 8:22), and says only at the end that he “arose… from kneeling on his knees” (1 Kings 8:54). Chronicles explains both: he stood on a platform, and on it he knelt. The word for the platform is כִּיּוֹר (kiyor), elsewhere a basin or laver (4:6, 14; Exodus 30:18), and its measures, five by five by three, are exactly those of Moses’ altar (Exodus 27:1).

Hebrew lesson: וַיִּבְרַךְ עַל־בִּרְכָּיו (va-yivrach al birkav), “he kneeled upon his knees.” The phrase appears only here, and once more in Aramaic: Daniel, “his windows being open in his chamber toward Jerusalem, he kneeled upon his knees three times a day” (Daniel 6:10; 6:11 in Hebrew Bibles), בָּרֵךְ עַל־בִּרְכוֹהִי (barech al birkohi). In Babylon Daniel knelt as Solomon knelt, toward the House Solomon prayed for, and Ezra “fell upon my knees, and spread out my hands” (Ezra 9:5).

The king on his knees. The sages taught that no one may sit in the Temple court except kings of the house of David (Yoma 25a). The one man who might have sat there knelt. FFOZ pictures the Third Temple’s dedication the same way: “Even the King has prostrated Himself in worship before the Presence of the LORD” (End of Days, Lessons 22–23, “The Ten Tribes–Shechinah”). Honor to the king, worship to Hashem alone: that is our Statement of Faith’s line.

“There is no God like thee in the heaven, nor in the earth; which keepest covenant, and shewest mercy” (6:14): the words are the Torah’s (Exodus 15:11; Deuteronomy 7:9). Then the promise to David, “yet so that thy children take heed to their way to walk in my law” (6:16). Kings has “that they walk before me” (1 Kings 8:25); Chronicles writes בְּתוֹרָתִי (be-torati), “in my Torah,” and names the condition. “Let thy word be verified” (6:17) is ye’amen again, the prayer of 1:9 (see 1:7–13).

6:18–21 · “Will God in very deed dwell with men on the earth?”

“But will God in very deed dwell with men on the earth? behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain thee; how much less this house which I have built!” (6:18).

Word by word. Kings asks, “But will God indeed dwell on the earth?” (1 Kings 8:27). The KJV’s “indeed” and “in very deed” render the same Hebrew word, הַאֻמְנָם (ha-umnam), “truly?” What Chronicles adds is אֶת־הָאָדָם (et ha-adam), “with men.” Solomon answered the first question, whether the Infinite can be in a place, in his letter to Huram (see 2:1–5); here he asks whether He will live with people. The Bible ends with the answer, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men” (Revelation 21:3), and our shiur “Did They Really Dwell in Booths?” read it as the last Sukkot: “The whole city has become a sukkah.”

“That thine eyes may be open upon this house day and night… to hearken unto the prayer which thy servant prayeth toward this place… hear thou from thy dwelling place, even from heaven; and when thou hearest, forgive” (6:20–21).

Toward this place. Solomon does not pray to the House. He prays toward it, toward the city, toward the land (6:20–21, 26, 34, 38), and asks Hashem to hear from heaven. The Talmud makes it law: outside the land one turns toward the land; in the land, toward Jerusalem; in Jerusalem, toward the Temple; in the Temple, toward the Holy of Holies; so all Israel turns its heart toward one place (Berakhot 30a). Our class “Roles in Synagogue Leadership: Rabbi, Chazan, and More” explained why the prayer leader faces the same way as everyone: “we’re all facing towards Jerusalem, to the place where Hashem’s presence dwelt and still does, not in the same way.”

Messianic reading. Solomon prays for those who will pray. Yeshua “lifted up his eyes to heaven” and prayed “for them also which shall believe on me through their word” (John 17:1, 20), and he “ever liveth to make intercession for them” (Hebrews 7:25). Our Statement of Faith calls him “heavenly intercessor,” and adds that “we pray to the Father, not to Yeshua instead of Him.”

6:22–31 · The oath, defeat, drought and plague

Count the petitions. There are seven, as in Kings (1 Kings 8:31–50): 1. the oath at the altar (6:22–23); 2. defeat before the enemy (6:24–25); 3. drought (6:26–27); 4. famine, plague and siege (6:28–31); 5. the stranger (6:32–33); 6. war (6:34–35); 7. captivity (6:36–39).

Most follow one pattern: sin, trouble, turning, prayer toward this place, “hear thou from heaven,” forgive. The troubles are the covenant’s curses, defeat and a sky like iron (Leviticus 26:17, 19), “blasting, and… mildew” (Deuteronomy 28:22), turned into occasions for mercy.

“And if thy people Israel be put to the worse before the enemy, because they have sinned against thee; and shall return and confess thy name, and pray and make supplication before thee in this house” (6:24).

Hebrew lesson: וְהוֹדוּ אֶת־שְׁמֶךָ (ve-hodu et shemecha), “and confess thy name.” It is the verb of the Levites’ “praising and thanking” (u-lehodot, 5:13); to thank and to confess are one word in Hebrew (see our 1 Chronicles commentary on 16:8–22). The Levites thanked Hashem for His goodness; the defeated nation confesses His name. Both say: You were right.

“When thou hast taught them the good way, wherein they should walk” (6:27): כִּי תוֹרֵם (ki torem), from יָרָה (yarah), the root of Torah. The drought is a teacher, and it teaches the way.

“That they may fear thee, to walk in thy ways, so long as they live in the land which thou gavest unto our fathers” (6:31). Kings has “That they may fear thee all the days that they live in the land” (1 Kings 8:40); Chronicles adds “to walk in thy ways.” Twice in this prayer (6:16, 31) the Chronicler’s changes point to walking in the Torah. On “thou only knowest the hearts” (6:30), see our 1 Chronicles commentary on 28:9–10.

6:32–33 · The stranger

“Moreover concerning the stranger, which is not of thy people Israel, but is come from a far country for thy great name’s sake… Then hear thou from the heavens… and do according to all that the stranger calleth to thee for; that all people of the earth may know thy name, and fear thee, as doth thy people Israel” (6:32–33).

The House built with the help of strangers (see 2:16–17) is dedicated with a prayer for them. The sages noticed the wording: for Israel Solomon asks Hashem to “render unto every man according unto all his ways” (6:30), but for the stranger, “do according to all that the stranger calleth to thee for.” The one who came from far away should not go home empty.

Our teachers. FFOZ writes, “The Bible encourages people from the nations to seek the LORD by praying toward the Temple in Jerusalem (1 Kings 8:41–43),” and notes that at Sukkot “they offered seventy bulls on behalf of the seventy nations of the world” (End of Days, Lesson 25, “Twelve Thrones”). Our shiur “Did They Really Dwell in Booths?” put it this way: “Israel was praying for the nations at this feast long before the nations came to it.” Rabbi Palvanov, in his class “A Kabbalistic History of the World,” says of the age to come, “The temple will be for everybody.”

Messianic reading. Isaiah promised, “mine house shall be called an house of prayer for all people” (Isaiah 56:7), and Yeshua quoted it in the Temple court (Mark 11:17). Solomon’s prayer gives the nations a place in Israel’s House; it does not give them Israel’s place.

6:34–39 · War and captivity: “if they bethink themselves”

After war “toward this city which thou hast chosen” (6:34) comes the last petition: “If they sin against thee, (for there is no man which sinneth not,)” (6:36). The same king, by tradition, wrote, “there is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not” (Ecclesiastes 7:20), and Paul says, “all have sinned” (Romans 3:23). The prayer for the exile begins by admitting the exile is likely.

“Yet if they bethink themselves in the land whither they are carried captive, and turn and pray unto thee in the land of their captivity, saying, We have sinned, we have done amiss, and have dealt wickedly; If they return to thee with all their heart and with all their soul… and pray toward their land… and toward the city which thou hast chosen, and toward the house which I have built for thy name” (6:37–38).

Hebrew lesson: וְהֵשִׁיבוּ אֶל־לְבָבָם (ve-heshivu el levavam), “if they bethink themselves.” Literally, “if they bring it back to their heart.” It is Moses’ word for the exile: “thou shalt call them to mind among all the nations,” וַהֲשֵׁבֹתָ אֶל־לְבָבֶךָ (va-hashevota el levavecha), “And shalt return unto Hashem thy God… with all thine heart, and with all thy soul” (Deuteronomy 30:1–2). Solomon prays Deuteronomy 30. First the heart turns (heshivu), then the person returns (ve-shavu): that is teshuvah. Yeshua told it as a story: the son in the far country “came to himself” (Luke 15:17).

Three words of confession. חָטָאנוּ הֶעֱוִינוּ וְרָשָׁעְנוּ (chatanu, he’evinu, ve-rashanu). In Babylon Daniel prayed the same three verbs: “We have sinned, and have committed iniquity, and have done wickedly” (Daniel 9:5), and the Talmud brings these words of Solomon and Daniel when it discusses the order of the high priest’s confession on Yom Kippur (Yoma 36b). Ariel Cohen Alloro, in his video “Lord’s Prayer, Our Father, Pater Nostre – אבינו שבשמים – Part 1 of 2,” notes “a strong connection between asking forgiveness and to confess… Always we have to say to God, I did this sin and this sin and this sin.”

The exiles who read it. The first readers of Chronicles had done all this. Nehemiah prayed Solomon’s words back: “Let thine ear now be attentive, and thine eyes open… yet will I gather them from thence, and will bring them unto the place that I have chosen to set my name there” (Nehemiah 1:6, 9). Ariel Cohen Alloro, in his video “The Book of Daniel – Part 1,” says that book “gives to [Am Yisrael] a strength to continue to exist even there in exile.” Solomon’s prayer gave the exiles somewhere to face, and Hashem brought them home.

“And forgive thy people which have sinned against thee” (6:39). Here Chronicles stops. Kings goes on, “give them compassion before them who carried them captive,” and ends with Egypt (1 Kings 8:50–53). The Chronicler’s readers had perhaps already seen that compassion in Cyrus’s decree (Ezra 1:1–2). He ends somewhere else.

6:40–42 · “Arise, O Hashem God, into thy resting place”

“Now, my God, let, I beseech thee, thine eyes be open, and let thine ears be attent unto the prayer that is made in this place” (6:40). Kings asks for open eyes (1 Kings 8:52); Chronicles adds attentive ears, as Nehemiah prayed, and Hashem will answer in the same words (7:15).

“Now therefore arise, O Hashem God, into thy resting place, thou, and the ark of thy strength: let thy priests, O Hashem God, be clothed with salvation, and let thy saints rejoice in goodness. O Hashem God, turn not away the face of thine anointed: remember the mercies of David thy servant” (6:41–42).

Word by word with Psalm 132:8–10. Chronicles adds “Now therefore,” and says “Hashem God” three times where the Psalm has “Hashem” once. “Thy resting place” is לְנוּחֶךָ (le-nuchecha), a form found only here, for the Psalm’s לִמְנוּחָתֶךָ (li-menuchatecha). The priests are “clothed with salvation,” תְשׁוּעָה (teshu’ah), where Psalm 132:9 has “righteousness”; but Psalm 132:16 is Hashem’s answer, “I will also clothe her priests with salvation,” so Solomon prays the promise. The saints “rejoice in goodness” instead of “shout for joy,” the tov of “For he is good” (5:13). “Thine anointed” is written as a plural, מְשִׁיחֶיךָ (meshicheicha), “thine anointed ones,” where the Psalm has the singular מְשִׁיחֶךָ (meshichecha); the KJV gives the singular in both, but Solomon seems to pray for the whole line of David’s sons. And David moves from the beginning to the end: not “For thy servant David’s sake” but “remember the mercies of David thy servant,” חַסְדֵי דָּוִיד (chasdei David), as the Psalm itself begins, “Hashem, remember David” (Psalm 132:1).

“Arise.” קוּמָה (kumah) is Moses’ cry when the Ark set out (Numbers 10:35). “When it rested,” וּבְנֻחֹה (u-venuchoh), from the root of Solomon’s “resting place,” he said, “Return, O Hashem” (Numbers 10:36). The Ark’s travels are over.

“Turn not away the face.” To turn back someone’s face is to refuse his request. Bathsheba says to Solomon, “I pray thee, say me not nay,” אַל־תָּשֶׁב אֶת־פָּנָי (al tashev et panai, 1 Kings 2:20). Solomon asks Hashem not to send His anointed away refused.

“The mercies of David.” In the Tenakh the phrase occurs in only one other place: “I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David” (Isaiah 55:3). At 5:13 chesed was Hashem’s love for ever; here it is the love promised to David, the house and the throne (see our 2 Samuel commentary on chapter 7). For readers with a House and no king, the prayer ends with David and the anointed.

What the sages say.

When Solomon built the Temple, he wished to bring the Ark into the Holy of Holies, and the gates clung to one another. He said twenty-four songs of praise and was not answered. He said, “Lift up your heads, O ye gates” … and was not answered. When he said, “O Hashem God, turn not away the face of thine anointed: remember the mercies of David thy servant,” he was answered at once. At that moment the faces of all David’s enemies turned dark like the bottom of a pot, and all Israel knew that the Holy One, blessed be He, had forgiven David for that sin. (Shabbat 30a)

The Chronicler leaves the story of Bathsheba out of his book; the Talmud finds the forgiveness of that sin in the prayer’s last verse. FFOZ pictures the Third Temple’s dedication with the same psalm, Psalm 24 (“The angels say to the gates of Jerusalem, ‘Lift up your heads, O gates…’”) and has the King conclude “with a petition in the words of Moses, ‘Return, O LORD, to the myriad thousands of Israel’” (End of Days, Lessons 22–23, “The Ten Tribes–Shechinah”).

Messianic reading. Paul read Isaiah’s “sure mercies of David” as the resurrection: “as concerning that he raised him up from the dead… he said on this wise, I will give you the sure mercies of David” (Acts 13:34). The anointed whose face is not turned away is the Son of David who appears “in the presence of God for us” (Hebrews 9:24) and taught, “Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you” (John 16:23). He came first in the pattern of Mashiach ben Yosef, rejected and raised; our Statement of Faith confesses that he will return as Mashiach ben David, “gathering Israel, judging the nations, restoring the kingdom.” The answer to Solomon’s prayer comes in the next verse, in fire (7:1).

Drawing it together

1. Washed, then near. Bronze in the court, gold within, and the priest washed at the Sea before he went in (4:6). Yeshua washes feet, and Hebrews still speaks of “our bodies washed with pure water” (Hebrews 10:22). Grace opens the way in; it does not make the way careless.

2. One sound, and the cloud. The Levites carried, the priests brought in, and trumpets and singers sounded “as one” (5:13). The cloud came down into praise sung with one voice: “for he is good; for his mercy endureth for ever.”

3. With men on the earth. Chronicles adds two words to Solomon’s question, “with men” (6:18). The cloud filled the House, yet the House was not God; the Father’s glory was seen in the Son of David (John 1:14); and at the end “the tabernacle of God is with men” (Revelation 21:3).

4. Toward this place. Seven petitions, prayed toward the House and heard from heaven, make room for the defeated, the hungry, the stranger and the captive. The exiles brought it back to their hearts in Babylon (6:37) and were brought home. The way back is still teshuvah.

5. Remember the mercies of David. The prayer ends with David’s chesed and the face of the anointed. We pray to the Father, and the Son of David intercedes. He came in the pattern of Mashiach ben Yosef and will return as Mashiach ben David, heir of the mercies for whose sake the gates opened.

Questions for discussion

1. How does Solomon’s bronze altar (4:1) compare with Moses’ (Exodus 27:1), and why is it listed first?
2. What were the lavers and the Sea for (4:6; Exodus 30:19–21)? How do John 13:10 and Hebrews 10:22 carry the washing forward?
3. What does ke-mishpatam, “according to their ordinance” (4:7), teach about ten lampstands where Moses had one?
4. Kings says the priests took up the Ark (1 Kings 8:3), Chronicles the Levites (5:4). How do Deuteronomy 31:9, 25 and 5:7 help?
5. How were the staves “seen” and “not seen” (5:9; Yoma 54a), and what did the sages hear in “unto this day”?
6. How do Exodus 16:34, Numbers 17:10 and Hebrews 9:2 help us read Hebrews 9:4 beside “nothing… save the two tables” (5:10)?
7. What happened when the singers and trumpeters were “as one” (5:13–14)? Compare Exodus 40:35 and Ezekiel 43:5.
8. What does 6:5–6 add to 1 Kings 8:16, and why would it matter to readers with a city but no king?
9. Solomon knelt before all Israel (6:13). How do Daniel 6:10 and Yoma 25a help us see what that meant?
10. Compare 6:41–42 with Psalm 132:8–10. What do “the mercies of David” mean in Isaiah 55:3, Acts 13:34 and Shabbat 30a?

Sources

Scripture: 2 Chronicles 1–7; 1 Chronicles 15, 18, 22; 1 Kings 2, 6–8; 2 Kings 25; 2 Samuel 22; Genesis 33; Exodus 15–16, 20, 25, 27, 30, 40; Leviticus 1, 23, 26; Numbers 2, 10, 17–18; Deuteronomy 5, 7, 12, 17, 28, 30–31; Psalms 22, 24, 132, 136; Ecclesiastes 7; Song of Songs 1; Isaiah 55–56, 63; Jeremiah 3, 31, 52; Ezekiel 10, 43; Daniel 6, 9; Ezra 1, 3, 9; Nehemiah 1; Mark 11; Luke 15; John 1, 13, 16–17; Acts 13; Romans 3; Hebrews 7, 9–10; Revelation 21.

Talmud and Midrash: Eruvin 14a–b; Yoma 25a, 36b, 53b–54a, 54a; Bava Batra 14b; Berakhot 6a, 30a; Chagigah 12b; Shabbat 30a; Mishnah Middot 3:1; Mishnah Yoma 3:3, 5:2; Mishnah Sukkah 5:7; Mishnah Sotah 7:8.

Commentators: Rambam, Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Beit HaBechirah 4:1.

Our teachers and materials: First Fruits of Zion, End of Days (5786), Lessons 22–23, “The Ten Tribes–Shechinah”; Lesson 24, “Table of Abraham”; Lesson 25, “Twelve Thrones”; Rabbi Efraim Palvanov, “Secrets of Sukkot” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSrGiG-ge04) and “A Kabbalistic History of the World” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUy_HGBDmoI); Ariel Cohen Alloro, “Lord’s Prayer, Our Father, Pater Nostre – אבינו שבשמים – Part 1 of 2” (https://youtu.be/tewnhIeY_J0) and “The Book of Daniel – Part 1” (https://youtu.be/Aj-yumHEWiU); Benei Avraham class “Roles in Synagogue Leadership: Rabbi, Chazan, and More” (https://youtu.be/L7fPBfnhRF0); our Sukkot 5787 drash “Where Is the Ark”; our Sukkot 5787 shiur “Did They Really Dwell in Booths?”; our 1 Chronicles commentary on 15:1–3, 15:4–15, 16:8–22, 16:34–36, 16:37–43, 17:1–6, 18:1–8, 21:26–30, 22:6–10, 22:14–16, 24:1–6, 25:1–3, 26:20–28, 28:9–10, 28:11–19 and 29:1–5; our 2 Samuel commentary on chapter 7; Benei Avraham Statement of Faith.

Before we begin

Solomon has finished praying, and Hashem answers twice. First in fire: it falls on the altar, the glory fills the House, and all Israel bows to the pavement singing “For he is good.” Two weeks of feasting follow. Then Hashem answers by night, in words: if “my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves,” He “will heal their land” (7:14). A warning follows for those who forsake Him.

Chapter 8 lists the works of the son of peace: cities, a levy of strangers, offerings “according to the commandment of Moses,” and ships to Ophir. Chapter 9 brings the Queen of Sheba, who finds that “the one half… was not told me” (9:6), and then the gold, the ivory throne and Solomon’s death.

What the Chronicler leaves out is as plain as what he tells. Kings follows the gold with the foreign wives, the high places, the adversaries and Ahijah’s torn garment (1 Kings 11:1–40). Chronicles goes from the horses to the grave; we ask why at 9:29–31. In these chapters the Hebrew and English verse numbers are the same.

How this commentary is built. We read the text first, in Hebrew where it matters, because Torah comes first and the Prophets and Writings are measured by it. Then we hear the sages: the Talmud, the Midrash, Rashi, Radak and Rambam. Then our own teachers: the FFOZ End of Days lessons, Rabbi Efraim Palvanov and Ariel Cohen Alloro, along with our own Benei Avraham classes. Last, we ask what the passage shows us about Mashiach.

A word on our teachers. Rabbi Palvanov and Ariel Cohen Alloro bring a great deal of Kabbalah and gematria. We use their insights as remez, a hint that opens a door, and never as proof. Gematria can show a connection the text already makes, but it cannot make a doctrine by itself. Where a teacher’s framework goes beyond what Benei Avraham confesses (for example, on reincarnation or on the nature of God), we take the insight and leave the framework. “To the Torah and to the testimony” (Isaiah 8:20) is the test for all of it, our own words included.

Scripture is quoted from the King James Version with Hashem in place of LORD, as in our Statement of Faith.

Chapter 7 · Fire from Heaven, and Hashem’s Answer

Read 2 Chronicles 7 in Hebrew and English →

7:1–3 · The fire comes down

“Now when Solomon had made an end of praying, the fire came down from heaven, and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices; and the glory of Hashem filled the house” (7:1).

Only in Chronicles. In Kings, Solomon rises from his knees and blesses the people standing (1 Kings 8:54–61). Chronicles leaves the blessing out and lets heaven answer. The glory that filled the House when the Ark came in (5:13–14) fills it again: the prayer stands between two fillings of glory.

Hebrew lesson: וְהָאֵשׁ יָרְדָה מֵהַשָּׁמַיִם (ve-ha’esh yaredah me-hashamayim), “the fire came down from heaven.” The altars answered by fire we listed in our 1 Chronicles commentary on 21:26–30. It is the Mishkan’s eighth day again: “there came a fire out from before Hashem, and consumed upon the altar the burnt offering and the fat: which when all the people saw, they shouted, and fell on their faces” (Leviticus 9:24).

“And the priests could not enter into the house of Hashem, because the glory of Hashem had filled Hashem’s house” (7:2). At 5:14 they “could not stand to minister”; now they cannot go in (compare Exodus 40:35). Then all Israel “bowed themselves with their faces to the ground upon the pavement, and worshipped, and praised Hashem, saying, For he is good; for his mercy endureth for ever” (7:3). The Levites’ refrain (see 5:11–14) is now the nation’s. And the king is not in the sentence. When David’s reign ended, the people “worshipped Hashem, and the king” (1 Chronicles 29:20), and our Statement of Faith reads that bow as honor to the king and worship to Hashem (see our 1 Chronicles commentary on 29:20–22). When the fire fell, they bowed to Hashem alone.

What the sages say. A baraita teaches that the fire which came down in Moses’ days did not leave the bronze altar until Solomon’s, and the fire which came down in Solomon’s days did not leave until Manasseh removed it (Zevachim 61b).

Our teachers. FFOZ’s End of Days finds the pattern in the Mishkan: after “a seven-day consecration ceremony,” the priests began on the eighth day, and “A divine fire issued forth from within the Tabernacle and ignited the pyre of the altar, instantly consuming the sacrifices.” The glory made manifest on that eighth day, it says, “anticipates the future restoration of the Shechinah in Zion” (Lesson 26, “Giant Ox and Leviathan”; compare Ezekiel 43:5).

Messianic reading. Fire came down once more at a feast in Jerusalem, on Shavuot: “cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them” (Acts 2:3). It did not put out the altar’s fire; the disciples went on “continuing daily with one accord in the temple” (Acts 2:46). Our class “Shavuot: Torah, Ruth, and Return” put it this way: “the fire of the Ruach does not erase Torah. It writes Torah deeper.”

7:4–7 · Twenty-two thousand oxen, and the middle of the court

“And king Solomon offered a sacrifice of twenty and two thousand oxen, and an hundred and twenty thousand sheep: so the king and all the people dedicated the house of God” (7:5). Kings gives the same numbers and calls them peace offerings (1 Kings 8:63), whose meat the worshippers ate (Leviticus 7:15–20). “Dedicated,” וַיַּחְנְכוּ (va-yachnechu), is the root of chanukkah; it returns at 7:9.

“And the priests waited on their offices: the Levites also with instruments of musick of Hashem, which David the king had made to praise Hashem, because his mercy endureth for ever, when David praised by their ministry” (7:6). The verse is only in Chronicles. When the Ark came in, the priests served without their courses (5:11); now they stand עַל־מִשְׁמְרוֹתָם (al mishmerotam), “at their watches,” and David’s order is back. The instruments are David’s (1 Chronicles 23:5), and “by their ministry” is literally “by their hand”: the king who is gone still leads the praise.

“Moreover Solomon hallowed the middle of the court… because the brasen altar which Solomon had made was not able to receive the burnt offerings, and the meat offerings, and the fat” (7:7). Kings says “too little” (1 Kings 8:64). Chronicles says “was not able,” לֹא יָכוֹל (lo yachol), the verb of 7:2, where the priests “could not” (lo yachlu) enter. The House could not hold the glory, and the altar could not hold the gifts. On the altar’s size, see 4:1.

7:8–10 · Seven days, seven days, and the eighth day

“Also at the same time Solomon kept the feast seven days, and all Israel with him… And in the eighth day they made a solemn assembly: for they kept the dedication of the altar seven days, and the feast seven days. And on the three and twentieth day of the seventh month he sent the people away into their tents” (7:8–10).

Counting the days. Kings says “seven days and seven days, even fourteen days. On the eighth day he sent the people away” (1 Kings 8:65–66). Chronicles gives the calendar. Sukkot begins on “the fifteenth day of this seventh month” (Leviticus 23:34), so the altar’s week was the eighth to the fourteenth, the feast the fifteenth to the twenty-first, and the eighth day the twenty-second.

What the sages say. The altar’s week ran across the tenth, Yom Kippur. The Talmud learns from “seven days and seven days” that one joy is not mixed with another, and tells that Israel ate and drank on the Day of Atonement that year and was afraid, until a voice from heaven announced that they were all invited to the life of the World to Come (Moed Katan 9a).

Hebrew lesson: עֲצָרֶת (atzeret), “solemn assembly.” It is the Torah’s word for the day after Sukkot (Leviticus 23:36; Numbers 29:35). Rashi hears in it עָצַר (atzar), “hold back”: “I have held you back with Me,” like a king who asks his children to stay one more day, because their parting is hard for him (Rashi on Leviticus 23:36). Outside the Torah, the Tenakh shows Israel keeping this day only here and in Ezra’s Jerusalem, “according unto the manner” (Nehemiah 8:18).

Four verses later Hashem uses the same root: “If I shut up heaven,” אֶעֱצֹר (e’etzor, 7:13). The Mishnah teaches that at Sukkot the world is judged for water (Mishnah Rosh Hashanah 1:2), and Rabbi Yehoshua begins the mention of rain in the Amidah on the last festival day, as we still do (Mishnah Taanit 1:1). On the day Israel is held back with Hashem, it begins to pray that heaven will not be held back.

Hanukkah. “The dedication of the altar,” חֲנֻכַּת הַמִּזְבֵּחַ (chanukkat ha-mizbeach), is the Torah’s phrase for the princes’ gifts (Numbers 7:10, 84), and outside Numbers 7 it occurs only here. The books of the Maccabees, outside the Tenakh, remember that the Maccabees “kept the dedication of the altar eight days” (1 Maccabees 4:56), and 2 Maccabees ties their eight days to this chapter: “even so prayed Solomon also, and the fire came down from heaven… So Solomon kept those eight days” (2 Maccabees 2:10, 12). Yeshua walked in the Temple at “the feast of the dedication” (John 10:22).

Our teachers. FFOZ’s End of Days reads the eighth day forward: “If the seven days of Sukkot represent the Messianic Era, the eighth day must represent the World to Come” (Lesson 31, “The Appointed Times”).

The people went home glad for the goodness shown “unto David, and to Solomon, and to Israel his people” (7:10); Kings does not name Solomon there (1 Kings 8:66).

7:11–12 · “An house of sacrifice”

“Thus Solomon finished the house of Hashem, and the king’s house… And Hashem appeared to Solomon by night, and said unto him, I have heard thy prayer, and have chosen this place to myself for an house of sacrifice” (7:11–12).

Kings calls this “the second time” (1 Kings 9:2). It came after the palace too was finished, so perhaps years after the prayer; Chronicles says “by night,” as at Gibeon (1:7; see 1:7–13).

Only in Chronicles. From “and have chosen this place” to the end of 7:15, Kings has no parallel. Hashem takes up the Torah’s words: “unto the place which Hashem your God shall choose… And thither ye shall bring your burnt offerings, and your sacrifices” (Deuteronomy 12:5–6). לְבֵית זָבַח (le-veit zavach), “for an house of sacrifice,” occurs only here. Solomon told Huram the House was “to burn sacrifice before him” (2:5; see 2:1–5), and Hashem gives it that name. Rambam opens his laws of the Temple the same way: it is a commandment to make a house for Hashem, ready for sacrifices to be offered in it (Hilchot Beit HaBechirah 1:1).

7:13–16 · “If my people… shall humble themselves”

“If I shut up heaven that there be no rain, or if I command the locusts to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among my people; If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land” (7:13–14).

Hashem answers in the prayer’s own terms. Solomon named drought, locust and pestilence (6:26–28) and asked, “hear thou from heaven, and forgive” (6:27). Hashem says, “then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive,” and adds what no one asked: “and will heal their land,” a phrase found only here.

Hebrew lesson: four verbs and three answers. וְיִכָּנְעוּ (ve-yikkan’u), “humble themselves”; וְיִתְפַּלְלוּ (ve-yitpallelu), “pray”; וִיבַקְשׁוּ פָנַי (vi-vakshu fanai), “seek my face”; וְיָשֻׁבוּ (ve-yashuvu), “turn.” Then אֶשְׁמַע (eshma), “I will hear”; וְאֶסְלַח (ve-eslach), “forgive”; וְאֶרְפָּא (ve-erpa), “heal.” The first verb comes from the Torah’s chapter on exile: “if then their uncircumcised hearts be humbled… Then will I remember my covenant… and I will remember the land” (Leviticus 26:41–42). Seeking His face after judgment is Hosea’s word: “till they acknowledge their offence, and seek my face” (Hosea 5:15). Turning from the evil way is what Nineveh did (Jonah 3:10).

The Chronicler’s word. Kings uses humble of turning to Hashem for only two kings, Ahab and Josiah (1 Kings 21:29; 2 Kings 22:19). Chronicles returns to it again and again: Rehoboam and his princes (12:6–7), Hezekiah (32:26), Manasseh (33:12), Josiah (34:27), and Zedekiah, who “humbled not himself” (36:12). This verse is the rule; the book gives the cases.

“Which are called by my name” is said of Israel here; Amos says it of “all the heathen” (Amos 9:12), and James quoted him (Acts 15:17). The nations called by His Name learn Israel’s way back.

“Now mine eyes shall be open, and mine ears attent unto the prayer that is made in this place” (7:15): 6:40 answered word for word (see 6:40–42). The adjective, קַשֻּׁבוֹת (kashuvot), occurs only in these two verses and Psalm 130:2; Nehemiah prays with its singular (Nehemiah 1:6, 11). Then Kings joins again: “mine eyes and mine heart shall be there perpetually” (7:16; 1 Kings 9:3).

Our teachers. Our class “The Real Jewish Reason We Need a Messiah” asked the question this verse raises: if a Jew can return to Hashem through teshuvah, why a Messiah? Its answer: “Torah and teshuvah transform the individual, but Messiah transforms all of creation.”

Messianic reading. In the porch “that is called Solomon’s” (Acts 3:11), Peter preached the same order: “Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord” (Acts 3:19). James wrote, “Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up” (James 4:10), and Peter that the Lord is “not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9).

7:17–22 · “If thou wilt walk before me… But if ye turn away”

“And as for thee, if thou wilt walk before me, as David thy father walked… Then will I stablish the throne of thy kingdom, according as I have covenanted with David thy father, saying, There shall not fail thee a man to be ruler in Israel” (7:17–18).

Hebrew lesson: מוֹשֵׁל בְּיִשְׂרָאֵל (moshel be-Yisrael), “ruler in Israel.” Kings has “a man upon the throne of Israel” (1 Kings 9:5). Chronicles uses Micah’s words: “out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel” (Micah 5:2). And where Kings says “as I promised,” Chronicles says כָּרַתִּי (karati), “as I have covenanted,” literally “as I cut”: a covenant was cut, so a man shall not be cut off, לֹא יִכָּרֵת (lo yikkaret). Matthew read Micah over the child of Bethlehem (Matthew 2:6).

“But if ye turn away, and forsake my statutes… Then will I pluck them up by the roots out of my land… and will make it to be a proverb and a byword among all nations” (7:19–20). The “ye” is plural: the warning turns to the people. It is the other half of David’s charge, “if thou forsake him” (1 Chronicles 28:9), with the same verb, עָזַב (azav), in 7:19 and 7:22.

Word by word with Kings. Kings has “Then will I cut off Israel” (1 Kings 9:7). Chronicles has וּנְתַשְׁתִּים (u-netashtim), “will I pluck them up,” and, for Kings’ אֲשַׁלַּח (ashallach), אַשְׁלִיךְ (ashlich), “will I cast”: the two verbs of Moses’ warning, “And Hashem rooted them out of their land… and cast them into another land, as it is this day” (Deuteronomy 29:28). In Kings, Israel becomes “a proverb and a byword”; in Chronicles, the House does.

“And this house, which is high, shall be an astonishment to every one that passeth by it” (7:21).

“Which is high.” The KJV renders both books alike, but Kings has יִהְיֶה עֶלְיוֹן (yihyeh elyon), “shall be high” (1 Kings 9:8), and Chronicles אֲשֶׁר הָיָה עֶלְיוֹן (asher hayah elyon), “which was high.” The Chronicler’s readers had seen the passers-by. The question and answer are Moses’ (Deuteronomy 29:24–25), and Jeremiah heard them over the city before it fell (Jeremiah 22:8–9).

Our teachers. Rabbi Palvanov, in his class “Third Rome #2: Russia, Iran, and Gog u’Magog,” gives the rule that keeps such a warning from becoming fate: “a negative prophecy does not have to be fulfilled. God gives a negative prophecy as a warning,” as Nineveh learned, “so the whole lesson there is that we can repent and we can avoid a negative prophecy.” In Hashem’s answer, 7:14 comes before 7:19.

Messianic reading. Yeshua “beheld the city, and wept over it” (Luke 19:41). Yet the warning stands inside a promise: the Son of David, our Statement of Faith confesses, will return “gathering Israel, judging the nations, restoring the kingdom.”

Chapter 8 · Cities, Courses and Ships

Read 2 Chronicles 8 in Hebrew and English →

8:1–6 · Twenty years, and the cities

“And it came to pass at the end of twenty years, wherein Solomon had built the house of Hashem, and his own house, That the cities which Huram had restored to Solomon, Solomon built them” (8:1–2). Twenty years: seven for the House, thirteen for the palace (1 Kings 6:38; 7:1).

Who gave cities to whom? In Kings, “king Solomon gave Hiram twenty cities in the land of Galilee,” and Hiram, displeased, called them “the land of Cabul” (1 Kings 9:11–13). In Chronicles they go the other way. The Hebrew says אֲשֶׁר נָתַן חוּרָם (asher natan Huram), “which Huram had given”; the KJV’s “restored” is already an answer. The commentators read one story: Solomon gave the towns, Hiram gave them back, and Solomon rebuilt them. Ariel Cohen Alloro, in his video “New World Order – Hiram and the Freemasons – Part 3,” notes that Hiram called Solomon “my brother” (1 Kings 9:13) and that כָּבוּל (Kavul) equals חֵן (chen), “grace” (both are 58). We take it as remez.

“And Solomon went to Hamath-zobah, and prevailed against it” (8:3). It is the only battle Chronicles records for Solomon, and Hamath-zobah is named nowhere else. Zobah was the kingdom David struck “unto Hamath” (1 Chronicles 18:3; see our 1 Chronicles commentary on 18:1–8), and “prevailed,” וַיֶּחֱזַק (va-yechezak), shares its root with the book’s first verb (1:1; see 1:1–6).

“And he built Tadmor in the wilderness” (8:4). In Kings the written text has תמר (Tamar) and the reading tradition Tadmor (1 Kings 9:18); Chronicles writes Tadmor and sets it with the store cities of Hamath. It is the oasis later called Palmyra, “palm town”: tamar is a palm. Kings names only the lower Beth-horon (1 Kings 9:17); Chronicles has both (8:5), the towns an Ephraimite woman, Sherah, built (1 Chronicles 7:24; see our 1 Chronicles commentary on 7:20–29).

8:7–10 · The remnant of the Canaanites

“As for all the people that were left of the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, which were not of Israel… them did Solomon make to pay tribute until this day. But of the children of Israel did Solomon make no servants for his work” (8:7–9). Kings has the same (1 Kings 9:20–22); on the levy from Israel (1 Kings 5:13) and the officers, 250 here and 550 in Kings (8:10; 1 Kings 9:23), see 2:16–17.

“Until this day.” For the Chronicler’s readers it was still true. The returned exiles counted “the children of Solomon’s servants” with the Nethinim, “three hundred ninety and two” (Ezra 2:55, 58). The descendants of Solomon’s levy came home with Israel.

8:11 · “Because the places are holy”

“And Solomon brought up the daughter of Pharaoh out of the city of David unto the house that he had built for her: for he said, My wife shall not dwell in the house of David king of Israel, because the places are holy, whereunto the ark of Hashem hath come” (8:11).

Kings tells of the move without a reason (1 Kings 9:24). It mentions her five times (1 Kings 3:1; 7:8; 9:16, 24; 11:1), the last at the head of the “strange women.” Chronicles mentions her once and gives Solomon’s reason in his own words: כִּי־קֹדֶשׁ הֵמָּה (ki kodesh hemmah), “for they are holy.” The Ark had rested in David’s city, in “the tent that David had pitched for it” (1 Chronicles 16:1). The Chronicler has told us of another daughter of Pharaoh, Bithiah, who married into Judah (1 Chronicles 4:18; see our 1 Chronicles commentary on 4:11–20). One joined Israel; the other had to be moved away from the holy places.

What the sages say. When Solomon married Pharaoh’s daughter, the Talmud says, Gabriel came down and thrust a reed into the sea, and around it grew the land on which the great city of Rome was built (Shabbat 56b). The marriage the Chronicler keeps at arm’s length was, for the sages, the seed of a later exile.

8:12–16 · “According to the commandment of Moses”

“Then Solomon offered burnt offerings unto Hashem… Even after a certain rate every day, offering according to the commandment of Moses, on the sabbaths, and on the new moons, and on the solemn feasts, three times in the year, even in the feast of unleavened bread, and in the feast of weeks, and in the feast of tabernacles” (8:12–13).

Kings gives one sentence: “three times in a year did Solomon offer burnt offerings and peace offerings” (1 Kings 9:25). Chronicles spells out the calendar of Solomon’s letter (2:3; see 2:1–5), now kept: the daily lambs “day by day” (Numbers 28:3), Shabbat, Rosh Chodesh, and the three feasts in the Torah’s own order and words (Deuteronomy 16:16). כְּמִצְוַת מֹשֶׁה (ke-mitzvat Moshe), “according to the commandment of Moses,” is the warrant. The king does not write the calendar; he keeps it.

“And he appointed, according to the order of David his father, the courses of the priests to their service, and the Levites to their charges… the porters also by their courses at every gate: for so had David the man of God commanded” (8:14). Moses gave the offerings; David gave the order of those who serve: the courses (see our 1 Chronicles commentary on 24:1–6), the singers (see our 1 Chronicles commentary on 25:1–3) and the gatekeepers (see our 1 Chronicles commentary on 26:1–11).

Hebrew lesson: אִישׁ הָאֱלֹהִים (ish ha-Elohim), “the man of God.” It is Moses’ title (Deuteronomy 33:1). David is given it only here and twice in Nehemiah, both for the Levites’ song (Nehemiah 12:24, 36).

“So the house of Hashem was perfected” (8:16): שָׁלֵם בֵּית יְהוָה (shalem beit Hashem), “the house of Hashem was whole,” the root of Solomon’s name (see 5:1). Kings ends its one sentence with the same root, וְשִׁלַּם (ve-shillam), “So he finished the house” (1 Kings 9:25). In both books the House is called whole when the offerings are in order.

8:17–18 · Ships to Ophir

“Then went Solomon to Ezion-geber, and to Eloth, at the sea side in the land of Edom. And Huram sent him by the hands of his servants ships, and servants that had knowledge of the sea; and they went with the servants of Solomon to Ophir, and took thence four hundred and fifty talents of gold” (8:17–18).

Ezion-geber had been a camp of Israel in the wilderness (Numbers 33:35). In Kings, Solomon builds the fleet and Hiram sends sailors (1 Kings 9:26–27); here Huram sends ships too. Kings counts 420 talents (1 Kings 9:28), Chronicles 450. Ophir and Sheba stand side by side among the sons of Joktan in the Chronicler’s first chapter (1 Chronicles 1:22–23), and the gold of Ophir and the queen of Sheba arrive within two chapters.

Chapter 9 · The Queen of Sheba, the Gold and the Grave

Read 2 Chronicles 9 in Hebrew and English →

9:1–7 · “The half was not told me”

“And when the queen of Sheba heard of the fame of Solomon, she came to prove Solomon with hard questions at Jerusalem… and when she was come to Solomon, she communed with him of all that was in her heart. And Solomon told her all her questions: and there was nothing hid from Solomon which he told her not” (9:1–2).

Hebrew lesson: בְחִידוֹת (be-chidot), “with hard questions.” A chidah is a riddle, like Samson’s (Judges 14:12), or a dark saying, “I will open my dark saying upon the harp” (Psalm 49:4).

Who was she? The Chronicler’s first chapter has three Shebas: a grandson of Cush (1 Chronicles 1:9), a son of Joktan (1 Chronicles 1:22), and a grandson of Abraham by Keturah (1 Chronicles 1:32). Later legends gave her a son who carried the Ark to Ethiopia; they are legends. The text is plainer: a ruler came from far away to test a king and went home blessing Israel’s God.

“And the meat of his table… and his ascent by which he went up into the house of Hashem; there was no more spirit in her” (9:4). Kings writes עֹלָתוֹ (olato), “his burnt offering” (1 Kings 10:5); Chronicles writes עֲלִיָּתוֹ (aliyato), “his going up.” The KJV has “ascent” in both. Either way, what took her breath last was the king going up to the House of Hashem. “Howbeit I believed not their words, until I came, and mine eyes had seen it: and, behold, the one half of the greatness of thy wisdom was not told me” (9:6).

Our teachers. One thing was hidden even from Solomon. FFOZ’s End of Days: “The rabbis said that not even King Solomon, the wisest man in the world, was able to ascertain the timing of the Day of the LORD because the matter is concealed in God’s heart” (Lesson 3, “The Day and the Hour”; Ecclesiastes Rabbah 12:9). In her questions “there was nothing hid from Solomon”; the day of redemption is hidden from everyone, and so we set no dates.

Messianic reading. “The queen of the south shall rise up in the judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: for she came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and, behold, a greater than Solomon is here” (Matthew 12:42; Luke 11:31). FFOZ hears the warning: she “will stand up and condemn those who received the message of repentance but did not heed it” (End of Days, Lesson 38, “The Last Day”). On “a greater than Solomon,” see 1:7–13.

9:8–12 · “To be king for Hashem thy God”

“Blessed be Hashem thy God, which delighted in thee to set thee on his throne, to be king for Hashem thy God: because thy God loved Israel, to establish them for ever, therefore made he thee king over them, to do judgment and justice” (9:8).

Word by word with Kings. Kings has “to set thee on the throne of Israel” (1 Kings 10:9). Chronicles writes עַל־כִּסְאוֹ (al kis’o), “on his throne,” and adds לְמֶלֶךְ לַיהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ (le-melech la-Hashem Elohecha), “to be king for Hashem thy God,” and “to establish them.” The throne is Hashem’s, and Solomon sits on it as His king. The Chronicler said so at the crowning (1 Chronicles 29:23; see our 1 Chronicles commentary on 29:23–25), David said so, “the throne of the kingdom of Hashem” (1 Chronicles 28:5; see our 1 Chronicles commentary on 28:1–8), and now a foreign queen says it. Her words echo Huram’s, “Because Hashem hath loved his people, he hath made thee king over them” (2:10, KJV 2:11; see 2:10–15).

Our teachers. Ariel Cohen Alloro, in his video “The Tale of the Seven Beggars by Rabbi Nachman – Part 4,” finds that the queen’s last words, לַעֲשׂוֹת מִשְׁפָּט וּצְדָקָה (la’asot mishpat u-tzedakah), “to do judgment and justice,” equal Isaiah’s “Peace, peace to him that is far off, and to him that is near” (Isaiah 57:19): both are 1440. We take the number as remez, and Isaiah’s verse ends, “and I will heal him.” Paul says the Messiah “came and preached peace to you which were afar off, and to them that were nigh” (Ephesians 2:17).

She gave gold and spices (9:9), the algum wood became “harps and psalteries for singers” (9:11), and she went home with more than she brought (9:12).

Messianic reading. The psalm headed “for Solomon” sees the scene again: “the kings of Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts… to him shall be given of the gold of Sheba” (Psalm 72:10, 15). Isaiah sees the caravan: “all they from Sheba shall come: they shall bring gold and incense; and they shall shew forth the praises of Hashem” (Isaiah 60:6). Wise men brought “gold, and frankincense, and myrrh” to the child in Bethlehem (Matthew 2:11). The gifts of the nations come to the Son of David; the praise goes to Hashem.

9:13–21 · Six hundred threescore and six talents

“Now the weight of gold that came to Solomon in one year was six hundred and threescore and six talents of gold” (9:13).

Counting the number. Six hundred sixty-six appears in the Tenakh three times: here, in the same report in Kings (1 Kings 10:14), and in the list of the returned exiles, “The children of Adonikam, six hundred sixty and six” (Ezra 2:13; Nehemiah 7:18 has 667). In the Brit Hadashah it appears once: “count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six” (Revelation 13:18).

The law of the king. “Neither shall he greatly multiply to himself silver and gold” (Deuteronomy 17:17). Chronicles records the gold, the silver “as stones” (9:27) and the horses (9:25, 28), and leaves out the wives. On the horses and Sanhedrin 21b, see 1:14–17.

Our teachers. Our Hoshana Rabbah 5787 shiur “Sealed for Life” read Solomon’s gold this way: “Shlomo’s gold teaches us that the beast can grow inside the wisest king in Israel. It starts with gold, horses and power, and ends with a heart turned away from Hashem. The first beast we must watch is in the mirror.” FFOZ’s End of Days gives the reading John’s first readers likely knew: “the number 666 is not literally a number; it’s an encoded name,” Caesar Nero in Hebrew letters, קסר נרון (Keisar Neron) (Lesson 13, “The Name of the Beast”). Ariel Cohen Alloro, in his video “Number 666 – Part 1,” says the number “represent[s] the lie”: שֶׁקֶר (sheker) is 600 by the regular count and 60 by the order of its letters. Our shiur completes the set, 6 by the small count, and sets truth beside it: אֱמֶת (emet) is 441, twenty-one times twenty-one. We take the counting as remez.

“Moreover the king made a great throne of ivory… And there were six steps to the throne, with a footstool of gold… And twelve lions stood there on the one side and on the other upon the six steps” (9:17–19). Where Kings has “the top of the throne was round behind” (1 Kings 10:19), Chronicles has “a footstool of gold.” David called the Ark “the footstool of our God” (1 Chronicles 28:2), and to David’s lord Hashem says, “Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool” (Psalm 110:1). Whose throne it is, the queen has already said (9:8).

9:22–28 · “All the kings of the earth”

“And king Solomon passed all the kings of the earth in riches and wisdom. And all the kings of the earth sought the presence of Solomon, to hear his wisdom, that God had put in his heart” (9:22–23).

Kings has “all the earth sought to Solomon” (1 Kings 10:24); Chronicles has “all the kings of the earth.” The promise of Gibeon is kept, riches “such as none of the kings have had that have been before thee” (1:12).

Hebrew lesson: מְבַקְשִׁים אֶת־פְּנֵי שְׁלֹמֹה (mevakshim et penei Shlomo), “sought the presence of Solomon.” Literally, “sought the face of Solomon.” Two chapters ago Hashem asked His people to “seek my face” (7:14). The kings of the earth seek the face of the king; Israel is asked to seek the face of Hashem.

“And Solomon had four thousand stalls for horses and chariots, and twelve thousand horsemen” (9:25). Kings counts “forty thousand stalls” (1 Kings 4:26); some commentators count stables and stalls differently, and others think one figure was miscopied. “He reigned over all the kings from the river even unto the land of the Philistines, and to the border of Egypt” (9:26; 1 Kings 4:21): the bounds of the promise to Abraham, “from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates” (Genesis 15:18).

Messianic reading. The Chronicler’s first readers had a House that was “in comparison of it as nothing” (Haggai 2:3), and Haggai promised them, “The glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former” (Haggai 2:9). John saw where 9:23 ends: “the kings of the earth do bring their glory and honour into it” (Revelation 21:24). Solomon received the glory of the kings, and his heart turned. The Son of David was shown “all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them,” if he would bow, and answered, “Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve” (Matthew 4:8–10).

9:29–31 · “Solomon slept with his fathers”

“Now the rest of the acts of Solomon, first and last, are they not written in the book of Nathan the prophet, and in the prophecy of Ahijah the Shilonite, and in the visions of Iddo the seer against Jeroboam the son of Nebat? And Solomon reigned in Jerusalem over all Israel forty years” (9:29–30).

Kings cites “the book of the acts of Solomon” (1 Kings 11:41); Chronicles cites three prophets, as it cited Samuel, Nathan and Gad for David (1 Chronicles 29:29). The last two names leave a door open. Ahijah tore a new garment into twelve pieces and gave Jeroboam ten (1 Kings 11:29–31), and Jeroboam the son of Nebat is named here for the first time in Chronicles.

What Chronicles leaves out. Between the horses and the grave, Kings tells of seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines who “turned away his heart” (1 Kings 11:3); of high places for Chemosh and Molech (1 Kings 11:7); of Hashem’s anger at a king “which had appeared unto him twice” (1 Kings 11:9); and of the adversaries Hadad, Rezon and Jeroboam (1 Kings 11:14–40). Chronicles tells none of it, yet it does not pretend. In the next chapter the kingdom splits “that Hashem might perform his word, which he spake by the hand of Ahijah the Shilonite to Jeroboam the son of Nebat” (10:15), a word told only in Kings. The Chronicler assumes his readers know it.

Why the silence? We said of David’s silence that it was a decision about what the returned community most needed, not a cover-up (see our 1 Chronicles commentary on 3:1–9), and we lean the same way here. His story is the House and the promise to David’s line, and in it Solomon’s part is the building. The sages read Solomon as they read David: “Whoever says that Solomon sinned is mistaken.” When Kings says he “did evil in the sight of Hashem” (1 Kings 11:6), they explain that he should have stopped his wives and did not, so Scripture counts it as though he sinned (Shabbat 56b). But the Writings do not let the silence become a denial. Nehemiah, in the Chronicler’s own time, found Jews marrying foreign wives and said: “Did not Solomon king of Israel sin by these things? yet among many nations was there no king like him… nevertheless even him did outlandish women cause to sin” (Nehemiah 13:26).

Our teachers. By tradition Solomon also wrote Ecclesiastes, “the son of David, king in Jerusalem” (Ecclesiastes 1:1). Rabbi Palvanov, in his class “Understanding Mashiach ben Yosef, Part 2,” brings Kohelet Rabbah on its “vanity”: “the Torah that you learned now hevel hi, is vain lifnei Torato shel Messiah,” and adds, “it’s fitting that King Solomon said this because King Solomon was the wisest man that ever lived.” He means depth, not a new Torah: the Torah of Messiah will be so profound that what we know now seems like breath.

A midrash on the new moon of Exodus 12:2 likens the kingdom to the moon: it waxes for fifteen generations from Abraham, is full in Solomon, and then begins to wane. Matthew counts “fourteen generations” from Abraham to David (Matthew 1:17); Solomon is the fifteenth.

“And Solomon slept with his fathers, and he was buried in the city of David his father: and Rehoboam his son reigned in his stead” (9:31). Death is sleep until the resurrection, as our Statement of Faith confesses.

Messianic reading. Solomon is type and warning at once: he built the House and sat on Hashem’s throne, and his heart, Kings tells us, turned. The Son of David “greater than Solomon” came first in the pattern of Mashiach ben Yosef, poor and rejected, refusing the kingdoms of the world, and our Statement of Faith confesses that he will return as Mashiach ben David, “bringing the knowledge of Hashem to the whole earth.” Ecclesiastes ends where the Chronicler would: “Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man” (Ecclesiastes 12:13).

Drawing it together

1. Fire after prayer. Solomon prayed, fire fell and glory filled the House (7:1), and Israel bowed to Hashem alone. The fire of Acts 2 did not put out the altar’s fire; it writes the Torah deeper.

2. If my people. Four verbs for Israel, three for Hashem: humble, pray, seek, turn; hear, forgive, heal (7:14). Humble runs through the rest of the book, and the warning of 7:19–22 is a warning, not a fate. Teshuvah changes the person; the Son of David will heal the land.

3. Moses’ offerings, David’s order. The House was whole when the offerings of every day, Shabbat, new moon and feast were kept “according to the commandment of Moses,” and the priests, singers and gatekeepers served by “the order of David” (8:13–16).

4. On His throne, for Hashem. The Queen of Sheba blesses Hashem for setting Solomon “on his throne, to be king for Hashem thy God” (9:8). David’s son holds Hashem’s throne for Him, as the Son of David will.

5. Full moon and warning. The Chronicler passes over Solomon’s fall, and Nehemiah does not let us forget it. The gold of 9:13 is a mirror. One greater than Solomon refused the kingdoms of the world and worshipped Hashem alone.

Questions for discussion

1. Kings ends the dedication with Solomon’s blessing (1 Kings 8:54–61), Chronicles with fire (7:1–3). Compare Leviticus 9:24. What does each teach?
2. Why might 7:3 say Israel “praised Hashem” without mentioning the king? Compare 1 Chronicles 29:20.
3. How do Leviticus 23:34 and 1 Kings 8:65–66 help us count the days of 7:8–10, and what does Moed Katan 9a say about Yom Kippur that year?
4. What does atzeret mean according to Rashi on Leviticus 23:36? How does it connect to “If I shut up heaven” (7:13)?
5. How do 2 Maccabees 2:10–12 and John 10:22 link Solomon’s dedication to Hanukkah?
6. Name the four things Hashem asks and the three He promises in 7:14. Where in the Torah does humble come from (Leviticus 26:41)?
7. What do “ruler in Israel” (7:18; Micah 5:2) and “which was high” (7:21) add to the Kings version?
8. Why did Solomon move Pharaoh’s daughter (8:11)? How does Bithiah (1 Chronicles 4:18) make a contrast?
9. Compare 9:8 with 1 Kings 10:9 and 2:10. What does it mean that Solomon sat on “his throne… for Hashem”?
10. Where else does 666 appear in Scripture? How do “Sealed for Life,” Nehemiah 13:26 and Matthew 4:8–10 help us read Solomon’s gold?

Sources

Scripture: 2 Chronicles 1–2, 4–10, 12, 32–34, 36; 1 Chronicles 1, 4, 7, 16, 18, 23, 28–29; 1 Kings 3–11, 21; 2 Kings 22; Genesis 15; Exodus 12, 40; Leviticus 7, 9, 23, 26; Numbers 7, 28–29, 33; Deuteronomy 12, 16–17, 29, 33; Judges 14; Ezra 2; Nehemiah 1, 7–8, 12–13; Psalms 49, 72, 110, 130; Ecclesiastes 1, 12; Isaiah 57, 60; Jeremiah 22; Ezekiel 43; Hosea 5; Amos 9; Jonah 3; Micah 5; Haggai 2; Matthew 1–2, 4, 12; Luke 11, 19; John 10; Acts 2–3, 15; Ephesians 2; James 4; 2 Peter 3; Revelation 13, 21; 1 Maccabees 4; 2 Maccabees 2.

Talmud and Midrash: Zevachim 61b; Moed Katan 9a; Shabbat 56b; Sanhedrin 21b; Mishnah Rosh Hashanah 1:2; Mishnah Taanit 1:1; Ecclesiastes (Kohelet) Rabbah 12:9.

Commentators: Rashi on Leviticus 23:36; Rambam, Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Beit HaBechirah 1:1.

Our teachers and materials: First Fruits of Zion, End of Days (5786), Lesson 3, “The Day and the Hour”; Lesson 13, “The Name of the Beast”; Lesson 26, “Giant Ox and Leviathan”; Lesson 31, “The Appointed Times”; Lesson 38, “The Last Day”; Rabbi Efraim Palvanov, “Third Rome #2: Russia, Iran, and Gog u’Magog” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvHpZLbsHZY) and “Understanding Mashiach ben Yosef, Part 2” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmrYeHRoiBE); Ariel Cohen Alloro, “New World Order – Hiram and the Freemasons – Part 3” (https://youtu.be/Z0saJiKkgCs), “The Tale of the Seven Beggars by Rabbi Nachman – Part 4” (https://youtu.be/s_uBtWHPEHM) and “Number 666 – Part 1” (https://youtu.be/TLehdK8LBUs); Benei Avraham classes “Shavuot: Torah, Ruth, and Return” (https://youtu.be/9FW62wzzfGM) and “The Real Jewish Reason We Need a Messiah” (https://youtu.be/bS6xdApTxco); our Hoshana Rabbah 5787 shiur “Sealed for Life”; our 1 Chronicles commentary on 3:1–9, 4:11–20, 7:20–29, 18:1–8, 21:26–30, 24:1–6, 25:1–3, 26:1–11, 28:1–8, 29:20–22 and 29:23–25; Benei Avraham Statement of Faith.

Before we begin

“And Solomon slept with his fathers, and he was buried in the city of David his father: and Rehoboam his son reigned in his stead” (9:31). At Shechem the tribes ask the new king for a lighter yoke, he gives them a heavier one, and ten tribes go home. A prophet stops the civil war, the faithful of the north come south, the king forsakes the Torah, and Shishak marches on Jerusalem.

From here on the Chronicler follows only Judah. Chronicles names the northern kings only where they touch Judah. It does not tell how Jeroboam was crowned or how he made his calves (1 Kings 12:20, 25–33), though it mentions the calves twice (11:15; 13:8).

The rule that will judge every reign is David’s charge: “if thou seek him, he will be found of thee; but if thou forsake him, he will cast thee off for ever” (1 Chronicles 28:9). These chapters show both halves. The Levites and the faithful of the north come “to seek Hashem” (11:16); Rehoboam “forsook the Torah of Hashem” (12:1) and “prepared not his heart to seek Hashem” (12:14). Between them stands Hashem’s answer to Solomon, “if my people… shall humble themselves” (7:14), tried for the first time. In these chapters the Hebrew and English verse numbers are the same.

How this commentary is built. We read the text first, in Hebrew where it matters, because Torah comes first and the Prophets and Writings are measured by it. Then we hear the sages: the Talmud, the Midrash, Rashi, Radak and Rambam. Then our own teachers: the FFOZ End of Days lessons, Rabbi Efraim Palvanov and Ariel Cohen Alloro, along with our own Benei Avraham classes. Last, we ask what the passage shows us about Mashiach.

A word on our teachers. Rabbi Palvanov and Ariel Cohen Alloro bring a great deal of Kabbalah and gematria. We use their insights as remez, a hint that opens a door, and never as proof. Gematria can show a connection the text already makes, but it cannot make a doctrine by itself. Where a teacher’s framework goes beyond what Benei Avraham confesses (for example, on reincarnation or on the nature of God), we take the insight and leave the framework. “To the Torah and to the testimony” (Isaiah 8:20) is the test for all of it, our own words included.

Scripture is quoted from the King James Version with Hashem in place of LORD, as in our Statement of Faith.

Chapter 10 · The Kingdom Divided at Shechem

Read 2 Chronicles 10 in Hebrew and English →

10:1–5 · “Thy father made our yoke grievous”

“And Rehoboam went to Shechem: for to Shechem were all Israel come to make him king” (10:1).

Not Jerusalem, but Shechem. It was Joseph’s town. Jacob gave Joseph “one portion above thy brethren” (Genesis 48:22), and the word for portion is שְׁכֶם (shechem). Joseph’s bones were buried there, “and it became the inheritance of the children of Joseph” (Joshua 24:32). The sages remembered the place: “a place prepared for calamity.” In Shechem Dinah was violated, in Shechem the brothers sold Joseph, and in Shechem the kingdom of the house of David was divided (Sanhedrin 102a).

“Jeroboam returned out of Egypt” (10:2).

Hebrew lesson: וַיָּשָׁב (va-yashav), “returned.” Kings has the same letters, וישב, but reads them וַיֵּשֶׁב (va-yeshev), “Jeroboam dwelt in Egypt” (1 Kings 12:2), and Chronicles changes “in Egypt” to “out of Egypt.” Kings has told where: he “fled into Egypt, unto Shishak king of Egypt” (1 Kings 11:40). He was an Ephraimite, and Solomon had “made him ruler over all the charge of the house of Joseph” (1 Kings 11:28). The word for “charge,” סֵבֶל (sevel), is a burden. The tribes’ spokesman once ran Solomon’s labor gangs, and he comes home from the court of the pharaoh who will invade in the fifth year (12:2). On Ahijah’s word to him, see 9:29–31.

“Thy father made our yoke grievous: now therefore ease thou somewhat the grievous servitude of thy father, and his heavy yoke that he put upon us, and we will serve thee” (10:4).

Hebrew lesson: עֲבֹדַת אָבִיךָ הַקָּשָׁה (avodat avicha ha-kashah), “the grievous servitude of thy father.” These are the words of Egypt. Pharaoh “made their lives bitter with hard bondage,” בַּעֲבֹדָה קָשָׁה (ba-avodah kashah, Exodus 1:14), and Israel’s confession of firstfruits says the Egyptians “laid upon us hard bondage” (Deuteronomy 26:6). The tribes speak of Solomon’s levy in the language of Pharaoh. Chronicles named only strangers in Solomon’s levy (see 2:16–17), yet it keeps the complaint. And they do not ask to be free of David’s house: “and we will serve thee.”

10:6–11 · The old men and the young men

“And they spake unto him, saying, If thou be kind to this people, and please them, and speak good words to them, they will be thy servants for ever” (10:7).

Word by word with Kings. Kings has: “If thou wilt be a servant unto this people this day, and wilt serve them, and answer them, and speak good words to them, then they will be thy servants for ever” (1 Kings 12:7). Kings plays on one root: be an עֶבֶד (eved), “servant,” for one day, הַיּוֹם (ha-yom), and they will be your עֲבָדִים (avadim) all the days. Chronicles drops “be a servant” and “serve them” and says אִם תִּהְיֶה לְטוֹב (im tihyeh le-tov), “if thou be for good,” with וּרְצִיתָם (u-retzitam), “and please them,” where Kings has “answer them.” Both keep דְּבָרִים טוֹבִים (devarim tovim), “good words.” Kindness is how a king serves.

What the sages say. When Rabban Gamliel appointed two scholars to office and they held back, he said: Do you think I am giving you rulership? I am giving you servitude, as it says, “If thou wilt be a servant unto this people this day” (Horayot 10a–b). Our class “Jewish Family Life, Marriage, Niddah, Divorce” said it of the home: a Jewish man “should be a servant leader of his household, not an oppressive tyrant.” The elders said it of the throne.

“But he forsook the counsel which the old men gave him, and took counsel with the young men that were brought up with him” (10:8). The verb is וַיַּעֲזֹב (va-ya’azov), “forsook,” the verb of David’s warning. It comes back at 10:13, 11:14, 12:1 and twice in 12:5. The “young men” are הַיְלָדִים (ha-yeladim), “the children,” though Rehoboam was forty-one (12:13).

What the sages say.

Rabbi Shimon ben Elazar says: If the elders tell you, Tear down, and the young tell you, Build, tear down and do not build; for the tearing down of elders is building, and the building of the young is tearing down. And a sign of the matter is Rehoboam son of Solomon. (Megillah 31b)

“My little finger shall be thicker than my father’s loins” (10:10). The Hebrew is shorter and coarser: קָטָנִּי (katanni), “my little one,” with no word for finger. “My father chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions” (10:11). The young men want a king who frightens.

Messianic reading. Yeshua took the elders’ side. “Whosoever will be great among you, shall be your minister… For even the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many” (Mark 10:43–45). At his last Pesach he said, “I am among you as he that serveth” (Luke 22:27). The Son of David did for a lifetime what Rehoboam would not do for a day.

10:12–15 · “For the cause was of God”

On the third day the king “answered them roughly” (10:13). The Hebrew is קָשָׁה (kashah), “hard,” the word of “the grievous servitude” (10:4). They asked him to lighten the hard service, and he answered them hard: “My father made your yoke heavy, but I will add thereto” (10:14).

“So the king hearkened not unto the people: for the cause was of God, that Hashem might perform his word, which he spake by the hand of Ahijah the Shilonite to Jeroboam the son of Nebat” (10:15).

Hebrew lesson: נְסִבָּה (nesibbah), “the cause.” Kings has סִבָּה (sibbah), “for the cause was from Hashem” (1 Kings 12:15). Both words come from סָבַב (savav), “to turn,” and both are rare: sibbah is found only in that verse of Kings, and nesibbah as a noun only here. It was a turn of events, and the turn came from God. Rehoboam chose freely and badly, and Hashem’s word stood. Joseph had said it to his brothers in Egypt: “ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good” (Genesis 50:20). Hashem used the king’s pride; He did not cause it.

Messianic reading. The tribes asked for a lighter yoke. Yeshua answered that request in the Galilee: “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart… For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:28–30). The Greek word behind “easy,” χρηστός (chrēstos), means “kind, good”: it is the elders’ le-tov (10:7). He does not take the yoke away; he makes it kind. The Mishnah explains why the Shema’s first paragraph comes before the second: so that one first takes upon himself “the yoke of the kingdom of heaven, and afterward the yoke of the commandments” (Mishnah Berakhot 2:2). Our Statement of Faith confesses that the Torah will not be replaced; the King who lays its yoke is meek.

10:16–19 · “To your tents, O Israel”

“What portion have we in David? and we have none inheritance in the son of Jesse: every man to your tents, O Israel: and now, David, see to thine own house” (10:16).

An old cry. Sheba son of Bichri had shouted it in David’s days: “We have no part in David, neither have we inheritance in the son of Jesse: every man to his tents, O Israel” (2 Samuel 20:1; see our 2 Samuel commentary on chapter 20). Kings has “to your tents, O Israel” (1 Kings 12:16). Chronicles adds אִישׁ (ish), “every man,” the word of Sheba’s cry. And the last words mock a promise: Hashem had told David, “Hashem will build thee an house” (1 Chronicles 17:10). The tribes tell David to look after it himself.

Our teachers. Sheba is called “a man of Belial” (2 Samuel 20:1), and Abijah will call the men who gathered to Jeroboam “vain men, the children of Belial” (13:7). FFOZ’s End of Days notes that “some rabbis made a pun on the name Belial by separating it into two Hebrew words, Bli Ol, which means ‘without yoke’” (Lesson 13, “The Name of the Beast”). They threw off a heavy yoke and took up no yoke of Hashem’s; the calves came instead (11:15).

“But as for the children of Israel that dwelt in the cities of Judah, Rehoboam reigned over them” (10:17).

“Then king Rehoboam sent Hadoram that was over the tribute; and the children of Israel stoned him with stones, that he died” (10:18).

One man, three names? Kings calls him אֲדֹרָם (Adoram, 1 Kings 12:18). An Adoram “was over the tribute” under David (2 Samuel 20:24), and “Adoniram the son of Abda was over the tribute” under Solomon (1 Kings 4:6; compare 5:14). Chronicles writes הֲדֹרָם (Hadoram). Many take them for one man. Whoever he was, Rehoboam sent the master of the forced labor to answer a complaint about forced labor, and the people answered with stones.

“And Israel rebelled against the house of David unto this day” (10:19).

What Chronicles leaves out. Kings goes on: they “made him king over all Israel” (1 Kings 12:20). Chronicles never crowns Jeroboam. It keeps “unto this day” from Kings, and for its readers it was still true: no son of David sat over the tribes, north or south.

Our teachers. Rabbi Palvanov, in his class “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them in the Torah,” draws the map: “the northern kingdom of Israel was dominated by Yosef. The southern kingdom of Israel was dominated by Yehuda. And then in the end of days, Ezekiel, remember chapter 37, says that Yosef and Yehuda will combine.” In his class “Understanding Mashiach ben Yosef,” he says Jacob’s blessing on Ephraim (Genesis 48:19) was never fulfilled in the north: “it can’t be that Yakov’s blessing was fulfilled in a sinner,” in Jeroboam, “or in the kingdom of Ephraim.” That is why, he says, the mystical sources teach that Jacob “was talking about Mashiach ben Yosef.”

What the sages say. The Talmud imagines Hashem taking Jeroboam by the garment: Repent, and I and you and the son of Jesse will walk in the Garden of Eden. Jeroboam asked, Who will be at the head? The son of Jesse at the head. Then I do not want it (Sanhedrin 102a). The deepest wound of Shechem was not the yoke but the son of Jesse at the head.

Messianic reading. The prophets answer this verse. Ezekiel takes two sticks, “the stick of Joseph, which is in the hand of Ephraim,” and the stick of Judah, “and make them one stick, and they shall be one in mine hand… neither shall they be divided into two kingdoms any more at all” (Ezekiel 37:19, 22). Hosea gives the reversal of 10:16: “Afterward shall the children of Israel return, and seek Hashem their God, and David their king” (Hosea 3:5). And Jeremiah: “the house of Judah shall walk with the house of Israel” (Jeremiah 3:18). On the birthright of Joseph and the scepter of Judah, see our 1 Chronicles commentary on 5:1–2.

Chapter 11 · Brothers, Walls and the Faithful of the North

Read 2 Chronicles 11 in Hebrew and English →

11:1–4 · “Ye shall not… fight against your brethren”

“And when Rehoboam was come to Jerusalem, he gathered of the house of Judah and Benjamin an hundred and fourscore thousand chosen men, which were warriors, to fight against Israel, that he might bring the kingdom again to Rehoboam” (11:1).

“But the word of Hashem came to Shemaiah the man of God” (11:2). Shemaiah appears in Kings only here (1 Kings 12:22). In Chronicles he frames the reign: he stops the war, rebukes the princes (12:5, 7), and writes the book (12:15).

“Speak unto Rehoboam the son of Solomon, king of Judah, and to all Israel in Judah and Benjamin” (11:3). Kings has “unto all the house of Judah and Benjamin, and to the remnant of the people” (1 Kings 12:23). The Chronicler does not hand the name Israel to the north alone. Those who stay with David’s house are “all Israel” (also 12:1), and their princes are “the princes of Israel” (12:6).

“Thus saith Hashem, Ye shall not go up, nor fight against your brethren: return every man to his house: for this thing is done of me. And they obeyed the words of Hashem, and returned from going against Jeroboam” (11:4).

Hebrew lesson: מֵאִתִּי נִהְיָה הַדָּבָר הַזֶּה (me-itti nihyah ha-davar ha-zeh), “this thing is done of me.” It is 10:15 from Hashem’s own mouth. The tribes had cried, “every man to your tents” (10:16); Hashem answers, “return every man to his house.” And Rehoboam, who would not hear the people, hears the prophet.

But read on: “And there were wars between Rehoboam and Jeroboam continually” (12:15; 1 Kings 14:30). Ariel Cohen Alloro, in his video “The Tree of Judah and the Tree of Joseph – Part 1 of 3,” reads Ezekiel’s two sticks, עֵץ (etz), as two trees: “These two tree have to become one tree. Not two tree, one tree.” He was answering a reconciliation meeting that chose to “agree to disagree,” and we leave aside his own map of the two trees; but his rule fits Shechem: “if we don’t put the finger on the problem, the problem is not going to be solved.” The problem was not only a heavy yoke; it was the calves, as the next passages show (11:15). “Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!” (Psalm 133:1) is still a prayer.

11:5–12 · Fifteen cities for defence

“And Rehoboam dwelt in Jerusalem, and built cities for defence in Judah. He built even Bethlehem, and Etam, and Tekoa” (11:5–6).

Only in Chronicles. Count them: Bethlehem, Etam, Tekoa, Beth-zur, Shoco, Adullam, Gath, Mareshah, Ziph, Adoraim, Lachish, Azekah, Zorah, Aijalon and Hebron (11:6–10), fifteen in all, “which are in Judah and in Benjamin fenced cities” (11:10). The list begins at Bethlehem, David’s home town (1 Samuel 17:12), and ends at Hebron, where he was anointed king over Judah and then over all Israel (2 Samuel 2:4; 5:3). Between lie the places of his youth: the Philistines camped “between Shochoh and Azekah” (Shoco and Azekah) when Goliath came out (1 Samuel 17:1); Adullam was his cave (1 Samuel 22:1); in Ziph he hid from Saul (1 Samuel 23:14). The grandson walled in his grandfather’s life story.

“And he fortified the strong holds, and put captains in them, and store of victual, and of oil and wine. And in every several city he put shields and spears, and made them exceeding strong, having Judah and Benjamin on his side” (11:11–12).

Why this matters. Walls are not wrong; Hezekiah built them too (32:5). But read 12:4: Shishak “took the fenced cities which pertained to Judah,” עָרֵי הַמְּצֻרוֹת (arei ha-metzurot), the phrase of 11:10 and 11:23. Two of them, Lachish and Azekah, were the last fortified cities left when Babylon came in Jeremiah’s day, “for these defenced cities remained of the cities of Judah” (Jeremiah 34:7). “Except Hashem keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain” (Psalm 127:1).

11:13–17 · The priests and Levites come south

“And the priests and the Levites that were in all Israel resorted to him out of all their coasts. For the Levites left their suburbs and their possession, and came to Judah and Jerusalem: for Jeroboam and his sons had cast them off from executing the priest’s office unto Hashem” (11:13–14).

Only in Chronicles. Kings says Jeroboam “made priests of the lowest of the people, which were not of the sons of Levi” (1 Kings 12:31). Chronicles tells where the sons of Levi went. They left their towns and the pasture around them, the מִגְרָשׁ (migrash; see our 1 Chronicles commentary on 6:39–66).

Hebrew lesson: הִזְנִיחָם (hiznicham), “had cast them off.” It is the verb of David’s warning, “if thou forsake him, he will cast thee off,” יַזְנִיחֲךָ (yaznichacha, 1 Chronicles 28:9). Jeroboam cast off Hashem’s priests, and Hosea turns the verb back on his kingdom: “Thy calf, O Samaria, hath cast thee off” (Hosea 8:5). And the Levites “left,” עָזְבוּ (azvu), the verb of forsaking (see 10:6–11). They forsook their fields so as not to forsake Hashem.

“And he ordained him priests for the high places, and for the devils, and for the calves which he had made” (11:15).

Hebrew lesson: לַשְּׂעִירִים (la-se’irim), “for the devils.” A sa’ir is a he-goat, and the plural is the Torah’s word in Leviticus 17: “they shall no more offer their sacrifices unto devils” (Leviticus 17:7). Rashi explains it as demons, as in “satyrs shall dance there” (Isaiah 13:21; Rashi on Leviticus 17:7). That chapter brings every offering “unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, unto the priest” (Leviticus 17:5); Jeroboam broke it point by point. The calves Chronicles never describes; Abijah names them again: “golden calves, which Jeroboam made you for gods” (13:8).

Our teachers. FFOZ’s End of Days says: “Pay attention to the sins of King Jeroboam: He set up idols, and he replaced the Temple, the Levitical priesthood, and the holy days” (Lesson 21, “Image of the Beast”). Sukkot went to “the month which he had devised of his own heart” (1 Kings 12:33). Rabbi Palvanov, in his class “The Truth About the Lost Tribes of Israel,” gives Jeroboam’s reasoning in his own voice: if the people go up to Jerusalem for the festivals, “does that mean I’m going to have to come and bow… we’re both kings now… he said, you know what, I’m going to make a new set of temples.”

“And after them out of all the tribes of Israel such as set their hearts to seek Hashem God of Israel came to Jerusalem, to sacrifice unto Hashem God of their fathers” (11:16).

The north is never abandoned. הַנֹּתְנִים אֶת־לְבָבָם לְבַקֵּשׁ (ha-notenim et levavam levakesh), “those who gave their heart to seek.” The stream begins here: under Asa “they fell to him out of Israel in abundance” (15:9), and under Hezekiah “divers of Asher and Manasseh and of Zebulun humbled themselves, and came to Jerusalem” (30:11). On the families of Ephraim and Manasseh who came home with Judah, see our 1 Chronicles commentary on 9:1–3. FFOZ draws the conclusion: “the ten lost tribes are primarily lost within the Jewish people” (End of Days, Lessons 22–23, “The Ten Tribes–Shechinah”).

“So they strengthened the kingdom of Judah… for three years they walked in the way of David and Solomon” (11:17). Other kings walk “in the ways of David his father” (34:2; 2 Kings 22:2); only here is Solomon’s name added.

11:18–23 · Rehoboam’s house

“And Rehoboam took him Mahalath the daughter of Jerimoth the son of David to wife, and Abihail the daughter of Eliab the son of Jesse” (11:18).

Only in Chronicles. Rehoboam marries within his own family. Jerimoth is not in the lists of David’s sons (1 Chronicles 3:1–9; 14:4–7), so he may have been one of “the sons of the concubines,” whom 1 Chronicles 3:9 does not name; his daughter was Rehoboam’s first cousin. Eliab was David’s eldest brother (1 Chronicles 2:13). The Hebrew has no “and” before Abihail, and the next verses say “Which bare him children” and “after her,” in the singular (11:19–20). Many commentators therefore read Abihail as Mahalath’s mother. On that reading both of Mahalath’s grandfathers were sons of Jesse.

“And after her he took Maachah the daughter of Absalom” (11:20). Absalom had “one daughter, whose name was Tamar” (2 Samuel 14:27). Kings too calls Abijah’s mother Maachah “the daughter of Abishalom” (1 Kings 15:2), but at 13:2 she is “Michaiah the daughter of Uriel of Gibeah.” The usual answer is that “daughter” means granddaughter, through Tamar; we take it up in chapter 13.

“(for he took eighteen wives, and threescore concubines; and begat twenty and eight sons, and threescore daughters.)” (11:21).

What the sages say. The Torah says of the king, “Neither shall he multiply wives to himself, that his heart turn not away” (Deuteronomy 17:17), and the Mishnah fixes the measure: “He shall not multiply wives to himself: only eighteen” (Mishnah Sanhedrin 2:4). Rehoboam had exactly eighteen wives. His father had seven hundred (1 Kings 11:3; see 9:29–31).

“And Rehoboam made Abijah the son of Maachah the chief, to be ruler among his brethren: for he thought to make him king” (11:22). The word is לְנָגִיד (le-nagid), “ruler,” the word for Judah in our 1 Chronicles commentary on 5:1–2. Abijah’s mother was not the first wife (“after her,” 11:20). The Torah protects the firstborn of a less-loved wife in the inheritance (Deuteronomy 21:15–17), but the throne went by choice: David’s heir was not his firstborn either (1 Chronicles 28:5).

“And he dealt wisely, and dispersed of all his children throughout all the countries of Judah and Benjamin, unto every fenced city… And he desired many wives” (11:23). “Dealt wisely,” וַיָּבֶן (va-yaven), is from בִּין (bin), “understand.” He knew what Absalom and Adonijah had done; a son with his own city does not sit in Jerusalem waiting to be king. Abraham did something like it: he “gave gifts, and sent them away from Isaac his son” (Genesis 25:6). The last words, וַיִּשְׁאַל הֲמוֹן נָשִׁים (va-yish’al hamon nashim), are literally “he asked for a multitude of wives.” Some read it as wives for his sons; either way, a multitude of wives is what Deuteronomy 17:17 warns against.

Chapter 12 · Shishak, and the Princes Humbled

Read 2 Chronicles 12 in Hebrew and English →

12:1–4 · “He forsook the Torah of Hashem”

“And it came to pass, when Rehoboam had established the kingdom, and had strengthened himself, he forsook the Torah of Hashem, and all Israel with him” (12:1).

Hebrew lesson: כְּהָכִין (ke-hachin), “when he had established.” The root is כּוּן (kun), the root of the pillar Yachin, “He will establish” (see 3:15–17). Two verses of this chapter use it. Rehoboam “established” the kingdom (12:1), and “he prepared not,” לֹא הֵכִין (lo hechin), “his heart to seek Hashem” (12:14). He made the kingdom firm and left his heart loose. And וּכְחֶזְקָתוֹ (u-che-chezkato), “when he was strong,” shares the root of Solomon’s first verb (1:1; see 1:1–6). Solomon was strong because “Hashem his God was with him” (1:1); his son forgot when he was strong. So Moses warned: “Jeshurun waxed fat, and kicked… then he forsook God which made him” (Deuteronomy 32:15).

What Chronicles changes. Kings says, “And Judah did evil in the sight of Hashem,” and lists the high places, images, groves and sodomites (1 Kings 14:22–24). Chronicles says it in one phrase: he forsook the Torah, “and all Israel with him.”

“And it came to pass, that in the fifth year of king Rehoboam Shishak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem, because they had transgressed against Hashem” (12:2).

Kings has the date (1 Kings 14:25); Chronicles adds the reason, מָעֲלוּ (ma’alu), “they had transgressed,” the Chronicler’s word for the unfaithfulness that loses the land (see our 1 Chronicles commentary on 9:1–3). The years line up: three years in the way of David and Solomon (11:17), a fourth for forsaking, and in the fifth, Egypt.

“With twelve hundred chariots, and threescore thousand horsemen: and the people were without number that came with him out of Egypt; the Lubim, the Sukkiims, and the Ethiopians” (12:3).

Only in Chronicles. Solomon had “a thousand and four hundred chariots, and twelve thousand horsemen” (1:14), and brought horses “out of Egypt” (1:16). The Torah said the king must not “cause the people to return to Egypt” for horses (Deuteronomy 17:16; see 1:14–17). Now Egypt’s horses came to Jerusalem. The Lubim are Libyans (also 16:8; Nahum 3:9; Daniel 11:43); the Sukkiim are named nowhere else in the Tenakh; the Ethiopians are Kushim. “And he took the fenced cities which pertained to Judah, and came to Jerusalem” (12:4; see 11:5–12).

Rabbi Palvanov, in his class “Secrets of the Ark & Temple,” points to the record of this campaign on the Bubastite Portal at Karnak in Egypt. There Pharaoh Sheshonq I, whom most historians identify with Shishak, listed the places he struck in this land; the list is damaged, and Jerusalem is not among the names that can still be read.

12:5–8 · “Hashem is righteous”

“Then came Shemaiah the prophet to Rehoboam, and to the princes of Judah, that were gathered together to Jerusalem because of Shishak, and said unto them, Thus saith Hashem, Ye have forsaken me, and therefore have I also left you in the hand of Shishak” (12:5).

Hebrew lesson: עֲזַבְתֶּם אֹתִי וְאַף אֲנִי עָזַבְתִּי (azavtem oti ve-af ani azavti). The KJV has “forsaken” and “left,” but the Hebrew uses one verb twice: “you forsook Me, and I too have forsaken you.” It is 1 Chronicles 28:9 come true, and Azariah will state it as a rule to Asa: “if ye forsake him, he will forsake you” (15:2).

“Whereupon the princes of Israel and the king humbled themselves; and they said, Hashem is righteous” (12:6).

“Hashem is righteous.” צַדִּיק יְהוָה (tzaddik Hashem). The first man in Scripture to say it was Pharaoh, under the plagues: “I have sinned this time: Hashem is righteous, and I and my people are wicked” (Exodus 9:27). Jerusalem says it in Lamentations: “Hashem is righteous; for I have rebelled against his commandment” (Lamentations 1:18). It is tzidduk ha-din, accepting the judgment as just. Under a Pharaoh’s hand the princes say what Pharaoh said under Hashem’s hand. He said it and hardened his heart; they said it and were heard.

“And when Hashem saw that they humbled themselves, the word of Hashem came to Shemaiah, saying, They have humbled themselves; therefore I will not destroy them, but I will grant them some deliverance; and my wrath shall not be poured out upon Jerusalem by the hand of Shishak” (12:7).

Only in Chronicles. This is the first time the rule of 7:14 is tried, and it holds: וַיִּכָּנְעוּ (va-yikkan’u), “they humbled themselves,” the first verb Hashem asked for (see 7:13–16). כִּמְעַט לִפְלֵיטָה (kim’at lifleitah) may mean “a little deliverance” or “deliverance in a little while.” Note the verb “poured out,” תִתַּךְ (titach). Centuries later Hashem’s word through Huldah tells Josiah, “Because they have forsaken me… therefore my wrath shall be poured out upon this place, and shall not be quenched” (34:25). To Rehoboam’s princes the same verb came with a “not.”

“Nevertheless they shall be his servants; that they may know my service, and the service of the kingdoms of the countries” (12:8).

Hebrew lesson: עֲבוֹדָתִי (avodati), “my service.” At Shechem the tribes complained of “the grievous servitude of thy father,” עֲבֹדַת אָבִיךָ (avodat avicha, 10:4). Now Hashem lets Judah taste another avodah, Egypt’s, so that they may learn the difference. Our Statement of Faith notes that avodah “can mean labor, service, work… or divine worship.” Moses gave the choice: “Because thou servedst not Hashem thy God with joyfulness… Therefore shalt thou serve thine enemies… and he shall put a yoke of iron upon thy neck” (Deuteronomy 28:47–48).

What the sages say. Rabbi Nechunya ben HaKanah said: “Whoever takes upon himself the yoke of Torah, the yoke of the kingdom and the yoke of worldly care are removed from him; and whoever casts off the yoke of Torah, the yoke of the kingdom and the yoke of worldly care are laid upon him” (Mishnah Avot 3:5). Rehoboam cast off the Torah (12:1), and the yoke of a kingdom was laid on him (12:8).

Messianic reading. “Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time” (1 Peter 5:6). The way back from Shishak was not a better army but the way Yeshua taught: “Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:3).

12:9–12 · Shields of brass

“So Shishak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem, and took away the treasures of the house of Hashem, and the treasures of the king’s house; he took all: he carried away also the shields of gold which Solomon had made” (12:9).

The shields were Solomon’s pride: two hundred targets and three hundred shields of beaten gold, kept in the house of the forest of Lebanon (9:15–16; see 9:13–21). “He took all,” אֶת־הַכֹּל לָקָח (et ha-kol lakach).

What the sages say.

All the silver and gold in the world Joseph gathered and brought to Egypt… When Israel went up from Egypt, they brought it up with them… and it stayed until Rehoboam. Shishak king of Egypt came and took it from Rehoboam. (Pesachim 119a)

The Talmud follows it from hand to hand, through Zerah the Cushite, Asa, Hezekiah and others, to Babylon, Persia, Greece and Rome. What Joseph gathered, a pharaoh carried back to Egypt when Joseph’s tribes had left the house of David.

Did Shishak take the Ark? Rabbi Palvanov asks it in the same class and answers no: “according to the Rambam, it actually was not taken by the Egyptians,” because Solomon had prepared a hidden place for it. Our Sukkot 5787 drash “Where Is the Ark” followed him (see 5:7–10).

“Instead of which king Rehoboam made shields of brass, and committed them to the hands of the chief of the guard, that kept the entrance of the king’s house. And when the king entered into the house of Hashem, the guard came and fetched them, and brought them again into the guard chamber” (12:10–11).

Bronze for gold. The guard are הָרָצִים (ha-ratzim), “the runners.” The procession to the House of Hashem went on, with bronze where gold had been. A kingdom can keep up the look of its glory for a long time. The prophet promises the reverse for Zion: “For brass I will bring gold, and for iron I will bring silver” (Isaiah 60:17).

“And when he humbled himself, the wrath of Hashem turned from him that he would not destroy him altogether: and also in Judah things went well” (12:12).

Hebrew lesson: דְּבָרִים טוֹבִים (devarim tovim), “good things.” “Things went well” is literally “there were good things.” These are the words of 10:7, “speak good words to them.” Rehoboam refused the good words at Shechem; after he humbled himself, good things remained in Judah. Jehu the seer will say the same to Jehoshaphat: “there are good things found in thee” (19:3).

12:13–16 · “He prepared not his heart to seek Hashem”

“So king Rehoboam strengthened himself in Jerusalem, and reigned: for Rehoboam was one and forty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city which Hashem had chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, to put his name there. And his mother’s name was Naamah an Ammonitess” (12:13).

“Strengthened himself,” וַיִּתְחַזֵּק (vayitchazek), is Solomon’s verb at 1:1, in the same form. On the chosen city, see 6:3–11.

Naamah the Ammonitess. Kings names her twice (1 Kings 14:21, 31), Chronicles once. Yet Chronicles left out the foreign wives of 1 Kings 11 (see 9:29–31), naming only Pharaoh’s daughter (8:11). Rehoboam was forty-one when he began to reign, and Solomon reigned forty years (9:30), so he was born about the time his father came to the throne. Naamah was Solomon’s wife from the start. The Torah’s bar on “an Ammonite” (Deuteronomy 23:3) the sages read of the man, not the woman (see our 1 Chronicles commentary on 2:9–17). On the Talmud’s “two good doves” from Moab and Ammon, Ruth and Naamah (Bava Kamma 38b), see our 1 Chronicles commentary on 19:1–5. Every later king of David’s line descends from both. Matthew names Ruth (Matthew 1:5) and passes Naamah in silence: “And Solomon begat Roboam” (Matthew 1:7).

Our teachers. Ariel Cohen Alloro, in his video “General Overview – First Coming & Second Coming of the Messiah – Part 3,” notes that “Rechavam equal in gematria Yishai”: רְחַבְעָם (Rechavam) and יִשַׁי (Yishai) are both 320. He says plainly that what Rehoboam did at Shechem was “a bad thing.” We take the number as remez, and Isaiah gives it a text: the tree was cut down in Rehoboam’s day, and “there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse” (Isaiah 11:1), גֵּזַע (geza), the stump. The same chapter promises that “Ephraim shall not envy Judah, and Judah shall not vex Ephraim” (Isaiah 11:13). Our class “Shavuot: Torah, Ruth, and Return” held up Ruth, Naamah’s partner in the sages’ saying, as the model: “Not pride, not replacement, not rebellion against Yehudah, but humility, loyalty, and covenant.”

“And he did evil, because he prepared not his heart to seek Hashem” (12:14).

Hebrew lesson: הֵכִין לִבּוֹ לִדְרוֹשׁ (hechin libbo lidrosh), “prepared his heart to seek.” Kings says “Judah did evil” (1 Kings 14:22). Chronicles names the root: an unprepared heart. It is said of Jehoshaphat (19:3), it is Hezekiah’s prayer for the unclean who came to his Pesach (30:19), and it is said of Ezra, who by tradition wrote Chronicles (see the introduction to our 1 Chronicles commentary): “For Ezra had prepared his heart to seek the Torah of Hashem, and to do it, and to teach in Israel” (Ezra 7:10). Solomon began by seeking (1:5; see 1:1–6); his son had the kingdom firm and the heart unready.

“Now the acts of Rehoboam, first and last, are they not written in the book of Shemaiah the prophet, and of Iddo the seer concerning genealogies? And there were wars between Rehoboam and Jeroboam continually” (12:15).

Kings cites “the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah” (1 Kings 14:29); Chronicles cites the prophets, as it did for Solomon (9:29). לְהִתְיַחֵשׂ (le-hityachesh), “concerning genealogies,” is the root of the Chronicler’s registers (see our 1 Chronicles commentary on 9:1–3). And “continually,” כָּל־הַיָּמִים (kol ha-yamim), “all the days,” is the phrase of the elders at 10:7, “they will be thy servants for ever,” literally “all the days.” He could have had servants all the days; he had war all the days.

“And Rehoboam slept with his fathers, and was buried in the city of David: and Abijah his son reigned in his stead” (12:16). Death is sleep until the resurrection, as our Statement of Faith confesses.

Messianic reading. The house divided under David’s grandson will be joined under David’s Son: “And David my servant shall be king over them; and they all shall have one shepherd” (Ezekiel 37:24). FFOZ reads Yeshua’s words with that promise: “With such promises in mind, Yeshua told His disciples, ‘I have other sheep, which are not of this fold; I must bring them also’” (End of Days, Lessons 22–23, “The Ten Tribes–Shechinah”; John 10:16). Many hear the nations there too; either way the verse ends where Ezekiel ends, with “one shepherd.” Paul still spoke of “our twelve tribes” (Acts 26:7), and James wrote “to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad” (James 1:1). As our Statement of Faith confesses, he came first in the pattern of Mashiach ben Yosef and will return as Mashiach ben David, “gathering Israel, judging the nations, restoring the kingdom.” Jeroboam would not walk behind the son of Jesse; Joseph’s stick and Judah’s will be one in Hashem’s hand.

Drawing it together

1. The servant and the yoke. The elders told Rehoboam to serve for a day and be served all the days (10:7; 1 Kings 12:7). He chose scorpions. The Son of David came “not to be ministered unto, but to minister” (Mark 10:45), and his yoke is kind (Matthew 11:30); the yoke of Torah stays.

2. Hashem’s word, and the king’s choice. “The cause was of God” (10:15), and Rehoboam chose freely and badly. Hashem keeps His word through our pride without approving it.

3. Those who seek cross the border. The Levites left their fields rather than leave Hashem, and “such as set their hearts to seek” followed (11:14–16). Many of the “lost” tribes were lost within Judah.

4. Forsake and be forsaken; humble yourselves and be heard. “Ye have forsaken me, and therefore have I also left you” (12:5). The princes said “Hashem is righteous,” and the wrath was not poured out (12:6–7): 7:14 in practice. Cast off the yoke of Torah, and Egypt’s is laid on you (12:8).

5. A divided house made one. Shechem tore Joseph from Judah; the stump of Jesse waits for its shoot. Yeshua came in the pattern of Mashiach ben Yosef and will return as Mashiach ben David, “one shepherd” (Ezekiel 37:24).

Questions for discussion

1. Why might the tribes have met Rehoboam at Shechem (10:1; Genesis 48:22; Joshua 24:32)? What does Sanhedrin 102a remember about the place?
2. Where else does the Torah use avodah kashah (10:4), and what were the tribes saying about Solomon?
3. Compare 10:7 with 1 Kings 12:7. What does Kings say that Chronicles does not? What do Horayot 10a–b and Mark 10:43–45 add?
4. What does Megillah 31b learn from Rehoboam about the counsel of the old and the young?
5. How does “for the cause was of God” (10:15) fit with Rehoboam’s free choice? How does Genesis 50:20 help?
6. Chronicles adds “every man” to the cry of 10:16. Whose cry is it echoing (2 Samuel 20:1), and how does Hosea 3:5 answer it?
7. Why did the priests and Levites leave the north (11:13–15)? What do the se’irim of Leviticus 17:7 and the verb “cast off” of 1 Chronicles 28:9 add?
8. What did the fortified cities of 11:5–12 have to do with David’s life, and what happened to them (12:4; Jeremiah 34:7)?
9. What did the princes say when they humbled themselves (12:6), and who said it first (Exodus 9:27)? How does 12:8 answer the complaint of 10:4?
10. What does 12:14 share with Ezra 7:10? What hope do Isaiah 11:1, 13 and Ezekiel 37:24 hold out for the divided house?

Sources

Scripture: 2 Chronicles 1–3, 5–13, 15–16, 19, 30, 32, 34; 1 Chronicles 2–3, 14, 17, 28; 1 Kings 4–5, 11–12, 14–15; 2 Kings 22; Genesis 25, 48, 50; Exodus 1, 9; Leviticus 17; Deuteronomy 17, 21, 23, 26, 28, 32; Joshua 24; 1 Samuel 17, 22–23; 2 Samuel 2, 5, 14, 20; Psalms 127, 133; Isaiah 11, 13, 60; Jeremiah 3, 34; Lamentations 1; Ezekiel 37; Hosea 3, 8; Nahum 3; Daniel 11; Ezra 7; Matthew 1, 5, 11; Mark 10; Luke 22; John 10; Acts 26; James 1; 1 Peter 5.

Talmud and Midrash: Sanhedrin 102a; Horayot 10a–b; Megillah 31b; Pesachim 119a; Bava Kamma 38b; Mishnah Berakhot 2:2; Mishnah Sanhedrin 2:4; Mishnah Avot 3:5.

Commentators: Rashi on Leviticus 17:7.

Our teachers and materials: First Fruits of Zion, End of Days (5786), Lesson 13, “The Name of the Beast”; Lesson 21, “Image of the Beast”; Lessons 22–23, “The Ten Tribes–Shechinah”; Rabbi Efraim Palvanov, “The Truth About the Lost Tribes of Israel” (https://youtu.be/RRLA9HYkdgI), “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them in the Torah” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHj9vz-4ZZw), “Secrets of the Ark & Temple” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fAklN3Z31M) and “Understanding Mashiach ben Yosef” (https://youtu.be/HUxIh1LdM3o); Ariel Cohen Alloro, “The Tree of Judah and the Tree of Joseph – Part 1 of 3” (https://youtu.be/wTxI1F0sBCc) and “General Overview – First Coming & Second Coming of the Messiah – Part 3” (https://youtu.be/twprJIf5zfA); Benei Avraham classes “Jewish Family Life, Marriage, Niddah, Divorce” (https://youtu.be/OPT6X8fHoZI) and “Shavuot: Torah, Ruth, and Return” (https://youtu.be/9FW62wzzfGM); our Sukkot 5787 drash “Where Is the Ark”; our 1 Chronicles commentary on 2:9–17, 5:1–2, 6:39–66, 9:1–3 and 19:1–5; our 2 Samuel commentary on chapter 20; Benei Avraham Statement of Faith.

Before we begin

“And Rehoboam slept with his fathers, and was buried in the city of David: and Abijah his son reigned in his stead” (12:16). Abijah reigns three years; Kings gives him a hard verdict, Chronicles a speech and a victory. Then comes Asa: ten quiet years, an army out of Cush turned back by prayer, a prophet on the road home, and a covenant sworn with shouting and shofarot.

At the center stands Azariah’s word to Asa: “if ye seek him, he will be found of you; but if ye forsake him, he will forsake you” (15:2). David gave Solomon the same charge (1 Chronicles 28:9); here a prophet gives it to the whole people, and every later reign is measured by it.

In these chapters the verse numbers differ: the Hebrew 13:23 is KJV 14:1, and the Hebrew 14:1–14 is KJV 14:2–15. We follow the Hebrew and give the KJV number in parentheses where it helps.

How this commentary is built. We read the text first, in Hebrew where it matters, because Torah comes first and the Prophets and Writings are measured by it. Then we hear the sages: the Talmud, the Midrash, Rashi, Radak and Rambam. Then our own teachers: the FFOZ End of Days lessons, Rabbi Efraim Palvanov and Ariel Cohen Alloro, along with our own Benei Avraham classes. Last, we ask what the passage shows us about Mashiach.

A word on our teachers. Rabbi Palvanov and Ariel Cohen Alloro bring a great deal of Kabbalah and gematria. We use their insights as remez, a hint that opens a door, and never as proof. Gematria can show a connection the text already makes, but it cannot make a doctrine by itself. Where a teacher’s framework goes beyond what Benei Avraham confesses (for example, on reincarnation or on the nature of God), we take the insight and leave the framework. “To the Torah and to the testimony” (Isaiah 8:20) is the test for all of it, our own words included.

Scripture is quoted from the King James Version with Hashem in place of LORD, as in our Statement of Faith.

Chapter 13 · Abijah on Mount Zemaraim

Read 2 Chronicles 13 in Hebrew and English →

13:1–2 · “Michaiah the daughter of Uriel of Gibeah”

“Now in the eighteenth year of king Jeroboam began Abijah to reign over Judah” (13:1).

A date by the north. Kings dates the kings of Judah by the kings of Israel (1 Kings 15:1, 9); Chronicles does it only here, where Jeroboam faces a son of David. Kings calls the king אֲבִיָּם (Aviyam, 1 Kings 15:1); Chronicles calls him אֲבִיָּה (Aviyah), “my father is Yah,” and twice אֲבִיָּהוּ (Aviyahu, 13:20–21).

“He reigned three years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name also was Michaiah the daughter of Uriel of Gibeah. And there was war between Abijah and Jeroboam” (13:2).

Two mothers, or one? At 11:20 Chronicles itself called Abijah’s mother “Maachah the daughter of Absalom,” and Kings agrees (1 Kings 15:2, “Abishalom”). Here she is מִיכָיָהוּ (Michayahu), daughter of Uriel. The usual answer, noted at 11:18–23 and already given by Josephus, is that Maachah was the daughter of Absalom’s only daughter, Tamar (2 Samuel 14:27). “Daughter of Absalom” then means granddaughter, her father was Uriel of Gibeah, and Maachah and Michaiah are two forms of her name. Kings also calls Maachah daughter of Abishalom the mother of Asa (1 Kings 15:10; so 2 Chronicles 15:16). Write the chain out: Rehoboam and Maachah, then Abijah, then Asa. She was Asa’s grandmother, and “mother” is her title as queen mother (see 15:16–19).

What Kings says. “And he walked in all the sins of his father, which he had done before him: and his heart was not perfect with Hashem his God, as the heart of David his father” (1 Kings 15:3). Hashem gave him “a lamp in Jerusalem” only “for David’s sake” (1 Kings 15:4; see 21:7). Chronicles gives no verdict at all; it never says that Abijah did evil, or right. It lets him speak. A man can say true things he does not live; Yeshua said to keep what was taught from Moses’ seat, “but do not ye after their works: for they say, and do not” (Matthew 23:3). Kings judges the man; Chronicles keeps his words, because the words are true.

13:3–7 · “By a covenant of salt”

Abijah’s four hundred thousand face Jeroboam’s “eight hundred thousand chosen men” (13:3), two to one.

“And Abijah stood up upon mount Zemaraim, which is in mount Ephraim, and said, Hear me, thou Jeroboam, and all Israel” (13:4). Zemaraim is listed with Bethel among the towns of Benjamin (Joshua 18:22). His first word, שְׁמָעוּנִי (shema’uni), “Hear me,” is David’s first word to the assembly (1 Chronicles 28:2), and Azariah will open with it too (15:2).

“Ought ye not to know that Hashem God of Israel gave the kingdom over Israel to David for ever, even to him and to his sons by a covenant of salt?” (13:5).

Hebrew lesson: בְּרִית מֶלַח (berit melach), “a covenant of salt.” The phrase appears in only two verses of the Tenakh: here, and in the Torah’s gift to the priests, “it is a covenant of salt for ever before Hashem unto thee and to thy seed with thee” (Numbers 18:19). A third verse has the words the other way round: “the salt of the covenant of thy God” (Leviticus 2:13). Rashi explains that Hashem made the covenant with Aaron “with a thing that is sound and lasting and preserves other things” (Rashi on Numbers 18:19). Salt does not rot. Abijah gives the priests’ word to David’s house, and Jeremiah joins the two covenants the same way: “Then may also my covenant be broken with David my servant… and with the Levites the priests, my ministers” (Jeremiah 33:21). So does the speech: the sons of David (13:5, 8), then the sons of Aaron (13:9–10). On “for ever,” see our 2 Samuel commentary on chapter 7.

Our teachers. Rabbi Palvanov, in his class “Understanding Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes,” explains why we dip the bread in salt at our tables: “the Torah says every sacrifice had to have salt on it; we do all these things in memory of the Temple.” Ariel Cohen Alloro, in his video “The 4 sons from the Passover Haggadah – Part 4,” notes how wide the word reaches: “Any alliance, the alliance between God with the priest, between God and Am Yisrael, call alliance of salt.” Abijah calls on the salt to claim the kingdom from his brothers; Yeshua’s salt makes peace between them: “Have salt in yourselves, and have peace one with another” (Mark 9:50).

Jeroboam, “the servant of Solomon,” “hath rebelled against his lord. And there are gathered unto him vain men, the children of Belial… when Rehoboam was young and tenderhearted, and could not withstand them” (13:6–7).

On Belial, see 10:16–19. Rehoboam was נַעַר וְרַךְ לֵבָב (na’ar ve-rach levav), “young and tender of heart,” though he was forty-one when he began to reign (12:13). David had said na’ar va-rach of Solomon (1 Chronicles 22:5; 29:1; see our 1 Chronicles commentary on 22:2–5). The son speaks kindly of his father; the Chronicler has told us that Rehoboam “forsook the Torah of Hashem” (12:1).

13:8–12 · “But as for us, Hashem is our God”

“And now ye think to withstand the kingdom of Hashem in the hand of the sons of David; and ye be a great multitude, and there are with you golden calves, which Jeroboam made you for gods” (13:8). The throne is Hashem’s, and David’s sons hold it for Him (see 9:8–12).

“Have ye not cast out the priests of Hashem, the sons of Aaron, and the Levites, and have made you priests after the manner of the nations of other lands? so that whosoever cometh to consecrate himself with a young bullock and seven rams, the same may be a priest of them that are no gods” (13:9).

Hebrew lesson: לְמַלֵּא יָדוֹ (le-malle yado), “to consecrate himself.” Literally, “to fill his hand,” the Torah’s word for ordaining a priest (Exodus 29:9). For Aaron the Torah asked “one young bullock, and two rams” (Exodus 29:1). Jeroboam asked more, and of anyone: “whosoever would, he consecrated him” (1 Kings 13:33). “No man taketh this honour unto himself, but he that is called of God, as was Aaron” (Hebrews 5:4). And they served לְלֹא אֱלֹהִים (le-lo elohim), “them that are no gods.” Hosea says it of the calf: “the workman made it; therefore it is not God” (Hosea 8:6).

Our teachers. On why Jeroboam did it, see 11:13–17. FFOZ’s End of Days gives the verdict: Jeroboam “became the worst Jewish king ever. The Bible uses him as the low benchmark by which it measures the wicked kings of the north” (Lesson 21, “Image of the Beast”).

“But as for us, Hashem is our God, and we have not forsaken him; and the priests, which minister unto Hashem, are the sons of Aaron, and the Levites wait upon their business: And they burn unto Hashem every morning and every evening burnt sacrifices and sweet incense: the shewbread also set they in order upon the pure table; and the candlestick of gold with the lamps thereof, to burn every evening: for we keep the charge of Hashem our God; but ye have forsaken him” (13:10–11).

Hebrew lesson: וְלֹא עֲזַבְנֻהוּ (ve-lo azavnuhu), “and we have not forsaken him.” It is the verb of David’s warning (1 Chronicles 28:9) and of Shemaiah’s word to Rehoboam (see 12:5–8). Abijah begins with it and ends with it: וְאַתֶּם עֲזַבְתֶּם אֹתוֹ (ve-atem azavtem oto), “but ye have forsaken him.” His proof is the daily service: the offering morning and evening (Numbers 28:3–8; see 2:1–5), the incense (Exodus 30:7–8), the showbread “upon the pure table” (Leviticus 24:6), the evening lamp (Exodus 27:20–21). He says “the table” and “the candlestick,” one of each, in the Torah’s words, though Solomon made ten (see 4:7–10). “The charge of Hashem,” מִשְׁמֶרֶת יְהוָה (mishmeret Hashem), is Moses’ word to Aaron’s sons at their consecration (Leviticus 8:35).

“And, behold, God himself is with us for our captain, and his priests with sounding trumpets to cry alarm against you. O children of Israel, fight ye not against Hashem God of your fathers; for ye shall not prosper” (13:12).

Hebrew lesson: עִמָּנוּ בָרֹאשׁ הָאֱלֹהִים (immanu va-rosh ha-Elohim), “with us, at the head, is God.” The trumpets are the Torah’s: “if ye go to war in your land against the enemy that oppresseth you, then ye shall blow an alarm with the trumpets; and ye shall be remembered before Hashem your God, and ye shall be saved from your enemies” (Numbers 10:9). The first word, immanu, is Isaiah’s “for God is with us” (Isaiah 8:10) and the name of the sign-child Immanuel (Isaiah 7:14), which Matthew gives to Yeshua (Matthew 1:23). As our Statement of Faith teaches, Hashem is present in the one He sends, as the Shechinah dwelt in the House, without the vessel becoming God.

13:13–20 · “They cried unto Hashem”

“But Jeroboam caused an ambushment to come about behind them… And when Judah looked back, behold, the battle was before and behind: and they cried unto Hashem, and the priests sounded with the trumpets” (13:13–14).

While Abijah preached, Jeroboam moved, and Judah found the enemy behind them, as Israel did at the sea: “behold, the Egyptians marched after them… and the children of Israel cried out unto Hashem” (Exodus 14:10). The verb is the same, וַיִּצְעֲקוּ (va-yitz’aku).

“Then the men of Judah gave a shout: and as the men of Judah shouted, it came to pass, that God smote Jeroboam and all Israel before Abijah and Judah” (13:15). The priests blew and the people shouted, as at Jericho: “So the people shouted when the priests blew with the trumpets” (Joshua 6:20). Judah did what Numbers 10:9 said, and Hashem did what it promised.

“Thus the children of Israel were brought under at that time, and the children of Judah prevailed, because they relied upon Hashem God of their fathers” (13:18).

Hebrew lesson: three verbs. “Brought under” is וַיִּכָּנְעוּ (va-yikkan’u), “they were humbled,” the first verb of 7:14 (see 7:13–16) and the princes’ verb under Shishak (12:6–7); here the north is humbled by defeat, not by repentance. “Prevailed” is וַיֶּאֶמְצוּ (va-ye’emtzu), “they were strong.” In 13:7 the empty men “strengthened themselves,” וַיִּתְאַמְּצוּ (va-yit’amtzu), from the same root, against a weak king. Strength taken by force failed; strength given to those who lean held. And the reason is נִשְׁעֲנוּ (nish’anu), “they leaned.” In 2 Chronicles the verb returns only in Asa’s story, in his prayer (14:10) and in the seer’s rebuke (16:7–8); on leaning on Hashem or on kings, see 16:7–10.

“And Abijah pursued after Jeroboam, and took cities from him, Bethel with the towns thereof” (13:19). Bethel had one of the calves (1 Kings 12:29); the text does not say what Abijah did with it.

“Neither did Jeroboam recover strength again in the days of Abijah: and Hashem struck him, and he died” (13:20).

Who died? Count Kings’ years. Abijah began in Jeroboam’s eighteenth year and reigned three years; Asa began in Jeroboam’s twentieth (1 Kings 15:9). Jeroboam reigned twenty-two years (1 Kings 14:20), and his son Nadab began “in the second year of Asa” (1 Kings 15:25). So Jeroboam outlived Abijah by about two years. The plain reading still holds: “he died” is Jeroboam, and the verse does not say when. A midrash reads it of Abijah instead: Hashem struck Abijah. Among the reasons the sages give: he shamed Jeroboam in public, and at Bethel he left the calf standing.

13:21–23 · “The story of the prophet Iddo”

“But Abijah waxed mighty, and married fourteen wives, and begat twenty and two sons, and sixteen daughters” (13:21). “Waxed mighty,” וַיִּתְחַזֵּק (va-yitchazzek), is Solomon’s verb (1:1) and his father’s (12:13). Rehoboam had eighteen wives (see 11:18–23).

“And the rest of the acts of Abijah, and his ways, and his sayings, are written in the story of the prophet Iddo” (13:22).

Hebrew lesson: מִדְרַשׁ (midrash), “story.” The word that names a whole literature of the sages appears in the Tenakh only twice, here and at 24:27, and this is the first. It comes from דָּרַשׁ (darash), “to seek,” the verb of 1:5 and of 15:2: a midrash is a seeking out. Kings sends us to “the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah” (1 Kings 15:7); Chronicles sends us to a prophet who had written before (9:29; 12:15) and kept “his sayings,” the speech we have just read. The sages said, “Chronicles was given only to be expounded” (Vayikra Rabbah 1:3; see the introduction to our 1 Chronicles commentary).

“So Abijah slept with his fathers, and they buried him in the city of David: and Asa his son reigned in his stead. In his days the land was quiet ten years” (13:23, KJV 14:1).

The words of Judges. שָׁקְטָה הָאָרֶץ (shaketah ha-aretz), “the land was quiet,” is, as וַתִּשְׁקֹט הָאָרֶץ (va-tishkot ha-aretz), the refrain of Judges: “And the land had rest forty years” (Judges 3:11). In two of those verses the enemy is first humbled: “So Moab was subdued that day under the hand of Israel. And the land had rest fourscore years” (Judges 3:30; also 8:28). The verb is that of 13:18, va-yikkan’u, there in the singular. Chronicles tells Abijah’s war in the shape of a judge’s deliverance, and Azariah will speak of those days (see 15:3–7). The ten years are only in Chronicles.

Chapter 14 · Asa’s Rest, and Zerah the Cushite

Read 2 Chronicles 14 in Hebrew and English →

14:1–6 · “To seek Hashem God of their fathers”

“And Asa did that which was good and right in the eyes of Hashem his God” (14:1, KJV 14:2).

Deuteronomy’s words. Kings says “right… as did David his father” (1 Kings 15:11). Chronicles says הַטּוֹב וְהַיָּשָׁר (ha-tov ve-ha-yashar), “the good and the right,” the words of Moses: “when thou doest that which is good and right in the sight of Hashem thy God” (Deuteronomy 12:28). In Chronicles only Hezekiah is given both words again (31:20).

“For he took away the altars of the strange gods, and the high places, and brake down the images, and cut down the groves” (14:2). This is Deuteronomy 7:5 nearly item by item: “ye shall destroy their altars, and break down their images, and cut down their groves,” with the Torah’s own verbs, וַיְשַׁבֵּר (va-yeshabber) and וַיְגַדַּע (va-yegadda). Kings says he removed “all the idols that his fathers had made” (1 Kings 15:12); Chronicles leaves out “his fathers.”

“And commanded Judah to seek Hashem God of their fathers, and to do the Torah and the commandment” (14:3, KJV 14:4). Seeking and doing: the king commands both.

“Also he took away out of all the cities of Judah the high places and the images: and the kingdom was quiet before him” (14:4, KJV 14:5). The “images” are הַחַמָּנִים (ha-chammanim), which many connect with חַמָּה (chammah), “the sun.” In Chronicles they return only under Josiah, who cut them down (34:4, 7).

The high places: removed, or not? Here Asa takes them “out of all the cities of Judah” (14:4). But 15:17 says they “were not taken away out of Israel,” and Kings, “But the high places were not removed” (1 Kings 15:14). Three answers, which can all be true. First, 15:17 says “Israel,” which may mean the north or the towns taken in Ephraim (15:8). Second, 14:2 joins the high places to “the altars of the strange gods.” Asa removed the high places of idols; others stayed where Hashem’s own name was called on, as under Manasseh, when “the people did sacrifice still in the high places, yet unto Hashem their God only” (33:17). Those too were forbidden once the House was built (Mishnah Zevachim 14:8; see 3:1–2), but it was a lesser sin. Third, what a king removes, the people rebuild: Jehoshaphat too “took away the high places” (17:6), and yet “the high places were not taken away: for as yet the people had not prepared their hearts” (20:33).

“Let us build these cities, and make about them walls, and towers, gates, and bars, while the land is yet before us; because we have sought Hashem our God, we have sought him, and he hath given us rest on every side. So they built and prospered” (14:6, KJV 14:7).

Hebrew lesson: דָרַשְׁנוּ… דָּרַשְׁנוּ (darashnu… darashnu), “we have sought… we have sought.” Asa says it twice. The rest, וַיָּנַח לָנוּ מִסָּבִיב (va-yanach lanu mi-saviv), is what Hashem promised David for his son, “I will give him rest from all his enemies round about” (1 Chronicles 22:9), and the same words close the covenant in the next chapter (15:15). “They… prospered,” וַיַּצְלִיחוּ (va-yatzlichu), answers Abijah’s warning to the north, “ye shall not prosper” (13:12).

14:7–9 · Zerah the Ethiopian at Mareshah

“And Asa had an army of men that bare targets and spears, out of Judah three hundred thousand; and out of Benjamin, that bare shields and drew bows, two hundred and fourscore thousand” (14:7, KJV 14:8). Together, 580,000.

“And there came out against them Zerah the Ethiopian with an host of a thousand thousand, and three hundred chariots; and came unto Mareshah” (14:8, KJV 14:9).

Only in Chronicles. זֶרַח הַכּוּשִׁי (Zerach ha-Kushi), Zerah the Cushite, from the land south of Egypt. Kings does not mention him, and historians have not settled who he was. Hanani the seer will remember “the Ethiopians and the Lubims… a huge host, with very many chariots and horsemen” (16:8). Cushites had come with Shishak too (12:3). In the Talmud’s chain of the treasure Joseph gathered in Egypt, Zerah took it from Shishak, and Asa took it from Zerah (Pesachim 119a; see 12:9–12). Mareshah was one of Rehoboam’s fortified cities (11:8; see 11:5–12).

“Then Asa went out against him, and they set the battle in array in the valley of Zephathah at Mareshah” (14:9, KJV 14:10). The valley is named nowhere else.

14:10–14 · “In thy name we go against this multitude”

“And Asa cried unto Hashem his God, and said, Hashem, it is nothing with thee to help, whether with many, or with them that have no power: help us, O Hashem our God; for we rest on thee, and in thy name we go against this multitude. O Hashem, thou art our God; let not man prevail against thee” (14:10, KJV 14:11).

Hebrew lesson: אֵין עִמְּךָ לַעְזוֹר בֵּין רַב לְאֵין כֹּחַ (ein immecha la’zor bein rav le-ein koach). Word for word: “there is none with Thee to help, between the mighty and the one with no strength.” For Hashem it makes no difference which side is bigger. Jonathan said it before he climbed to the Philistine garrison: “for there is no restraint to Hashem to save by many or by few” (1 Samuel 14:6). “Restraint” is מַעְצוֹר (ma’tzor), and Asa ends with the same root: אַל יַעְצֹר עִמְּךָ אֱנוֹשׁ (al ya’tzor immecha enosh), “let not man prevail against thee.” “Neither did Jeroboam recover strength,” says 13:20, with the same verb, atzar. Hashem is never held back, and mortal man cannot hold Him back.

Three more phrases. “Help us,” עָזְרֵנוּ (ozrenu): the next chapter opens with a prophet named עֲזַרְיָהוּ (Azaryahu), “Hashem has helped” (15:1). “In thy name we go”: David said it to Goliath, “I come to thee in the name of Hashem of hosts” (1 Samuel 17:45). And “against thee,” not “against us”: Asa makes the war Hashem’s.

“So Hashem smote the Ethiopians”; Asa pursued them “unto Gerar… for they were destroyed before Hashem, and before his host” (14:11–12, KJV 14:12–13). Gerar was the town of Abraham and Isaac (Genesis 20:1; 26:6). “His host,” מַחֲנֵהוּ (machanehu), may be Asa’s army or Hashem’s camp (compare Genesis 32:2). “For the fear of Hashem came upon them” (14:13), as it will on the nations in Jehoshaphat’s days (17:10). They came home with sheep and camels “in abundance” (14:14).

Messianic reading. “Them that have no power,” לְאֵין כֹּחַ (le-ein koach): Paul heard the same from Yeshua, “My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9).

Chapter 15 · Azariah’s Word, and the Oath of the Third Month

Read 2 Chronicles 15 in Hebrew and English →

15:1–2 · “If ye seek him, he will be found of you”

“And the Spirit of God came upon Azariah the son of Oded” (15:1).

Only in Chronicles. Azariah son of Oded appears only here. The Spirit “came upon” the judges: “And the Spirit of Hashem came upon him, and he judged Israel” (Judges 3:10, of Othniel).

“And he went out to meet Asa, and said unto him, Hear ye me, Asa, and all Judah and Benjamin; Hashem is with you, while ye be with him; and if ye seek him, he will be found of you; but if ye forsake him, he will forsake you” (15:2).

Hebrew lesson: יְהוָה עִמָּכֶם בִּהְיוֹתְכֶם עִמּוֹ (Hashem immachem bi-hyotchem immo), “Hashem is with you, while ye be with him.” Then two “ifs”: וְאִם תִּדְרְשֻׁהוּ יִמָּצֵא לָכֶם (ve-im tidreshuhu yimmatze lachem), “if you seek Him, He will let Himself be found by you,” and וְאִם תַּעַזְבֻהוּ יַעֲזֹב אֶתְכֶם (ve-im ta’azvuhu ya’azov etchem), “if you forsake Him, He will forsake you.” It is David’s charge almost word for word; we taught its words in our 1 Chronicles commentary on 28:9–10. One change: David said “he will cast thee off for ever,” יַזְנִיחֲךָ לָעַד (yaznichacha la’ad). Azariah uses one verb for both sides, as Shemaiah did (12:5): forsake, and be forsaken. Our Statement of Faith’s eleventh principle says it: “We believe that Hashem rewards obedience and judges disobedience.”

The rule of the book. David gave this charge to one son; Azariah gives it to a nation, and from here to the exile the Chronicler measures every reign by it: - Rehoboam “forsook the Torah of Hashem” and “prepared not his heart to seek Hashem” (12:1, 14). - Asa sought and was found (14:6; 15:15); in his last illness “he sought not to Hashem” (16:12). - Jehoshaphat “sought to Hashem God of his father” (17:4). - Zechariah son of Jehoiada said the rule aloud: “because ye have forsaken Hashem, he hath also forsaken you” (24:20). - Of Uzziah: “as long as he sought Hashem, God made him to prosper” (26:5). - Hezekiah sought his God “with all his heart, and prospered” (31:21). - Josiah “began to seek after the God of David his father” (34:3), and Huldah gave the reason for the exile: “Because they have forsaken me” (34:25).

The verb דָּרַשׁ (darash) comes some thirty times in 2 Chronicles.

A rule with a door. The rule is not a machine. Hashem sends prophets before He forsakes (24:19), and two verses on, Azariah tells of people who “in their trouble did turn” and found Him (15:4). Isaiah gives the time: “Seek ye Hashem while he may be found” (Isaiah 55:6). Our class “Should Messianic Jews Fast on Tzom Gedaliah?” called that haftarah, read at Mincha on the fast, “a beautiful call to seek the Lord while he may be found.”

Messianic reading. “Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you” (James 4:8). Paul adds the other half, and a third: “if we deny him, he also will deny us: If we believe not, yet he abideth faithful: he cannot deny himself” (2 Timothy 2:12–13). FFOZ’s End of Days draws the lesson Azariah drew: “only those who prove themselves faithful in this life will rule with the Messiah in the life to come” (Lesson 25, “Twelve Thrones”). Yet the promise to David’s house stands over the rule: a king could be forsaken, and the lamp was not put out (see 21:7).

15:3–7 · “Without the true God… your work shall be rewarded”

“Now for a long season Israel hath been without the true God, and without a teaching priest, and without Torah” (15:3).

Hebrew lesson: three times לְלֹא (le-lo), “without.” וְיָמִים רַבִּים לְיִשְׂרָאֵל לְלֹא אֱלֹהֵי אֱמֶת וּלְלֹא כֹּהֵן מוֹרֶה וּלְלֹא תוֹרָה (ve-yamim rabbim le-Yisrael le-lo Elohei emet u-le-lo kohen moreh u-le-lo Torah). The verse has no verb. Elohei emet is Jeremiah’s “But Hashem is the true God” (Jeremiah 10:10) and Yeshua’s “the only true God” (John 17:3). In כֹּהֵן מוֹרֶה (kohen moreh), “a teaching priest,” moreh and Torah share one root, יָרָה (yarah), to point the way; the priests were given to teach (Deuteronomy 33:10; Malachi 2:7). Without a teaching priest there is soon no Torah. On the teachers Jehoshaphat sent out, see 17:7–9.

“But when they in their trouble did turn unto Hashem God of Israel, and sought him, he was found of them” (15:4). Then there was “no peace to him that went out, nor to him that came in,” and “nation was destroyed of nation” (15:5–6).

When was it? Readers have taken it three ways. - The days of the judges. The pattern is theirs: trouble, turning, finding, when “Hashem was with the judge” (Judges 2:18). The quiet years of 13:23 already used their words. - The north, now. Jeroboam’s kingdom had calves for gods, priests cast out (13:9), and the Torah left behind. - The future. Hosea uses the same yamim rabbim: “For the children of Israel shall abide many days without a king, and without a prince, and without a sacrifice… Afterward shall the children of Israel return, and seek Hashem their God, and David their king” (Hosea 3:4–5). Our Sukkot 5787 shiur “The Son of David” brought the Targum on that verse: “and obey the Messiah son of David their king.”

The words of Moses. The verbs of 15:4 are past, but they are the words of Deuteronomy 4:29–30, which look ahead: “But if from thence thou shalt seek Hashem thy God, thou shalt find him, if thou seek him with all thy heart and with all thy soul. When thou art in tribulation… even in the latter days, if thou turn to Hashem thy God.” Both have the two verbs of seeking, בִּקֵּשׁ (bikkesh) and darash (15:2, 4), with finding and turning. Moses has בַּצַּר לְךָ (ba-tzar lecha), “in thy distress”; Azariah has בַּצַּר לוֹ (ba-tzar lo). Our lean: Azariah tells the past in the words Moses used for “the latter days,” so his history is also a promise.

“Be ye strong therefore, and let not your hands be weak: for your work shall be rewarded” (15:7).

Hebrew lesson: יֵשׁ שָׂכָר לִפְעֻלַּתְכֶם (yesh sachar li-f’ullatchem), “there is a reward for your work.” The phrase comes once more in the Tenakh, to Rachel weeping for her children: “Refrain thy voice from weeping, and thine eyes from tears: for thy work shall be rewarded, saith Hashem; and they shall come again from the land of the enemy” (Jeremiah 31:16; compare 31:15 and Matthew 2:18). In Jeremiah the reward is the children’s return, and then a new covenant (Jeremiah 31:31–33).

15:8–9 · “When they saw that Hashem his God was with him”

“And when Asa heard these words, and the prophecy of Oded the prophet, he took courage, and put away the abominable idols out of all the land of Judah and Benjamin, and out of the cities which he had taken from mount Ephraim, and renewed the altar of Hashem, that was before the porch of Hashem” (15:8).

The Hebrew says only “and the prophecy, Oded the prophet”; either the father’s name stands for the son’s, or words have dropped out. “He took courage,” הִתְחַזַּק (hitchazzek), answers “Be ye strong” (15:7). And he “renewed,” וַיְחַדֵּשׁ (va-yechaddesh), the bronze altar before the porch (see 4:1).

“And he gathered all Judah and Benjamin, and the strangers with them out of Ephraim and Manasseh, and out of Simeon: for they fell to him out of Israel in abundance, when they saw that Hashem his God was with him” (15:9).

Hebrew lesson: הַגָּרִים (ha-garim), “the strangers.” They are Israelites, yet in Judah they are garim, sojourners, who had left their inheritance as the Levites left theirs (see 11:13–17). Simeon is a surprise, for its inheritance lay within Judah’s (Joshua 19:1), yet in Josiah’s day too it is named with the north (34:6). On these families and the “lost” tribes found in Judah, see our 1 Chronicles commentary on 9:1–3.

They came “when they saw that Hashem his God was with him.” Azariah said, “Hashem is with you, while ye be with him” (15:2), and the north could see it. Zechariah promised it on a larger scale: “ten men shall take hold out of all languages of the nations, even shall take hold of the skirt of him that is a Jew, saying, We will go with you: for we have heard that God is with you” (Zechariah 8:23). Our class “Shavuot: Torah, Ruth, and Return” read that verse and said: “Notice they do not say, ‘We replace you.’ They say, ‘We will go with you.’ That is Ruth. That is Shavuot.”

15:10–15 · The oath in the third month

“So they gathered themselves together at Jerusalem in the third month, in the fifteenth year of the reign of Asa” (15:10).

The third month. The text names no day and no feast. But the third month is Sinai’s: “In the third month, when the children of Israel were gone forth out of the land of Egypt, the same day came they into the wilderness of Sinai” (Exodus 19:1). The feast of weeks, fifty days from Pesach (Leviticus 23:15–16), falls in it, and the sages place the giving of the Torah in it (Shabbat 86b). We say only what the text allows: Judah made a covenant in the month of Sinai.

“And they offered unto Hashem the same time, of the spoil which they had brought, seven hundred oxen and seven thousand sheep. And they entered into a covenant to seek Hashem God of their fathers with all their heart and with all their soul” (15:11–12). These are the words of the Shema (Deuteronomy 6:5) and of Moses’ promise (Deuteronomy 4:29).

“That whosoever would not seek Hashem God of Israel should be put to death, whether small or great, whether man or woman” (15:13).

A hard verse. The covenant bound the nation to the Torah’s own law: if there be found “man or woman” who serves other gods, he is to die, but only “at the mouth of two witnesses, or three witnesses” (Deuteronomy 17:2–6). It gave the courts a law, not every man a sword. And the king’s first act after the oath touched his own house (15:16).

“And they sware unto Hashem with a loud voice, and with shouting, and with trumpets, and with cornets” (15:14). The shout that won the battle (13:15) now seals an oath, and with the trumpets come שׁוֹפָרוֹת (shofarot), as at Sinai: “the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud” (Exodus 19:16).

“And all Judah rejoiced at the oath: for they had sworn with all their heart, and sought him with their whole desire; and he was found of them: and Hashem gave them rest round about” (15:15).

Hebrew lesson: שְׁבוּעָה (shevu’ah), “oath.” “They sware,” וַיִּשָּׁבְעוּ (va-yishave’u); “the oath,” הַשְּׁבוּעָה (ha-shevu’ah). The root שׁבע also gives sheva, “seven,” and שָׁבֻעוֹת (Shavu’ot), “weeks” (Deuteronomy 16:10). At Beersheba Abraham set apart “seven ewe lambs,” and the place was named “because there they sware both of them” (Genesis 21:28, 31). Here the offering is seven hundred and seven thousand, in the month of the weeks, sealed by an oath. That is the Hebrew’s own remez; the text says no more.

Read 15:15 against 15:2: “if ye seek him, he will be found of you”; “and sought him… and he was found of them.” The prophet’s rule came true inside the same chapter, and they “rejoiced at the oath.” A covenant sworn with the whole heart is joy, not a burden.

Our teachers. Rabbi Palvanov, in his class “Understanding Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes,” explains why we stay up all night on Shavuot: it is as if the Torah were given anew, because “the Torah is constantly being newly revealed every year.”

Messianic reading. In the same month, at Shavuot, Jerusalem gathered Jews “out of every nation under heaven” (Acts 2:5), and the Spirit came (see 7:1–3). Here too the Spirit came first (15:1), and then the people swore “with all their heart.” As our Statement of Faith says, “The New Covenant writes Torah upon the heart; it does not erase Torah from the life of Israel.”

15:16–19 · Maachah’s idol, and the high places

“And also concerning Maachah the mother of Asa the king, he removed her from being queen, because she had made an idol in a grove: and Asa cut down her idol, and stamped it, and burnt it at the brook Kidron” (15:16).

Hebrew lesson: גְּבִירָה (gevirah), “queen,” and מִפְלֶצֶת (mifletzet), “idol.” The gevirah was the king’s mother, honored with a seat at his right hand (1 Kings 2:19). Maachah was Asa’s grandmother (see 13:1–2), and she still held the office under him. Her mifletzet is named only here and in Kings (1 Kings 15:13). The root פלץ means to shudder (Job 9:6, “the pillars thereof tremble”): it was a horror. The Talmud reads the word as a thing that “greatly increases levity” and says it was an obscene image (Avodah Zarah 44a).

Kings says Asa “destroyed her idol, and burnt it by the brook Kidron” (1 Kings 15:13). Chronicles adds וַיָּדֶק (va-yadek), “and stamped it,” crushed it fine. Moses ground the calf “small as dust,” דַּק (dak, Deuteronomy 9:21), and Josiah will burn an Asherah “at the brook Kidron, and stamped it small to powder” (2 Kings 23:6), with the same verb.

Why this matters. The covenant had just said “whether small or great, whether man or woman” (15:13), and the first test came in the palace. Yeshua said it of every disciple: “He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me” (Matthew 10:37).

“But the high places were not taken away out of Israel: nevertheless the heart of Asa was perfect all his days” (15:17).

On the high places, see 14:1–6. “Perfect,” שָׁלֵם (shalem), “whole,” is the word Kings denied his father: Abijam’s heart “was not perfect with Hashem his God” (1 Kings 15:3). Hanani will use it too (16:9). “All his days” is a high word to write over a king whose last years are told in the next chapter (see 16:7–10).

“And he brought into the house of God the things that his father had dedicated, and that he himself had dedicated, silver, and gold, and vessels” (15:18). In 16:2 silver and gold go out of the same treasuries again.

“And there was no more war unto the five and thirtieth year of the reign of Asa” (15:19).

A problem of dates. By Kings’ numbers Baasha reigned from Asa’s third year for twenty-four years (1 Kings 15:33), and his son began in Asa’s twenty-sixth (1 Kings 16:8). Yet 16:1 dates Baasha’s attack to Asa’s thirty-sixth year, and Kings has war between them “all their days” (1 Kings 15:16). See 16:1–6.

Messianic reading. “The kingdom of Hashem in the hand of the sons of David” (13:8) was kept for the Son of David. He came first in the pattern of Mashiach ben Yosef and will return as Mashiach ben David, “and the government shall be upon his shoulder” (Isaiah 9:6; see 10:16–19 and 12:13–16). Asa’s covenant is a small picture of the gathering he will finish.

Drawing it together

1. True words. Abijah’s speech is the Torah’s own: the covenant of salt, the sons of Aaron, the daily offering, the trumpets. Kings says his heart was not whole; Chronicles keeps the words because they are true.

2. Strength comes from leaning. The empty men made themselves strong and fell; Judah “prevailed, because they relied” (13:18). Asa leaned on Hashem against a million: “it is nothing with thee to help” (14:10).

3. The rule of the book. “If ye seek him, he will be found of you; but if ye forsake him, he will forsake you” (15:2). Every reign to the exile is measured by it. It has a door, “when they in their trouble did turn… he was found of them” (15:4), and a reward, “your work shall be rewarded” (15:7).

4. A covenant with the whole heart. In the month of Sinai, Judah swore “with all their heart and with all their soul,” rejoiced, and found rest (15:12–15). The new covenant writes the same Torah on the heart.

5. They came when they saw. The north came to Asa “when they saw that Hashem his God was with him” (15:9). The Son of David will gather all Israel, and the nations will say, “We will go with you: for we have heard that God is with you” (Zechariah 8:23).

Questions for discussion

1. Kings condemns Abijah (1 Kings 15:3); Chronicles gives his speech. How can both be true (Matthew 23:3)?
2. How can Abijah’s mother be “Michaiah the daughter of Uriel” (13:2) and “Maachah the daughter of Absalom” (11:20)? Why is she called Asa’s mother (15:16)?
3. What do Numbers 18:19 and Jeremiah 33:21 teach about the covenant of salt (13:5)?
4. What did Jeroboam’s priests need to be consecrated (13:9), and how does that compare with Exodus 29:1 and Hebrews 5:4?
5. Compare 13:14–15 with Exodus 14:10, Numbers 10:9 and Joshua 6:20.
6. What three verbs of 13:18 explain Judah’s victory? Where does the verb “relied” come back?
7. Read Asa’s prayer (14:10) beside 1 Samuel 14:6. Whose war was it?
8. How do 14:2, 14:4, 15:17 and 33:17 help explain whether Asa removed the high places?
9. Azariah’s rule (15:2) is David’s (1 Chronicles 28:9) with one change. What is it? Trace the rule through three later reigns.
10. What do Deuteronomy 4:29–30 and Hosea 3:4–5 add to 15:3–7? What do the third month and the oath of 15:10–15 recall?

Sources

Scripture: 2 Chronicles 1–4, 7, 9–17, 20–21, 24, 26, 31, 33–34; 1 Chronicles 22, 28–29; 1 Kings 2, 12–16; 2 Kings 23; Genesis 20–21, 26, 32; Exodus 14, 19, 27, 29–30; Leviticus 2, 8, 23–24; Numbers 10, 18, 28; Deuteronomy 4, 6–7, 9, 12, 16–17, 33; Joshua 6, 18–19; Judges 2–3, 8; 1 Samuel 14, 17; 2 Samuel 14; Isaiah 7–9, 55; Jeremiah 10, 31, 33; Hosea 3, 8; Zechariah 8; Malachi 2; Job 9; Matthew 1–2, 10, 23; Mark 9; John 17; Acts 2; 2 Corinthians 12; 2 Timothy 2; Hebrews 5; James 4.

Talmud and Midrash: Pesachim 119a; Shabbat 86b; Avodah Zarah 44a; Mishnah Zevachim 14:8; Vayikra Rabbah 1:3; a midrash on Abijah’s death (13:20).

Commentators: Rashi on Numbers 18:19; Josephus, Antiquities 8.10.1, on Maachah.

Our teachers and materials: First Fruits of Zion, End of Days (5786), Lesson 21, “Image of the Beast”; Lesson 25, “Twelve Thrones”; Rabbi Efraim Palvanov, “Understanding Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes” (https://youtu.be/4kb0iQZIRcU); Ariel Cohen Alloro, “The 4 sons from the Passover Haggadah – Part 4” (https://youtu.be/bdQvvvlKA68); Benei Avraham classes “Should Messianic Jews Fast on Tzom Gedaliah?” (https://youtu.be/RD6ZUoFoy3M) and “Shavuot: Torah, Ruth, and Return” (https://youtu.be/9FW62wzzfGM); our Sukkot 5787 shiur “The Son of David”; our 1 Chronicles commentary on 9:1–3, 22:2–5 and 28:9–10, and its introduction; our 2 Samuel commentary on chapter 7; Benei Avraham Statement of Faith.

Before we begin

Asa began well; against a million Cushites he cried, “help us, O Hashem our God; for we rest on thee” (14:10, KJV 14:11). Now he sends the silver of the House of Hashem to Damascus, puts a seer in the stocks, and in his last illness seeks the physicians and not Hashem. His son Jehoshaphat sends teachers through Judah with the book of the Torah, then, after one prophet stands against four hundred at Samaria, rides with Ahab to Ramoth-gilead.

The seer, the physicians and the teachers are only in Chronicles (compare 1 Kings 15:16–24). Micaiah’s story is in both books almost word for word (1 Kings 22:1–35). Over all three chapters stands Azariah’s word to Asa: “if ye seek him, he will be found of you; but if ye forsake him, he will forsake you” (15:2). In these chapters the Hebrew and English verse numbers are the same.

How this commentary is built. We read the text first, in Hebrew where it matters, because Torah comes first and the Prophets and Writings are measured by it. Then we hear the sages: the Talmud, the Midrash, Rashi, Radak and Rambam. Then our own teachers: the FFOZ End of Days lessons, Rabbi Efraim Palvanov and Ariel Cohen Alloro, along with our own Benei Avraham classes. Last, we ask what the passage shows us about Mashiach.

A word on our teachers. Rabbi Palvanov and Ariel Cohen Alloro bring a great deal of Kabbalah and gematria. We use their insights as remez, a hint that opens a door, and never as proof. Gematria can show a connection the text already makes, but it cannot make a doctrine by itself. Where a teacher’s framework goes beyond what Benei Avraham confesses (for example, on reincarnation or on the nature of God), we take the insight and leave the framework. “To the Torah and to the testimony” (Isaiah 8:20) is the test for all of it, our own words included.

Scripture is quoted from the King James Version with Hashem in place of LORD, as in our Statement of Faith.

Chapter 16 · Asa Relies on the King of Syria

Read 2 Chronicles 16 in Hebrew and English →

16:1–6 · Silver from the House of Hashem

“In the six and thirtieth year of the reign of Asa Baasha king of Israel came up against Judah, and built Ramah, to the intent that he might let none go out or come in to Asa king of Judah” (16:1).

The thirty-sixth year. By the numbers in Kings, Baasha began to reign “in the third year of Asa” and reigned twenty-four years (1 Kings 15:33), and his son Elah took the throne “in the twenty and sixth year of Asa” (1 Kings 16:8). By Asa’s thirty-sixth year he had been dead about ten years. The traditional answer, given in Seder Olam, the sages’ chronicle of the years, reads לְמַלְכוּת אָסָא (le-malchut Asa) as “of the kingdom of Asa,” the kingdom of Judah, counted from the day it was divided. Rehoboam reigned seventeen years (12:13) and Abijah three (13:2), so the thirty-sixth year of that kingdom is Asa’s sixteenth, when Baasha was alive. Then the “five and thirtieth year” of 15:19 is Asa’s fifteenth, the year of the covenant (15:10).

“That he might let none go out or come in”: Baasha was closing the road on which the men of the north had been crossing to Asa “in abundance” (15:9).

“Then Asa brought out silver and gold out of the treasures of the house of Hashem and of the king’s house, and sent to Ben-hadad king of Syria, that dwelt at Damascus” (16:2).

Brought in, brought out. Asa had “brought into the house of God” the dedicated “silver, and gold” (15:18). Now he brings them out, וַיֹּצֵא (va-yotze), to buy a pagan’s sword.

“There is a league between me and thee, as there was between my father and thy father: behold, I have sent thee silver and gold; go, break thy league with Baasha king of Israel, that he may depart from me” (16:3).

Hebrew lesson: בְּרִית (berit), “league.” It is the word for covenant. Under Asa, Judah had “entered into a covenant to seek Hashem God of their fathers with all their heart” (15:12); now he buys a covenant with Damascus and pays its king to break another, הָפֵר בְּרִיתְךָ (hafer beritcha), “break thy league.” An ally who can be paid to betray can be paid again.

It worked, and the next verses call it foolish. Benhadad “smote Ijon, and Dan, and Abel-maim, and all the store cities of Naphtali” (16:4); Baasha “left off building of Ramah” (16:5); and Asa “took all Judah” to carry off its stones and build “Geba and Mizpah” (16:6). Kings has a phrase Chronicles leaves out: “king Asa made a proclamation throughout all Judah; none was exempted” (1 Kings 15:22), אֵין נָקִי (ein naki).

What the sages say. The Talmud reads “none was exempted” against Asa. He pressed even Torah scholars into the labor, “even a bridegroom from his chamber and a bride from her canopy,” and so he was struck in his feet, with podagra, gout (Sotah 10a).

16:7–10 · “The eyes of Hashem run to and fro”

“And at that time Hanani the seer came to Asa king of Judah, and said unto him, Because thou hast relied on the king of Syria, and not relied on Hashem thy God, therefore is the host of the king of Syria escaped out of thine hand” (16:7).

Only in Chronicles. Kings has no rebuke for Asa’s silver. Hanani’s son Jehu prophesied against Baasha (1 Kings 16:1) and will rebuke Jehoshaphat (19:2).

Hebrew lesson: נִשְׁעַן (nish’an), “to lean, to rely.” In all of Chronicles this verb appears five times, all in two reigns. Under Abijah, Judah prevailed “because they relied upon Hashem God of their fathers” (13:18). Asa prayed against Zerah, כִּי עָלֶיךָ נִשְׁעַנּוּ (ki aleicha nish’annu), “for we rest on thee” (14:10). Now Hanani says it three times: “thou hast relied on the king of Syria, and not relied on Hashem” (16:7), and “because thou didst rely on Hashem, he delivered them into thine hand” (16:8). The same man leaned on Hashem against a million and on Damascus against Baasha. Later kings face the same choice: Assyria “distressed him, but strengthened him not” (28:20), and Hezekiah will say, “With him is an arm of flesh; but with us is Hashem our God” (32:8).

“Therefore is the host of the king of Syria escaped”: many read it that Asa, leaning on Hashem, would have beaten Syria too. That army would one day hunt his son (18:30–31).

“Were not the Ethiopians and the Lubims a huge host, with very many chariots and horsemen? yet, because thou didst rely on Hashem, he delivered them into thine hand. For the eyes of Hashem run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to shew himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him. Herein thou hast done foolishly: therefore from henceforth thou shalt have wars” (16:8–9).

Hebrew lesson: עֵינָיו מְשֹׁטְטוֹת (einav meshotetot), “his eyes run to and fro.” Zechariah uses the same verb for “the eyes of Hashem, which run to and fro through the whole earth” (Zechariah 4:10), in the chapter that says “Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit” (Zechariah 4:6). Hashem is not looking for armies; He is looking for a heart.

“Whose heart is perfect,” לְבָבָם שָׁלֵם (levavam shalem). Chronicles has just said “the heart of Asa was perfect all his days” (15:17). In Kings the phrase means a heart that served no other god (1 Kings 11:4; 15:14), and Asa served none. Hanani asks more: a whole heart leans on Hashem alone (see our 1 Chronicles commentary on 29:6–9).

Hebrew lesson: נִסְכַּלְתָּ (niskalta), “thou hast done foolishly.” In this form the verb is found only four times in the Tenakh. Samuel said it to Saul (1 Samuel 13:13). David said it of himself, “I have done very foolishly” (1 Chronicles 21:8; 2 Samuel 24:10), and fell into the hand of Hashem’s mercies (see our 1 Chronicles commentary on 21:7–13). Hanani says it to Asa. The answer is the king’s.

“Then Asa was wroth with the seer, and put him in a prison house; for he was in a rage with him because of this thing. And Asa oppressed some of the people the same time” (16:10).

Hebrew lesson: בֵּית הַמַּהְפֶּכֶת (beit ha-mahpechet), “a prison house.” It is a house of the stocks, as when Pashhur put Jeremiah “in the stocks” (Jeremiah 20:2). The king’s rage, בְזַעַף (be-za’af), is Kings’ word for Ahab: after a prophet rebuked him, Ahab “went to his house heavy and displeased,” סַר וְזָעֵף (sar ve-za’ef, 1 Kings 20:43). Asa answered the seer as Ahab answered a prophet. “Oppressed,” וַיְרַצֵּץ (va-yeratzetz), is “crushed.” Isaiah’s servant is the opposite: “A bruised reed shall he not break” (Isaiah 42:3; Matthew 12:20), קָנֶה רָצוּץ (kaneh ratzutz).

Our teachers. The Mishnah’s list of troubles before the coming of Mashiach ends with this chapter’s verb: “On whom can we lean? On our Father in heaven” (Mishnah Sotah 9:15). Rabbi Palvanov, in his class “Third Rome: Russia, Ukraine, and Mashiach,” gives the line and warns against hearing it as surrender: “We can’t just give up and say, ‘Forget it. I can’t do anything about it.’” Asa once leaned on Hashem and marched out to fight (14:9–10, KJV 14:10–11). To rely is not to sit still; the question is whom we lean on.

Messianic reading. “It is better to trust in Hashem than to put confidence in princes” (Psalm 118:9). Yeshua could have asked for “more than twelve legions of angels” (Matthew 26:53). He leaned on the Father when no rescue came, and Hashem raised him.

16:11–14 · “Not to Hashem, but to the physicians”

“And, behold, the acts of Asa, first and last, lo, they are written in the book of the kings of Judah and Israel” (16:11). It is the first time 2 Chronicles points to a book of the kings rather than to prophets’ records (9:29; 12:15; 13:22).

“And Asa in the thirty and ninth year of his reign was diseased in his feet, until his disease was exceeding great: yet in his disease he sought not to Hashem, but to the physicians” (16:12).

Kings says only that “in the time of his old age he was diseased in his feet” (1 Kings 15:23).

Hebrew lesson: לֹא דָרַשׁ אֶת יְהוָה כִּי בָּרֹפְאִים (lo darash et Hashem ki ba-rof’im). Darash is the book’s verb (15:2). And rof’im, “healers,” is the plural of the word Hashem took as His name at Marah: אֲנִי יְהוָה רֹפְאֶךָ (ani Hashem rof’echa), “I am Hashem that healeth thee” (Exodus 15:26). Asa went to the healers and passed by the Healer.

Be careful here. The Torah does not forbid doctors. It commands the man who injured another to “cause him to be thoroughly healed,” וְרַפֹּא יְרַפֵּא (ve-rappo yerappe, Exodus 21:19), and the sages learn: “from here, that permission was given to the physician to heal” (Bava Kamma 85a). The Shulchan Aruch calls healing a mitzvah that falls under saving life (Yoreh De’ah 336:1). So the fault in 16:12 is not “to the physicians.” It is “not to Hashem.”

Our teachers. Rabbi Palvanov, in his class “Understanding Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes,” explains the name of the Essenes from the Aramaic for “a physician”: “a doctor is an asya in the Talmud.” He does not speak of Asa. The link is ours: the king’s name, אָסָא (Asa), sounds like it. We take it as remez only. Our class “Chesed Shel Emet: Messianic Jewish Care for the Sick & Dying” taught the prayer for the sick, the Mi Shebeirach, which asks the Holy One to “send to him quickly, a complete healing from the heavens, healing of the soul and healing of the body.” We call the doctor, and we pray to the One who heals.

Messianic reading. The woman who “had suffered many things of many physicians” (Mark 5:26) reached for Yeshua’s hem. James joins both hands: oil, a medicine in his day (Luke 10:34), and “the prayer of faith shall save the sick” (James 5:14–15).

“And Asa slept with his fathers, and died in the one and fortieth year of his reign” (16:13). Forty-one years (1 Kings 15:10), two of them in sickness. Death is sleep until the resurrection, as our Statement of Faith confesses.

“And they buried him in his own sepulchres, which he had made for himself in the city of David, and laid him in the bed which was filled with sweet odours and divers kinds of spices prepared by the apothecaries’ art: and they made a very great burning for him” (16:14).

Hebrew lesson: מִרְקַחַת (mirkachat), “the apothecaries’ art.” The word is found only three times in the Tenakh: the holy anointing oil, “an ointment compound after the art of the apothecary” (Exodus 30:25); the sons of the priests who “made the ointment of the spices” (1 Chronicles 9:30); and Asa’s bier.

What the sages say. “A very great burning” was not a cremation. The sages teach that a dead king’s bed and belongings were burned in his honor, and that this is no heathen custom (Avodah Zarah 11a; Jeremiah 34:5). Jehoram was denied it (21:19). Chronicles judged Asa’s last years and still honored his grave. He is one of several kings here who begin well and end badly (24:17–22; 25:14–16; 26:16).

Messianic reading. The Son of David too was buried “with the spices, as the manner of the Jews is to bury” (John 19:40). Asa’s bed waits for the resurrection; that tomb was found empty.

Chapter 17 · Jehoshaphat Sends the Teachers

Read 2 Chronicles 17 in Hebrew and English →

17:1–6 · “The first ways of his father David”

“And Jehoshaphat his son reigned in his stead, and strengthened himself against Israel. 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” (17:1–2).

יְהוֹשָׁפָט (Yehoshafat) means “Hashem has judged.” The cities of Ephraim were those Asa had taken (15:8).

“And Hashem was with Jehoshaphat, because he walked in the first ways of his father David, and sought not unto Baalim; But sought to Hashem God of his father, and walked in his commandments, and not after the doings of Israel” (17:3–4).

Hebrew lesson: בְּדַרְכֵי דָּוִיד אָבִיו הָרִאשֹׁנִים (be-darchei David aviv ha-rishonim), “in the first ways of his father David.” Many read “first” as David’s early ways, before his sin with Bathsheba. Chronicles never tells that story (see our 2 Samuel commentary on chapter 11), yet this one word knows David had first ways and later ones. Then the verb of seeking, twice: לֹא דָרַשׁ לַבְּעָלִים… לֵאלֹהֵי אָבִיו דָּרָשׁ (lo darash la-be’alim… le-Elohei aviv darash), “he sought not the Baals… the God of his father he sought.” A few verses earlier the father “sought not to Hashem” (16:12). The son begins where the father failed.

“Therefore Hashem stablished the kingdom in his hand; and all Judah brought to Jehoshaphat presents; and he had riches and honour in abundance” (17:5). Riches and honour were Hashem’s gift to Solomon (1:12); they come to the king who seeks.

“And his heart was lifted up in the ways of Hashem: moreover he took away the high places and groves out of Judah” (17:6).

Hebrew lesson: וַיִּגְבַּהּ לִבּוֹ (va-yigbah libbo), “his heart was lifted up.” Everywhere else in Chronicles this is pride: Uzziah’s “heart was lifted up to his destruction” (26:16), and Hezekiah’s “heart was lifted up” (32:25). David sang, “Hashem, my heart is not haughty” (Psalm 131:1), with the same words. Only here is the lifted heart good, lifted “in the ways of Hashem,” bold for Him.

He took away the high places, yet 20:33 says they “were not taken away: for as yet the people had not prepared their hearts” (also 1 Kings 22:43). Asa’s reign has the same pair (14:4, KJV 14:5; 15:17). The people’s hearts were slower than the king’s.

17:7–9 · “The book of the Torah of Hashem with them”

“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. And with them he sent Levites, even Shemaiah, and Nethaniah, and Zebadiah, and Asahel, and Shemiramoth, and Jehonathan, and Adonijah, and Tobijah, and Tob-adonijah, Levites; and with them Elishama and Jehoram, priests. And they taught in Judah, and had the book of the law of Hashem with them, and went about throughout all the cities of Judah, and taught the people” (17:7–9).

Only in Chronicles. Five princes, nine Levites and two priests: sixteen teachers. Tob-adonijah’s name joins the two before it. Azariah had told Asa that Israel had long been “without a teaching priest, and without law” (15:3). In the third year of his son, the teaching priests went out.

Whose work is this? The Torah gave it to Levi: “They shall teach Jacob thy judgments, and Israel thy Torah” (Deuteronomy 33:10; Leviticus 10:11). Moses gave the written Torah “unto the priests the sons of Levi,” to be read at Sukkot, “that they may hear, and that they may learn” (Deuteronomy 31:9–12). “The priest’s lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the Torah at his mouth” (Malachi 2:7). Jehoshaphat did not invent an office; he sent the old one out, with his princes beside it.

Hebrew lesson: סֵפֶר תּוֹרַת יְהוָה (sefer Torat Hashem), “the book of the Torah of Hashem.” The phrase is found only three times in the Tenakh. Here the teachers carry it. In Josiah’s day Hilkiah finds it, “given by Moses” (34:14). After the exile the people read in it “one fourth part of the day” (Nehemiah 9:3). The teachers did not speak from the king’s opinions; the scroll was “with them.” And they “went about,” וַיָּסֹבּוּ (va-yasobbu), to the people.

What the sages say. The Talmud remembers Jehoshaphat as a king who honored teachers. When he saw a Torah scholar, he would rise from his throne, embrace and kiss him, and call him “my father, my father; my teacher, my teacher; my master, my master” (Makkot 24a), as Psalm 15 says, “he honoureth them that fear Hashem” (Psalm 15:4).

Our teachers. Our class “Roles in Synagogue Leadership: Rabbi, Chazan, and More” said the kohanim “perform the sacrifices and lead worship in the temple and they also provide spiritual guidance, they judge disputes and they teach Torah.” Rabbi Palvanov, in his class “Understanding Edom #2 – Trump & Herod,” tells the Talmud’s story of Herod, who killed the sages and then asked Bava ben Buta how to make amends. The answer: “you killed all these sages who were teaching Torah… Torah is light… You extinguish the light” (Bava Batra 4a; Proverbs 6:23, “the commandment is a lamp; and the Torah is light”). Asa put a seer in the stocks; his son sent sixteen teachers out with the light.

Messianic reading. Yeshua sent his disciples out “Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:20), and called great “whosoever shall do and teach them” (Matthew 5:19). James could say, “Moses of old time hath in every city them that preach him” (Acts 15:21), every city, as in Jehoshaphat’s day. The book the Levites carried is the book the Son of David teaches; as our Statement of Faith confesses, the Torah is not replaced.

17:10–19 · The fear of Hashem on the kingdoms

“And the fear of Hashem fell upon all the kingdoms of the lands that were round about Judah, so that they made no war against Jehoshaphat” (17:10).

פַּחַד יְהוָה (pachad Hashem). After Asa’s victory “the fear of Hashem came upon” the cities round Gerar (14:13, KJV 14:14). Here there is no battle at all: the teachers went out, and the wars stayed away. The Philistines brought tribute, and the Arabians 7,700 rams and 7,700 he goats (17:11). Against his son Hashem will stir up “the spirit of the Philistines, and of the Arabians” (21:16).

The numbers. “And Jehoshaphat waxed great exceedingly” (17:12–13). Of Judah, “Adnah the chief, and with him mighty men of valour three hundred thousand” (17:14), Jehohanan with 280,000 (17:15) and Amasiah with 200,000 (17:16); of Benjamin, Eliada with “armed men with bow and shield two hundred thousand” (17:17) and Jehozabad with 180,000 (17:18). Judah’s 780,000 and Benjamin’s 380,000 make 1,160,000, exactly twice Asa’s 580,000 (14:7, KJV 14:8), “beside those whom the king put in the fenced cities” (17:19). The numbers are very large, as at 13:3. Some take אֶלֶף (elef) here as a military unit rather than a thousand; we give them as written.

“And next him was Amasiah the son of Zichri, who willingly offered himself unto Hashem” (17:16).

Hebrew lesson: הַמִּתְנַדֵּב לַיהוָה (ha-mitnadev la-Hashem), “who willingly offered himself unto Hashem.” Of all the captains, one is remembered for his heart. It is the word of Deborah’s song, “when the people willingly offered themselves” (Judges 5:2), and of David’s question, “who then is willing to consecrate his service this day unto Hashem?” (1 Chronicles 29:5; see our 1 Chronicles commentary on 29:1–5). “Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power” (Psalm 110:3). The army was counted; the volunteer was named.

Chapter 18 · Micaiah Before the Two Kings

Read 2 Chronicles 18 in Hebrew and English →

18:1–3 · “I am as thou art”

“Now Jehoshaphat had riches and honour in abundance, and joined affinity with Ahab” (18:1).

The chapter opens with the words of 17:5. Jehoshaphat did not need Ahab.

Hebrew lesson: וַיִּתְחַתֵּן (va-yitchatten), “joined affinity.” It means to become in-laws, as Solomon “made affinity with Pharaoh” (1 Kings 3:1; compare Deuteronomy 7:3). Ahab was an Israelite, but he “took to wife Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal king of the Zidonians, and went and served Baal” (1 Kings 16:31). Jehoshaphat’s son Jehoram took “the daughter of Ahab to wife” (21:6): Athaliah, whom 22:2 calls “the daughter of Omri,” Ahab’s father (1 Kings 16:28). What came of it is told at 22:10.

“And after certain years he went down to Ahab to Samaria. And Ahab killed sheep and oxen for him in abundance, and for the people that he had with him, and persuaded him to go up with him to Ramoth-gilead” (18:2).

Only in Chronicles. Kings says “in the third year” and has no feast and no persuading (1 Kings 22:2). The verb is וַיְסִיתֵהוּ (va-yesitehu), “he incited him.” It is the verb of Satan, who “provoked David to number Israel” (1 Chronicles 21:1; see our 1 Chronicles commentary on 21:1–6), of Jezebel, “whom Jezebel his wife stirred up” (1 Kings 21:25), and of the one who would “entice thee secretly” to other gods (Deuteronomy 13:6, Hebrew 13:7). It comes back at 18:31.

“And Ahab king of Israel said unto Jehoshaphat king of Judah, Wilt thou go with me to Ramoth-gilead? And he answered him, I am as thou art, and my people as thy people; and we will be with thee in the war” (18:3).

Word by word with Kings. Kings has “my horses as thy horses” (1 Kings 22:4); Chronicles has “and we will be with thee in the war.” The words sound like Ruth’s, “thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God” (Ruth 1:16). Ruth joined herself to Israel’s God; Jehoshaphat joined himself to Ahab’s war. Jehu son of Hanani will ask, “Shouldest thou help the ungodly?” (19:2).

18:4–11 · Four hundred prophets, and horns of iron

“And Jehoshaphat said unto the king of Israel, Enquire, I pray thee, at the word of Hashem to day” (18:4). דְּרָשׁ־נָא (derash na), “seek, please.” The seeker asks for Hashem’s word, but only after he has said yes.

“Therefore the king of Israel gathered together of prophets four hundred men, and said unto them, Shall we go to Ramoth-gilead to battle, or shall I forbear? And they said, Go up; for God will deliver it into the king’s hand” (18:5).

Some call them prophets of Baal, like “the prophets of the groves four hundred” at Jezebel’s table (1 Kings 18:19); but these speak in Hashem’s name (18:10–11). Either way, they said what the king wanted.

“But Jehoshaphat said, Is there not here a prophet of Hashem besides, that we might enquire of him? And the king of Israel said unto Jehoshaphat, There is yet one man, by whom we may enquire of Hashem: but I hate him; for he never prophesied good unto me, but always evil: the same is Micaiah the son of Imla. And Jehoshaphat said, Let not the king say so” (18:6–7).

Word by word with Kings. Kings has “he doth not prophesy good concerning me, but evil” (1 Kings 22:8). Chronicles adds כָּל יָמָיו (kol yamav), “all his days,” the KJV’s “always.” מִיכָיְהוּ (Michayehu) means “Who is like Hashem?” (Exodus 15:11).

“And the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat king of Judah sat either of them on his throne, clothed in their robes, and they sat in a void place at the entering in of the gate of Samaria; and all the prophets prophesied before them” (18:9; the summons is 18:8).

Hebrew lesson: בְּגֹרֶן (be-goren), “in a void place.” The word is “threshing floor.” The sages pictured a court in that shape: the Sanhedrin sat “like half a round threshing floor, so that they could see one another” (Mishnah Sanhedrin 4:3). A threshing floor parts wheat from chaff (Matthew 3:12). That day at Samaria’s gate, this one parted one prophet from four hundred.

“And Zedekiah the son of Chenaanah had made him horns of iron, and said, Thus saith Hashem, With these thou shalt push Syria until they be consumed” (18:10).

Hebrew lesson: תְּנַגַּח (tenaggach), “thou shalt push.” It is the verb of Moses’ blessing of Joseph: “his horns are like the horns of unicorns: with them he shall push the people together to the ends of the earth” (Deuteronomy 33:17). We hear Zedekiah acting out Joseph’s blessing for the king who ruled the house of Joseph (see 10:16–19). The blessing is real, and our tradition speaks of a Mashiach from Joseph (see 12:13–16); but no one can borrow Hashem’s blessing for a war He did not send. Hashem’s “horn of salvation” is raised “in the house of his servant David” (Luke 1:69).

“And all the prophets prophesied so, saying, Go up to Ramoth-gilead, and prosper: for Hashem shall deliver it into the hand of the king” (18:11). Now all of them use the Name.

18:12–17 · “What my God saith, that will I speak”

“Behold, the words of the prophets declare good to the king with one assent; let thy word therefore, I pray thee, be like one of theirs, and speak thou good” (18:12).

What the sages say. “With one assent” is פֶּה אֶחָד (peh echad), “one mouth.” The Talmud asks how Jehoshaphat knew the four hundred were false, and answers with a rule: “One signal comes up to many prophets, but no two prophets prophesy in the same signal” (Sanhedrin 89a). Four hundred men with one script were an echo.

“And Micaiah said, As Hashem liveth, even what my God saith, that will I speak” (18:13).

Kings has “what Hashem saith unto me” (1 Kings 22:14); Chronicles has אֱלֹהַי (Elohai), “my God.” It is the Torah’s picture of a prophet: “and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him” (Deuteronomy 18:18).

“Micaiah, shall we go to Ramoth-gilead to battle, or shall I forbear? And he said, Go ye up, and prosper, and they shall be delivered into your hand” (18:14).

Word by word with Kings. Micaiah gives back the chorus, and the king hears the mockery (18:15). In Kings he says, “for Hashem shall deliver it into the hand of the king” (1 Kings 22:15). In Chronicles the Name is gone: “they shall be delivered into your hand.” He would not put Hashem’s Name on an echo.

“Then he said, I did see all Israel scattered upon the mountains, as sheep that have no shepherd: and Hashem said, These have no master; let them return therefore every man to his house in peace” (18:16).

Hebrew lesson: כַּצֹּאן אֲשֶׁר אֵין לָהֶן רֹעֶה (ka-tzon asher ein lahen ro’eh), “as sheep that have no shepherd.” The phrase is found only three times in the Tenakh: here, in Kings (1 Kings 22:17), and in Moses’ prayer for a successor, “that the congregation of Hashem be not as sheep which have no shepherd” (Numbers 27:17). Hashem answered Moses with Joshua, “Jeshua” in Nehemiah 8:17, the name Yeshua. And the vision’s end, “return… every man to his house in peace,” comes true for one king: “Jehoshaphat the king of Judah returned to his house in peace to Jerusalem” (19:1).

Messianic reading. Hashem’s answer to scattered sheep is “one shepherd over them… even my servant David” (Ezekiel 34:23). Yeshua saw the crowds “scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd” (Matthew 9:36). First the shepherd was struck and the sheep scattered (Zechariah 13:7; Matthew 26:31). As our Statement of Faith confesses, he came first in the pattern of Mashiach ben Yosef and will return as Mashiach ben David, “gathering Israel.”

“And the king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, Did I not tell thee that he would not prophesy good unto me, but evil?” (18:17).

18:18–22 · The host of heaven and the lying spirit

“Therefore hear the word of Hashem; I saw Hashem sitting upon his throne, and all the host of heaven standing on his right hand and on his left” (18:18). Kings has “hear thou” (1 Kings 22:19); Chronicles has שִׁמְעוּ (shim’u), “hear ye,” to both kings. Job’s story opens in this court (Job 1:6).

Hashem asks, “Who shall entice Ahab king of Israel, that he may go up and fall at Ramoth-gilead?” (18:19). “Then there came out a spirit, and stood before Hashem, and said, I will entice him” (18:20). It will be “a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets” (18:21). “Now therefore, behold, Hashem hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of these thy prophets, and Hashem hath spoken evil against thee” (18:22).

What the sages say. The Hebrew has the article, הָרוּחַ (ha-ruach), “the spirit,” a particular one. Rabbi Yochanan says it was the spirit of Naboth the Jezreelite, whom Ahab had killed for his vineyard (Sanhedrin 89a; 1 Kings 21). And “go out” (18:21) means: go out from My presence. The Talmud learns from it that one through whom his fellow is punished is not brought into the Holy One’s presence (Shabbat 149b).

Hebrew lesson: בְּפִי (be-fi), “in the mouth.” Hashem promised a prophet: וְנָתַתִּי דְבָרַי בְּפִיו (ve-natatti devarai be-fiv), “and will put my words in his mouth” (Deuteronomy 18:18). Micaiah says: נָתַן יְהוָה רוּחַ שֶׁקֶר בְּפִי (natan Hashem ruach sheker be-fi), “Hashem hath put a lying spirit in the mouth” (18:22). The same verb, the same mouth. A king who wants only agreeable words can have them.

Hashem does not lie. “God is not a man, that he should lie” (Numbers 23:19). Micaiah told Ahab the whole council before it worked, and Ahab went knowing what heaven had said. Paul describes the same justice: “because they received not the love of the truth… God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie” (2 Thessalonians 2:10–11).

Our teachers. FFOZ’s End of Days uses this chapter to show how Hashem uses the adversary: “If God is truly just and righteous, He does not send an agent to deliberately deceive a victim and then punish the deceived for being deceived. However, He might send a deceiver to test human hearts… God might send Satan to reinforce an evil choice the person has already chosen. And God might send Satan to enact a punishment from heaven” (Lesson 37, “Unchained”). FFOZ names the spirit as Satan, and the sages name Naboth; the verse names no one. Either way it goes only where it is sent, and Ahab had chosen already.

18:23–27 · A blow on the cheek

“Then Zedekiah the son of Chenaanah came near, and smote Micaiah upon the cheek, and said, Which way went the Spirit of Hashem from me to speak unto thee?” (18:23). Chronicles adds one word to Kings (1 Kings 22:24), הַדֶּרֶךְ (ha-derech), “the way”: by which road did the Spirit leave me?

Messianic reading. Micah, who bears nearly Micaiah’s name, foresaw it of a ruler: “they shall smite the judge of Israel with a rod upon the cheek” (Micah 5:1, Hebrew 4:14), and in the next verse names Bethlehem. In the high priest’s house “one of the officers which stood by struck Yeshua with the palm of his hand,” and he answered, “If I have spoken evil, bear witness of the evil: but if well, why smitest thou me?” (John 18:22–23).

“Behold, thou shalt see on that day when thou shalt go into an inner chamber to hide thyself” (18:24). Neither book tells when Zedekiah hid. Ahab sends Micaiah back “to Amon the governor of the city, and to Joash the king’s son” (18:25): “Put this fellow in the prison, and feed him with bread of affliction and with water of affliction, until I return in peace” (18:26).

Hebrew lesson: לֶחֶם לַחַץ (lechem lachatz), “bread of affliction.” This is not the matzah’s “bread of affliction,” לֶחֶם עֹנִי (lechem oni, Deuteronomy 16:3). Lachatz is pressure, a prisoner’s ration. Isaiah promises that after “the water of affliction” (mayim lachatz), “thine eyes shall see thy teachers” (Isaiah 30:20). Two kings in these chapters imprison a prophet, Asa (16:10) and Ahab (18:26).

“And Micaiah said, If thou certainly return in peace, then hath not Hashem spoken by me. And he said, Hearken, all ye people” (18:27).

The Torah’s test. Micaiah stakes his word on Deuteronomy: “if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which Hashem hath not spoken” (Deuteronomy 18:22). Our Sukkot 5787 shiur “The Son of David,” listing the Torah’s tests for anyone who claims to speak for Hashem, put it simply: “His word must come true (Deuteronomy 18:21–22).” Micaiah’s last words, שִׁמְעוּ עַמִּים כֻּלָּם (shim’u ammim kullam), open the prophecy of Micah the Morasthite, a different prophet, in the days of Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah (Micah 1:1–2).

18:28–34 · “Jehoshaphat cried out, and Hashem helped him”

“So the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat the king of Judah went up to Ramoth-gilead” (18:28). After all he had heard, Jehoshaphat went.

“And the king of Israel said unto Jehoshaphat, I will disguise myself, and will go to the battle; but put thou on thy robes” (18:29). Saul “disguised himself” for Endor (1 Samuel 28:8), and Josiah will at Megiddo (35:22). Ahab tried to escape Hashem’s word by changing clothes, and left his ally in royal robes. The king of Syria ordered, “Fight ye not with small or great, save only with the king of Israel” (18:30); Kings counts “his thirty and two captains” (1 Kings 22:31), and Chronicles drops the number.

“And it came to pass, when the captains of the chariots saw Jehoshaphat, that they said, It is the king of Israel. Therefore they compassed about him to fight: but Jehoshaphat cried out, and Hashem helped him; and God moved them to depart from him” (18:31).

Only in Chronicles. Kings ends the sentence at “and Jehoshaphat cried out” (1 Kings 22:32). Chronicles says who heard: וַיהוָה עֲזָרוֹ וַיְסִיתֵם אֱלֹהִים מִמֶּנּוּ (va-Hashem azaro va-yesitem Elohim mimmennu). Asa had prayed, עָזְרֵנוּ (ozrenu), “help us” (14:10), and was helped; his son cries out in the wrong war and is helped too. “Call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee” (Psalm 50:15).

Hebrew lesson: וַיְסִיתֵם (va-yesitem), “moved them.” It is the verb of 18:2, where Ahab “persuaded” Jehoshaphat to go up. One verb opens and closes the story: Ahab enticed the king of Judah into the battle, and God enticed the chariots away from him (18:32).

“And a certain man drew a bow at a venture, and smote the king of Israel between the joints of the harness: therefore he said to his chariot man, Turn thine hand, that thou mayest carry me out of the host; for I am wounded” (18:33).

Hebrew lesson: לְתֻמּוֹ (le-tummo), “at a venture.” It means “in his simplicity,” without aim, as Absalom’s guests “went in their simplicity, and they knew not any thing” (2 Samuel 15:11). The archer did not know whom he shot. The disguise hid Ahab from the captains; it could not hide him from the eyes that “run to and fro throughout the whole earth” (16:9).

Our teachers. Who was the archer? Ariel Cohen Alloro, in his video “Elisha the Prophet – Part 4 (Naaman),” gives the midrash: “our sages said that the Midrash said that Naaman is the man” who shot, and “he didn’t know that this is Achav because he was not dressed like a king.” Rashi brings it on the verse that says Naaman was honored “because by him Hashem had given deliverance unto Syria” (Rashi on 2 Kings 5:1). The Targum on Zechariah 12:11 names another man, Hadadrimmon son of Tabrimmon (see 35:25–27).

“And the battle increased that day: howbeit the king of Israel stayed himself up in his chariot against the Syrians until the even: and about the time of the sun going down he died” (18:34).

What Chronicles leaves out. Kings goes on: the blood ran into the chariot (1 Kings 22:35), they buried the king in Samaria (22:37), and “the dogs licked up his blood… according unto the word of Hashem which he spake” (22:38), Elijah’s word at Naboth’s vineyard (1 Kings 21:19). Chronicles tells neither Naboth nor Elijah’s word, so it stops at “he died.” The Torah’s test is passed: Ahab did not return in peace.

Messianic reading. One king disguised himself and was found; the other stood in the wrong place in royal robes, cried out, and was saved. “The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me” (Hebrews 13:6).

Drawing it together

1. Lean on Hashem. Asa rested on Hashem against a million (14:10), then leaned on Damascus (16:7). The plan worked and was foolish. “The eyes of Hashem run to and fro” (16:9), looking for a whole heart, not a large army.

2. The healers and the Healer. The Torah commands healing (Exodus 21:19; Bava Kamma 85a). Asa’s fault was not the physicians but “not to Hashem” (16:12). We call the doctor, and we pray to “Hashem that healeth thee” (Exodus 15:26).

3. The Torah sent out. Jehoshaphat answered the years “without a teaching priest” (15:3) by sending princes, Levites and priests to every city with “the book of the law of Hashem” (17:9). The fear of Hashem kept the wars away. The Son of David still sends his disciples out “Teaching them to observe all things” (Matthew 28:20).

4. One mouth, and the word of my God. Four hundred spoke “with one assent” (18:12); one man said “what my God saith, that will I speak” (18:13), and the Torah’s test proved him (Deuteronomy 18:22). Hashem told Ahab the whole council, and Ahab went anyway.

5. Sheep without a shepherd, and a cry that is heard. Micaiah saw Israel scattered without a shepherd (18:16), in Moses’ words. Jehoshaphat cried out in the wrong battle, and Hashem helped him (18:31). The shepherd was struck first; he came in the pattern of Mashiach ben Yosef and will return as Mashiach ben David, the “one shepherd” (Ezekiel 34:23).

Questions for discussion

1. How do Seder Olam and the reigns of Rehoboam and Abijah explain “the six and thirtieth year” of 16:1 (1 Kings 15:33; 16:8)?
2. What did Asa buy with the silver of the House (16:2–3), and what did Hanani say it cost him (16:7)?
3. Trace the verb nish’an, “to rely,” through 13:18, 14:10 and 16:7–8. What do Zechariah 4:6, 10 add to 16:9?
4. Who else heard or said “thou hast done foolishly” (1 Samuel 13:13; 1 Chronicles 21:8)? How did David answer, and how did Asa (16:10)?
5. What does Exodus 21:19 teach about physicians? What, then, was Asa’s fault in 16:12?
6. Why might 17:3 say “the first ways” of David? How is the lifted heart of 17:6 different from 26:16 and 32:25?
7. Whom did Jehoshaphat send to teach, and what did they carry (17:7–9)? How do Deuteronomy 31:9–12, Malachi 2:7 and Acts 15:21 frame their mission?
8. What does va-yesitehu, “persuaded him” (18:2), share with 18:31 and 1 Chronicles 21:1?
9. How did Jehoshaphat know the four hundred were not enough (18:6, 12; Sanhedrin 89a)? What does Chronicles change in Micaiah’s words (18:13–14)?
10. If “Hashem hath put a lying spirit in the mouth” of the prophets (18:22), how is Hashem still true (Numbers 23:19)? What do Numbers 27:17 and Ezekiel 34:23 add to “sheep that have no shepherd” (18:16)?

Sources

Scripture: 2 Chronicles 1, 9–10, 12–22, 24–26, 28, 32, 34–35; 1 Chronicles 9, 21, 29; 1 Kings 3, 11, 15–16, 18, 20–22; 2 Kings 5; Exodus 15, 21, 30; Leviticus 10; Numbers 23, 27; Deuteronomy 7, 13, 16, 18, 31, 33; Judges 5; Ruth 1; 1 Samuel 13, 28; 2 Samuel 15, 24; Psalms 15, 50, 110, 118, 131; Proverbs 6; Isaiah 30, 42; Jeremiah 20, 34; Ezekiel 34; Micah 1, 5; Zechariah 4, 12–13; Malachi 2; Nehemiah 8–9; Job 1; Matthew 3, 5, 9, 12, 26, 28; Mark 5; Luke 1, 10; John 18–19; Acts 15; 2 Thessalonians 2; Hebrews 13; James 5.

Talmud and Midrash: Seder Olam; Sotah 10a; Bava Kamma 85a; Avodah Zarah 11a; Makkot 24a; Bava Batra 4a; Sanhedrin 89a; Shabbat 149b; Mishnah Sanhedrin 4:3; Mishnah Sotah 9:15; the Targum on Zechariah 12:11.

Commentators: Rashi on 2 Kings 5:1; Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh De’ah 336:1.

Our teachers and materials: First Fruits of Zion, End of Days (5786), Lesson 37, “Unchained”; Rabbi Efraim Palvanov, “Third Rome: Russia, Ukraine, and Mashiach” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHxGdSm3ET4), “Understanding Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes” (https://youtu.be/4kb0iQZIRcU) and “Understanding Edom #2 – Trump & Herod” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZxVH91iHPs); Ariel Cohen Alloro, “Elisha the Prophet – Part 4 (Naaman)” (https://youtu.be/PCSEoyp6g34); Benei Avraham classes “Chesed Shel Emet: Messianic Jewish Care for the Sick & Dying” (https://youtu.be/ru8XizEB14A) and “Roles in Synagogue Leadership: Rabbi, Chazan, and More” (https://youtu.be/L7fPBfnhRF0); our Sukkot 5787 shiur “The Son of David”; our 1 Chronicles commentary on 21:1–6, 21:7–13, 29:1–5 and 29:6–9; our 2 Samuel commentary on chapter 11; Benei Avraham Statement of Faith.

Before we begin

“And Jehoshaphat the king of Judah returned to his house in peace to Jerusalem” (19:1). He has come home from Ramoth-gilead, where Ahab died (18:31–34). A seer rebukes him, he sets judges in every city and a court in Jerusalem, a great army comes from beyond the sea, and Judah wins by singing. Then his firstborn kills his brothers, walks in the way of the house of Ahab, and receives a letter from Elijah.

Most of this is only in Chronicles; Kings sums up Jehoshaphat’s reign in ten verses (1 Kings 22:41–50) and Jehoram’s reign in nine (2 Kings 8:16–24). The rule of the book stands over all of it (see 15:2): Jehoshaphat “set himself to seek Hashem” (20:3), and his son “had forsaken Hashem God of his fathers” (21:10). Between them stands a promise: “Howbeit Hashem would not destroy the house of David” (21:7). In these chapters the Hebrew and English verse numbers are the same.

How this commentary is built. We read the text first, in Hebrew where it matters, because Torah comes first and the Prophets and Writings are measured by it. Then we hear the sages: the Talmud, the Midrash, Rashi, Radak and Rambam. Then our own teachers: the FFOZ End of Days lessons, Rabbi Efraim Palvanov and Ariel Cohen Alloro, along with our own Benei Avraham classes. Last, we ask what the passage shows us about Mashiach.

A word on our teachers. Rabbi Palvanov and Ariel Cohen Alloro bring a great deal of Kabbalah and gematria. We use their insights as remez, a hint that opens a door, and never as proof. Gematria can show a connection the text already makes, but it cannot make a doctrine by itself. Where a teacher’s framework goes beyond what Benei Avraham confesses (for example, on reincarnation or on the nature of God), we take the insight and leave the framework. “To the Torah and to the testimony” (Isaiah 8:20) is the test for all of it, our own words included.

Scripture is quoted from the King James Version with Hashem in place of LORD, as in our Statement of Faith.

Chapter 19 · Judges in Every City

Read 2 Chronicles 19 in Hebrew and English →

19:1–3 · “Shouldest thou help the ungodly?”

“In peace.” בְּשָׁלוֹם (be-shalom) is the word of the chapter before. Ahab jailed Micaiah “until I return in peace,” and Micaiah answered, “If thou certainly return in peace, then hath not Hashem spoken by me” (18:26–27). Ahab did not come home. Jehoshaphat did, because “Jehoshaphat cried out, and Hashem helped him” (18:31).

“And Jehu the son of Hanani the seer went out to meet him, and said to king Jehoshaphat, Shouldest thou help the ungodly, and love them that hate Hashem? therefore is wrath upon thee from before Hashem” (19:2).

Father and son. Hanani rebuked Asa and was put “in a prison house” (16:7–10); his son Jehu had prophesied against Baasha (1 Kings 16:1–7). Now Jehu meets the son of the king who jailed his father.

Hebrew lesson: הֲלָרָשָׁע לַעְזֹר (ha-la-rasha la’zor), “shouldest thou help the ungodly?” The verb עָזַר (azar) is the verb of 18:31, “and Hashem helped him.” Jehoshaphat helped the wicked, and Hashem had to help Jehoshaphat. The second verb, תֶּאֱהָב (te’ehav), “love,” can mean a king’s loyalty: “Hiram was ever a lover of David” (1 Kings 5:1). Jehoshaphat had “joined affinity with Ahab” (18:1), and the bond was a marriage: his son took “the daughter of Ahab” (21:6). This is not the love of enemies Yeshua commands (Matthew 5:44). It is a king binding his house to the house that served Baal.

The text does not say when the “wrath” came: the invasion that follows “after this” (20:1), or the broken ships (20:37)? Our lean is that the heaviest cost came later. The daughter of Ahab would bring the house of David nearer to its end than any army (21:6; 22:10).

“Nevertheless there are good things found in thee, in that thou hast taken away the groves out of the land, and hast prepared thine heart to seek God” (19:3). On the “good things” and the prepared heart, see 12:9–12 and 12:13–16.

19:4–7 · “Ye judge not for man, but for Hashem”

“And Jehoshaphat dwelt at Jerusalem: and he went out again through the people from Beer-sheba to mount Ephraim, and brought them back unto Hashem God of their fathers” (19:4).

Hebrew lesson: שׁוּב (shuv), “return.” The king “returned” in peace, וַיָּשָׁב (va-yashav, 19:1). He went out “again,” וַיָּשָׁב (19:4), and “brought them back,” וַיְשִׁיבֵם (va-yeshivem). The judges sit in Jerusalem “when they returned” (19:8). The king who came back from Ahab’s war spends his return bringing others back: teshuvah worked out in a kingdom. Earlier he had sent teachers (17:7–9); now he goes himself.

“And he set judges in the land throughout all the fenced cities of Judah, city by city” (19:5). It is the Torah’s command: “Judges and officers shalt thou make thee in all thy gates” (Deuteronomy 16:18). On the Levites as “officers and judges” under David, see our 1 Chronicles commentary on 26:29–32.

“And said to the judges, Take heed what ye do: for ye judge not for man, but for Hashem, who is with you in the judgment” (19:6).

Hebrew lesson: כִּי לֹא לְאָדָם תִּשְׁפְּטוּ כִּי לַיהוָה (ki lo le-adam tishpetu ki la-Hashem). Moses said it first: “ye shall not be afraid of the face of man; for the judgment is God’s” (Deuteronomy 1:17). Keep the shape of the sentence in mind; Jahaziel will use it (20:15). The king’s name, יְהוֹשָׁפָט (Yehoshafat), means “Hashem has judged,” and he tells his judges that the judgment is Hashem’s. “Take heed” opens the charge and “Deal courageously,” חִזְקוּ וַעֲשׂוּ (chizku va’asu, 19:11), closes it: David’s words to Solomon about the House, “Take heed now… be strong, and do it” (1 Chronicles 28:10; see our 1 Chronicles commentary on 28:9–10).

What the sages say.

The judges should know whom they are judging, and before Whom they are judging, and Who will exact payment from them… And lest the judge say, What have I to do with this trouble? Scripture says, “who is with you in the judgment”: the judge has only what his eyes see. (Sanhedrin 6b)

“Wherefore now let the fear of Hashem be upon you; take heed and do it: for there is no iniquity with Hashem our God, nor respect of persons, nor taking of gifts” (19:7).

The judge copies his God. Moses said that Hashem “regardeth not persons, nor taketh reward” (Deuteronomy 10:17), לֹא יִשָּׂא פָנִים וְלֹא יִקַּח שֹׁחַד (lo yissa fanim ve-lo yikkach shochad), and Chronicles turns the same words into nouns, מַשֹּׂא פָנִים וּמִקַּח־שֹׁחַד (masso fanim u-mikkach shochad). So the law for judges reads, “thou shalt not respect persons, neither take a gift” (Deuteronomy 16:19). A judge may not do what Hashem does not do.

Our Statement of Faith reads these Torah verses and draws the rule: “When Hashem gives someone authority to judge, this does not make that person Hashem. It means that the person judges as Hashem’s appointed representative.”

Messianic reading. Yeshua said of himself what Jehoshaphat said to his judges: “the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son” (John 5:22), and “as I hear, I judge… because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me” (John 5:30).

19:8–11 · The court in Jerusalem

“Moreover in Jerusalem did Jehoshaphat set of the Levites, and of the priests, and of the chief of the fathers of Israel, for the judgment of Hashem, and for controversies” (19:8).

Deuteronomy 17 in practice. “If there arise a matter too hard for thee in judgment, between blood and blood… then shalt thou… get thee up into the place which Hashem thy God shall choose; And thou shalt come unto the priests the Levites” (Deuteronomy 17:8–9). Jehoshaphat uses the phrase, “between blood and blood” (19:10). Jethro gave Moses the same plan: “every great matter they shall bring unto thee, but every small matter they shall judge” (Exodus 18:22).

“And what cause soever shall come to you of your brethren… between law and commandment, statutes and judgments, ye shall even warn them that they trespass not against Hashem, and so wrath come upon you” (19:10).

Hebrew lesson: וְהִזְהַרְתֶּם (ve-hizhartem), “ye shall even warn them.” It is Jethro’s word again: “thou shalt teach them,” וְהִזְהַרְתָּה (ve-hizhartah), “ordinances and laws” (Exodus 18:20). A court in Israel teaches and warns. The wrath of 19:2 came on the king; the judges are set to keep it off the people.

What the sages say. The sages read Deuteronomy 17 as the charter of the Great Sanhedrin. Rambam: “The Great Court in Jerusalem is the root of the Oral Torah. They are the pillars of instruction, and from them statute and judgment go out to all Israel” (Hilchot Mamrim 1:1). Our class “Paul & Other Hard Topics — A Torah-Faithful Perspective” said it the same way: “this great court, this Sanhedrin gains its authority from the Torah itself,” and the courts “are not supposed to change the Torah, but they are supposed to interpret the Torah.”

“And, behold, Amariah the chief priest is over you in all matters of Hashem; and Zebadiah the son of Ishmael, the ruler of the house of Judah, for all the king’s matters: also the Levites shall be officers before you. Deal courageously, and Hashem shall be with the good” (19:11).

Two heads. The priest leads in Hashem’s matters, the nagid in the king’s, and the Levites are the shotrim, the “officers” of Deuteronomy 16:18 (see our 1 Chronicles commentary on 26:29–32). The last words are וִיהִי יְהוָה עִם־הַטּוֹב (vihi Hashem im ha-tov), “and Hashem shall be with the good.” Jehu found “good things” in the king (19:3); the king asks his judges to be the good with whom Hashem stands.

Our teachers. FFOZ’s End of Days takes this plan as the model for the age to come, when the righteous resurrected will govern the world “within a similar hierarchical arrangement”: “Every minor dispute they themselves will judge,” but “every major dispute” they will bring “up to the place which the LORD your God chooses” (Lesson 25, “Twelve Thrones,” on Exodus 18:22 and Deuteronomy 17:8).

Messianic reading. Isaiah promised, “I will restore thy judges as at the first” (Isaiah 1:26). The sages built on it the eleventh blessing of the weekday Amidah: Hashivah shofteinu ke-varishonah, “Restore our judges as at the first.” Hashivah is the verb of 19:4, va-yeshivem, “he brought them back.” Jehoshaphat brought the people back and gave them judges; every weekday we ask Hashem to do both.

Chapter 20 · The Battle Is Not Yours

Read 2 Chronicles 20 in Hebrew and English →

20:1–4 · “A great multitude… from beyond the sea”

Moab and Ammon come “and with them other beside the Ammonites” (20:1). The Hebrew says only “some of the Ammonites,” and the Greek translation reads “some of the Meunites” (compare 26:7, KJV “the Mehunims”). The prayer names the third partner: “mount Seir” (20:10).

“There cometh a great multitude against thee from beyond the sea on this side Syria; and, behold, they be Hazazon-tamar, which is En-gedi” (20:2).

Hazazon-tamar. The sea is the Dead Sea. “On this side Syria” is מֵאֲרָם (me-Aram), and many read מֵאֱדוֹם (me-Edom), “from Edom,” since ר and ד are easily confused. The name Hazazon-tamar appears in only one other verse. The four kings “smote… the Amorites that dwelt in Hazezon-tamar” (Genesis 14:7) on their way to Sodom, where they took Lot captive, and Abram brought him back (Genesis 14:12–16). Moab and Ammon are Lot’s sons (Genesis 19:37–38). The children of the man Abraham rescued come to the place his captors passed, against the children of Abraham.

“And Jehoshaphat feared, and set himself to seek Hashem, and proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah” (20:3).

Hebrew lesson: וַיִּתֵּן יְהוֹשָׁפָט אֶת־פָּנָיו לִדְרוֹשׁ (va-yitten Yehoshafat et panav lidrosh), “set his face to seek.” The Chronicler admits he was afraid. Fear did not send him to an ally; it sent him to Hashem. The people come “to ask help of Hashem” and “to seek Hashem” (20:4), first something from Him, then Hashem Himself.

20:5–13 · “Our eyes are upon thee”

He stood “in the house of Hashem, before the new court” (20:5), where Solomon had prayed (see 6:12–17).

“O Hashem God of our fathers, art not thou God in heaven? and rulest not thou over all the kingdoms of the heathen? and in thine hand is there not power and might, so that none is able to withstand thee?” (20:6).

David’s words in his son’s mouth. David blessed Hashem: “thou reignest over all; and in thine hand is power and might” (1 Chronicles 29:12; see our 1 Chronicles commentary on 29:10–19). The Hebrew is the same, מוֹשֵׁל (moshel) and וּבְיָדְךָ כֹּחַ וּגְבוּרָה (u-ve-yadecha koach u-gevurah). What David sang in peace, his descendant prays in danger. Remember the verb of “withstand,” לְהִתְיַצֵּב (lehityatzev), “to take a stand.”

“Art not thou our God, who didst drive out the inhabitants of this land before thy people Israel, and gavest it to the seed of Abraham thy friend for ever?” (20:7).

Hebrew lesson: אֹהַבְךָ (ohavcha), “thy friend.” Literally, “the one who loves You.” The Tenakh calls Abraham Hashem’s friend twice: here, in a king’s prayer, and in Hashem’s own mouth, “the seed of Abraham my friend” (Isaiah 41:8). James took up the title: “he was called the Friend of God” (James 2:23). The root is the root of 19:2. Jehoshaphat had been rebuked for loving, te’ehav, those who hate Hashem. Now he pleads the name of the man who loved Him.

He prays Solomon’s prayer back to Hashem, “we stand before this house… and cry unto thee in our affliction, then thou wilt hear and help” (20:9; see 6:22–31 and 7:13–16). The enemies are peoples “whom thou wouldest not let Israel invade” (20:10), Esau’s sons and Lot’s (Deuteronomy 2:4–5, 9, 19). Israel spared them as kin; now they come “to cast us out” (20:11).

“O our God, wilt thou not judge them? for we have no might against this great company that cometh against us; neither know we what to do: but our eyes are upon thee” (20:12).

Hebrew lesson: וַאֲנַחְנוּ לֹא נֵדַע מַה־נַּעֲשֶׂה כִּי עָלֶיךָ עֵינֵינוּ (va-anachnu lo neda mah na’aseh ki alecha eineinu). These words are said in Tachanun, the weekday prayer of supplication, in the Ashkenazi siddur. Jews say Jehoshaphat’s sentence in their weekday prayers with no army at the door. And “wilt thou not judge them?”: the king named “Hashem has judged” asks Hashem to judge. “We have no might,” אֵין בָּנוּ כֹּחַ (ein banu koach); the koach is in Hashem’s hand (20:6).

“And all Judah stood before Hashem, with their little ones, their wives, and their children” (20:13).

Our teachers. FFOZ’s End of Days imagines the last siege of Jerusalem at the end of the Messianic age in this chapter’s words: “the King stands in the assembly, in the house of the LORD, before the new court,” and prays Jehoshaphat’s prayer, while the people pray, “nor do we know what to do, but our eyes are on You” (Lesson 37, “Unchained”). FFOZ calls the lesson speculation, and we take it as a picture, not a timetable. But it is right about the King: the Son of David does not take Hashem’s place. He leads the people in looking to Him.

20:14–19 · “The battle is not yours, but God’s”

“Then upon Jahaziel the son of Zechariah… a Levite of the sons of Asaph, came the Spirit of Hashem in the midst of the congregation” (20:14).

A singer prophesies. His line is traced through four fathers to the sons of Asaph; on singers who “prophesy with harps,” see our 1 Chronicles commentary on 25:1–3. His name, יַחֲזִיאֵל (Yachazi’el), is built on חָזָה (chazah), “to see,” the root of ha-chozeh, “the seer” (19:2). The people said “our eyes are upon thee,” and Hashem answered by a man named “God sees.”

“Be not afraid nor dismayed by reason of this great multitude; for the battle is not yours, but God’s” (20:15).

Hebrew lesson: כִּי לֹא לָכֶם הַמִּלְחָמָה כִּי לֵאלֹהִים (ki lo lachem ha-milchamah ki le-Elohim). It is the sentence of 19:6. The king told the judges, “ye judge not for man, but for Hashem.” The Levite tells the king, “the battle is not yours, but God’s.” David said it to Goliath: “for the battle is Hashem’s” (1 Samuel 17:47).

“Ye shall not need to fight in this battle: set yourselves, stand ye still, and see the salvation of Hashem with you, O Judah and Jerusalem: fear not, nor be dismayed; to morrow go out against them: for Hashem will be with you” (20:17).

At the sea again. Moses said at the Red Sea, “Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of Hashem” (Exodus 14:13). Jahaziel says הִתְיַצְּבוּ עִמְדוּ וּרְאוּ אֶת־יְשׁוּעַת יְהוָה (hityatzvu imdu u-re’u et yeshu’at Hashem). The phrase yeshu’at Hashem, “the salvation of Hashem,” appears in only these two verses of the Tenakh. Hityatzvu, “set yourselves,” is the verb of 20:6: no one can take a stand against Hashem, so Judah takes its stand with Him. Yet they still march: “to morrow go out against them.” Faith goes out to the field; it does not carry the battle on its own shoulders.

“And Jehoshaphat bowed his head with his face to the ground… And the Levites, of the children of the Kohathites, and of the children of the Korhites, stood up to praise Hashem God of Israel with a loud voice on high” (20:18–19).

The sons of Korah. Korah was “the son of Izhar, the son of Kohath, the son of Levi” (Numbers 16:1), so the Korhites are a house within Kohath. He led the rebellion, yet “the children of Korah died not” (Numbers 26:11), and psalms carry their name (42, 44–49, 84–85, 87–88). The rebel’s sons praise while the enemy is still at En-gedi.

Messianic reading. When Simeon took the child in his arms in the Temple, he said, “mine eyes have seen thy salvation” (Luke 2:30). The name Yeshua is built on that word, יְשׁוּעָה (yeshu’ah): “thou shalt call his name Yeshua: for he shall save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21). Simeon saw Hashem’s yeshu’ah in a child of David’s house.

20:20–23 · Singers before the army

“Believe in Hashem your God, so shall ye be established; believe his prophets, so shall ye prosper” (20:20).

Hebrew lesson: הַאֲמִינוּ… וְתֵאָמֵנוּ (ha’aminu… ve-te’amenu). Both verbs are from אָמַן (aman), the root of amen: trust, and be made firm. Isaiah will say it to Ahaz in the negative: “If ye will not believe, surely ye shall not be established” (Isaiah 7:9). The second half is the Red Sea again: Israel “believed Hashem, and his servant Moses” (Exodus 14:31).

“And when he had consulted with the people, he appointed singers unto Hashem, and that should praise the beauty of holiness, as they went out before the army, and to say, Praise Hashem; for his mercy endureth for ever” (20:21).

Hebrew lesson: הוֹדוּ לַיהוָה (hodu la-Hashem), “Praise Hashem.” On the refrain, see 5:11–14. Hodu is the verb in Judah’s name: “Now will I praise Hashem,” אוֹדֶה (odeh), “therefore she called his name Judah” (Genesis 29:35). The tribe whose name is thanks sends thanks first.

What the sages say. At the dedication the refrain ran “For he is good; for his mercy endureth for ever” (5:13; 7:3). Here ki tov, “for he is good,” is missing. The Talmud asks why “for He is good” is not said in this thanksgiving, and answers: because the Holy One, blessed be He, does not rejoice in the downfall of the wicked. At the Red Sea, it adds, the ministering angels wished to sing, and Hashem said, “The work of My hands is drowning in the sea, and you sing?” (Sanhedrin 39b; Megillah 10b). Judah praised the mercy and left out the word that could sound like gloating (Proverbs 24:17).

“And when they began to sing and to praise, Hashem set ambushments against the children of Ammon, Moab, and mount Seir… and they were smitten” (20:22). The text does not say who the ambushers were. Ammon and Moab turned on Seir, and then “every one helped to destroy another” (20:23). So it was with Gideon (Judges 7:22), and so Ezekiel promises against Gog: “every man’s sword shall be against his brother” (Ezekiel 38:21).

A midrash on four kings. David said, Let me pursue my enemies and overtake them. Asa said, I have no strength to kill them; I will pursue, and You do it. Jehoshaphat said, I have no strength to kill or to pursue; I will sing, and You do it, as it says, “when they began to sing and to praise, Hashem set ambushments.” Hezekiah said, I have no strength to kill, to pursue or to sing; I will sleep on my bed, and You do it (Eichah Rabbah, Petichta 30).

Messianic reading. In John’s vision the multitude sings first, “Alleluia; Salvation, and glory, and honour, and power, unto the Lord our God” (Revelation 19:1), and only then is heaven opened, and the rider “was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war” (Revelation 19:11).

20:24–30 · The valley of Berachah

Judah came to the watchtower, “and, behold, they were dead bodies fallen to the earth, and none escaped” (20:24). The spoil took three days to gather, “riches with the dead bodies, and precious jewels” (20:25), כְּלֵי חֲמֻדוֹת (kelei chamudot), “vessels of desire.” Remember the word; it comes back at Jehoram’s grave (21:20).

“And on the fourth day they assembled themselves in the valley of Berachah; for there they blessed Hashem: therefore the name of the same place was called, The valley of Berachah, unto this day” (20:26).

Hebrew lesson: עֵמֶק בְּרָכָה (emek berachah), “the valley of blessing.” כִּי־שָׁם בֵּרֲכוּ אֶת־יְהוָה (ki sham berchu et Hashem), “for there they blessed Hashem.” They praised before the battle and blessed after it, and named the ground for the blessing, not for the victory. They went home “with joy; for Hashem had made them to rejoice over their enemies” (20:27), literally “glad from their enemies,” the joy of the delivered, and came with harps and trumpets “unto the house of Hashem” (20:28). “His God gave him rest round about” (20:30).

The valley of Jehoshaphat. Joel saw a valley with this king’s name: “I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel” (Joel 3:2, Hebrew 4:2), “for there will I sit to judge all the heathen round about” (Joel 3:12, Hebrew 4:12). FFOZ notes that “the name ‘valley of Jehoshaphat’ appears only in Joel’s prophecy,” that the commentaries explain it “as a symbolic location where the armies of Gog and Magog will be destroyed,” and that the name “means the LORD has judged” (End of Days, Lesson 16, “Gog and Magog”). Joel does not say his valley is Berachah, but many readers hear this chapter in it. Our Statement of Faith confesses that Yeshua will return “gathering Israel, judging the nations, restoring the kingdom.” Berachah was a foretaste.

20:31–37 · Ships broken at Ezion-gaber

He began to reign at thirty-five and reigned twenty-five years (20:31), as in 1 Kings 22:42, and died at sixty.

“Howbeit the high places were not taken away: for as yet the people had not prepared their hearts unto the God of their fathers” (20:33).

What Chronicles changes. Kings gives the reason as a practice: “for the people offered and burnt incense yet in the high places” (1 Kings 22:43). Chronicles gives it as a heart: the people had “not prepared,” לֹא־הֵכִינוּ (lo hechinu), though the king had prepared his (19:3). And 17:6 said he “took away the high places and groves out of Judah.” Commentators answer that the people rebuilt what he removed, or that he removed the high places of idols and not those where the people still offered to Hashem. Either way, a king can tear down an altar; he cannot prepare another man’s heart.

His acts are written “in the book of Jehu the son of Hanani” (20:34), the seer who rebuked him.

“And after this did Jehoshaphat king of Judah join himself with Ahaziah king of Israel, who did very wickedly… Then Eliezer the son of Dodavah of Mareshah prophesied against Jehoshaphat, saying, Because thou hast joined thyself with Ahaziah, Hashem hath broken thy works. And the ships were broken, that they were not able to go to Tarshish” (20:35–37).

Hebrew lesson: חָבַר (chavar), “to join.” Three times in three verses: אֶתְחַבַּר (etchabar), וַיְחַבְּרֵהוּ (va-yechabrehu), כְּהִתְחַבֶּרְךָ (ke-hitchabercha), the root of chaver, “companion.” And Ahaziah “did very wickedly,” הִרְשִׁיעַ (hirshi’a), from rasha, the “ungodly” of 19:2. After Berachah, the king joined the ungodly again. The Mishnah gives the rule in the same two words: “do not join yourself to the wicked,” אַל תִּתְחַבֵּר לָרָשָׁע (al titchaber la-rasha; Mishnah Avot 1:7).

Told two ways. In Kings the ships “were broken at Ezion-geber”; then Ahaziah asked to send his servants, “But Jehoshaphat would not” (1 Kings 22:48–49). Kings has a refusal and no prophet; Chronicles has a partnership and a prophet. Many read them together: the first venture was joint, Eliezer said why it failed, and when Ahaziah asked again, Jehoshaphat said no. Kings’ “ships of Tharshish” probably names a kind of ship; Chronicles has them “go to Tarshish,” as with Solomon’s fleet (9:21; compare 1 Kings 10:22).

Chapter 21 · Jehoram, and the Lamp of David

Read 2 Chronicles 21 in Hebrew and English →

21:1–7 · “Hashem would not destroy the house of David”

“Now Jehoshaphat slept with his fathers… And Jehoram his son reigned in his stead” (21:1).

Only in Chronicles. Six brothers are named (21:2), two of them Azariah, spelled עֲזַרְיָה and עֲזַרְיָהוּ. The names say what their father believed: Azariah is “Hashem has helped,” the verb of 18:31, and Shephatiah is “Hashem has judged,” the king’s own name reversed. He gave them gifts and fenced cities, as Rehoboam did (see 11:18–23), “but the kingdom gave he to Jehoram; because he was the firstborn” (21:3).

“Now when Jehoram was risen up to the kingdom of his father, he strengthened himself, and slew all his brethren with the sword, and divers also of the princes of Israel” (21:4).

Hebrew lesson: וַיִּתְחַזַּק (va-yitchazak), “he strengthened himself.” It is the first verb of the book: “Solomon the son of David was strengthened in his kingdom, and Hashem his God was with him” (1:1; see 1:1–6). Solomon was strengthened, and Hashem was with him. Jehoram strengthened himself, and then he killed.

“For he had the daughter of Ahab to wife” (21:6; 2 Kings 8:18). She is Athaliah, mother of his heir (22:2; see 22:1–6). The marriage of 18:1 had come home (see 22:10).

“Howbeit Hashem would not destroy the house of David, because of the covenant that he had made with David, and as he promised to give a light to him and to his sons for ever” (21:7).

Word by word with Kings. Kings reads, “Yet Hashem would not destroy Judah for David his servant’s sake, as he promised him to give him alway a light, and to his children” (2 Kings 8:19). Chronicles makes three main changes: 1. “Judah” becomes “the house of David,” a family, not only a land. 2. “For David his servant’s sake” becomes “because of the covenant that he had made with David,” the covenant of 1 Chronicles 17. 3. Kings’ Hebrew is literally “a lamp for his sons,” לְבָנָיו (le-vanav); Chronicles has “to him and to his sons,” וּלְבָנָיו (u-le-vanav).

Hebrew lesson: נִיר (nir), “light.” The usual word for a lamp is נֵר (ner), as in “the light of Israel” (2 Samuel 21:17) and “I have ordained a lamp for mine anointed” (Psalm 132:17); see our 2 Samuel commentary on 21:15–22 and, for Psalm 132, 6:40–42. The form נִיר means “lamp” in only four verses, all about David’s house: 1 Kings 11:36; 15:4; 2 Kings 8:19; and here. Elsewhere the same letters mean newly broken ground: “Break up your fallow ground” (Jeremiah 4:3; Hosea 10:12). Each time the nir is promised, the king is unworthy: under Solomon “they have forsaken me” (1 Kings 11:33, 36); Abijam “walked in all the sins of his father” (1 Kings 15:3–4); and now Jehoram. The lamp is kept for the covenant’s sake, not the son’s.

The rod and the mercy. Psalm 89 spells out the covenant: “If his children forsake my law… Then will I visit their transgression with the rod… Nevertheless my lovingkindness will I not utterly take from him… My covenant will I not break” (Psalm 89:30–34). Jehoram is the son who forsook, and the rest of the chapter is the rod. The house is the mercy. On the rod of 2 Samuel 7:14, see our 2 Samuel commentary on 7:12–16 and our 1 Chronicles commentary on 17:11–15.

Our teachers. Our class “The Essence and Mission of Yeshua from a Jewish Perspective” read Psalm 89:3–4 and Psalm 132:11 as a promise to David’s own seed: “Of the fruit of your body, right? Your body. This is not adoption. And this is not merely spiritual.” The lamp burns in a family line, and in this chapter the line is cut down nearly to one wick (21:17; 22:1, 10–11).

Messianic reading. Zechariah the priest sang that Hashem “hath raised up an horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David” (Luke 1:69); the horn and the lamp stand together in Psalm 132:17. Yeshua came first in the pattern of Mashiach ben Yosef, hidden and rejected, and will return as Mashiach ben David (see 12:13–16), “the root and the offspring of David” (Revelation 22:16).

21:8–11 · Edom and Libnah revolt

“In his days the Edomites revolted from under the dominion of Judah, and made themselves a king” (21:8).

Edom’s yoke. Under Jehoshaphat, “There was then no king in Edom: a deputy was king” (1 Kings 22:47). Now Edom has its own. On the sages’ count of eight kings in Edom and then eight in Israel until this revolt, see our 1 Chronicles commentary on 1:43–54. Isaac had told Esau, “thou shalt break his yoke from off thy neck” (Genesis 27:40). Jehoram broke out by night, but “the Edomites revolted from under the hand of Judah unto this day” (21:9–10).

“The same time also did Libnah revolt from under his hand; because he had forsaken Hashem God of his fathers” (21:10).

What Chronicles adds. Kings has only “Then Libnah revolted at the same time” (2 Kings 8:22). Chronicles gives the reason, עָזַב (azav), “he had forsaken.” Libnah was one of the cities given “to the children of Aaron the priest” (Joshua 21:13; 1 Chronicles 6:42, KJV 6:57; see our 1 Chronicles commentary on 6:39–66). A priests’ city broke away from a king who had broken away from Hashem.

“Moreover he made high places in the mountains of Judah, and caused the inhabitants of Jerusalem to commit fornication, and compelled Judah thereto” (21:11).

Hebrew lesson: וַיַּדַּח (va-yaddach), “and compelled.” It is the Torah’s verb for those who lead a city into idolatry: “Certain men, the children of Belial… have withdrawn the inhabitants of their city, saying, Let us go and serve other gods” (Deuteronomy 13:13, Hebrew 13:14), וַיַּדִּיחוּ אֶת־יֹשְׁבֵי עִירָם (va-yaddichu et yoshvei iram). The king did to Judah and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem what Deuteronomy 13 forbids.

21:12–15 · A writing from Elijah

“And there came a writing to him from Elijah the prophet, saying, Thus saith Hashem God of David thy father, Because thou hast not walked in the ways of Jehoshaphat thy father, nor in the ways of Asa king of Judah… and also hast slain thy brethren of thy father’s house, which were better than thyself” (21:12–13).

Only in Chronicles. This is the only time Elijah the prophet appears in Chronicles. Elijah prophesied in the north; he enters this book once, with a מִכְתָּב (michtav), a writing, to a king of David’s house, measured against his father Jehoshaphat and against Asa. “Better than thyself” is הַטּוֹבִים מִמְּךָ (ha-tovim mimmecha), “the good ones, better than you.” His father had told the judges, “Hashem shall be with the good” (19:11). Jehoram killed the good.

When did the letter come? In Kings, Elijah goes up “by a whirlwind into heaven” (2 Kings 2:11), and in the next chapter, while Jehoshaphat still lives, Elisha is introduced as the man “which poured water on the hands of Elijah” (2 Kings 3:11), as if his master’s days were past. The reigns overlapped (2 Kings 1:17; 8:16), but the brothers died after Jehoshaphat did (21:4). The commentators knew the question. Some answer that Elijah wrote by prophecy before he was taken, and the letter was delivered in its time; others, that it came after he went up. The text says only that it came.

Our teachers. Rabbi Palvanov, in his class “Understanding Mashiach ben Yosef, Part 2,” speaks of “Elijah the prophet who never died and who we expect to come back, and we know he needs to come back because you need a genuine prophet to anoint a king.” The prophet Israel waits for, to anoint the king of David’s line, here writes to the worst king of David’s line yet.

“Behold, with a great plague will Hashem smite thy people, and thy children, and thy wives, and all thy goods: And thou shalt have great sickness by disease of thy bowels” (21:14–15).

Measure for measure. The letter names the people, the children, the wives and the goods, and the raiders take the goods, the sons and the wives (21:17). He killed his father’s sons, and his own sons were taken. The Mishnah states the rule: “With the measure a man measures, they measure to him” (Mishnah Sotah 1:7), and Yeshua said, “with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again” (Matthew 7:2).

Messianic reading. Malachi, last of the Prophets, promises Elijah again: “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of Hashem: And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers” (Malachi 4:5–6, Hebrew 3:23–24). Jehoram turned his sword on his father’s children. Yochanan the Immerser came “in the spirit and power of Elias” (Luke 1:17) before the Son of David who gathers his brothers.

21:16–20 · “Departed without being desired”

“Moreover Hashem stirred up against Jehoram the spirit of the Philistines, and of the Arabians, that were near the Ethiopians” (21:16).

Hebrew lesson: וַיָּעַר יְהוָה… אֵת רוּחַ (va-ya’ar Hashem… et ruach), “Hashem stirred up the spirit.” The Chronicler uses it for the kings of Assyria who carried the eastern tribes away (1 Chronicles 5:26), here, and in the book’s last verses: “Hashem stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia” (36:22). The same God stirs spirits to punish and to bring home. The Philistines and Arabians had brought Jehoshaphat tribute (17:11); under his son they came to take.

“And they came up into Judah… and carried away all the substance that was found in the king’s house, and his sons also, and his wives; so that there was never a son left him, save Jehoahaz, the youngest of his sons” (21:17).

One son left. Jehoahaz is the Ahaziah of 22:1, one name with its two parts reversed (see 22:1–6). When Abimelech killed his seventy brothers, “Jotham the youngest son of Jerubbaal was left” (Judges 9:5). Here too the youngest was left, and the lamp of 21:7 still burned.

“And after all this Hashem smote him in his bowels with an incurable disease… after the end of two years, his bowels fell out by reason of his sickness: so he died of sore diseases. And his people made no burning for him, like the burning of his fathers” (21:18–19).

No burning. This is not cremation but the burning made in honor of Asa (16:14; see 16:11–14) and promised to Zedekiah (Jeremiah 34:5), a king’s honor. His people gave Jehoram none.

“Thirty and two years old was he when he began to reign, and he reigned in Jerusalem eight years, and departed without being desired. Howbeit they buried him in the city of David, but not in the sepulchres of the kings” (21:20).

Hebrew lesson: בְּלֹא חֶמְדָּה (be-lo chemdah), “without being desired.” No one missed him. It is the word of the kelei chamudot, the “precious jewels” of the valley (20:25). His father’s people came home loaded with desirable things; the son left no one who desired him. Samuel said to young Saul, “on whom is all the desire of Israel?” (1 Samuel 9:20).

What Chronicles changes. Kings says he “was buried with his fathers in the city of David” (2 Kings 8:24). Chronicles keeps the city and takes away the royal tombs, as it will for Joash (24:25) and Ahaz (28:27). Yet Jehoram still lies “in the city of David,” and his youngest son reigns. Death is sleep until the resurrection, as our Statement of Faith confesses, and the house of David was not destroyed (21:7).

Drawing it together

1. Not for man, but for Hashem. The judgment is God’s (19:6; Deuteronomy 1:17), so judges must be as He is, with no respect of persons and no gifts (19:7), and hard cases go up to Jerusalem (Deuteronomy 17:8–9). Yeshua judges by the Father’s appointment: “as I hear, I judge” (John 5:30).

2. The battle is God’s. Afraid, the king sought Hashem, the people fasted, and the prayer ended, “neither know we what to do: but our eyes are upon thee” (20:12). The answer was the Red Sea again: stand, see the yeshu’at Hashem, believe Hashem and His prophets (20:17, 20; Exodus 14:13, 31).

3. Praise first, and no gloating after. The ambush came “when they began to sing” (20:22). They left out “for he is good” over the fallen (Sanhedrin 39b) and named the valley for blessing. So in John’s vision the multitude sings, and then the rider called Faithful and True judges and makes war (Revelation 19:1, 11).

4. Joined to the wicked. “Shouldest thou help the ungodly?” (19:2). Jehoshaphat honored those who fear Hashem, yet joined himself to Ahab’s house in war, in ships (20:35–37) and in marriage (21:6). The marriage nearly ended the house of David.

5. The lamp did not go out. Jehoram killed his brothers and lost his sons, Elijah’s letter judged him, and he died unwanted. Yet “Hashem would not destroy the house of David” (21:7). The covenant kept one son, and from David’s house came the “horn of salvation” (Luke 1:69), who came first in the pattern of Mashiach ben Yosef and will return as Mashiach ben David.

Questions for discussion

1. Why does it matter that Jehoshaphat came home “in peace” (19:1; 18:26–27)?
2. What did Jehoshaphat’s “love” for those who hate Hashem consist of (19:2; 18:1; 21:6), and how is it different from Matthew 5:44?
3. Trace the root shuv through 19:1–8. How does the Amidah’s Hashivah shofteinu (Isaiah 1:26) use it?
4. Compare 19:6–7 with Deuteronomy 1:17, 10:17 and 16:19. Why must a judge be like Hashem? What does Sanhedrin 6b add?
5. How does 19:8–10 carry out Deuteronomy 17:8–9 and Exodus 18:20–22? What may a court do with the Torah, and what may it not?
6. Who are Moab and Ammon, and what happened at Hazazon-tamar in Abraham’s day (20:2; Genesis 14:7–16; 19:37–38)?
7. What do 20:6 and 1 Chronicles 29:12 share? How does “Abraham thy friend” (20:7; Isaiah 41:8) answer 19:2?
8. Set 20:15–17 beside 19:6 and Exodus 14:13. What is the same, and what differs?
9. Why does the refrain in 20:21 leave out “for he is good” (Sanhedrin 39b)? What does that teach about rejoicing over enemies (Proverbs 24:17)?
10. How do 21:7 and 2 Kings 8:19 differ? What does nir mean, and over which kings was it promised? How does Psalm 89:30–34 help us read 21:7?

Sources

Scripture: 2 Chronicles 1, 5–7, 9, 11–12, 15–22, 24, 26, 28, 36; 1 Chronicles 5–6, 17, 28–29; Genesis 14, 19, 27, 29; Exodus 14, 18; Numbers 16, 26; Deuteronomy 1–2, 10, 13, 16–17; Joshua 21; Judges 7, 9; 1 Samuel 9, 17; 2 Samuel 7, 21; 1 Kings 5, 10–11, 15–16, 22; 2 Kings 1–3, 8; Psalms 89, 132; Proverbs 24; Isaiah 1, 7, 41; Jeremiah 4, 34; Ezekiel 38; Hosea 10; Joel 3; Malachi 4; Matthew 1, 5, 7; Luke 1–2; John 5; James 2; Revelation 19, 22.

Talmud and Midrash: Sanhedrin 6b, 39b; Megillah 10b; Eichah Rabbah, Petichta 30; Mishnah Sotah 1:7; Mishnah Avot 1:7.

Commentators: Rambam, Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Mamrim 1:1; the Siddur (the weekday Amidah, Hashivah shofteinu; Tachanun).

Our teachers and materials: First Fruits of Zion, End of Days (5786), Lesson 16, “Gog and Magog”; Lesson 25, “Twelve Thrones”; Lesson 37, “Unchained”; Rabbi Efraim Palvanov, “Understanding Mashiach ben Yosef, Part 2” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmrYeHRoiBE); Benei Avraham classes “Paul & Other Hard Topics — A Torah-Faithful Perspective” (https://youtu.be/z_UWZFaio4o) and “The Essence and Mission of Yeshua from a Jewish Perspective” (https://www.youtube.com/live/NcguCQbsk8E); our 1 Chronicles commentary on 1:43–54, 6:39–66, 17:11–15, 25:1–3, 26:29–32, 28:9–10 and 29:10–19; our 2 Samuel commentary on 7:12–16 and 21:15–22; Benei Avraham Statement of Faith.

Before we begin

Jehoram is buried “but not in the sepulchres of the kings” (21:20), and the house of David is down to its youngest son. Ahaziah reigns one year and dies at Jehu’s hand. His mother Athaliah destroys “all the seed royal” (22:10) and reigns six years, while one baby lies hidden in the House of God. In the seventh year a priest brings him out and crowns him. Joash does right “all the days of Jehoiada the priest” (24:2); when the priest dies, the king has the priest’s son stoned in the court of the House.

Kings tells most of this (2 Kings 8:24–29; 9:27–28; 11:1–12:21). Chronicles adds the Levites who guard the holy place at the coronation, the order of David set up again (23:18–19), Jehoiada’s age and burial, and the whole story of Zechariah son of Jehoiada (24:15–22), whose blood Yeshua named (Luke 11:51). In Kings, Joash buys off the Arameans (2 Kings 12:18); in Chronicles a small Aramean army defeats Judah “because they had forsaken Hashem God of their fathers” (24:24).

The book’s rule stands over all three chapters: “if ye seek him, he will be found of you; but if ye forsake him, he will forsake you” (15:2). In these chapters the Hebrew and English verse numbers are the same. Kings is cited in the English numbering; 2 Kings 11:21–12:21 is Hebrew 12:1–22.

How this commentary is built. We read the text first, in Hebrew where it matters, because Torah comes first and the Prophets and Writings are measured by it. Then we hear the sages: the Talmud, the Midrash, Rashi, Radak and Rambam. Then our own teachers: the FFOZ End of Days lessons, Rabbi Efraim Palvanov and Ariel Cohen Alloro, along with our own Benei Avraham classes. Last, we ask what the passage shows us about Mashiach.

A word on our teachers. Rabbi Palvanov and Ariel Cohen Alloro bring a great deal of Kabbalah and gematria. We use their insights as remez, a hint that opens a door, and never as proof. Gematria can show a connection the text already makes, but it cannot make a doctrine by itself. Where a teacher’s framework goes beyond what Benei Avraham confesses (for example, on reincarnation or on the nature of God), we take the insight and leave the framework. “To the Torah and to the testimony” (Isaiah 8:20) is the test for all of it, our own words included.

Scripture is quoted from the King James Version with Hashem in place of LORD, as in our Statement of Faith.

Chapter 22 · Ahaziah, and the Seed Royal

Read 2 Chronicles 22 in Hebrew and English →

22:1–6 · “His mother was his counsellor to do wickedly”

“And the inhabitants of Jerusalem made Ahaziah his youngest son king in his stead” (22:1). The raiders of 21:17 had left Jehoram “never a son… save Jehoahaz, the youngest of his sons.” Jehoahaz and Ahaziah are one man: יְהוֹאָחָז (Yeho’achaz) and אֲחַזְיָהוּ (Achazyahu) are the same two parts, “Hashem” and “has taken hold,” in the other order.

“Forty and two years old was Ahaziah when he began to reign, and he reigned one year in Jerusalem. His mother’s name also was Athaliah the daughter of Omri” (22:2).

The numbers. Kings has “Two and twenty years old” (2 Kings 8:26), and Chronicles itself shows which is right. “Jehoram was thirty and two years old when he began to reign, and he reigned eight years in Jerusalem” (21:5), so he died at forty, and his son reigned “in his stead.” A son of forty-two would be two years older than his father. The Hebrew and the KJV of Chronicles both read forty-two, and the likeliest explanation is a copyist’s slip in the long history of the text. Scripture keeps the difficulty in plain sight. An old answer among the commentators keeps the number by counting it another way: forty-two years not of Ahaziah’s life but of the dynasty of Omri, his mother’s house, in whose ways he walked.

“He also walked in the ways of the house of Ahab: for his mother was his counsellor to do wickedly” (22:3).

What Chronicles adds. Kings gives a family reason: “for he was the son in law of the house of Ahab” (2 Kings 8:27). Chronicles names the counsellor. His mother was יוֹעַצְתּוֹ לְהַרְשִׁיעַ (yo’atzto le-harshia), “his counsellor to do wickedly”; then “they were his counsellors after the death of his father to his destruction” (22:4), and “He walked also after their counsel” (22:5). These verses use all three key words of the Psalms’ first line: “Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly,” אֲשֶׁר לֹא הָלַךְ בַּעֲצַת רְשָׁעִים (asher lo halach ba-atzat resha’im, Psalm 1:1). Ahaziah walked (halach), in counsel (etzah), toward wickedness (resha). Rehoboam lost ten tribes to bad counsel (see 10:6–11); Ahaziah lost his life to it.

How it began. Jehoshaphat “joined affinity with Ahab” (18:1), and Jehu the seer asked him, “Shouldest thou help the ungodly, and love them that hate Hashem?” (19:2). “The ungodly” there is רָשָׁע (rasha). Two generations later his grandson took counsel from the house of Ahab.

He went “with Jehoram the son of Ahab king of Israel to war against Hazael king of Syria at Ramoth-gilead” (22:5). At Ramoth-gilead Ahab had fallen with Jehoshaphat beside him (18:28–34), and Ahaziah was the grandson of both. Then he “went down to see Jehoram the son of Ahab at Jezreel, because he was sick” (22:6). Here the Hebrew calls him a third name, עֲזַרְיָהוּ (Azaryahu), “Azariah,” where Kings has Ahaziah (2 Kings 8:29). The sick man was his mother’s brother: Athaliah, Jehoram’s wife, is “the daughter of Ahab” at 21:6, and 22:2 names her for Omri, the founder of the house.

22:7–9 · “The destruction of Ahaziah was of God”

“And the destruction of Ahaziah was of God by coming to Joram: for when he was come, he went out with Jehoram against Jehu the son of Nimshi, whom Hashem had anointed to cut off the house of Ahab” (22:7).

Hebrew lesson: תְּבוּסַת (tevusat), “the destruction.” The noun is found only here; its root, בּוּס (bus), means to trample down. The sentence opens מֵאֱלֹהִים (me-Elohim), “from God,” as with Rehoboam, “for the cause was of God” (see 10:12–15): a king’s free choice, and Hashem’s hand in it. The prophet who anointed Jehu had said, “thou shalt smite the house of Ahab thy master, that I may avenge the blood of my servants the prophets” (2 Kings 9:7). Remember that verse when we reach 24:21.

Jehu found “the princes of Judah, and the sons of the brethren of Ahaziah” and killed them (22:8). Kings says “the brethren of Ahaziah… two and forty men” (2 Kings 10:13–14). Chronicles says “the sons of the brethren,” which fits what it has already told us: Ahaziah’s brothers were dead (21:17; 22:1).

“And he sought Ahaziah: and they caught him, (for he was hid in Samaria,) and brought him to Jehu: and when they had slain him, they buried him: Because, said they, he is the son of Jehoshaphat, who sought Hashem with all his heart. So the house of Ahaziah had no power to keep still the kingdom” (22:9).

Two accounts. In Kings, Ahaziah is struck in his chariot near Ibleam, flees to Megiddo and dies there, and “his servants carried him in a chariot to Jerusalem” (2 Kings 9:27–28). In Chronicles he is found hiding in Samaria, brought to Jehu and killed, and buried by “they,” with a reason. The commentators fit the two accounts together in more than one way. “Son” means grandson here. Even Jehu’s men honored a king who דָּרַשׁ אֶת־יְהוָה בְּכָל־לְבָבוֹ (darash et Hashem be-chol levavo), “sought Hashem with all his heart.” The grandfather’s seeking bought the grandson a grave.

Hebrew lesson: מִתְחַבֵּא (mitchabe), “hiding.” Ahaziah was mitchabe in Samaria, and they found him. Three verses later his baby son is mitchabe in the House of God six years (22:12), and no one finds him. Kings uses the word only of the baby (2 Kings 11:3); Chronicles uses it of father and son. Where a man hides makes all the difference.

22:10–12 · Hidden in the house of God six years

“But when Athaliah the mother of Ahaziah saw that her son was dead, she arose and destroyed all the seed royal of the house of Judah” (22:10).

Write the chain out. Athaliah’s son was Ahaziah (22:2). “The king’s sons that were slain” (22:11) were Ahaziah’s sons, her own grandsons. In the north Jehu was wiping out the house of Ahab; in the south Ahab’s daughter wiped out the house of David. Hashem had promised David “to give a light to him and to his sons for ever” (21:7). For six years the light was one baby.

“But Jehoshabeath, the daughter of the king, took Joash the son of Ahaziah, and stole him from among the king’s sons that were slain, and put him and his nurse in a bedchamber. So Jehoshabeath, the daughter of king Jehoram, the wife of Jehoiada the priest, (for she was the sister of Ahaziah,) hid him from Athaliah, so that she slew him not” (22:11).

Only in Chronicles. Kings calls her Jehosheba, “sister of Ahaziah” (2 Kings 11:2); only Chronicles says she was “the wife of Jehoiada the priest.” Joash’s aunt was married to the priest, and that is how a baby came to be hidden in the House. The text does not say whether Athaliah was her mother. Her name, יְהוֹשַׁבְעַת (Yehoshav’at), “Hashem is an oath,” in Kings יְהוֹשֶׁבַע (Yehosheva), is the name of Aaron’s wife with Hashem’s Name in place of El: “Elisheba, daughter of Amminadab, sister of Naashon” (Exodus 6:23), sister of Judah’s prince. A princess of Judah married to a priest saves the house of David.

Hebrew lesson: וַתַּסְתִּירֵהוּ (va-tastirehu), “and she hid him.” The verb is סָתַר (satar), to hide in a secret place. David sang it: “For in the time of trouble he shall hide me in his pavilion: in the secret of his tabernacle shall he hide me” (Psalm 27:5), יַסְתִּרֵנִי בְּסֵתֶר אָהֳלוֹ (yastireni be-seter oholo). Joash lived the verse: “he was with them hid in the house of God six years: and Athaliah reigned over the land” (22:12). She is the only woman in Kings or Chronicles who reigns over Judah or Israel.

Many readers see a pattern. Moses was hidden from Pharaoh’s decree and drawn out by “the daughter of Pharaoh” (Exodus 2:2–5), with “a nurse of the Hebrew women” (Exodus 2:7), the word מֵינֶקֶת (meineket) used here of Joash’s nurse; here the rescuer is “the daughter of the king.” A child of Bethlehem was carried away by night, “for Herod will seek the young child to destroy him” (Matthew 2:13). FFOZ’s End of Days reads the dragon of Revelation 12, waiting “to devour her child as soon as it was born,” in the same light: “The dragon positions itself to devour the Messiah by taking possession of the land of Israel and installing Herod the Great as King of the Jews. Herod attempts to kill the child of the woman on the dragon’s behalf” (Lesson 6, “Beginning of the Birth Pains”). Athaliah was not the last to try to put out David’s lamp.

Chapter 23 · The King’s Son Shall Reign

Read 2 Chronicles 23 in Hebrew and English →

23:1–3 · “Behold, the king’s son shall reign”

“And in the seventh year Jehoiada strengthened himself, and took the captains of hundreds… into covenant with him” (23:1). Six years hidden, and in the seventh he comes out, as the Hebrew servant “six years he shall serve: and in the seventh he shall go out free” (Exodus 21:2). That is a remez, not a proof. “Strengthened himself,” הִתְחַזַּק (hitchazzek), is Solomon’s first verb (see 1:1–6), now said of a priest. Only Chronicles names the five captains.

“And all the congregation made a covenant with the king in the house of God. And he said unto them, Behold, the king’s son shall reign, as Hashem hath said of the sons of David” (23:3).

What Chronicles changes. In Kings, Jehoiada brings in the royal guard, the Carites and the runners (the KJV’s “the captains and the guard,” 2 Kings 11:4), and swears them in. In Chronicles the Levites come “out of all the cities of Judah” with the heads of the fathers (23:2), and “all the congregation,” כָּל־הַקָּהָל (kol ha-kahal), makes the covenant. A soldiers’ plot has become an assembly of Israel.

“As Hashem hath said.” Jehoiada argues from a promise. Nathan had told David, “I will raise up thy seed after thee, which shall be of thy sons; and I will establish his kingdom” (1 Chronicles 17:11; see our 1 Chronicles commentary on 17:11–15 and our 2 Samuel commentary on chapter 7). The psalm adds the condition: “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” (Psalm 132:12; see 6:40–42). Keep the word “testimony” in mind; it runs through the rest of Joash’s life.

23:4–11 · The crown and the testimony

“A third part of you entering on the sabbath, of the priests and of the Levites, shall be porters of the doors” (23:4). On Shabbat one course came on duty and another went off (see our 1 Chronicles commentary on 24:1–6). “Jehoiada the priest dismissed not the courses” (23:8), so both were in the House at once and nothing looked strange from outside.

“But let none come into the house of Hashem, save the priests, and they that minister of the Levites; they shall go in, for they are holy: but all the people shall keep the watch of Hashem” (23:6).

Holiness in the middle of a coup. Kings says, “he that cometh within the ranges, let him be slain” (2 Kings 11:8). Chronicles says, “whosoever else cometh into the house, he shall be put to death” (23:7). Its Hebrew, וְהַבָּא אֶל־הַבַּיִת יוּמָת (ve-ha-ba el ha-bayit yumat), echoes the Torah’s guard on the Mishkan: “the stranger that cometh nigh shall be put to death,” וְהַזָּר הַקָּרֵב יוּמָת (ve-ha-zar ha-karev yumat, Numbers 1:51; 18:7). The armed Levites round the king are doing what the Torah gave Levites to do: “the Levites shall keep the charge of the tabernacle of testimony” (Numbers 1:53). Even in a coup, soldiers do not walk where only kohanim walk. And the weapons were “king David’s, which were in the house of God” (23:9; see our 1 Chronicles commentary on 26:20–28): David’s weapons guard David’s heir.

“Then they brought out the king’s son, and put upon him the crown, and gave him the testimony, and made him king. And Jehoiada and his sons anointed him, and said, God save the king” (23:11).

Hebrew lesson: הַנֵּזֶר (ha-nezer) and הָעֵדוּת (ha-edut), “the crown” and “the testimony.” The nezer is the crown. The edut is the Torah’s word for the tablets: “thou shalt put into the ark the testimony which I shall give thee” (Exodus 25:16). Many commentators take the edut given to Joash to be a scroll of the Torah, the copy the king must keep “when he sitteth upon the throne of his kingdom” (Deuteronomy 17:18–19; on FFOZ’s reading of that law, see 1:14–17). We hear a hint of it at 23:20. Kings says Joash “sat on the throne of the kings” (2 Kings 11:19); Chronicles says they “set the king upon the throne of the kingdom,” כִּסֵּא הַמַּמְלָכָה (kisse ha-mamlachah), the phrase of Deuteronomy 17:18, כִּסֵּא מַמְלַכְתּוֹ (kisse mamlachto), and of Nathan’s promise, “I will stablish the throne of his kingdom for ever” (2 Samuel 7:13).

“God save the king.” יְחִי הַמֶּלֶךְ (yechi ha-melech) means “Let the king live,” Israel’s cry for Saul (1 Samuel 10:24). Only Chronicles says that “Jehoiada and his sons” poured the oil. The Talmud teaches that a son of David who followed his father was not anointed unless the throne was disputed, and names Joash, because of Athaliah (see our 1 Chronicles commentary on 29:23–25). Jehoiada had a son named Zechariah (24:20). Whether or not he stood there that day, the house of Jehoiada anointed the king who would kill him.

Messianic reading. Our Statement of Faith confesses Yeshua revealed first in the pattern of Mashiach ben Yosef, “hidden among the nations,” and returning as Mashiach ben David “in royal authority” (see 10:16–19 and 12:13–16). Joash is not the Messiah, and his story ends badly. But 23:11 has the shape of the hope: a son of David kept hidden in Hashem’s House while a usurper reigned, then brought out at the appointed time, crowned, anointed and given the testimony.

23:12–15 · “Treason, Treason”

“Now when Athaliah heard the noise of the people running and praising the king, she came to the people into the house of Hashem” (23:12).

Hebrew lesson: הָרָצִים (ha-ratzim), “running.” Kings says she heard “the noise of the guard and of the people” (2 Kings 11:13). The ratzim, “runners,” were the royal guard who carried Rehoboam’s shields of brass (see 12:9–12). Chronicles uses the word as a verb: the people themselves were running, “and praising the king.” The guard has become a whole people in motion.

“And she looked, and, behold, the king stood at his pillar at the entering in… also the singers with instruments of musick, and such as taught to sing praise. Then Athaliah rent her clothes, and said, Treason, Treason” (23:13). Kings has “by a pillar, as the manner was” (2 Kings 11:14); Chronicles says עַל־עַמּוּדוֹ (al ammudo), “at his pillar,” his own place, and alone adds the singers.

“Treason, Treason.” קֶשֶׁר קָשֶׁר (kesher, kesher), “conspiracy!” The woman who murdered her grandsons accuses others of conspiring. Hold on to the word: the king crowned against this cry will join a kesher against the priest’s son (24:21), and his own servants will make one against him (24:25–26).

“For the priest said, Slay her not in the house of Hashem” (23:14). They kill her at “the entering of the horse gate by the king’s house” (23:15). Set the verse beside 24:21, where the king has a priest stoned “in the court of the house of Hashem.” Kings has the first; only Chronicles has the second.

23:16–21 · A covenant, and the order of David

“And Jehoiada made a covenant between him, and between all the people, and between the king, that they should be Hashem’s people” (23:16).

Word by word with Kings. Kings has two covenants, “between Hashem and the king and the people, that they should be Hashem’s people; between the king also and the people” (2 Kings 11:17). Chronicles has one, and where Kings names Hashem it says בֵּינוֹ (beino), “between him.” Many read “him” as Jehoiada, standing on Hashem’s side of the covenant as His priest. The aim is the same: לִהְיוֹת לְעָם לַיהוָה (lihyot le-am la-Hashem), “to be a people to Hashem,” Moses’ word in Moab: “Hashem hath avouched thee this day to be his peculiar people” (Deuteronomy 26:18). The new covenant has the same heart, “and will be their God, and they shall be my people” (Jeremiah 31:33), and as our Statement of Faith says, “The New Covenant writes Torah upon the heart; it does not erase Torah from the life of Israel.”

The people break down “the house of Baal,” as Deuteronomy 12:3 commands and as Jehu had done in Samaria (2 Kings 10:26–27), and kill “Mattan the priest of Baal before the altars” (23:17).

“Also Jehoiada appointed the offices of the house of Hashem by the hand of the priests the Levites, whom David had distributed in the house of Hashem, to offer the burnt offerings of Hashem, as it is written in the Torah of Moses, with rejoicing and with singing, as it was ordained by David” (23:18).

Only in Chronicles. Moses gives the offerings; David gives the song and the order of those who serve. Solomon set up the House that way (see 8:12–16), and Jehoiada sets it up again. “As it was ordained by David,” עַל יְדֵי דָוִיד (al yedei David), is literally “by the hands of David.” The gatekeepers go back to their gates “that none which was unclean in any thing should enter in” (23:19; see our 1 Chronicles commentary on 9:17–27). Restoring the kingdom began with restoring the service.

They brought the king down “and set the king upon the throne of the kingdom. And all the people of the land rejoiced: and the city was quiet” (23:20–21). The chapter rejoices three times (23:13, 18, 21); the next will rejoice once, at the chest (24:10), and then never again in Joash’s story.

Chapter 24 · All the Days of Jehoiada

Read 2 Chronicles 24 in Hebrew and English →

24:1–3 · “All the days of Jehoiada the priest”

“Joash was seven years old when he began to reign, and he reigned forty years in Jerusalem… And Joash did that which was right in the sight of Hashem all the days of Jehoiada the priest” (24:1–2).

Forty years is the length of David’s reign and of Solomon’s (9:30; 1 Chronicles 29:27), and Joash is the first king since Solomon to be given exactly forty. Rabbi Palvanov, in his class “Who is Mashiach?,” notes the number: “King David ruled for 40 years. King Solomon ruled for 40 years. That seems to be the standard term.” Hashem gave the rescued boy a full measure.

Word by word with Kings. Kings says Jehoash did right “all his days wherein Jehoiada the priest instructed him” (2 Kings 12:2). The Hebrew, כָּל־יָמָיו אֲשֶׁר הוֹרָהוּ יְהוֹיָדָע (kol yamav asher horahu Yehoyada), can also be read “all his days, because Jehoiada instructed him.” Chronicles settles it: “all the days of Jehoiada.” Horahu, “instructed him,” is from יָרָה (yarah), the root of Torah. Joash had a teacher, and his righteousness lasted exactly as long as his teacher did. Chronicles also passes over Kings’ next words, “But the high places were not taken away” (2 Kings 12:3).

“And Jehoiada took for him two wives; and he begat sons and daughters” (24:3). “For him” means for the king. The house of David was down to one young man, and the priest who saved the line saw to it that the line went on, with two wives, not the multitude Deuteronomy 17:17 forbids (see 11:18–23).

24:4–14 · The chest at the gate

“Joash was minded to repair the house of Hashem” (24:4): literally, “it was with the heart of Joash לְחַדֵּשׁ (lechadesh), to renew, the house.” He sent the priests and Levites to gather money “from year to year… Howbeit the Levites hastened it not” (24:5). Kings tells how slowly: “in the three and twentieth year of king Jehoash the priests had not repaired the breaches of the house” (2 Kings 12:6). The king, by then about thirty, called the old priest to account: “Why hast thou not required of the Levites to bring in… the collection, according to the commandment of Moses the servant of Hashem… for the tabernacle of witness?” (24:6).

Hebrew lesson: מַשְׂאַת מֹשֶׁה (mas’at Moshe), “the collection of Moses.” Only Chronicles calls it that (24:6, 9). It is the half shekel, given by “every one that passeth among them that are numbered… for the service of the tabernacle of the congregation” (Exodus 30:13, 16). Kings has the same law in its own words, “the money of every one that passeth the account” (2 Kings 12:4), כֶּסֶף עוֹבֵר (kesef over), the Torah’s ha-over. The Mishnah opens its tractate on the shekels with an announcement like that of 24:9: “On the first of Adar they announce the shekels” (Mishnah Shekalim 1:1).

Note the king’s verb, “Why hast thou not required,” לֹא דָרַשְׁתָּ (lo darashta). It is darash, the book’s word for seeking Hashem; keep it for 24:22. And “the tabernacle of witness,” אֹהֶל הָעֵדוּת (ohel ha-edut), is a Torah name for the Mishkan (Numbers 9:15). The boy who was given ha-edut at his crowning (23:11) gathers for the tent of ha-edut.

“And at the king’s commandment they made a chest, and set it without at the gate of the house of Hashem” (24:8). The chest is an אֲרוֹן (aron), the word for the Ark (see 5:7–10). Kings says Jehoiada bored a hole in its lid and set it “beside the altar, on the right side as one cometh into the house of Hashem” (2 Kings 12:9); Chronicles puts it “without at the gate,” where anyone coming up could give. “And all the princes and all the people rejoiced, and brought in, and cast into the chest, until they had made an end” (24:10).

Messianic reading. Yeshua sat by the Temple treasury and watched people “cast money into the treasury” (Mark 12:41; see our 1 Chronicles commentary on 26:20–28). He paid the half shekel too, for himself and Peter: “take, and give unto them for me and thee” (Matthew 17:27). FFOZ reads that story forward: “In the future to come, the contributions for the construction of the Temple, its sacrificial services, and its upkeep will come from the nations (Matthew 17:25–26)” (End of Days, Lesson 19, “Banner on a Mountain”).

“So the workmen wrought, and the work was perfected by them, and they set the house of God in his state, and strengthened it” (24:13).

Hebrew lesson: וַתַּעַל אֲרוּכָה (va-ta’al arukhah), “and healing went up.” “The work was perfected” is literally “healing went up on the work.” Arukhah is the healing that closes a wound: “I will restore health unto thee, and I will heal thee of thy wounds” (Jeremiah 30:17). Athaliah’s sons had “broken up” the House, פָּרְצוּ (paretzu, 24:7); the repairers healed its wounds.

Two accounts. Kings says that “there were not made for the house of Hashem bowls of silver… But they gave that to the workmen” (2 Kings 12:13–14). Chronicles says vessels were made from what was left “when they had finished it” (24:14). The two fit: during the work every coin went to the workmen, and afterward the rest became vessels. “And they offered burnt offerings in the house of Hashem continually all the days of Jehoiada” (24:14). That phrase has now come twice (24:2, 14). It is a warning.

24:15–16 · Buried among the kings

“But Jehoiada waxed old, and was full of days when he died; an hundred and thirty years old was he when he died. And they buried him in the city of David among the kings, because he had done good in Israel, both toward God, and toward his house” (24:15–16).

Only in Chronicles. “Full of days,” וַיִּשְׂבַּע יָמִים (va-yisba yamim), is what the Tenakh says of Isaac, David and Job (Genesis 35:29; 1 Chronicles 29:28; Job 42:17; see our 1 Chronicles commentary on 29:26–30). A priest is buried עִם־הַמְּלָכִים (im ha-melachim), “among the kings,” for he had saved the house of David and restored the House of God. Hold the verse beside 24:25: the priest was buried with the kings, and the king he crowned was not.

24:17–22 · “Hashem look upon it, and require it”

“Now after the death of Jehoiada came the princes of Judah, and made obeisance to the king. Then the king hearkened unto them. And they left the house of Hashem God of their fathers, and served groves and idols” (24:17–18).

What the sages say. Why should princes bowing to a king be the first step to idols? A midrash on “See, I have made thee a god to Pharaoh” (Exodus 7:1) answers that they made Joash a god. They told him that if he were not a god, he could not have come out alive after six years hidden in the Holy of Holies, and he let them. It is midrash, not history, but it sees what 24:17 sees: the man who was hidden in Hashem’s House wanted to be bowed to.

“Yet he sent prophets to them, to bring them again unto Hashem; and they testified against them: but they would not give ear” (24:19). “They testified,” וַיָּעִידוּ (va-ya’idu), is from the root of edut. Joash received the testimony (23:11) and gathered silver for the tent of the testimony (24:6); now the prophets testify against them.

“And the Spirit of God came upon Zechariah the son of Jehoiada the priest, which stood above the people, and said unto them, Thus saith God, Why transgress ye the commandments of Hashem, that ye cannot prosper? because ye have forsaken Hashem, he hath also forsaken you” (24:20).

Hebrew lesson: לָבְשָׁה (lavshah), “clothed.” The Spirit of God put Zechariah on like a garment (see our 1 Chronicles commentary on 12:17–19, where the idiom is traced from Gideon to Amasai to Zechariah). “Because ye have forsaken Hashem, he hath also forsaken you” echoes Shemaiah’s word to Rehoboam (12:5) and Azariah’s rule to Asa (15:2). “That ye cannot prosper,” וְלֹא תַצְלִיחוּ (ve-lo tatzlichu), answers Jehoshaphat’s “believe his prophets, so shall ye prosper” (20:20). The verb עָזַב (azav), “forsake,” comes five times between 24:18 and 24:25.

“And they conspired against him, and stoned him with stones at the commandment of the king in the court of the house of Hashem” (24:21).

Hebrew lesson: בְּמִצְוַת הַמֶּלֶךְ (be-mitzvat ha-melech), “at the commandment of the king.” Zechariah had asked why they transgressed מִצְוֹת יְהוָה (mitzvot Hashem), “the commandments of Hashem.” They answered by keeping mitzvat ha-melech: two commandments, one verse apart. “They conspired,” וַיִּקְשְׁרוּ (va-yikshru), is Athaliah’s kesher (23:13). And the place was the court where Jehoiada would not let even Athaliah be killed (23:14), in the House where Joash himself had been hidden.

“Thus Joash the king remembered not the kindness which Jehoiada his father had done to him, but slew his son. And when he died, he said, Hashem look upon it, and require it” (24:22).

“Remembered not.” וְלֹא־זָכַר (ve-lo zachar), as Pharaoh’s butler “did not… remember Joseph, but forgat him” (Genesis 40:23). The man he killed was named זְכַרְיָה (Zecharyah), “Hashem remembers.” The king forgot the חֶסֶד (chesed) of the aunt who stole him from among the dead and of the priest who hid, crowned and taught him. Our class “Tisha B’Av and the Messianic Jew: A Call to Remember, Mourn & Hope” said it simply: “remembering is part of covenant faithfulness… Scripture constantly calls us to remember because remembrance keeps us rooted.” He had leaned on Jehoiada, and when Jehoiada died, he fell.

Hebrew lesson: יֵרֶא יְהוָה וְיִדְרֹשׁ (yere Hashem ve-yidrosh), “Hashem look upon it, and require it.” Yidrosh is darash again. The king had asked Jehoiada, “Why hast thou not required?” (24:6); now Jehoiada’s son asks Hashem to require. It is the Torah’s word for blood: “surely your blood of your lives will I require,” אֶדְרֹשׁ (edrosh, Genesis 9:5). Jehu had been anointed to avenge “the blood of my servants the prophets” on Ahab’s house (2 Kings 9:7); now a son of David had shed a prophet’s blood.

What the sages say. The Talmud tells that when Nebuzaradan, Nebuchadnezzar’s captain, came into the Temple court, he found blood seething. At last they told him it was the blood of a prophet who had rebuked them in the things of Heaven, and they had killed him. He slaughtered sages, young men and schoolchildren over it, and it would not rest, until he cried, “Zechariah, Zechariah, I have destroyed the best of them; do you want me to destroy them all?” Then it rested, and the Talmud says Nebuzaradan repented and became a convert (Gittin 57b; Sanhedrin 96b). The sages heard Zechariah in Lamentations: “Behold, O Hashem, and consider to whom thou hast done this… shall the priest and the prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord?” (Lamentations 2:20).

Messianic reading. Yeshua said to the lawyers at a Pharisee’s table, “That the blood of all the prophets, which was shed from the foundation of the world, may be required of this generation; From the blood of Abel unto the blood of Zacharias, which perished between the altar and the temple” (Luke 11:50–51). “Required” is Zechariah’s yidrosh. Abel’s is the first murder in the first book of the Tenakh; Zechariah son of Jehoiada is the last prophet whose killing is told when the Tenakh is read in the Talmud’s order, which puts Chronicles last (see the introduction to our 1 Chronicles commentary). Matthew calls him “Zacharias son of Barachias” (Matthew 23:35), the father’s name of the prophet “Zechariah, the son of Berechiah” (Zechariah 1:1). Jewish tradition joined the two Zechariahs too: the Targum to Lamentations 2:20 calls the priest slain in the sanctuary “Zechariah son of Iddo.”

Two cries. Abel’s blood cried from the ground (Genesis 4:10), and Zechariah cried, “Require it.” Hebrews speaks of “the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel” (Hebrews 12:24). Stephen, stoned like Zechariah, cried, “Lord, lay not this sin to their charge” (Acts 7:60), as Yeshua had prayed, “Father, forgive them” (Luke 23:34). FFOZ’s End of Days notes that “when referring to someone who has died as a martyr, the custom is to say, ‘May the LORD avenge his blood,’” and answers those who think it unfit for disciples of Yeshua: “consider the souls of the martyrs beneath the altar crying out to God,” who ask, “How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?” (Revelation 6:10). “The blood of the martyrs cries out like the blood of righteous Abel” (Lesson 9, “Souls under the Altar”). Both men left their blood with Hashem, one asking justice and one mercy, and the God who is righteous and merciful will answer both.

24:23–27 · A small company, and a king not buried with the kings

“And it came to pass at the end of the year, that the host of Syria came up against him: and they came to Judah and Jerusalem, and destroyed all the princes of the people from among the people” (24:23). It is the princes, who bowed to the king and led him to the idols (24:17), who fall.

“For the army of the Syrians came with a small company of men, and Hashem delivered a very great host into their hand, because they had forsaken Hashem God of their fathers. So they executed judgment against Joash” (24:24).

What Chronicles changes. In Kings, Hazael takes Gath and turns toward Jerusalem, and Joash buys him off with “all the hallowed things that Jehoshaphat, and Jehoram, and Ahaziah, his fathers, kings of Judah, had dedicated” (2 Kings 12:17–18). Chronicles tells of a battle, and it is Asa’s prayer turned upside down. Asa had said, “it is nothing with thee to help, whether with many, or with them that have no power” (14:10, KJV 14:11). Now Hashem helps the few against the many, and the many are Judah. “They executed judgment,” עָשׂוּ שְׁפָטִים (asu shefatim), is the Torah’s phrase for Hashem’s judgment “against all the gods of Egypt” (Exodus 12:12; Numbers 33:4); we take it as a hint, for a king who let himself be bowed to.

“And when they were departed from him, (for they left him in great diseases,) his own servants conspired against him for the blood of the sons of Jehoiada the priest, and slew him on his bed, and he died: and they buried him in the city of David, but they buried him not in the sepulchres of the kings” (24:25).

Measure for measure. “They left him,” עָזְבוּ (azvu): Judah had forsaken Hashem, and Aram forsook the king in his sickness. He had been saved as a baby in “a bedchamber,” חֲדַר הַמִּטּוֹת (chadar ha-mittot), “the chamber of the beds” (22:11), and he was killed עַל־מִטָּתוֹ (al mittato), “on his bed.” He joined a kesher against Zechariah, and his servants made a kesher against him. The priest was buried among the kings; the king was not, as his grandfather Jehoram was not (21:20). Kings has him killed “in the house of Millo” and buried “with his fathers” (2 Kings 12:20–21), and gives no reason; Chronicles gives it.

“Zabad the son of Shimeath an Ammonitess, and Jehozabad the son of Shimrith a Moabitess” (24:26). Kings names “Jozachar the son of Shimeath, and Jehozabad the son of Shomer” (2 Kings 12:21). Chronicles names both mothers and their nations. Ammon and Moab came from Lot’s sons (Genesis 19:37–38), and Abraham had rescued Lot (Genesis 14:12–16); yet they “met you not with bread and with water in the way” (Deuteronomy 23:4). A midrash puts it in a line: let the ungrateful come and punish the ungrateful.

“Now concerning his sons, and the greatness of the burdens laid upon him, and the repairing of the house of God, behold, they are written in the story of the book of the kings” (24:27).

“The story” is מִדְרַשׁ (midrash), the word of 13:22 (see 13:21–23), and darash once more. His son Amaziah will deal with the killers by the Torah (25:3–4).

Joash, first and last. Saved by a priest’s wife, crowned and taught by a priest, he did right as long as the priest lived. He set out to renew the House and then left it (24:4, 18); he took the testimony and had the prophet who testified stoned (23:11; 24:19–21). The Chronicler does not say Joash’s early years were false. He shows that a faith borrowed from another person does not outlive that person. Matthew’s genealogy passes over him, with his father and his son (Matthew 1:8; see our 1 Chronicles commentary on 3:10–16, and see 25:27).

Messianic reading. Joash could not do right once his teacher was gone. Yeshua said, “the Father hath not left me alone; for I do always those things that please him” (John 8:29). The Son of David is not propped up by another man’s life; he gave his own, and Hashem raised him.

Drawing it together

1. Whose counsel, and where you hide. Ahaziah walked in the counsel of the wicked (22:3–5; Psalm 1:1) and hid in Samaria, and he was found. His son was hidden in the House of God, and he was kept: “in the secret of his tabernacle shall he hide me” (Psalm 27:5).

2. The lamp kept by a few. Athaliah nearly put out David’s light. A king’s daughter married to a priest hid one baby six years, as Moses was hidden from Pharaoh. Hashem keeps His word through the faithful few.

3. The crown, the testimony and the order. Joash was crowned with the testimony in his hand and set on “the throne of the kingdom” (23:20; compare Deuteronomy 17:18), and the House was ordered again by Moses’ Torah and David’s song. The covenant was “that they should be Hashem’s people” (23:16).

4. All the days of Jehoiada. Joash did right while his teacher lived, then listened to flatterers and forgot the chesed done to him. Remembering is covenant faithfulness, and borrowed faith dies with the lender.

5. From Abel to Zechariah. “Hashem look upon it, and require it” (24:22). Yeshua named that blood; Stephen prayed for his killers; in John’s vision the martyrs under the altar cry out. Yeshua came first in the pattern of Mashiach ben Yosef, rejected and killed, and will return as Mashiach ben David, when justice and mercy are both made full.

Questions for discussion

1. Compare 22:2 with 2 Kings 8:26 and 21:5. Why can’t Ahaziah have been forty-two?
2. How do 22:3–5 echo Psalm 1:1? What do 18:1 and 19:2 tell us about how it began?
3. What does Chronicles say about Ahaziah’s death and burial (22:7–9) that Kings does not? Why was he buried?
4. The word mitchabe, “hiding,” is used of Ahaziah and of Joash (22:9, 12). What does the contrast teach?
5. What does only Chronicles tell us about Jehoshabeath (22:11)? How does her name recall Exodus 6:23?
6. What pattern do many readers see between 22:10–12, Exodus 2 and Matthew 2?
7. How does Chronicles’ account of the coronation (23:2–8) differ from 2 Kings 11:4–8? Why guard the holiness of the House so carefully?
8. What were the nezer and the edut (23:11)? Trace edut through 23:11, 24:6 and 24:19.
9. What does “all the days of Jehoiada the priest” (24:2) teach, and how does 2 Kings 12:2 put it? What does the midrash on Exodus 7:1 say happened after Jehoiada died?
10. Compare “Hashem look upon it, and require it” (24:22) with Genesis 4:10, Luke 11:50–51, Acts 7:60 and Revelation 6:10. How does FFOZ help us hold justice and mercy together?

Sources

Scripture: 2 Chronicles 1, 5–6, 8–15, 18–25; 1 Chronicles 17, 29; 2 Samuel 7; 2 Kings 8–12; Genesis 4, 9, 14, 19, 35, 40; Exodus 2, 6–7, 12, 21, 25, 30; Numbers 1, 9, 18, 33; Deuteronomy 12, 17, 23, 26; 1 Samuel 10; Job 42; Psalms 1, 27, 132; Isaiah 8; Jeremiah 30–31; Lamentations 2; Zechariah 1; Matthew 1–2, 17, 23; Mark 12; Luke 11, 23; John 8; Acts 7; Hebrews 12; Revelation 6, 12.

Talmud and Midrash: Gittin 57b; Sanhedrin 96b; Mishnah Shekalim 1:1; the midrash on Exodus 7:1 on Joash; the midrash on Ammon and Moab at 24:26.

Commentators: Targum to Lamentations 2:20.

Our teachers and materials: First Fruits of Zion, End of Days (5786), Lesson 6, “Beginning of the Birth Pains”; Lesson 9, “Souls under the Altar”; Lesson 19, “Banner on a Mountain”; Rabbi Efraim Palvanov, “Who is Mashiach?” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rvL-sW5J04); Benei Avraham class “Tisha B’Av and the Messianic Jew: A Call to Remember, Mourn & Hope” (https://youtu.be/d3mT7q_R6DA); our 1 Chronicles commentary on 3:10–16, 9:17–27, 12:17–19, 17:11–15, 24:1–6, 26:20–28, 29:23–25 and 29:26–30, and its introduction; our 2 Samuel commentary on chapter 7; Benei Avraham Statement of Faith.

Before we begin

“And Amaziah his son reigned in his stead” (24:27). Three generations follow: Amaziah, his son Uzziah, and Uzziah’s son Jotham. Kings tells their reigns briefly (2 Kings 14:1–22; 15:1–7, 32–38); Chronicles adds the hired army, the gods of Edom, Uzziah’s engines and incense, and Jotham’s building.

These chapters show a pattern plainly. Amaziah did right “but not with a perfect heart” (25:2). Uzziah prospered “as long as he sought Hashem” (26:5), and then “when he was strong, his heart was lifted up to his destruction” (26:16). Joash and Asa before them had also begun well. Of all these kings, only Jotham is said to have “prepared his ways” (27:6). Over them all stands David’s rule: “if thou seek him, he will be found of thee; but if thou forsake him, he will cast thee off for ever” (1 Chronicles 28:9; see 15:2).

At the center a king takes a censer into the Holy Place, and eighty-one priests stand in his way. The question reaches to Mashiach: how can one man be both king and priest? In these chapters the Hebrew and English verse numbers are the same.

How this commentary is built. We read the text first, in Hebrew where it matters, because Torah comes first and the Prophets and Writings are measured by it. Then we hear the sages: the Talmud, the Midrash, Rashi, Radak and Rambam. Then our own teachers: the FFOZ End of Days lessons, Rabbi Efraim Palvanov and Ariel Cohen Alloro, along with our own Benei Avraham classes. Last, we ask what the passage shows us about Mashiach.

A word on our teachers. Rabbi Palvanov and Ariel Cohen Alloro bring a great deal of Kabbalah and gematria. We use their insights as remez, a hint that opens a door, and never as proof. Gematria can show a connection the text already makes, but it cannot make a doctrine by itself. Where a teacher’s framework goes beyond what Benei Avraham confesses (for example, on reincarnation or on the nature of God), we take the insight and leave the framework. “To the Torah and to the testimony” (Isaiah 8:20) is the test for all of it, our own words included.

Scripture is quoted from the King James Version with Hashem in place of LORD, as in our Statement of Faith.

Chapter 25 · Amaziah and the Gods of Edom

Read 2 Chronicles 25 in Hebrew and English →

25:1–4 · “But not with a perfect heart”

“Amaziah was twenty and five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned twenty and nine years in Jerusalem” (25:1; 2 Kings 14:2).

“And he did that which was right in the sight of Hashem, but not with a perfect heart” (25:2).

Word by word with Kings. Kings has: “yet not like David his father: he did according to all things as Joash his father did” (2 Kings 14:3). Both books say רַק לֹא (rak lo), “only not.” Kings measures him against David; Chronicles measures him from the inside: לֹא בְּלֵבָב שָׁלֵם (lo be-levav shalem), “not with a whole heart.” It is David’s charge to Solomon, “serve him with a perfect heart” (1 Chronicles 28:9; see our 1 Chronicles commentary on 28:9–10). Hanani the seer had told Asa that “the eyes of Hashem run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to shew himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him” (16:9). Kings adds that “the high places were not taken away” (2 Kings 14:4). Chronicles leaves the high places out here, and for Uzziah and Jotham as well (2 Kings 15:4, 35).

“Now it came to pass, when the kingdom was established to him, that he slew his servants that had killed the king his father” (25:3). The verb is חָזְקָה (chazkah), “was strong,” the first of many times that root comes in these chapters (see 26:6–15).

“But he slew not their children, but did as it is written in the Torah in the book of Moses, where Hashem commanded, saying, The fathers shall not die for the children, neither shall the children die for the fathers, but every man shall die for his own sin” (25:4; Deuteronomy 24:16).

Hebrew lesson: לֹא יָמוּתוּ (lo yamutu), “shall not die.” The Torah and Kings say לֹא יוּמְתוּ (lo yumtu), “shall not be put to death” (Deuteronomy 24:16; 2 Kings 14:6), a law for courts and kings. Chronicles says simply “shall not die,” and we can hear the law also as a word about how Hashem judges, as the prophets heard it: “every one shall die for his own iniquity” (Jeremiah 31:30); “The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father” (Ezekiel 18:20).

What the sages say. The Torah also says that Hashem visits “the iniquity of the fathers upon the children” (Exodus 20:5). The Talmud answers that this is “when they hold the deeds of their fathers in their hands,” when the children carry on what the fathers did (Berakhot 7a; Sanhedrin 27b). Amaziah kept the law when revenge was easiest. Yet he will die by a conspiracy, as his father did (24:25; 25:27), for his own sin.

25:5–10 · “Hashem is able to give thee much more than this”

Amaziah counts “three hundred thousand choice men” of Judah (25:5). “He hired also an hundred thousand mighty men of valour out of Israel for an hundred talents of silver” (25:6).

Only in Chronicles. From here to 25:16, Kings has only the victory in the valley of salt (2 Kings 14:7).

“But there came a man of God to him, saying, O king, let not the army of Israel go with thee; for Hashem is not with Israel, to wit, with all the children of Ephraim” (25:7). The prophet is not against the people of the north; Chronicles welcomes the northerners who came south to seek Hashem (see 11:13–17). He is against leaning on a kingdom that kept the calves (compare 16:7; 19:2).

“But if thou wilt go, do it, be strong for the battle: God shall make thee fall before the enemy: for God hath power to help, and to cast down” (25:8).

Hebrew lesson: לַעְזוֹר וּלְהַכְשִׁיל (la’zor u-lehachshil), “to help, and to cast down.” כָּשַׁל (kashal) is to stumble. Proverbs uses its noun: “Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall,” כִּשָּׁלוֹן (kishalon, Proverbs 16:18), and its “haughty spirit” is גֹּבַהּ רוּחַ (govah ru’ach), the root of 26:16. The other verb, עָזַר (azar), “to help,” will be the key word of Uzziah’s reign.

“And Amaziah said to the man of God, But what shall we do for the hundred talents which I have given to the army of Israel? And the man of God answered, Hashem is able to give thee much more than this” (25:9).

What about what I have already paid? The king’s question is ours. The answer is יֵשׁ לַיהוָה לָתֶת לְךָ הַרְבֵּה מִזֶּה (yesh l’Hashem latet lecha harbeh mi-zeh), “Hashem has more than this to give you.” The man of God does not promise the money back; he says that Hashem is not poor. Read on to 27:5: the Ammonites paid Amaziah’s grandson Jotham “an hundred talents of silver,” and the same again the second year and the third.

Amaziah sent them home, “wherefore their anger was greatly kindled against Judah” (25:10). They raided the cities of Judah, “and smote three thousand of them, and took much spoil” (25:13). Obedience cost him, and Chronicles does not hide it.

Messianic reading. Yeshua answered Peter’s form of the question: whoever leaves house or lands for his sake “shall receive an hundredfold now in this time… with persecutions” (Mark 10:30). That is as honest as Chronicles.

25:11–16 · The gods of Edom, and the prophet silenced

“And Amaziah strengthened himself, and led forth his people, and went to the valley of salt, and smote of the children of Seir ten thousand. And other ten thousand left alive did the children of Judah carry away captive, and brought them unto the top of the rock, and cast them down from the top of the rock, that they all were broken in pieces” (25:11–12).

Edom had broken away from Judah under Jehoram (21:8; 2 Kings 8:20). Kings says that Amaziah “took Selah by war” (2 Kings 14:7), הַסֶּלַע (ha-sela), “the Rock,” Edom’s stronghold, the word Chronicles uses for “the top of the rock.” The prophets remembered Edom’s pride in its rock: “The pride of thine heart hath deceived thee, thou that dwellest in the clefts of the rock” (Obadiah 1:3). Rabbi Palvanov, in his class “Understanding Edom #5 – Gog & Mashiach,” reads that verse first of Petra, “the Edomite stronghold”: “you think that you’re safe in Petra, in this stronghold… but I will bring you down from there.” We leave aside his second, end-of-days reading. Amaziah brought Edom down from its rock. Then Edom’s pride came home with him.

“Now it came to pass, after that Amaziah was come from the slaughter of the Edomites, that he brought the gods of the children of Seir, and set them up to be his gods, and bowed down himself before them, and burned incense unto them” (25:14).

Why would the winner worship the loser’s gods? The prophet asks it: “Why hast thou sought after the gods of the people, which could not deliver their own people out of thine hand?” (25:15). The verb is דָּרַשְׁתָּ (darashta), “thou hast sought,” the great verb of Chronicles, “if thou seek him” (1 Chronicles 28:9). He sought, but he sought gods that had just lost.

“And it came to pass, as he talked with him, that the king said unto him, Art thou made of the king’s counsel? forbear; why shouldest thou be smitten? Then the prophet forbare, and said, I know that God hath determined to destroy thee, because thou hast done this, and hast not hearkened unto my counsel” (25:16).

Hebrew lesson: יָעַץ (ya’atz), “to counsel.” The root comes four times in two verses. The king asks, הַלְיוֹעֵץ לַמֶּלֶךְ נְתַנּוּךָ (ha-le-yo’etz la-melech netanucha), “Were you made the king’s counselor?” The prophet answers with the same root: יָעַץ אֱלֹהִים לְהַשְׁחִיתֶךָ (ya’atz Elohim le-hashchitecha), “God has counselled to destroy you,” because you did not listen לַעֲצָתִי (la-atzati), “to my counsel.” And in the next verse Amaziah “took advice,” וַיִּוָּעַץ (va-yivva’atz, 25:17), the verb of Rehoboam at Shechem (10:6, 8; see 10:6–11). He refused the prophet’s counsel, took counsel elsewhere, and God’s counsel stood. In Uzziah’s days a priest of Bethel, also named Amaziah, told Amos the same: “prophesy not again any more at Bethel” (Amos 7:13; 1:1).

25:17–24 · The thistle and the cedar

Amaziah “sent to Joash, the son of Jehoahaz, the son of Jehu, king of Israel, saying, Come, let us see one another in the face” (25:17). It is a challenge to war, perhaps his answer to the raid of 25:13.

“And Joash king of Israel sent to Amaziah king of Judah, saying, The thistle that was in Lebanon sent to the cedar that was in Lebanon, saying, Give thy daughter to my son to wife: and there passed by a wild beast that was in Lebanon, and trode down the thistle” (25:18; 2 Kings 14:9).

A fable of plants. The Tenakh has one other in which plants speak, told by Jotham son of Gideon (Judges 9:7–15). Here the thistle, חוֹחַ (choach), is Amaziah, a small king asking a great one for his daughter. “Thou sayest, Lo, thou hast smitten the Edomites; and thine heart lifteth thee up to boast: abide now at home” (25:19). וּנְשָׂאֲךָ לִבְּךָ (u-nesa’acha libbecha), “your heart has lifted you up.” Joash spoke with scorn, but what he said was true.

“But Amaziah would not hear; for it came of God, that he might deliver them into the hand of their enemies, because they sought after the gods of Edom” (25:20).

What Chronicles adds. Kings has only “But Amaziah would not hear” (2 Kings 14:11). Chronicles gives the reason, in the spirit of 10:15 (see 10:12–15): it was from God, because “they sought,” דָּרְשׁוּ (darshu), the gods of Edom. Hashem used the king’s pride; He did not create it.

They “saw one another in the face… at Beth-shemesh” (25:21), and Judah fled. Joash “took Amaziah king of Judah, the son of Joash, the son of Jehoahaz,” and “brake down the wall of Jerusalem from the gate of Ephraim to the corner gate, four hundred cubits” (25:23). Kings calls the grandfather Ahaziah (2 Kings 14:13); Chronicles has already called him Jehoahaz (21:17; see 22:1–6). Amaziah’s son will build towers “at the corner gate” (26:9).

“And he took all the gold and the silver, and all the vessels that were found in the house of God with Obed-edom, and the treasures of the king’s house, the hostages also, and returned to Samaria” (25:24).

Only in Chronicles: “with Obed-edom.” The south gate fell to Obed-edom and the storehouse to his sons (1 Chronicles 26:15; see our 1 Chronicles commentary on 26:12–19), the family Hashem blessed for keeping the Ark (1 Chronicles 13:14). It seems their descendants still kept the treasures. Shishak had taken them once (12:9; see 12:9–12); now a king of Israel took them.

25:25–28 · “After the time that Amaziah did turn away”

Amaziah “lived after the death of Joash son of Jehoahaz king of Israel fifteen years” (25:25).

“Now after the time that Amaziah did turn away from following Hashem they made a conspiracy against him in Jerusalem; and he fled to Lachish: but they sent to Lachish after him, and slew him there” (25:27).

What Chronicles adds. Kings begins the verse simply, “Now they made a conspiracy against him” (2 Kings 14:19). Chronicles dates it: וּמֵעֵת אֲשֶׁר סָר (u-me’et asher sar), “from the time that he turned aside.” The trouble began with the gods of Edom; the sword came years later. Lachish was one of Rehoboam’s fortified cities (11:9; see 11:5–12), and its walls did not save him. He was buried “in the city of Judah” (25:28); Kings says “in the city of David” (2 Kings 14:20).

Our teachers. Matthew passes from Joram to Uzziah, “Joram begat Ozias” (Matthew 1:8), leaving out Ahaziah, Joash and Amaziah (see our 1 Chronicles commentary on 3:10–16). Ariel Cohen Alloro, in his video “Happy New Year! Year 5777 – in the light of the Gospel of Matthew – Part 1,” adds up their years: “He was a king 1 year. He was a king 40 years. He was a king 29 years. Together is Ayin.” One, forty and twenty-nine (22:2; 24:1; 25:1) make seventy, the value of ע (ayin). We take the sum as remez. Plainly, the three left out are Athaliah’s son, grandson and great-grandson (22:2, 11; 24:27).

Chapter 26 · Uzziah: Helped Till He Was Strong

Read 2 Chronicles 26 in Hebrew and English →

26:1–5 · “As long as he sought Hashem”

“Then all the people of Judah took Uzziah, who was sixteen years old, and made him king in the room of his father Amaziah” (26:1).

Two names. Kings usually calls him Azariah (2 Kings 14:21; 15:1, 7), as does 1 Chronicles 3:12, and four times Uzziah (2 Kings 15:13, 30, 32, 34). Chronicles here and the prophets call him Uzziah (Isaiah 1:1; 6:1; Hosea 1:1; Amos 1:1; Zechariah 14:5). עֻזִּיָּהוּ (Uzziyahu) means “my strength is Hashem”; עֲזַרְיָהוּ (Azaryahu) means “Hashem has helped.” The chapter is built on both names.

“He built Eloth, and restored it to Judah” (26:2). Eloth, on the Red Sea in the land of Edom, was where Solomon went down to the ships (8:17; see 8:17–18). The father won back Edom’s rock, and the son won back the sea. It would be lost again under Ahaz (2 Kings 16:6). Uzziah “reigned fifty and two years in Jerusalem” (26:3); of the kings of Judah, only Manasseh reigned longer (33:1). “And he did that which was right in the sight of Hashem, according to all that his father Amaziah did” (26:4). He followed his father in the good years and in the end.

“And he sought God in the days of Zechariah, who had understanding in the visions of God: and as long as he sought Hashem, God made him to prosper” (26:5).

Hebrew lesson: וּבִימֵי דָּרְשׁוֹ (u-vimei dorsho), “and in the days of his seeking.” The verse says “days” twice: “in the days of Zechariah,” and “in the days of his seeking.” It is the pattern of Joash, who did right “all the days of Jehoiada the priest” (24:2). We know nothing more of this Zechariah. He is not Zechariah son of Jehoiada, whom Uzziah’s grandfather had stoned (24:20–22). One Zechariah was killed by the grandfather; another taught the grandson. “God made him to prosper,” הִצְלִיחוֹ (hitzlicho), is the promise of 20:20, “believe his prophets, so shall ye prosper,” and the reverse of 24:20, “ye cannot prosper.”

26:6–15 · “Marvellously helped, till he was strong”

Uzziah “brake down the wall of Gath, and the wall of Jabneh, and the wall of Ashdod” (26:6). “And God helped him against the Philistines” (26:7). “And the Ammonites gave gifts to Uzziah: and his name spread abroad even to the entering in of Egypt; for he strengthened himself exceedingly” (26:8).

Jabneh is Yavneh. When the Second Temple was about to fall, Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai asked Vespasian, “Give me Yavneh and its sages” (Gittin 56b). The town whose wall Uzziah broke became the place where Torah outlived the House.

He built towers in Jerusalem “at the corner gate” (26:9), where his father’s wall had been broken (25:23), and “towers in the desert, and digged many wells… for he loved husbandry” (26:10). The Hebrew is אֹהֵב אֲדָמָה (ohev adamah), “a lover of the soil.” No other king is described so. The Mishnah teaches, “Love work, hate lordship” (Mishnah Avot 1:10). Uzziah loved the work. His trouble came when he reached for a lordship that was not his.

“And he made in Jerusalem engines, invented by cunning men, to be on the towers and upon the bulwarks, to shoot arrows and great stones withal. And his name spread far abroad; for he was marvellously helped, till he was strong” (26:15).

Hebrew lesson: חִשְּׁבֹנוֹת מַחֲשֶׁבֶת חוֹשֵׁב (chishbonot machashevet choshev), “devices devised by a deviser.” Three words come from one root, “to think out.” The noun chishbonot is found in the Tenakh only here and in Ecclesiastes: “God hath made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions,” חִשְּׁבֹנוֹת רַבִּים (Ecclesiastes 7:29). Uzziah did “that which was right” (26:4), הַיָּשָׁר (ha-yashar), and built chishbonot. Ecclesiastes speaks of a man made upright who keeps finding clever ways around it, and the next verse goes there.

Hebrew lesson: עָזַר (azar), “to help,” and חָזַק (chazak), “to be strong.” “God helped him” (26:7); the army was “to help the king” (26:13); and כִּי הִפְלִיא לְהֵעָזֵר עַד כִּי חָזָק (ki hifli le-he’azer ad ki chazak), “for he was marvellously helped, till he was strong” (26:15). Help is the name Azariah; strength is the name Uzziah. The root of strength runs through all three chapters (25:3, 8, 11; 26:8, 9; 27:5, 6). The help came first and the strength after. The hinge is the word “till.”

26:16–18 · “It appertaineth not unto thee”

“But when he was strong, his heart was lifted up to his destruction: for he transgressed against Hashem his God, and went into the temple of Hashem to burn incense upon the altar of incense” (26:16).

Hebrew lesson: וּכְחֶזְקָתוֹ גָּבַהּ לִבּוֹ (u-che-chezkato gavah libbo), “when he was strong, his heart was high.” U-che-chezkato is Rehoboam’s word: “when Rehoboam had established the kingdom, and had strengthened himself, he forsook the Torah of Hashem” (12:1; see 12:1–4). In Chronicles it is found only in those two verses. Gavah libbo was said of Jehoshaphat for good, “his heart was lifted up in the ways of Hashem” (17:6), and will be said of Hezekiah for ill (32:25). Proverbs puts Uzziah’s story in one line: “Before destruction the heart of man is haughty, and before honour is humility” (Proverbs 18:12). The priests will tell him that this act is not “for thine honour” (26:18).

What he did. The altar of incense stood in the הֵיכָל (heichal), the Holy Place, before the veil, and its incense was the priests’ work, morning and evening (Exodus 30:7–8): “Aaron was separated… he and his sons for ever, to burn incense before Hashem” (1 Chronicles 23:13). After Korah, his company’s censers were beaten into plates for the altar, “that no stranger, which is not of the seed of Aaron, come near to offer incense before Hashem; that he be not as Korah” (Numbers 16:40, Hebrew 17:5).

“And Azariah the priest went in after him, and with him fourscore priests of Hashem, that were valiant men: And they withstood Uzziah the king, and said unto him, It appertaineth not unto thee, Uzziah, to burn incense unto Hashem, but to the priests the sons of Aaron, that are consecrated to burn incense: go out of the sanctuary; for thou hast trespassed; neither shall it be for thine honour from Hashem God” (26:17–18).

Eighty-one men stand against a king with an army of 307,500. They do not lay a hand on him; they say לֹא לְךָ (lo lecha), “not yours,” twice. The priest at their head is עֲזַרְיָהוּ (Azaryahu), “Hashem has helped,” the king’s own other name. On the tradition that he is the Azariah “that executed the priest’s office in the temple that Solomon built,” see our 1 Chronicles commentary on 5:27–41.

Kings who reached for the altar. Saul offered at Gilgal and lost the kingdom (1 Samuel 13:9–14). Jeroboam “stood by the altar to burn incense,” and his hand “dried up” (1 Kings 13:1, 4). Uzziah was a far better king than either, and that is the warning.

Messianic reading: king and priest. Is Mashiach not to be both? Zechariah sees the Branch “sit and rule upon his throne; and he shall be a priest upon his throne” (Zechariah 6:13). David hears, “Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek” (Psalm 110:4; see our 2 Samuel commentary on 8:16–18). But it comes by “Hashem hath sworn.” Uzziah took a censer; Mashiach is given an oath. Hebrews says it with Uzziah’s own word, honor: “And no man taketh this honour unto himself, but he that is called of God, as was Aaron. So also Messiah glorified not himself to be made an high priest” (Hebrews 5:4–5). He does not take Aaron’s place, for he is of Judah (Hebrews 7:14; 8:4; see our 1 Chronicles commentary on 18:14–17). FFOZ draws the line: the Messiah remains “a high priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek… but not on earth,” and “He does not come to abolish the Torah or the Levitical priesthood” (End of Days, Lesson 20, “Hamon-Gog”). Our class “Unlocking the Depth of Yom Kippur” said it too: “Yeshua didn’t replace the Levitical priesthood… he was not a Levitical priest; he doesn’t abolish the sacrificial system.”

The Son of David who healed leprosy sent the healed man to Aaron’s sons: “go thy way, shew thyself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses commanded” (Matthew 8:4). Luke’s Gospel opens at the altar of incense, the office Uzziah reached for, with a priest whose lot it was “to burn incense” (Luke 1:9). The King honors the priests, and Hashem gives His Mashiach what no king can take.

26:19–20 · Leprosy in his forehead

“Then Uzziah was wroth, and had a censer in his hand to burn incense: and while he was wroth with the priests, the leprosy even rose up in his forehead before the priests in the house of Hashem, from beside the incense altar” (26:19).

Hebrew lesson: זָרְחָה (zarchah), “rose up.” It is the verb of the sunrise. FFOZ quotes Josephus (Antiquities 9.10.4), who tells of an earthquake that split the Temple so that “the bright rays of the sun shone through it, and fell upon the king’s face,” and adds, “Like King Uzziah, who wrongfully entered the Sanctuary to offer incense, the false Messiah wrongfully enters the holy place in defiance of God” (End of Days, Lesson 17, “The Last Trumpet”; compare 2 Thessalonians 2:4). That is tradition, not Scripture. Malachi uses the same verb for the opposite: “But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings” (Malachi 4:2), וְזָרְחָה (ve-zarchah, Hebrew 3:20). On the proud king’s forehead leprosy rose; for those who fear His Name, healing will rise. FFOZ notes that “biblical leprosy is especially understood as a supernatural punishment for an individual’s sins. That’s one reason Yeshua’s healing of lepers carried extra significance” (End of Days, Lessons 27–28, “Healing in His Wings–Imperishable, Undefiled, Unfading”).

The forehead. On the מֵצַח (metzach), the forehead, the high priest wore the gold plate engraved “HOLINESS TO Hashem”: “And it shall be upon Aaron’s forehead… always upon his forehead, that they may be accepted before Hashem” (Exodus 28:36–38). Our Statement of Faith notes that “the Cohen Gadol bore the divine Name on his forehead.” The king reached for the priest’s place, and the mark came out where the priest wears the Name. Our Hoshana Rabbah 5787 shiur “Sealed for Life,” on Ezekiel 9:4 and Revelation 7:3, said, “Look at what is written on the forehead of the righteous every time. Not a number. A Name.”

Ezekiel calls a shameless people חִזְקֵי מֵצַח (chizkei metzach), “impudent,” literally “strong of forehead” (Ezekiel 3:7). Ariel Cohen Alloro, in his video “Jerusalem Syndrome – Part 1,” calls it azut metzach, “like chutzpah”: Uzziah wanted “a very strong will. This is the will to be a priest… he receives the leprosy in this place.” עַזּוּת (azut) shares the root of Uzziah’s name, עֹז (oz), “strength.” We take that as remez and leave his kabbalistic framework aside.

The priests as judges. The Torah gives the priest the judgment of leprosy: “the priest shall look on him, and pronounce him unclean” (Leviticus 13:3). “And Azariah the chief priest, and all the priests, looked upon him, and, behold, he was leprous in his forehead, and they thrust him out from thence; yea, himself hasted also to go out, because Hashem had smitten him” (26:20). The men he would not hear became his examiners. Kings says only that “Hashem smote the king” (2 Kings 15:5); Chronicles tells why.

What the sages say. The Talmud counts seven sins for which leprosy comes, and arrogance is one; its proof is 26:16, “when he was strong, his heart was lifted up” (Arakhin 16a). On Joab’s curse and the Talmud’s teaching that it came true in Uzziah (Sanhedrin 48b), see our 2 Samuel commentary on 3:22–30.

26:21 · “Cut off from the house of Hashem”

“And Uzziah the king was a leper unto the day of his death, and dwelt in a several house, being a leper; for he was cut off from the house of Hashem: and Jotham his son was over the king’s house, judging the people of the land” (26:21).

Hebrew lesson: בֵּית הַחָפְשִׁית (beit ha-chofshit) and נִגְזַר (nigzar). Chofshit comes from חָפְשִׁי (chofshi), “free”; Kings uses the same name (2 Kings 15:5). Some explain it as a house set free of the duties of the throne. The Torah’s rule is “he shall dwell alone; without the camp shall his habitation be” (Leviticus 13:46). Psalm 88 puts both our words into one verse: “Free among the dead,” בַּמֵּתִים חָפְשִׁי (ba-metim chofshi), “and they are cut off from thy hand,” נִגְזָרוּ (nigzaru, Psalm 88:5, Hebrew 88:6). The sages count the leper among four who are “as dead” (Nedarim 64b).

Messianic reading. Isaiah, who wrote Uzziah’s acts (26:22), uses these words of Hashem’s Servant. “Yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God” (Isaiah 53:4): “stricken” is נָגוּעַ (nagua), the root of “Hashem had smitten him,” נִגְּעוֹ (nigge’o, 26:20), and of “the plague of leprosy,” נֶגַע צָרַעַת (nega tzara’at, Leviticus 13:2). “He was cut off out of the land of the living” (Isaiah 53:8) is נִגְזַר (nigzar), the very form of 26:21. Uzziah was struck for his own trespass; the Servant “was wounded for our transgressions” (Isaiah 53:5). The Talmud names the Messiah “the leper of the house of Rabbi,” from Isaiah 53:4 (Sanhedrin 98b). Rabbi Palvanov, in his class “Jesus in the Talmud,” explains: “he is simply referred to as the leper, the leper scholar,” because Isaiah 53 says “that the Messiah bore our sins and endured our pain. He was injured, stricken by God, and afflicted by God.” The king who reached for the priesthood was cut off; the Servant who was cut off was made a priest for ever by Hashem’s oath. This is the pattern of Mashiach ben Yosef in his first coming, as our Statement of Faith confesses (see 10:16–19 and 12:13–16).

26:22–23 · “Did Isaiah the prophet… write”

“Now the rest of the acts of Uzziah, first and last, did Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz, write” (26:22). Kings points to “the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah” (2 Kings 15:6). This is the first time Chronicles names Isaiah. The sages hand down that Amoz and Amaziah were brothers (Megillah 10b), so that by their tradition Isaiah was Uzziah’s first cousin.

“In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple” (Isaiah 6:1). Rashi, following the midrash, takes “died” as the year he was struck with leprosy, since a leper is counted as dead. The king went into the heichal uninvited; Isaiah sees the King whose train fills the heichal. The king stood “and had a censer in his hand,” וּבְיָדוֹ מִקְטֶרֶת (u-v’yado mikteret), and was struck “from beside the incense altar,” מֵעַל לְמִזְבַּח הַקְּטֹרֶת (26:19). The seraph came “having a live coal in his hand,” וּבְיָדוֹ רִצְפָּה (u-v’yado ritzpah), “which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar,” מֵעַל הַמִּזְבֵּחַ (Isaiah 6:6). Uzziah raged at the priests; Isaiah said, “Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips… for mine eyes have seen the King, Hashem of hosts” (Isaiah 6:5), and the coal touched his lips: “thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged” (Isaiah 6:7). FFOZ sets it beside Moses at the bush: “A Seraph touched his lips with a coal from the altar” (End of Days, Lesson 44, “Apocalypse on Patmos”). The altar that struck the proud king cleansed the humble prophet.

Amos prophesied “two years before the earthquake” (Amos 1:1), and Zechariah remembers how they “fled from before the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah” (Zechariah 14:5). Scripture does not tie the earthquake to the incense; Josephus does.

“So Uzziah slept with his fathers, and they buried him with his fathers in the field of the burial which belonged to the kings; for they said, He is a leper” (26:23). Kings says “with his fathers in the city of David” (2 Kings 15:7). Chronicles is exact: near the kings, not among them. An Aramaic stone plaque of the Second Temple period, now in the Israel Museum, reads: “Hither were brought the bones of Uzziah, king of Judah. Do not open.” He “slept”: death is sleep until the resurrection, as our Statement of Faith confesses.

Chapter 27 · Jotham, Who Prepared His Ways

Read 2 Chronicles 27 in Hebrew and English →

27:1–2 · “Howbeit he entered not into the temple”

“Jotham was twenty and five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name also was Jerushah, the daughter of Zadok” (27:1).

“And he did that which was right in the sight of Hashem, according to all that his father Uzziah did: howbeit he entered not into the temple of Hashem. And the people did yet corruptly” (27:2).

Word by word with Kings. Kings has: “he did according to all that his father Uzziah had done. Howbeit the high places were not removed” (2 Kings 15:34–35). Both books say רַק (rak), “howbeit.” In Kings it introduces a fault. In Chronicles it introduces a virtue: רַק לֹא בָא אֶל הֵיכַל יְהוָה (rak lo va el heichal Hashem), “only he did not go into the temple of Hashem,” the words of 26:16, “and went into the temple of Hashem,” turned around. Some read it as a fault, as if Jotham kept away from the House, but the words answer 26:16, and 27:6 praises him. He followed his father in everything except the sin. Amaziah’s rak lo was “not with a perfect heart” (25:2). Jotham’s rak lo was that he did not go where he was not called.

Hebrew lesson: מַשְׁחִיתִים (mashchitim), “did corruptly.” The root שָׁחַת (shachat), “to destroy, to corrupt,” runs through all three chapters: “God hath determined to destroy thee” (25:16); “his heart was lifted up to his destruction” (26:16); and now “the people did yet corruptly.” The king was whole, and the people were not. Isaiah, who prophesied in these years (Isaiah 1:1), opens his book with the same word: “a seed of evildoers, children that are corrupters,” בָּנִים מַשְׁחִיתִים (banim mashchitim, Isaiah 1:4). Hosea and Micah prophesied in those days too (Hosea 1:1; Micah 1:1). A good king cannot make a good people by himself.

27:3–6 · “Because he prepared his ways”

“He built the high gate of the house of Hashem, and on the wall of Ophel he built much” (27:3). Kings has the gate (2 Kings 15:35); the rest of this passage is only in Chronicles. Jotham would not go in where only priests may go, but he built the gate through which the people come.

“He fought also with the king of the Ammonites, and prevailed against them. And the children of Ammon gave him the same year an hundred talents of silver, and ten thousand measures of wheat, and ten thousand of barley. So much did the children of Ammon pay unto him, both the second year, and the third” (27:5).

An hundred talents. It is the sum Amaziah gave up when he sent the hired men home (25:6, 9). Two generations after the man of God said “Hashem is able to give thee much more than this,” Amaziah’s grandson received a hundred talents a year for three years.

“So Jotham became mighty, because he prepared his ways before Hashem his God” (27:6).

Hebrew lesson: וַיִּתְחַזֵּק… כִּי הֵכִין (va-yitchazek… ki hechin), “became mighty, because he prepared.” These are Rehoboam’s two verbs: “So king Rehoboam strengthened himself,” וַיִּתְחַזֵּק (12:13), and “he did evil, because he prepared not his heart to seek Hashem,” לֹא הֵכִין (12:14; see 12:13–16). Jotham has the same strength with the opposite cause. Twice in these chapters strength led to pride (25:19; 26:16); here strength comes because the ways were prepared. His name, יוֹתָם (Yotam), means “Hashem is perfect,” from תָּם (tam), “whole”: “Thou shalt be perfect with Hashem thy God” (Deuteronomy 18:13).

Our teachers. Ariel Cohen Alloro, in his video “General Overview – First Coming & Second Coming of the Messiah – Part 4,” says simply, “Yotam was a very good king.” He reads Joseph’s description, יְפֵה־תֹאַר וִיפֵה מַרְאֶה (yefeh to’ar vifeh mar’eh), “a goodly person, and well favoured” (Genesis 39:6), as an acronym of Yotam, and notes that the name has the letters of יָתוֹם (yatom), “orphan.” We take the letters as remez; Jotham did rule as a son whose father was alive and cut off (26:21).

27:7–9 · “He was five and twenty years old”

“Now the rest of the acts of Jotham, and all his wars, and his ways” (27:7): “his ways,” דְּרָכָיו (derachav), the word of 27:6. “He was five and twenty years old when he began to reign, and reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem” (27:8). The verse repeats 27:1 almost word for word, without his mother’s name. It closes his reign like a frame. “And Jotham slept with his fathers, and they buried him in the city of David: and Ahaz his son reigned in his stead” (27:9). Kings adds that “In those days Hashem began to send against Judah Rezin the king of Syria, and Pekah the son of Remaliah” (2 Kings 15:37); Chronicles tells that war under Ahaz (28:5–6).

The pattern: kings who began well. - Asa. Chronicles says “the heart of Asa was perfect all his days” (15:17). Yet when Hanani rebuked him, “Asa was wroth with the seer, and put him in a prison house” (16:10), and at the end he was “diseased in his feet” (16:12; see 16:7–10). - Joash. He did right all the days of Jehoiada (24:2). Then he had Jehoiada’s son stoned “at the commandment of the king” (24:21), and his servants killed him “on his bed” (24:25). - Amaziah. He did right, “but not with a perfect heart” (25:2). After his victory he served Edom’s gods and told the prophet, “forbear; why shouldest thou be smitten?” (25:16). He died by conspiracy (25:27). - Uzziah. He sought Hashem in the days of Zechariah (26:5). When strong, he “was wroth with the priests” (26:19) and died a leper (26:21).

Each began well, two of them with a guide, Jehoiada and Zechariah. Each was given success. Later each turned on the man Hashem sent to correct him: the seer, the priest’s son, the prophet, the priests. What finished them was not their first wrong act but their refusal to be corrected. Each reign then ended under a blow: disease, the sword, leprosy. Only Jotham has no such story, “because he prepared his ways.”

Why this matters. Ezekiel, who taught Amaziah’s law that “the son shall not bear the iniquity of the father” (Ezekiel 18:20), warns in the same chapter: “But when the righteous turneth away from his righteousness… All his righteousness that he hath done shall not be mentioned” (Ezekiel 18:24). “Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall” (1 Corinthians 10:12). Hebrews asks us to do what these kings would not let others do for them: “exhort one another daily… lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin” (Hebrews 3:13). Paul could say, “I have finished my course, I have kept the faith” (2 Timothy 4:7). The way to finish is to stay helped. Uzziah was helped “till he was strong”; the servant of Hashem keeps being helped, because he never thinks he has become strong.

Drawing it together

1. A whole heart, not only right deeds. Amaziah did right “but not with a perfect heart” (25:2). Hashem shows Himself strong for the heart that is shalem (16:9), and David’s charge was to serve Him “with a perfect heart” (1 Chronicles 28:9).

2. Hashem is able to give more than this. Amaziah gave up a hundred talents to obey (25:9); Jotham received a hundred talents a year (27:5). Obedience may cost; Hashem is not poor.

3. Helped till strong. Uzziah’s names mean “my strength is Hashem” and “Hashem has helped.” He was “marvellously helped, till he was strong,” and then his heart was lifted up (26:15–16). “Before honour is humility” (Proverbs 18:12).

4. Not yours. “It appertaineth not unto thee” (26:18). The Son of David “glorified not himself to be made an high priest” (Hebrews 5:5); he is a priest by Hashem’s oath, and the Torah and the sons of Aaron are not set aside. He was cut off for our transgressions (Isaiah 53:8) in the pattern of Mashiach ben Yosef, and he will return as Mashiach ben David.

5. Finishing well. Asa, Joash, Amaziah and Uzziah each began well and later turned on the man sent to correct him. Jotham “prepared his ways” (27:6). Isaiah said “Woe is me,” and the coal from the altar cleansed him.

Questions for discussion

1. Compare 25:2 with 2 Kings 14:3. How does Chronicles measure Amaziah differently?
2. Chronicles writes “shall not die” where Deuteronomy 24:16 has “shall not be put to death” (25:4). What changes (Ezekiel 18:20)?
3. What did the man of God say about the hundred talents (25:9)? Where do a hundred talents appear again (27:5)?
4. Why might a victorious king set up the gods of the people he defeated (25:14–15)? How does Obadiah 1:3 help?
5. Trace the root “counsel” through 25:16–17. What does it show about Amaziah?
6. What is the fable of the thistle and the cedar saying (25:18–19)? Compare Jotham’s fable in Judges 9:7–15.
7. How do the names Uzziah and Azariah, and the words “help” and “strong” (26:7–16), tell his story?
8. Why could Uzziah not burn incense (26:16–18; Numbers 16:40)? How do Psalm 110:4 and Hebrews 5:4–5 explain how Mashiach is a priest?
9. What do Exodus 28:36–38, Malachi 4:2 and Isaiah 53:8 add to the story of Uzziah’s leprosy?
10. What did Asa, Joash, Amaziah and Uzziah have in common at the end of their reigns? What made Jotham different (27:2, 6)?

Sources

Scripture: 2 Chronicles 8, 10–12, 15–17, 19–22, 24–28, 32–33; 1 Chronicles 3, 13, 23, 26, 28; 2 Kings 8, 14–16; 1 Kings 13; Genesis 39; Exodus 20, 28, 30; Leviticus 13; Numbers 16; Deuteronomy 18, 24; Judges 9; 1 Samuel 13; Psalms 88, 110; Proverbs 16, 18; Ecclesiastes 7; Isaiah 1, 6, 53; Jeremiah 31; Ezekiel 3, 9, 18; Hosea 1; Amos 1, 7; Obadiah 1; Micah 1; Zechariah 6, 14; Malachi 4; Matthew 1, 8; Mark 10; Luke 1; 1 Corinthians 10; 2 Thessalonians 2; 2 Timothy 4; Hebrews 3, 5, 7, 8; Revelation 7.

Talmud and Midrash: Berakhot 7a; Sanhedrin 27b, 48b, 98b; Gittin 56b; Arakhin 16a; Nedarim 64b; Megillah 10b; Mishnah Avot 1:10.

Commentators: Rashi on Isaiah 6:1; Josephus, Antiquities 9.10.4 (as quoted by FFOZ).

Our teachers and materials: First Fruits of Zion, End of Days (5786), Lesson 17, “The Last Trumpet”; Lesson 20, “Hamon-Gog”; Lessons 27–28, “Healing in His Wings–Imperishable, Undefiled, Unfading”; Lesson 44, “Apocalypse on Patmos”; Rabbi Efraim Palvanov, “Understanding Edom #5 – Gog & Mashiach” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJv-1glv5EM) and “Jesus in the Talmud” (https://youtu.be/kfF0-q-g2XI); Ariel Cohen Alloro, “Happy New Year! Year 5777 – in the light of the Gospel of Matthew – Part 1” (https://youtu.be/Nwu09tTkq9U), “Jerusalem Syndrome – Part 1” (https://youtu.be/zjdff9Yr8Gc) and “General Overview – First Coming & Second Coming of the Messiah – Part 4” (https://youtu.be/jJZ7T1zynKs); Benei Avraham class “Unlocking the Depth of Yom Kippur” (https://youtu.be/y4mq10EdZVg); our Hoshana Rabbah 5787 shiur “Sealed for Life”; our 1 Chronicles commentary on 3:10–16, 5:27–41, 18:14–17, 26:12–19 and 28:9–10; our 2 Samuel commentary on 3:22–30 and 8:16–18; Benei Avraham Statement of Faith.

Before we begin

“And Jotham slept with his fathers… and Ahaz his son reigned in his stead” (27:9). Father and son could hardly be more unlike. Ahaz shuts the doors of the House of Hashem; in the first month of his reign Hezekiah opens them. Between the two stands a scene only Chronicles tells: leaders of the northern kingdom clothe and feed the captives of Judah and carry them back to Jericho.

Kings tells Ahaz’s reign in one chapter (2 Kings 16) and Hezekiah’s first steps in three verses (2 Kings 18:1–3). Everything from 29:3 to the end of chapter 30 is found only here. Isaiah’s meeting with Ahaz (Isaiah 7) belongs to the war of 28:5–8. In these chapters the Hebrew and English verse numbers are the same.

The rule of the book was given to Asa: “if ye forsake him, he will forsake you” (15:2). Judah falls “because they had forsaken Hashem God of their fathers” (28:6), and Hezekiah’s letters promise the other side: Hashem “will not turn away his face from you, if ye return unto him” (30:9). And the verbs of 7:14 come back: humbled (28:19; 30:11), prayed (30:18), turn (30:6–9) and healed (30:20).

How this commentary is built. We read the text first, in Hebrew where it matters, because Torah comes first and the Prophets and Writings are measured by it. Then we hear the sages: the Talmud, the Midrash, Rashi, Radak and Rambam. Then our own teachers: the FFOZ End of Days lessons, Rabbi Efraim Palvanov and Ariel Cohen Alloro, along with our own Benei Avraham classes. Last, we ask what the passage shows us about Mashiach.

A word on our teachers. Rabbi Palvanov and Ariel Cohen Alloro bring a great deal of Kabbalah and gematria. We use their insights as remez, a hint that opens a door, and never as proof. Gematria can show a connection the text already makes, but it cannot make a doctrine by itself. Where a teacher’s framework goes beyond what Benei Avraham confesses (for example, on reincarnation or on the nature of God), we take the insight and leave the framework. “To the Torah and to the testimony” (Isaiah 8:20) is the test for all of it, our own words included.

Scripture is quoted from the King James Version with Hashem in place of LORD, as in our Statement of Faith.

Chapter 28 · Ahaz, and the Men of Samaria

Read 2 Chronicles 28 in Hebrew and English →

28:1–4 · “He walked in the ways of the kings of Israel”

“Ahaz was twenty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem: but he did not that which was right in the sight of Hashem, like David his father” (28:1). The numbers and the measure are the same in Kings (2 Kings 16:2).

“For he walked in the ways of the kings of Israel, and made also molten images for Baalim” (28:2). Molten images, מַסֵּכוֹת (massechot), is the word of Sinai’s sin, “a molten calf” (Exodus 32:4).

“Moreover he burnt incense in the valley of the son of Hinnom, and burnt his children in the fire” (28:3).

What Chronicles changes. Kings says he “made his son to pass through the fire” (2 Kings 16:3): בְּנוֹ הֶעֱבִיר (beno he’evir), one son, “made to pass.” Chronicles has וַיַּבְעֵר אֶת בָּנָיו (va-yav’er et banav), “he burned his sons.” The Torah forbids both (Leviticus 18:21; Deuteronomy 12:31). From the valley’s name, גֵּיא בֶן הִנֹּם (Gei ven Hinnom), comes Gehinnom, the word Yeshua used for the place of judgment (Matthew 10:28, “hell”).

What the sages say. The Talmud tells that Ahaz meant to burn Hezekiah too, and that his mother saved him by anointing him with the blood of a salamander (Sanhedrin 63b). However we take the story, the next king came out of the fire of his father’s house.

The high places, hills and green trees of 28:4 are word for word from Kings (2 Kings 16:4).

28:5–8 · “Because they had forsaken Hashem”

Hashem “delivered him into the hand of the king of Syria” and “into the hand of the king of Israel” (28:5). “For Pekah the son of Remaliah slew in Judah an hundred and twenty thousand in one day… because they had forsaken Hashem God of their fathers” (28:6). Zichri of Ephraim killed the king’s son and his two chief officers (28:7). “And the children of Israel carried away captive of their brethren two hundred thousand” (28:8). Hold on to “of their brethren.” The chapter turns on it.

What Kings says. Kings and Isaiah tell the war from the city: Rezin and Pekah “besieged Ahaz, but could not overcome him” (2 Kings 16:5; Isaiah 7:1). Chronicles tells the losses in the field. The land was stripped and the city held.

Isaiah and Ahaz. Isaiah told Ahaz, אִם לֹא תַאֲמִינוּ כִּי לֹא תֵאָמֵנוּ (im lo ta’aminu ki lo te’amenu), “If ye will not believe, surely ye shall not be established” (Isaiah 7:9; compare 20:20). Ahaz refused a sign in pious words, “I will not ask, neither will I tempt Hashem” (Isaiah 7:12), and Isaiah gave the house of David one anyway: “Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel” (Isaiah 7:14).

Our teachers. FFOZ’s End of Days reads the sign in its setting: “Isaiah warned King Ahaz not to rely on Assyria for help. Instead, Ahaz should rely on God alone.” Matthew heard the words at Yeshua’s birth (Matthew 1:22–23), and FFOZ says how the two readings stand together: “The new interpretation does not cancel or replace the original meaning; it expands it and stacks on top of it” (Lesson 35, “Egypt My People”).

28:9–11 · Oded: “A rage that reacheth up unto heaven”

“But a prophet of Hashem was there, whose name was Oded… Behold, because Hashem God of your fathers was wroth with Judah, he hath delivered them into your hand, and ye have slain them in a rage that reacheth up unto heaven” (28:9).

Only in Chronicles. This Oded appears only here (an Oded was father of the prophet Azariah, 15:1, 8). He is a prophet in Samaria, and the army listens to him.

Hebrew lesson: בְזַעַף עַד לַשָּׁמַיִם הִגִּיעַ (be-za’af ad la-shamayim higgia), “in a rage that reacheth up unto heaven.” Oded grants that Hashem gave Judah into their hand. He does not grant them the rage. Isaiah says it of Assyria, “the rod of mine anger… Howbeit he meaneth not so” (Isaiah 10:5, 7; compare Zechariah 1:15).

“And now ye purpose to keep under the children of Judah and Jerusalem for bondmen and bondwomen unto you: but are there not with you, even with you, sins against Hashem your God?” (28:10).

The words לִכְבֹּשׁ לַעֲבָדִים וְלִשְׁפָחוֹת (lichbosh la-avadim ve-lishfachot), “to subdue for bondmen and bondwomen,” come back when Jerusalem took back the slaves it had freed (Jeremiah 34:11). The Torah forbids it: “over your brethren the children of Israel, ye shall not rule one over another with rigour” (Leviticus 25:46).

“Now hear me therefore, and deliver the captives again, which ye have taken captive of your brethren” (28:11). The verb, וְהָשִׁיבוּ (ve-hashivu), “send back,” is from שׁוּב (shuv), “return.” Chapter 30 will be full of it.

Our teachers. Our class “Kindness: A Means to An End” read the Torah’s rule: “it is forbidden to take revenge, it constitutes a violation of a Torah commandment, you shall not take revenge, Leviticus 19:18.” The verse goes on, “but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.”

28:12–15 · “To Jericho, the city of palm trees, to their brethren”

“Then certain of the heads of the children of Ephraim… stood up against them that came from the war” (28:12). Four are named: Azariah, Berechiah, Jehizkiah and Amasa. The third, וִיחִזְקִיָּהוּ (vi-Yechizkiyahu), is letter for letter the name of the next king of Judah (29:1).

“For our trespass is great” (28:13): the word אַשְׁמָה (ashmah), “guilt,” comes three times in the verse. “So the armed men left the captives and the spoil” (28:14). “Left” is וַיַּעֲזֹב (va-ya’azov), the verb of 28:6: Judah forsook Hashem, and now an army forsakes its prize.

“And the men which were expressed by name rose up, and took the captives, and with the spoil clothed all that were naked among them, and arrayed them, and shod them, and gave them to eat and to drink, and anointed them, and carried all the feeble of them upon asses, and brought them to Jericho, the city of palm trees, to their brethren: then they returned to Samaria” (28:15).

Hebrew lesson: nine verbs of care. Between “rose up” and “returned” the verse has nine: they took hold, clothed, arrayed, shod, fed, gave drink, anointed, led and brought. The eighth, וַיְנַהֲלוּם (va-yenahalum), is the shepherd’s verb: “he leadeth me beside the still waters” (Psalm 23:2). Those on the asses are לְכָל כּוֹשֵׁל (le-chol koshel), “every one stumbling.” Keep that word for 28:23.

The Samaritan. Many readers hear this verse behind Yeshua’s parable. A lawyer asks, “And who is my neighbour?” A man goes “down from Jerusalem to Jericho,” is stripped and left half dead; a priest and a Levite pass by; “a certain Samaritan” binds his wounds, “pouring in oil and wine, and set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him” (Luke 10:29–34). The two stories share six details: the road to Jericho, helpers from Samaria, the naked, the oil, the beast, and the care that follows. We do not say Yeshua took it from here; but a hearer who knew 28:15 would know that the neighbor is the man from Samaria, and the one he helps is his brother.

Our teachers. Rabbi Palvanov, in his class “7 Types of Pharisees,” reads the parable with the Talmud’s pious fool who will not save a drowning woman because he will not look at her (Sotah 21b). Of the priest who passed by he says: “He’s so worried about purity that he’s not going to save. Obviously in Jewish law if you see a person who’s dying you go and help them.”

Messianic reading. These were “heads of the children of Ephraim,” Joseph’s son. Joseph sent his brothers home with “provision for the way” and “changes of raiment,” and sent “ten asses laden” for his father (Genesis 45:21–23). Clothes, food and asses: Ephraim does for Judah what Joseph did for Judah and his brothers. Among the proverbs that “the men of Hezekiah king of Judah copied out” is this one: “If thine enemy be hungry, give him bread to eat” (Proverbs 25:1, 21; Romans 12:20). Our lean is to see here a hint of the Joseph pattern we read in Mashiach ben Yosef: the brother who clothes and feeds his brothers (see 10:16–19).

28:16–21 · “Distressed him, but strengthened him not”

“At that time did king Ahaz send unto the kings of Assyria to help him” (28:16). Kings gives his message: “I am thy servant and thy son: come up, and save me” (2 Kings 16:7). Hashem had said of David’s son, “I will be his father, and he shall be my son” (1 Chronicles 17:13). Ahaz offered himself as another king’s son.

Edom raided, and the Philistines took six towns, among them two of Rehoboam’s fortresses, Shocho and Ajalon (28:17–18; see 11:5–12).

“For Hashem brought Judah low because of Ahaz king of Israel; for he made Judah naked, and transgressed sore against Hashem” (28:19).

Hebrew lesson: הִכְנִיעַ (hichnia), “brought low.” It is the verb of 7:14, “if my people… shall humble themselves” (see 7:13–16), in its causative form. A king who would not humble himself had his people humbled. “He made Judah naked,” הִפְרִיעַ (hifria), is the root of Exodus 32:25: “the people were naked; (for Aaron had made them naked…)”. Aaron let the people loose at the calf; Ahaz let Judah loose. The “king of Israel” stripped his people, and the men of Israel clothed them.

“And Tilgath-pilneser king of Assyria came unto him, and distressed him, but strengthened him not” (28:20). Chronicles spells the name this way in 1 Chronicles 5:6 too, and nearly so in 5:26 (see our 1 Chronicles commentary on 5:23–26); Kings has Tiglath-pileser (2 Kings 16:7).

What Kings says. In Kings “the king of Assyria hearkened unto him,” took Damascus and killed Rezin (2 Kings 16:9). Chronicles says “he helped him not” (28:21). Both are true: Assyria removed one enemy and became a worse one.

Why this matters. The root עזר (azar), “help,” comes four times in 28:16–23. Asa had sent the treasures of the House to the king of Syria, and Hanani told him, “Because thou hast relied on the king of Syria, and not relied on Hashem thy God” (16:7; see 16:7–10). Ahaz paid Assyria from the House (28:21) and then worshipped Syria’s gods. Yet the first of the four Ephraimite heads was עֲזַרְיָהוּ (Azaryahu), “Hashem has helped” (28:12). Judah’s help came from where Ahaz never looked. “My help cometh from Hashem” (Psalm 121:2).

28:22–27 · “This is that king Ahaz”

“And in the time of his distress did he trespass yet more against Hashem: this is that king Ahaz” (28:22).

What the sages say. The Talmud sets “this is that king Ahaz” beside “he is Esau” (Genesis 36:43) and “These are that Aaron and Moses” (Exodus 6:26): the wicked stayed wicked from beginning to end, and the righteous stayed righteous (Megillah 11a). Distress is the hour 7:14 was given for. Ahaz used it to sin more.

“For he sacrificed unto the gods of Damascus, which smote him… But they were the ruin of him, and of all Israel” (28:23). “The ruin of him” is לְהַכְשִׁילוֹ (le-hachshilo), “to make him stumble.” The gods of Damascus made the king stumble; the men of Ephraim carried “every one stumbling” home (28:15).

He “cut in pieces the vessels of the house of God, and shut up the doors of the house of Hashem, and he made him altars in every corner of Jerusalem” (28:24).

What Chronicles adds. Kings tells of the altar Ahaz copied from Damascus and says he “cut off the borders of the bases” with the same verb, וַיְקַצֵּץ (va-yekatzetz, 2 Kings 16:10–17). Only Chronicles says he shut the doors. A midrash plays on his name, אָחָז (Achaz), “he seized”: reasoning that without disciples there would be no Torah, he took hold of the synagogues and houses of study and shut them (Bereshit Rabbah 42:3). What Ahaz held, he shut.

“They brought him not into the sepulchres of the kings of Israel” (28:27).

What Chronicles changes. Kings says he “was buried with his fathers in the city of David” (2 Kings 16:20). Chronicles keeps him out of the royal tombs. The Mishnah says Hezekiah “dragged his father’s bones on a bed of ropes,” and the sages agreed with him (Mishnah Pesachim 4:9). Yet the line went on: “Achaz begat Ezekias” (Matthew 1:9), and the lamp promised to David’s house burned through him too (see 21:7). He “slept with his fathers”: death is sleep until the resurrection, as our Statement of Faith confesses.

Chapter 29 · The Doors of the House Opened

Read 2 Chronicles 29 in Hebrew and English →

29:1–2 · Hezekiah son of Ahaz

“Hezekiah began to reign when he was five and twenty years old, and he reigned nine and twenty years in Jerusalem. And his mother’s name was Abijah, the daughter of Zechariah” (29:1). Kings calls her אֲבִי (Avi, 2 Kings 18:2); Chronicles gives the full name, אֲבִיָּה (Aviyah), “Yah is my father.”

The numbers, the same in both books, are hard: Ahaz died at about thirty-six (20 + 16), and Hezekiah began at twenty-five, so by the plain sum Ahaz was about eleven when his son was born. Some suggest overlapping reigns; the text does not say.

“And he did that which was right in the sight of Hashem, according to all that David his father had done” (29:2; 2 Kings 18:3).

Hebrew lesson: יְחִזְקִיָּהוּ (Yechizkiyahu), “Hashem strengthens.” The root חזק (chazak), “strong,” ties the two reigns together. The men of Ephraim “took” the captives, וַיַּחֲזִיקוּ (va-yachaziku, 28:15). Tilgath-pilneser “strengthened him not,” וְלֹא חֲזָקוֹ (ve-lo chazako, 28:20). Hezekiah opened the doors “and repaired them,” וַיְחַזְּקֵם (va-yechazzekem, 29:3), and the Levites “did help” the priests, וַיְּחַזְּקוּם (va-yechazzekum, 29:34). Assyria could not make Judah strong; “Hashem strengthens” began with the doors.

Our teachers. Rabbi Palvanov, in his class “Understanding Mashiach ben Yosef,” brings the teaching that four people found God on their own, and Hezekiah is one: “when Hezekiah was born Judah was in a state of a lot of idolatry and there wasn’t much Torah going around so Hezekiah also found God on his own.” Ezekiel describes such a son, “that seeth all his father’s sins which he hath done, and considereth, and doeth not such like” (Ezekiel 18:14).

29:3–11 · “Sanctify now yourselves”

“He in the first year of his reign, in the first month, opened the doors of the house of Hashem, and repaired them” (29:3). His father shut them (28:24); the son opens them first.

“Hear me, ye Levites, sanctify now yourselves, and sanctify the house of Hashem God of your fathers, and carry forth the filthiness out of the holy place” (29:5). On “sanctify yourselves” at the Ark’s coming, see our 1 Chronicles commentary on 15:4–15.

Hebrew lesson: הַנִּדָּה (ha-niddah), “the filthiness.” Niddah is the Torah’s word for a woman’s monthly impurity, and the prophets use it for the defilement of sin: “Jerusalem is as a menstruous woman” (Lamentations 1:17). Zechariah promises the cure in the same word: “a fountain opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and for uncleanness,” וּלְנִדָּה (u-le-niddah, Zechariah 13:1).

“For our fathers have trespassed… and have turned away their faces from the habitation of Hashem, and turned their backs” (29:6). He says “our fathers,” not “my father,” as Leviticus asks: “If they shall confess their iniquity, and the iniquity of their fathers” (Leviticus 26:40). “Turned their backs” is וַיִּתְּנוּ עֹרֶף (va-yittenu oref), “gave the back of the neck.”

“Also they have shut up the doors of the porch, and put out the lamps, and have not burned incense nor offered burnt offerings in the holy place” (29:7). The daily service had stopped: the lamp that was to “burn always” (Exodus 27:20), the incense, the burnt offering.

“To trouble, to astonishment, and to hissing” (29:8) are Jeremiah’s words (Jeremiah 29:18). “Now it is in mine heart to make a covenant with Hashem God of Israel, that his fierce wrath may turn away from us” (29:10). The fierce wrath, חֲרוֹן אַף (charon af), is the word of Oded and of the heads of Ephraim (28:11, 13), and it comes back in the letter to the north (30:8).

“My sons, be not now negligent: for Hashem hath chosen you to stand before him” (29:11).

Our teachers. FFOZ’s End of Days holds up this generation: “King Hezekiah chose to eat rather than to be eaten. He took heed of Isaiah’s warnings. The king repented. The people in his kingdom repented” (Lesson 2, “Like the Days of Noah”). FFOZ is reading Isaiah 1:19–20, “ye shall eat the good of the land… ye shall be devoured with the sword” (compare Jeremiah 26:19).

29:12–19 · Sixteen days in the first month

“Then the Levites arose” (29:12). Fourteen are named, two from each of seven houses: Kohath, Merari, Gershon, Elizaphan, and the singers Asaph, Heman and Jeduthun (29:12–14). All Levi is there, carriers and singers.

“And the priests went into the inner part of the house of Hashem, to cleanse it… And the Levites took it, to carry it out abroad into the brook Kidron” (29:16). Priests inside, Levites in the court: the order holds even in cleaning.

“Now they began on the first day of the first month to sanctify, and on the eighth day of the month came they to the porch of Hashem: so they sanctified the house of Hashem in eight days; and in the sixteenth day of the first month they made an end” (29:17).

Counting the days. Eight days for the courts up to the porch, eight for the House: they finished on the sixteenth. Pesach falls on the fourteenth (Numbers 9:5). By the time the House was clean, the day had passed. Chapter 30 begins here.

Our teachers. The first day of the first month is the Mishkan’s day (Exodus 40:2). FFOZ notes: “Moses consecrated the Tabernacle in the wilderness on the new moon of the month of Nisan, ‘the first day of the first month.’ Likewise, the Third Temple will be consecrated ‘in the first month, on the first of the month’ (Ezekiel 45:18)” (End of Days, Lessons 22–23, “The Ten Tribes–Shechinah”). Ezekiel goes on to a cleansing “for every one that erreth” and then “the passover” (Ezekiel 45:20–21), as in the Torah the Mishkan was raised and then Pesach kept (Numbers 9:1–7).

“Moreover all the vessels, which king Ahaz in his reign did cast away in his transgression, have we prepared and sanctified” (29:19). “Cast away” is הִזְנִיחַ (hizniach), the verb of David’s warning, “he will cast thee off” (1 Chronicles 28:9; see 11:13–17). What the king cast off, the Levites “prepared,” הֵכַנּוּ (hechannu).

Hezekiah’s son would build again what his father broke down (33:3). For now, the House was clean.

29:20–24 · “For all Israel”

“And they brought seven bullocks, and seven rams, and seven lambs, and seven he goats, for a sin offering for the kingdom, and for the sanctuary, and for Judah” (29:21). Before the king and the congregation “they laid their hands upon” the goats (29:23), as the elders do for the congregation’s sin (Leviticus 4:15).

“And the priests killed them, and they made reconciliation with their blood upon the altar, to make an atonement for all Israel: for the king commanded that the burnt offering and the sin offering should be made for all Israel” (29:24).

Hebrew lesson: וַיְחַטְּאוּ (va-yechatte’u), “made reconciliation.” The verb is built on chet, “sin,” and means to take the sin away; David prays it, “Purge me with hyssop,” תְּחַטְּאֵנִי (techatte’eni, Psalm 51:9, KJV 51:7). And notice the change: 29:21 says “for Judah,” and 29:24 says twice, “for all Israel.” The atonement reached past Judah’s border. Chapter 30 carries that sentence out.

Messianic reading. FFOZ draws a line from Ezekiel’s cleansing of the Sanctuary to Pesach: “The purification by the blood of the bull applied to the doorposts of the Temple evokes Passover symbolism which, in turn, evokes the atoning death of Yeshua” (End of Days, Lessons 22–23, “The Ten Tribes–Shechinah”). John says Yeshua would die “not for that nation only, but that also he should gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad” (John 11:52). The New Covenant, our Statement of Faith says, “does not erase Torah from the life of Israel”; Hezekiah’s altar and Yeshua’s death are both “for all Israel.”

29:25–30 · “The song of Hashem began also”

He set the Levites with cymbals, psalteries and harps “according to the commandment of David, and of Gad the king’s seer, and Nathan the prophet: for so was the commandment of Hashem by his prophets” (29:25).

Only in Chronicles. Nowhere else are Gad and Nathan named with the singers. The music of the House was a prophetic command, not David’s taste (see our 1 Chronicles commentary on 25:1–3).

“And when the burnt offering began, the song of Hashem began also with the trumpets, and with the instruments ordained by David king of Israel” (29:27).

Hebrew lesson: שִׁיר יְהוָה (shir Hashem), “the song of Hashem.” Outside Chronicles the phrase appears only in Psalm 137:4, “How shall we sing Hashem’s song in a strange land?” By the rivers of Babylon the song stopped. The Chronicler’s readers had come back to sing it, and here they read how it was once restored.

The song went on “until the burnt offering was finished” (29:28), and the king and all with him “bowed themselves, and worshipped” (29:29). They sang “with the words of David, and of Asaph the seer” (29:30): our Psalms.

Messianic reading. Hebrews speaks of “the sacrifice of praise” (Hebrews 13:15). In Hezekiah’s House the song began and ended with the offering: it did not replace the altar, and the altar did not go up in silence.

29:31–36 · “For the thing was done suddenly”

“Now ye have consecrated yourselves unto Hashem, come near and bring sacrifices and thank offerings… and as many as were of a free heart burnt offerings” (29:31). “Consecrated yourselves” is מִלֵּאתֶם יֶדְכֶם (milletem yedchem), “you have filled your hand,” the idiom of priestly ordination that David once put to the whole people (see our 1 Chronicles commentary on 29:1–5). The burnt offerings came to 370: seventy bullocks, a hundred rams and two hundred lambs (29:32).

“But the priests were too few, so that they could not flay all the burnt offerings: wherefore their brethren the Levites did help them… for the Levites were more upright in heart to sanctify themselves than the priests” (29:34).

Why this matters. Kings tells why the priests might be slow. Under Ahaz, “Urijah the priest” built the Damascus altar and served at it, “according to all that king Ahaz commanded” (2 Kings 16:11, 16). Our lean: men who had served the king’s altar needed longer to come clean than the singers did. Later “a great number of priests sanctified themselves” (30:24).

“So the service of the house of Hashem was set in order. And Hezekiah rejoiced, and all the people, that God had prepared the people: for the thing was done suddenly” (29:35–36).

Hebrew lesson: כּוּן (kun), “set in order, prepare.” וַתִּכּוֹן (va-tikkon), “was set in order”; הֵכִין (hechin), “had prepared.” It is the root of the pillar Yachin and of Rehoboam, who “prepared not his heart” (12:14; see 12:13–16). The Levites prepared the vessels (29:19), the service was set in order, and the joy is that God prepared the people. And “suddenly,” בְּפִתְאֹם (be-fit’om), is Malachi’s word: “the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple… and he shall purify the sons of Levi” (Malachi 3:1, 3).

Messianic reading. Yeshua cleansed the Temple when “the Jews’ passover was at hand,” and his disciples remembered, “The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up” (John 2:13, 17). Like Hezekiah, he cleansed the House for the feast; he did not take it away.

Chapter 30 · Pesach in the Second Month

Read 2 Chronicles 30 in Hebrew and English →

30:1–5 · “To keep the passover in the second month”

“And Hezekiah sent to all Israel and Judah, and wrote letters also to Ephraim and Manasseh, that they should come to the house of Hashem at Jerusalem, to keep the passover unto Hashem God of Israel” (30:1). “For they could not keep it at that time, because the priests had not sanctified themselves sufficiently, neither had the people gathered themselves together to Jerusalem” (30:3).

The plain reading. The Torah made room for this. When unclean men asked Moses, “wherefore are we kept back?”, Hashem answered that whoever is “unclean by reason of a dead body, or be in a journey afar off” shall keep it on “The fourteenth day of the second month” (Numbers 9:7, 10–11). Hezekiah’s two reasons are close to the Torah’s two, and the lambs were killed “on the fourteenth day of the second month” (30:15).

What the sages say. The sages read it as a change to the calendar. Among six things King Hezekiah did, “he intercalated Nisan in Nisan, and they did not agree with him” (Mishnah Pesachim 4:9; Berakhot 10b). A teaching in the Talmud says he added the month because of the uncleanness and then asked mercy for himself, citing 30:18 (Sanhedrin 12a). The Mishnah rules that when the community or most of it is unclean, Pesach is kept on time in uncleanness (Mishnah Pesachim 7:6). The sages honored his zeal for purity and still said he should have kept the feast on time.

“So they established a decree to make proclamation throughout all Israel, from Beer-sheba even to Dan… for they had not done it of a long time in such sort as it was written” (30:5).

A phrase turned around. Elsewhere Scripture says “from Dan even to Beer-sheba” (Judges 20:1; 1 Samuel 3:20; 2 Samuel 24:2). Only Chronicles turns it, here and at David’s census (1 Chronicles 21:2): the call starts in the south and goes out north.

When was it? Hezekiah began in the third year of Hoshea, the last king of Samaria, and Samaria fell in Hezekiah’s sixth year (2 Kings 18:1, 9–10). If this Pesach followed straight on the cleansing, the letters went to a northern kingdom still standing, already stripped by Assyria (2 Kings 15:29). The Talmud remembers that Hoshea removed the guards Jeroboam had set on the roads to keep Israel from going up to the festivals (Taanit 30b–31a).

30:6–9 · “Turn again unto Hashem”

“Ye children of Israel, turn again unto Hashem God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, and he will return to the remnant of you, that are escaped out of the hand of the kings of Assyria” (30:6).

Hebrew lesson: שׁוּב (shuv), “turn, return.” The verb comes six times in four verses: twice in 30:6, once in 30:8 and three times in 30:9. Turn to Him and He turns to you; turn, and your captives return (compare Zechariah 1:3). Behind it stands Moses: “And shalt return unto Hashem thy God… That then Hashem thy God will turn thy captivity, and have compassion upon thee” (Deuteronomy 30:2–3).

“God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel.” The Name in this form appears three times in the Tenakh: in David’s last prayer (1 Chronicles 29:18), here, and on Mount Carmel, where Elijah prayed it before the northern tribes, “let it be known this day that thou art God in Israel” (1 Kings 18:36). Hezekiah wrote to Ephraim in Elijah’s words and named the father all twelve tribes share.

“Now be ye not stiffnecked, as your fathers were, but yield yourselves unto Hashem, and enter into his sanctuary” (30:8). “Stiffnecked,” אַל תַּקְשׁוּ עָרְפְּכֶם (al takshu orpechem), is Moses: “Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no more stiffnecked” (Deuteronomy 10:16). “Yield yourselves” is תְּנוּ יָד (tenu yad), “give the hand,” the pledge of the princes who “submitted themselves unto Solomon” (1 Chronicles 29:24).

“For if ye turn again unto Hashem, your brethren and your children shall find compassion before them that lead them captive, so that they shall come again into this land: for Hashem your God is gracious and merciful, and will not turn away his face from you, if ye return unto him” (30:9).

Two old prayers stand behind it. “Compassion before them that lead them captive” is, in Hebrew, Solomon’s petition as Kings gives it, “compassion before them who carried them captive” (1 Kings 8:50); Chronicles’ telling ends that petition before these words (6:39), and they appear here. “Gracious and merciful,” חַנּוּן וְרַחוּם (channun ve-rachum), are the attributes of Exodus 34:6, which has them in the other order. Hezekiah’s order is Joel’s: “turn unto Hashem your God: for he is gracious and merciful” (Joel 2:13).

Our teachers. FFOZ notes that “Hezekiah made intentional political and religious overtures to the remnant of his northern neighbors” (End of Days, Lessons 22–23, “The Ten Tribes–Shechinah”). Our class “Understanding Passover: Laws, Symbolism & Redemption” looked to the Pesach still to come: “one day we will celebrate Passover the holiday where we remember that Hashem brought us from the four corners of the earth back to Israel” (compare Jeremiah 16:14–15). Yeshua sent his disciples on Hezekiah’s errand: “go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matthew 10:6).

30:10–12 · “They laughed them to scorn”

“So the posts passed from city to city through the country of Ephraim and Manasseh even unto Zebulun: but they laughed them to scorn, and mocked them” (30:10). The book will end with the same answer: “they mocked the messengers of God” (36:16).

“Nevertheless divers of Asher and Manasseh and of Zebulun humbled themselves, and came to Jerusalem” (30:11).

“Humbled themselves.” נִכְנְעוּ (nichne’u), the first verb of 7:14 (see 7:13–16). Judah was humbled under Ahaz (28:19); these humbled themselves, and it brought them to Jerusalem, like those who “set their hearts to seek Hashem” in Rehoboam’s day (11:16). Asher was not lost. When Yeshua was brought to the Temple, “Anna, a prophetess, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Aser,” gave thanks and “spake of him to all them that looked for redemption in Jerusalem” (Luke 2:36, 38; see our 1 Chronicles commentary on 7:30–40).

“Also in Judah the hand of God was to give them one heart to do the commandment of the king and of the princes, by the word of Hashem” (30:12). לֵב אֶחָד (lev echad), “one heart,” is what the prophets promise: “I will give them one heart” (Jeremiah 32:39; Ezekiel 11:19). The tribes at Hebron were of one heart to make David king (see our 1 Chronicles commentary on 12:39–41), and the first believers “were of one heart and of one soul” (Acts 4:32).

30:13–20 · “The good Hashem pardon every one”

“And there assembled at Jerusalem much people to keep the feast of unleavened bread in the second month” (30:13). They cast Ahaz’s altars into the Kidron (30:14; 28:24). “Then they killed the passover on the fourteenth day of the second month: and the priests and the Levites were ashamed, and sanctified themselves” (30:15). “Were ashamed,” נִכְלְמוּ (nichlemu): the people’s zeal shamed the clergy into holiness.

“For there were many in the congregation that were not sanctified: therefore the Levites had the charge of the killing of the passovers for every one that was not clean” (30:17). The Torah was kept as far as it could be kept.

“For a multitude of the people, even many of Ephraim, and Manasseh, Issachar, and Zebulun, had not cleansed themselves, yet did they eat the passover otherwise than it was written. But Hezekiah prayed for them, saying, The good Hashem pardon every one That prepareth his heart to seek God, Hashem God of his fathers, though he be not cleansed according to the purification of the sanctuary” (30:18–19).

Hebrew lesson: יְהוָה הַטּוֹב יְכַפֵּר בְּעַד (Hashem ha-tov yechapper be’ad), “the good Hashem pardon.” Only here does Scripture call on Hashem as ha-tov, “the Good.” The Levites’ song was “for he is good” (see 5:11–14), and the king turns the song into a name. Yechapper, “atone,” is the verb of 29:24. The verse division falls in the middle of the prayer, so that 30:19 opens with its heart: כָּל לְבָבוֹ הֵכִין לִדְרוֹשׁ (kol levavo hechin lidrosh), “every one who has prepared his heart to seek,” the phrase missing in Rehoboam (see 12:13–16). Hezekiah does not say the purity of the Sanctuary does not matter. He asks Hashem to cover those whose hearts were ready before their bodies were.

“And Hashem hearkened to Hezekiah, and healed the people” (30:20). וַיִּרְפָּא (va-yirpa), “healed,” is the last verb of 7:14, “and will heal their land” (see 7:13–16). Here He heals the people.

Messianic reading. The rule of purity stood in Yeshua’s day: “many went out of the country up to Jerusalem before the passover, to purify themselves” (John 11:55). Paul kept the feast’s own picture: “For even Messiah our passover is sacrificed for us: Therefore let us keep the feast” (1 Corinthians 5:7–8). Our class “Understanding Passover: Laws, Symbolism & Redemption” put it simply: for followers of Yeshua the feast has become “a remembrance to get rid of the leaven meaning get rid of the sin in our lives.” He is “the Lamb of God” (John 1:29), and at his last Pesach he said, “With desire I have desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer” (Luke 22:15).

30:21–27 · “Since the time of Solomon”

“And the children of Israel that were present at Jerusalem kept the feast of unleavened bread seven days with great gladness” (30:21). “And Hezekiah spake comfortably unto all the Levites that taught the good knowledge of Hashem… and making confession to Hashem God of their fathers” (30:22). “Spake comfortably” is וַיְדַבֵּר… עַל לֵב (va-yedabber… al lev), “spoke to the heart,” as Joseph “spake kindly” to his brothers (Genesis 50:21; compare Isaiah 40:2). On the Levites who taught, see 17:7–9.

“And the whole assembly took counsel to keep other seven days” (30:23), as Solomon kept two weeks (see 7:8–10). Hezekiah gave a thousand bullocks and seven thousand sheep, and the princes a thousand bullocks and ten thousand sheep (30:24): two thousand bullocks and seventeen thousand sheep, far less than Solomon’s 22,000 oxen and 120,000 sheep (7:5). “And a great number of priests sanctified themselves” (30:24). At last.

All the congregation of Judah, the priests, the Levites, those who came from Israel, “and the strangers” rejoiced together (30:25). The Torah set the circumcised stranger at the Pesach table under one law (Exodus 12:48–49; Numbers 9:14).

“So there was great joy in Jerusalem: for since the time of Solomon the son of David king of Israel there was not the like in Jerusalem” (30:26). (Compare 35:18.)

“Then the priests the Levites arose and blessed the people: and their voice was heard, and their prayer came up to his holy dwelling place, even unto heaven” (30:27).

Why this matters. Levi was chosen “to bless in his name” (Deuteronomy 10:8), with Aaron’s words (Numbers 6:23–27). Their prayer reached לִמְעוֹן קָדְשׁוֹ (li-me’on kodsho), the words of the prayer at the third-year tithe: “Look down from thy holy habitation, from heaven, and bless thy people Israel” (Deuteronomy 26:15). Chapter 28 told of a rage that “reacheth up unto heaven” (28:9). Chapter 30 ends with a prayer that came “even unto heaven.”

Messianic reading. Luke’s Gospel ends with a priestly gesture: Yeshua “lifted up his hands, and blessed them” (Luke 24:50). Hezekiah gathered some of the north for one Pesach; the Son of David will gather them all. As our Statement of Faith confesses, Yeshua “was revealed first in the pattern of Mashiach ben Yosef” and “is destined to return in the fullness of Mashiach ben David, to complete the redemption of Israel and the nations.” On the two sticks made one, see 10:16–19 and 12:13–16.

Drawing it together

1. Help from where no one looked. Assyria “distressed him” and the gods of Damascus made him stumble (28:20, 23). Help came from the men of Samaria. “My help cometh from Hashem” (Psalm 121:2).

2. Brothers, both ways. Ephraim clothed, fed and carried Judah’s captives home “to their brethren” (28:15), as Joseph did for his brothers. Then Judah’s king wrote to Ephraim, “turn again” (30:6).

3. The doors shut and opened. Ahaz shut the doors; Hezekiah opened them in his first month, priests and Levites cleansed the House in sixteen days, and the atonement was “for all Israel” (29:24).

4. Humbled, or humble yourself. Hashem humbled Judah because of Ahaz (28:19); some of Asher, Manasseh and Zebulun humbled themselves (30:11). Hezekiah prayed for every one “that prepareth his heart,” and Hashem “healed the people” (30:19–20): 7:14 in practice.

5. One Pesach for all Israel. A second month for those kept back, the stranger at the table, and joy not seen “since the time of Solomon” (30:26). Messiah our Pesach was sacrificed for us (1 Corinthians 5:7); he came first in the pattern of ben Yosef and will return as ben David to gather the rest.

Questions for discussion

1. Compare 28:3 with 2 Kings 16:3. What does Chronicles change?
2. How can 2 Kings 16:5 and 28:5–6 both be true? What did Isaiah 7:9 ask of Ahaz?
3. Oded grants that Hashem gave Judah into Israel’s hand (28:9). What was wrong, and how does Isaiah 10:5–7 help?
4. Read Leviticus 25:46 beside 28:10. What did Oded forbid?
5. List the nine verbs of care in 28:15. What does Luke 10:30–34 share with it, and what does Genesis 45:21–23 add?
6. Where did Ahaz look for help (28:16–23), and where did help come from (28:12)?
7. Trace the root of Hezekiah’s name through 28:15, 28:20, 29:3 and 29:34.
8. Count the days of 29:17. How do Numbers 9:6–11 and the sages (Mishnah Pesachim 4:9; 7:6) read the second month?
9. Where else is Hashem called “God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel” (30:6), and why use it in a letter to the north?
10. What did Hezekiah ask in 30:18–19, and how did Hashem answer (30:20; 7:14)?

Sources

Scripture: 2 Chronicles 5–7, 10–12, 15–17, 20–21, 27–30, 33, 35–36; 1 Chronicles 5, 12, 15, 17, 21, 25, 28–29; 2 Kings 15–16, 18; 1 Kings 8, 18; Genesis 36, 45, 50; Exodus 6, 12, 27, 32, 34, 40; Leviticus 4, 18–19, 25–26; Numbers 6, 9; Deuteronomy 10, 12, 26, 30; Judges 20; 1 Samuel 3; 2 Samuel 24; Psalms 23, 51, 121, 137; Proverbs 25; Isaiah 1, 7, 10, 40; Jeremiah 16, 26, 29, 32, 34; Lamentations 1; Ezekiel 11, 18, 45; Joel 2; Zechariah 1, 13; Malachi 3; Matthew 1, 10; Luke 2, 10, 22, 24; John 1–2, 11; Acts 4; Romans 12; 1 Corinthians 5; Hebrews 13.

Talmud and Midrash: Sanhedrin 12a; Sanhedrin 63b; Megillah 11a; Sotah 21b; Berakhot 10b; Taanit 30b–31a; Mishnah Pesachim 4:9 and 7:6; Bereshit Rabbah 42:3.

Commentators: none are cited by name in this part.

Our teachers and materials: First Fruits of Zion, End of Days (5786), Lesson 2, “Like the Days of Noah”; Lessons 22–23, “The Ten Tribes–Shechinah”; Lesson 35, “Egypt My People”; Rabbi Efraim Palvanov, “7 Types of Pharisees” (https://youtu.be/uE-jECaNSPM) and “Understanding Mashiach ben Yosef” (https://youtu.be/HUxIh1LdM3o); Benei Avraham classes “Kindness: A Means to An End” (https://youtu.be/wQFe73Zlrw8) and “Understanding Passover: Laws, Symbolism & Redemption” (https://youtu.be/hWSeWl2KSEM); our 1 Chronicles commentary on 5:23–26, 7:30–40, 12:39–41, 15:4–15, 25:1–3 and 29:1–5; Benei Avraham Statement of Faith.

Before we begin

“Now when all this was finished” (31:1). Hezekiah has cleansed the House and kept a Pesach for all Israel (chapters 29–30). Now the reform reaches the towns and storerooms, and then it is tested three times: by Assyria at the walls, by a sickness unto death, and by envoys from Babylon. Hezekiah dies in honor. His son undoes it all, until Assyria carries him to Babylon in chains, and there Manasseh finds the God of his fathers.

Kings spends most of Hezekiah’s three chapters on Sennacherib (2 Kings 18–20); Chronicles spends three on the reform (29–31). Of Manasseh, Kings tells only his sins, and three times names him as the cause of the exile (2 Kings 21:10–16; 23:26; 24:3–4). Only Chronicles tells that he humbled himself and was heard (33:12–13).

The rule is still David’s: “if thou seek him, he will be found of thee” (1 Chronicles 28:9; see 15:2). Hezekiah worked “to seek his God” (31:21), and the first verb of 7:14 runs through: Hezekiah “humbled himself” (32:26), Manasseh “humbled himself greatly” (33:12), Amon “humbled not himself” (33:23). Here the Hebrew and English verse numbers are the same.

How this commentary is built. We read the text first, in Hebrew where it matters, because Torah comes first and the Prophets and Writings are measured by it. Then we hear the sages: the Talmud, the Midrash, Rashi, Radak and Rambam. Then our own teachers: the FFOZ End of Days lessons, Rabbi Efraim Palvanov and Ariel Cohen Alloro, along with our own Benei Avraham classes. Last, we ask what the passage shows us about Mashiach.

A word on our teachers. Rabbi Palvanov and Ariel Cohen Alloro bring a great deal of Kabbalah and gematria. We use their insights as remez, a hint that opens a door, and never as proof. Gematria can show a connection the text already makes, but it cannot make a doctrine by itself. Where a teacher’s framework goes beyond what Benei Avraham confesses (for example, on reincarnation or on the nature of God), we take the insight and leave the framework. “To the Torah and to the testimony” (Isaiah 8:20) is the test for all of it, our own words included.

Scripture is quoted from the King James Version with Hashem in place of LORD, as in our Statement of Faith.

Chapter 31 · Heaps of Blessing

Read 2 Chronicles 31 in Hebrew and English →

31:1 · “In Ephraim also and Manasseh”

“All Israel that were present went out to the cities of Judah, and brake the images in pieces… out of all Judah and Benjamin, in Ephraim also and Manasseh” (31:1).

What Kings says. “He removed the high places, and brake the images, and cut down the groves, and brake in pieces the brasen serpent that Moses had made” (2 Kings 18:4). In Kings the king does it; in Chronicles the pilgrims of the feast, Judah with “the congregation that came out of Israel” (30:25), carry it north. Chronicles leaves out the serpent and never tells the fall of Samaria in Hezekiah’s sixth year (2 Kings 18:9–10), though his letters went to “the remnant of you, that are escaped out of the hand of the kings of Assyria” (30:6; see our 1 Chronicles commentary on 9:1–3).

The serpent. The Mishnah asks: “Could a serpent kill, or could a serpent give life? Rather, when Israel looked upward and subjected their hearts to their Father in heaven, they were healed” (Mishnah Rosh Hashanah 3:8). When Israel burned incense to the bronze itself, it had to be ground up. Yeshua took the picture for himself, “as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up” (John 3:14), and at once named the source of healing: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son” (John 3:16). We look to the one Hashem sent and through him to the Father, to whom alone our Statement of Faith gives worship.

31:2–4 · The courses, and the king’s portion

“And Hezekiah appointed the courses of the priests and the Levites after their courses… to minister, and to give thanks, and to praise in the gates of the tents of Hashem” (31:2).

These are David’s courses, restored after Ahaz “shut up the doors of the house of Hashem” (28:24). Centuries later a priest named Zacharias was serving “in the order of his course” when the angel met him (Luke 1:8; see our 1 Chronicles commentary on 24:7–19). “Tents” is מַחֲנוֹת (machanot), “camps”: the House is still the wilderness camp.

“He appointed also the king’s portion of his substance for the burnt offerings… for the sabbaths, and for the new moons, and for the set feasts, as it is written in the Torah of Hashem” (31:3). The list follows Numbers 28–29, paid from the king’s own substance. Ezekiel gives the prince of the restored House the same duty: “it shall be the prince’s part to give burnt offerings… in the feasts, and in the new moons, and in the sabbaths” (Ezekiel 45:17).

He commanded Jerusalem “to give the portion of the priests and the Levites, that they might be encouraged in the Torah of Hashem” (31:4).

Hebrew lesson: יֶחֶזְקוּ בְּתוֹרַת יְהוָה (yechezku be-Torat Hashem), “that they might be strong in the Torah of Hashem.” The verb חָזַק (chazak) is in the king’s name, יְחִזְקִיָּהוּ (Yechizkiyahu), “Hashem strengthens” (29:1). He wants the priests strong in Torah; soon he “strengthened himself” (32:5) and tells the people, “Be strong” (32:7). The portion frees them for this: “the priest’s lips should keep knowledge” (Malachi 2:7). When it stopped, Nehemiah found the Levites “fled every one to his field” (Nehemiah 13:10).

Our teachers. And the tithe today? Our class “Discover the Synagogue: A Center of Jewish Worship and Community” answered: “in the Bible the the required tithe was supposed to go to the Levitical priesthood and it was supposed to support the temple sacrifices. So we can’t say that we collect that tithe.” The Levitical tithe waits for the House; giving does not.

31:5–10 · Heaps from the third month to the seventh

“The children of Israel brought in abundance the firstfruits of corn, wine, and oil, and honey” (31:5). Honey is barred from the altar fire but allowed as firstfruits, “but they shall not be burnt on the altar” (Leviticus 2:11–12). “In the third month they began to lay the foundation of the heaps, and finished them in the seventh month” (31:7).

The calendar of the heaps. עֲרֵמוֹת עֲרֵמוֹת (aremot aremot), “heaps, heaps” (31:6): the doubled word is found only here. The heaps began in the month of Shavuot, “the feast of harvest, the firstfruits of thy labours,” and ended in the month of Sukkot, “the feast of ingathering” (Exodus 23:16): the whole harvest. The Mishnah sets the same season for firstfruits with the declaration: “From Atzeret until the Feast, one brings and recites” (Mishnah Bikkurim 1:6). Our class “Shavuot: Torah, Ruth, and Return” said what such gifts are: “First fruits are not only produce, they are gratitude, they are memory, they are testimony.” Hold on to “gratitude”; this king will need it (32:25).

“Then Hezekiah questioned with the priests and the Levites concerning the heaps” (31:9). “Questioned” is וַיִּדְרֹשׁ (va-yidrosh), the verb of seeking, used again for “to seek his God” (31:21) and Babylon’s “to enquire” (32:31). What a man asks about shows what he seeks.

“Since the people began to bring the offerings into the house of Hashem, we have had enough to eat, and have left plenty: for Hashem hath blessed his people; and that which is left is this great store” (31:10).

Hebrew lesson: אָכוֹל וְשָׂבוֹעַ וְהוֹתֵר (achol ve-savoa ve-hoter), “eating, being full, and leaving over.” “When thou hast eaten and art full, then thou shalt bless Hashem thy God” (Deuteronomy 8:10), the source of the blessing after meals; and the king and princes “blessed Hashem” (31:8). Ruth “did eat, and was sufficed, and left” (Ruth 2:14). In the Galilee “they did all eat, and were filled: and they took up of the fragments that remained twelve baskets full” (Matthew 14:20). Malachi made it a promise: “Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse… and prove me now herewith” (Malachi 3:10).

“This great store” is הֶהָמוֹן (he-hamon), “the multitude.” Sennacherib will come with “all the multitude that is with him,” כָּל־הֶהָמוֹן (32:7). Judah’s hamon of grain was heaped before Assyria’s hamon of soldiers arrived.

31:11–19 · Chambers, and men “expressed by name”

“Then Hezekiah commanded to prepare chambers in the house of Hashem… And brought in the offerings and the tithes and the dedicated things faithfully” (31:11–12).

Hebrew lesson: בֶּאֱמוּנָה (be-emunah), “faithfully.” The word comes three times: the gifts came in be-emunah (31:12); the distributors worked be-emunah, KJV “in their set office” (31:15); the priests “in their set office,” בֶאֱמוּנָתָם (ve-emunatam), “sanctified themselves in holiness” (31:18), the gatekeepers’ word in 1 Chronicles 9:22 (see our 1 Chronicles commentary on 9:17–27). Then its sister word: Hezekiah did “that which was good and right and truth,” וְהָאֱמֶת (ve-ha-emet, 31:20), and chapter 32 opens “After these things, and the establishment thereof,” where the Hebrew is again וְהָאֱמֶת, “and this faithfulness” (32:1). Emunah is the faithfulness of a man who can be trusted with the keys. “The just shall live by his faith,” בֶּאֱמוּנָתוֹ (be-emunato, Habakkuk 2:4).

Cononiah the Levite and Shimei his brother were over the stores, with ten overseers (31:12–13). “Kore the son of Imnah the Levite, the porter toward the east, was over the freewill offerings of God” (31:14); the keeper of the east gate kept the gifts. Six more gave “to their brethren by courses, as well to the great as to the small” (31:15).

The register. Portions went by “their genealogy,” the Chronicler’s word for his registers (see our 1 Chronicles commentary on 9:1–3), down to “all their little ones, their wives, and their sons, and their daughters” (31:18) and to the country priests through “the men that were expressed by name” (31:19). A priest’s children ate because their names were written down. Paul reasoned from this living altar: “they which wait at the altar are partakers with the altar” (1 Corinthians 9:13).

31:20–21 · “With all his heart, and prospered”

“And thus did Hezekiah throughout all Judah, and wrought that which was good and right and truth before Hashem his God. And in every work that he began in the service of the house of God, and in the Torah, and in the commandments, to seek his God, he did it with all his heart, and prospered” (31:20–21).

Kings says “He trusted in Hashem God of Israel; so that after him was none like him among all the kings of Judah” (2 Kings 18:5). Chronicles says “to seek,” with the Shema’s measure (Deuteronomy 6:5).

Our teachers. He was Ahaz’s son. Rabbi Palvanov, in his class “Who is Mashiach?,” says what he did with the throne: “when he became king, he cleaned up the country, reestablished the Torah schools, and did all this great stuff to restore Torah to the land.” The sages tell how.

What the sages say.

He planted a sword at the door of the house of study and said: Whoever does not occupy himself with Torah will be pierced by this sword. They searched from Dan to Beersheba and did not find an ignorant man. (Sanhedrin 94b)

On the same page the sages read “the yoke shall be destroyed because of the anointing” (Isaiah 10:27) as Sennacherib’s yoke, broken by “the oil of Hezekiah that burned in the synagogues and houses of study.” Chapter 31 is the oil; chapter 32 is the yoke.

Chapter 32 · Sennacherib, and the Test of the Heart

Read 2 Chronicles 32 in Hebrew and English →

32:1–8 · “With him is an arm of flesh”

“After these things, and the establishment thereof, Sennacherib king of Assyria came, and entered into Judah, and encamped against the fenced cities, and thought to win them for himself” (32:1).

After faithfulness, an invasion. The Hebrew is “after these things and this faithfulness” (see 31:11–19). Assyria did not come as punishment.

What Chronicles leaves out. Kings dates it to “the fourteenth year of king Hezekiah” and says Sennacherib took the fenced cities (2 Kings 18:13); Chronicles says he “thought to win them.” It also passes over Hezekiah’s “I have offended” and the tribute of three hundred talents of silver and thirty of gold, paid with the House’s silver and the gold of its doors (2 Kings 18:14–16).

“He took counsel with his princes and his mighty men to stop the waters of the fountains which were without the city” (32:3), and “built up all the wall that was broken… and another wall without” (32:5). Many read Isaiah’s words of that day beside these verses: “Ye made also a ditch between the two walls for the water of the old pool: but ye have not looked unto the maker thereof” (Isaiah 22:11). Isaiah condemns a wall built without looking up. Hezekiah’s next words show which he built.

“Be strong and courageous, be not afraid nor dismayed for the king of Assyria, nor for all the multitude that is with him: for there be more with us than with him: With him is an arm of flesh; but with us is Hashem our God to help us, and to fight our battles. And the people rested themselves upon the words of Hezekiah king of Judah” (32:7–8).

Hebrew lesson: חִזְקוּ וְאִמְצוּ (chizku ve-imtzu), “be strong and courageous.” Moses said it (Deuteronomy 31:6), David said it to Solomon (see our 1 Chronicles commentary on 22:11–13), and Joshua used Hezekiah’s four verbs: “Fear not, nor be dismayed, be strong and of good courage” (Joshua 10:25). “There be more with us” is Elisha’s word (2 Kings 6:16).

Hebrew lesson: זְרוֹעַ בָּשָׂר (zero’a basar), “an arm of flesh.” The phrase is found only here. Jeremiah turns it around: “Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm” (Jeremiah 17:5). Asa had “relied on the king of Syria” (16:7; see 16:7–10).

“With us,” עִמָּנוּ (immanu). Abijah said it too (13:12). Here it is half of Isaiah’s name for the child, given in a prophecy of this very invasion: the king of Assyria “shall reach even to the neck; and the stretching out of his wings shall fill the breadth of thy land, O Immanuel… for God is with us” (Isaiah 8:8, 10). Matthew gives the name to Yeshua (Matthew 1:23); on how our Statement of Faith reads it, see 13:8–12.

Our teachers. “Rested themselves” is וַיִּסָּמְכוּ (va-yissamechu), “they leaned,” the verb Rabshakeh used to mock Egypt, the reed “on which if a man lean, it will go into his hand” (2 Kings 18:21). FFOZ’s End of Days reads Isaiah 30–31 as addressed to this king: “Hezekiah succumbed to the temptation of relying on Egypt,” and “Egypt turned out to be a staff made of reed that collapses if a person leans upon it” (Lesson 35, “Egypt My People”). That day, at least, the people leaned on the right words.

32:9–19 · “Whereon do ye trust?”

“After this did Sennacherib king of Assyria send his servants to Jerusalem, (but he himself laid siege against Lachish, and all his power with him,)” (32:9).

The siege of Lachish was carved on the walls of Sennacherib’s palace at Nineveh; the reliefs are in the British Museum. He carved Lachish, not Jerusalem. Kings gives the officers’ speech at length (2 Kings 18:17–35); Chronicles calls them “his servants” and keeps its heart: “Whereon do ye trust?” (32:10). In Kings the verb בָּטַח (batach), “trust,” runs through the speech (2 Kings 18:19–24, 30); it is Kings’ own verdict on the king (see 31:20–21).

“Hath not the same Hezekiah taken away his high places and his altars, and commanded Judah and Jerusalem, saying, Ye shall worship before one altar, and burn incense upon it?” (32:12). The Assyrian thinks the reform insulted Israel’s God, and states the Torah’s law as well as anyone (Deuteronomy 12:13–14). Kings has “before this altar in Jerusalem” (2 Kings 18:22); Chronicles says “one altar” and adds the incense.

“He wrote also letters to rail on Hashem God of Israel” (32:17). “To rail on,” לְחָרֵף (lecharef), is the verb David used of Goliath: “that he should defy the armies of the living God” (1 Samuel 17:26).

“And they spake against the God of Jerusalem, as against the gods of the people of the earth, which were the work of the hands of man” (32:19).

The Chronicler’s comment. In Kings these words are Hezekiah’s prayer (2 Kings 19:18); Chronicles makes them the narrator’s verdict. The phrase is Moses’ warning that in exile Israel would “serve gods, the work of men’s hands” (Deuteronomy 4:28). Hezekiah’s son will live that chapter (see 33:10–13).

Our teachers. Rabbi Palvanov, in his class “Who is Mashiach?,” notes that Sennacherib’s own annals survive, and Sennacherib “doesn’t admit that he couldn’t take Jerusalem. But he says that he had Hezekiah holed up in Jerusalem.”

32:20–23 · “Prayed and cried to heaven”

“And for this cause Hezekiah the king, and the prophet Isaiah the son of Amoz, prayed and cried to heaven” (32:20).

Only here together. In Kings, Hezekiah asks Isaiah to “lift up thy prayer” (2 Kings 19:4) and prays alone over the letter (2 Kings 19:14–19). Only Chronicles has king and prophet praying side by side.

“And Hashem sent an angel, which cut off all the mighty men of valour, and the leaders and captains in the camp of the king of Assyria. So he returned with shame of face to his own land. And when he was come into the house of his god, they that came forth of his own bowels slew him there with the sword” (32:21).

Kings gives the number, “an hundred fourscore and five thousand” (2 Kings 19:35), and names the sons (2 Kings 19:37); Chronicles gives neither.

Hebrew lesson: מִיצִיאֵי מֵעָיו (mi-yetzi’ei me’av), “they that came forth of his own bowels.” It is the phrase for a man’s own seed, Abraham’s heir (Genesis 15:4) and David’s (2 Samuel 7:12), and of David’s grief: “my son, which came forth of my bowels, seeketh my life” (2 Samuel 16:11; see our 2 Samuel commentary on chapter 16). Sennacherib had asked which god could deliver from his hand (32:14); his own could not keep him alive in his own temple.

What the sages say.

The Holy One, blessed be He, wished to make Hezekiah the Messiah and Sennacherib Gog and Magog. The attribute of justice said before Him: Master of the world, David king of Israel, who said so many songs and praises before You, You did not make the Messiah; and Hezekiah, for whom You did all these miracles and he did not say a song before You, You would make the Messiah? (Sanhedrin 94a)

The sages found the sign in Isaiah: in “Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David” (Isaiah 9:7, Hebrew 9:6), the word לְמַרְבֵּה (le-marbeh) is written with a closed final mem in the middle: the door was shut (Sanhedrin 94a; see our 1 Chronicles commentary on 3:10–16).

Our teachers. FFOZ’s End of Days reads the story as a pattern: Sennacherib “comes out against him, just like Gog,” but “Hezekiah did not offer thanks to God by composing a victory hymn as his ancestor King David did.” It does not ask us to decide whether the sages’ story is true: “it’s sufficient to see how the story establishes the pattern of events that characterizes the last battle” (Lesson 16, “Gog and Magog”).

Ariel Cohen Alloro, in his video “The Tale of the Seven Beggars by Rabbi Nachman – Part 2,” reports that “it is written in the writings of the ARIZaL that he wanted to make him Mashiach ben Yosef,” and sums up Hezekiah’s way much as the midrash of the four kings does (see 20:20–23): “instead of going to war against his enemies just go to sleep… and God will do the work.” We keep the text’s balance: Chronicles’ Hezekiah built and armed, and then prayed (32:3–6, 20). On the two Messiahs, see 10:16–19 and 12:13–16. The son of David delivered the city, and the deliverance was not yet the redemption.

“Thus Hashem saved Hezekiah… and guided them on every side” (32:22), with the shepherd’s verb, וַיְנַהֲלֵם (va-yenahalem), of “he leadeth me beside the still waters” (Psalm 23:2). Then “he was magnified in the sight of all nations” (32:23), and the next verses show the danger of that.

32:24–26 · Sickness, a sign, and a lifted heart

“In those days Hezekiah was sick to the death, and prayed unto Hashem: and he spake unto him, and he gave him a sign” (32:24).

Kings tells it at length: the face to the wall, the tears, fifteen years added, the shadow turned back on the dial of Ahaz (2 Kings 20:1–11); Chronicles keeps the prayer and the sign, מוֹפֵת (mofet), “a wonder,” a word that returns in 32:31.

The years. Hezekiah reigned twenty-nine years (29:1). If fifteen were added (2 Kings 20:6), he fell sick about his fourteenth year, the year Sennacherib came (2 Kings 18:13). Manasseh was twelve when he began to reign (33:1), so he was born in the added years.

What the sages say. Isaiah told him he would die for not having had children; Hezekiah said he had foreseen that they would be unworthy; Isaiah answered, What have you to do with the secrets of the Merciful One? Then Hezekiah prayed: “Thus I have received from the house of my father’s father: even if a sharp sword rests on a man’s neck, let him not hold himself back from mercy” (Berakhot 10a). He lived, and the son he feared was born. In the psalm he wrote when he recovered he sang, “the father to the children shall make known thy truth” (Isaiah 38:19).

“But Hezekiah rendered not again according to the benefit done unto him; for his heart was lifted up: therefore there was wrath upon him, and upon Judah and Jerusalem” (32:25).

Hebrew lesson: וְלֹא־כִגְמֻל עָלָיו הֵשִׁיב (ve-lo khi-gemul alav heshiv), “he rendered not according to the benefit upon him.” Psalm 116 has the same verb, root and preposition: “What shall I render unto Hashem for all his benefits toward me?”, מָה אָשִׁיב לַיהוָה כָּל־תַּגְמוּלוֹהִי עָלָי (Psalm 116:12). The psalmist asks the question Hezekiah did not. The sages’ complaint that he sang no song (see 32:20–23) is this verse in another key; firstfruits, our class said, are gratitude (see 31:5–10).

“Notwithstanding Hezekiah humbled himself for the pride of his heart, both he and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that the wrath of Hashem came not upon them in the days of Hezekiah” (32:26).

Only in Chronicles. וַיִּכָּנַע (va-yikkana), “he humbled himself,” the first verb of 7:14 (see 7:13–16). The wrath was held back “in the days of Hezekiah,” as in Kings he says, “Is it not good, if peace and truth be in my days?” (2 Kings 20:19).

32:27–33 · Gihon, Babylon, and the chiefest sepulchre

“And Hezekiah had exceeding much riches and honour: and he made himself treasuries” (32:27). In chapter 31 he prepared chambers in the House for the people’s gifts; now he builds treasuries for himself.

“This same Hezekiah also stopped the upper watercourse of Gihon, and brought it straight down to the west side of the city of David. And Hezekiah prospered in all his works” (32:30).

Kings says “he made a pool, and a conduit, and brought water into the city” (2 Kings 20:20). In 1880 an inscription was found in the rock-cut tunnel that still carries the Gihon’s water to the pool of Siloam, telling how two teams of hewers cut toward each other until they met; most scholars date it to Hezekiah. At that pool Yeshua sent a blind man to wash (John 9:7).

What the sages say.

Six things King Hezekiah did. On three they agreed with him, and on three they did not agree with him. He dragged his father’s bones on a bed of ropes; he ground up the bronze serpent; he hid the book of remedies; and they agreed with him. He cut off the doors of the Temple and sent them to the king of Assyria; he stopped the waters of the upper Gihon; he intercalated Nisan in Nisan; and they did not agree with him. (Mishnah Pesachim 4:9; Pesachim 56a)

Four of the six touch the text: Ahaz’s burial (28:27), the serpent (2 Kings 18:4; see 31:1), the doors stripped for the tribute (2 Kings 18:16) and the Gihon; on the added month, see 30:1–5. The sages praise the man and still say where he went too far. Some explain that he should have trusted “I will defend this city to save it” (Isaiah 37:35).

“Howbeit in the business of the ambassadors of the princes of Babylon, who sent unto him to enquire of the wonder that was done in the land, God left him, to try him, that he might know all that was in his heart” (32:31).

What Kings says. Hezekiah “shewed them all the house of his precious things,” and Isaiah foretold that all of it, and some of his sons, would go to Babylon (2 Kings 20:13–18). Chronicles gives their question: “the wonder,” the mofet of 32:24. They came to ask about Hashem’s sign, and the king showed them his storehouses.

Hebrew lesson: עֲזָבוֹ הָאֱלֹהִים לְנַסּוֹתוֹ (azavo ha-Elohim lenassoto), “God left him, to try him.” Azav is the verb of forsaking (see 10:6–11), but here it serves a test, in Moses’ words for the wilderness: “to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart” (Deuteronomy 8:2). Hashem stepped back so that Hezekiah would learn his own heart.

His acts are written “in the vision of Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz” (32:32), the first line of Isaiah’s book (Isaiah 1:1). “And Hezekiah slept with his fathers, and they buried him in the chiefest of the sepulchres of the sons of David: and all Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem did him honour at his death” (32:33). One of the sages says they laid a Torah scroll on his bier and said, This one fulfilled what is written in this (Bava Kamma 17a): the verdict of 31:21. “Slept” is the Bible’s word for death, a sleep until the resurrection, as our Statement of Faith confesses.

Chapter 33 · Manasseh in Chains, and Amon

Read 2 Chronicles 33 in Hebrew and English →

33:1–9 · “Worse than the heathen”

“Manasseh was twelve years old when he began to reign, and he reigned fifty and five years in Jerusalem” (33:1). No king of Judah or Israel reigned longer. Rabbi Palvanov, in his class “Secrets of the Ark & Temple,” describes the First Temple: “Hezekiah would come and clean it up but then his son Manasseh would make it idolatrous again,” and of Manasseh, “He was the longest serving king, 55 years, but he was very wicked. He did ultimately repent.”

“For he built again the high places which Hezekiah his father had broken down, and he reared up altars for Baalim, and made groves, and worshipped all the host of heaven” (33:3). Kings has “altars for Baal,” and “a grove, as did Ahab king of Israel” (2 Kings 21:3); Chronicles makes both plural, drops Ahab, and omits his mother’s name (2 Kings 21:1).

“And he caused his children to pass through the fire in the valley of the son of Hinnom: also he observed times, and used enchantments, and used witchcraft, and dealt with a familiar spirit, and with wizards” (33:6).

Deuteronomy 18 as a checklist. Kings says “his son” (2 Kings 21:6); Chronicles says “his children,” names the valley, and adds “used witchcraft.” Moses had forbidden one “that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch, Or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard” (Deuteronomy 18:10–11). Manasseh’s list keeps the Torah’s order: ma’avir… me’onen, u-menachesh, u-mechashef… ov ve-yidde’oni. On the valley, see 28:1–4.

Hebrew lesson: הַסֶּמֶל (ha-semel), “the idol.” “He set a carved image, the idol which he had made, in the house of God” (33:7), where Kings has “a graven image of the grove” (2 Kings 21:7). Semel is found only five times: here and at 33:15, in Ezekiel’s “image of jealousy” at the Temple gate (Ezekiel 8:3, 5), and in the Torah: “Lest ye corrupt yourselves, and make you a graven image, the similitude of any figure,” פֶּסֶל תְּמוּנַת כָּל־סָמֶל (Deuteronomy 4:16). The Chronicler sends us to Deuteronomy 4. Keep it open.

What Chronicles leaves out. After “to do worse than the heathen” (33:9), Kings gives the prophets’ sentence, “both his ears shall tingle,” and the innocent blood with which Manasseh “filled Jerusalem from one end to another” (2 Kings 21:12, 16). Chronicles has one line: “And Hashem spake to Manasseh, and to his people: but they would not hearken” (33:10). The sages counted a prophet’s blood in it: Isaiah hid in a cedar, and Manasseh’s men sawed the tree (Yevamot 49b). Many read Hebrews 11:37, “they were sawn asunder,” with that story in mind.

33:10–13 · “Then Manasseh knew that Hashem he was God”

“Wherefore Hashem brought upon them the captains of the host of the king of Assyria, which took Manasseh among the thorns, and bound him with fetters, and carried him to Babylon” (33:11).

Only in Chronicles. Why Babylon, if the captains were Assyria’s? In Manasseh’s day Assyria’s kings also ruled Babylon, and Assyrian records name Manasseh king of Judah among their vassals. Chronicles gives no year.

Hebrew lesson: בַּחֹחִים (ba-chochim), “among the thorns.” A choach is a thorn (“as the lily among thorns,” Song of Songs 2:2). Many translate “with hooks,” from the near word חָח (chach), a hook for a captive’s nose, which Ezekiel uses in his lament for the princes of Israel led away (Ezekiel 19:1, 4, 9). Hashem had said to Sennacherib, “I will put my hook in thy nose” (2 Kings 19:28); now Assyria’s hook is in Hezekiah’s son. The bronze fetters, בַּנְחֻשְׁתַּיִם (ba-nechushtayim), are those of Jehoiakim (36:6) and Zedekiah (2 Kings 25:7). In Chronicles Manasseh is the first son of David carried to Babylon; Isaiah’s “of thy sons… shall they take away” (2 Kings 20:18) had begun.

What the sages say. When Rabbi Eliezer lay sick, Rabbi Akiva said, “Suffering is precious,” and proved it from here: all Hezekiah’s labor did not bring Manasseh back, only suffering did (Sanhedrin 101a–b).

“And when he was in affliction, he besought Hashem his God, and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers, And prayed unto him: and he was intreated of him, and heard his supplication, and brought him again to Jerusalem into his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that Hashem he was God” (33:12–13).

Our reading: Manasseh’s chapter is Deuteronomy 4. It warns against the semel (Deuteronomy 4:16) and of exile where “ye shall serve gods, the work of men’s hands” (4:28). Then: “But if from thence thou shalt seek Hashem thy God, thou shalt find him… When thou art in tribulation… if thou turn to Hashem thy God… he will not forsake thee” (4:29–31). “In tribulation” is בַּצַּר לְךָ (ba-tzar lecha); our verse opens וּכְהָצֵר לוֹ (u-che-hatzer lo), the same root. And near its close the chapter says, “Know therefore this day… that Hashem he is God” (4:39), כִּי יְהוָה הוּא הָאֱלֹהִים (ki Hashem hu ha-Elohim), the words of 33:13. Manasseh lived the chapter from warning to confession.

The Jerusalem Talmud tells it as a story: he called on every idol he had served, and none answered. Then he remembered the verse his father used to read him, “When thou art in tribulation,” and said: I will call on Him; if He answers me, good, and if not, it is all one (Jerusalem Talmud, Sanhedrin 10:2). The father had taught the son after all.

“Besought,” חִלָּה אֶת־פְּנֵי (chillah et penei), is what Moses did after the calf (Exodus 32:11) and Hezekiah when Micah prophesied (Jeremiah 26:19). The son prayed with his father’s words.

Hebrew lesson: וַיֵּעָתֶר לוֹ (va-ye’ater lo), “and he was intreated of him.” The Torah has the form once, for Isaac: “and Hashem was intreated of him” (Genesis 25:21). The sages read va-ye’ater, with ayin, as if it were va-yechater, with chet, from מַחְתֶּרֶת (machteret), a breach dug through a wall: “the Holy One, blessed be He, made for him a kind of opening in the firmament, to receive him in repentance, because of the attribute of justice” (Sanhedrin 103a). Justice would have shut the door; Hashem dug a way through.

Does Manasseh have a share? The Mishnah names three kings with no portion in the world to come, Jeroboam, Ahab and Manasseh, but “Rabbi Yehudah says: Manasseh has a portion in the world to come,” from this verse. The sages answered: “To his kingdom He brought him back; to the life of the world to come He did not bring him back” (Mishnah Sanhedrin 10:2). Rabbi Yochanan answered that whoever says Manasseh has no portion weakens the hands of those who repent (Sanhedrin 103a). Our lean is with Rabbi Yehudah and Rabbi Yochanan.

“Hashem he is God” (Deuteronomy 4:35) was shouted on Carmel (1 Kings 18:39), and Israel says it seven times as Ne’ilah closes Yom Kippur. Ariel Cohen Alloro, in the same video on the Seven Beggars, notices the letters: “מנשה menashe what is the letters of נשמה neshama he repented menashe in his life.” מְנַשֶּׁה (Menasheh) and נְשָׁמָה (neshamah), “soul,” are the same four letters. We take it as remez: the soul was waiting inside the name.

Messianic reading. Yeshua told of a son who wasted everything in a far country: “when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran” (Luke 15:20). Paul was shown mercy “for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe” (1 Timothy 1:16). Manasseh is that pattern in the Tenakh, and Matthew writes him into Messiah’s line: “And Ezekias begat Manasses” (Matthew 1:10). Our Statement of Faith cites the sages: “Seven things were created before the world was created… Torah, repentance…” (Pesachim 54a).

33:14–20 · The altar repaired, and the prayer written

“Now after this he built a wall without the city of David, on the west side of Gihon” (33:14), and put captains in the fenced cities: his father’s work taken up again (32:5–6).

“And he took away the strange gods, and the idol out of the house of Hashem… And he repaired the altar of Hashem, and sacrificed thereon peace offerings and thank offerings, and commanded Judah to serve Hashem God of Israel” (33:15–16).

The thank offering. The semel goes out and the altar goes back; the written text has ויכן, “he prepared,” and the reading tradition וַיִּבֶן (va-yiven), “he built.” He brought תּוֹדָה (todah), thanksgiving. The father “rendered not again according to the benefit” (32:25); the son brought the thank offering, as the restored House will hear “them that shall bring the sacrifice of praise into the house of Hashem” (Jeremiah 33:11). And he “commanded Judah to serve Hashem.” Our Statement of Faith: “We believe in grace, mercy, repentance, and forgiveness, but not in lawlessness. Hashem’s mercy calls us back to obedience, not away from it.”

“Nevertheless the people did sacrifice still in the high places, yet unto Hashem their God only” (33:17).

What repentance could not undo. The man’s teshuvah was whole; the people’s habits were not. The high places waited for his grandson (34:3), and Kings still says Hashem “turned not from the fierceness of his great wrath… because of all the provocations that Manasseh had provoked him withal” (2 Kings 23:26). Both books are true: a man forgiven, a nation already on the road. Solomon had prayed for captives who would “bethink themselves in the land whither they are carried captive, and turn and pray” (6:37; see 6:34–39). Manasseh is the first son of David to do it, the returned community’s story in one life.

“His prayer also, and how God was intreated of him, and all his sin… before he was humbled: behold, they are written among the sayings of the seers” (33:19). Kings records “his sin that he sinned” (2 Kings 21:17); Chronicles records his prayer twice, beside his sin. That book is lost; the Prayer of Manasseh in the Apocrypha is a later work, tradition and not Scripture. He was buried “in his own house” (33:20); his father lay “in the chiefest of the sepulchres of the sons of David” (32:33).

33:21–25 · Amon, who humbled not himself

“Amon was two and twenty years old when he began to reign, and reigned two years… for Amon sacrificed unto all the carved images which Manasseh his father had made” (33:21–22).

Amon died at twenty-four with a son of eight (34:1), so he was about sixteen when Josiah was born. The images were still there: Manasseh had cast them “out of the city” (33:15), not ground them to dust as Josiah would (34:4).

“And humbled not himself before Hashem, as Manasseh his father had humbled himself; but Amon trespassed more and more” (33:23).

Only in Chronicles. Kings says “he forsook Hashem God of his fathers” (2 Kings 21:22). Chronicles measures him by his father’s repentance: לֹא נִכְנַע… כְּהִכָּנַע (lo nikhna… ke-hikkana), “he did not humble himself… as Manasseh humbled himself.” “Trespassed more and more” is הִרְבָּה אַשְׁמָה (hirbah ashmah), “he multiplied guilt”; his father had “wrought much evil,” הִרְבָּה (hirbah, 33:6). The son copied the sin and not the return. Zedekiah will be measured the same way: he “humbled not himself before Jeremiah the prophet” (36:12).

His servants killed him, and “the people of the land made Josiah his son king in his stead” (33:24–25). They crowned a boy of eight, and the lamp did not go out (see 21:7).

Drawing it together

1. Heaps before the siege. From Shavuot to Sukkot the people gave until the priests ate, were full and left plenty, and could be strong in Torah (31:4–10). Hezekiah did it be-emunah, “to seek his God… with all his heart” (31:21). The Levitical tithe waits for the House; gratitude does not.

2. An arm of flesh. Assyria came after faithfulness (32:1). Hezekiah built walls and prayed, and said, “with us is Hashem our God” (32:8): immanu, Isaiah’s word for the son of David.

3. The test of the heart. A sign was given, and Hezekiah “rendered not again according to the benefit” (32:25); then “God left him, to try him” (32:31; Deuteronomy 8:2). Gratitude is the song the sages missed. A lifted heart can be humbled before the wrath falls (32:26).

4. Manasseh knew. The worst king did Deuteronomy 18’s sins in order, then lived Deuteronomy 4 to its end: in tribulation he sought, humbled himself greatly, was heard and brought home. No one is too far for teshuvah.

5. Return, and what it leaves. Manasseh repaired the altar and brought the thank offering, but the high places stayed, and Amon copied the sin without the return (33:17, 23). Exile and homecoming in one life became the returned community’s hope. The Son of David, who came first in the pattern of Mashiach ben Yosef and will return as Mashiach ben David, still runs to meet prodigal sons.

Questions for discussion

1. Who breaks the altars in 31:1, and who in 2 Kings 18:4? What does Mishnah Rosh Hashanah 3:8 teach about the bronze serpent, and how does it fit John 3:14–16?
2. What did the priests’ portion free them to do (31:4; Malachi 2:7)? Why do we not collect the Levitical tithe today?
3. Which feasts begin and end the season of the heaps (31:7), and why is honey brought but not burned (Leviticus 2:11–12)?
4. Where else do eating, being full and leaving over appear together (31:10; Deuteronomy 8:10; Ruth 2:14; Matthew 14:20)?
5. Follow emunah and emet from 31:12 to 32:1. What does it mean that Sennacherib came after “this faithfulness”?
6. Compare 32:7–8 with Joshua 10:25 and Jeremiah 17:5. How do Isaiah 8:8–10 and Matthew 1:23 hear “with us”?
7. What does Isaiah 22:11 add to 32:3–5? What did the sages think of stopping the upper Gihon (Pesachim 56a)?
8. Compare 32:25 with Psalm 116:12. How does Sanhedrin 94a’s missing song fit it?
9. How does Deuteronomy 4 map onto Manasseh’s story (33:7, 12–13)? What does Sanhedrin 103a add?
10. Why would Manasseh’s repentance matter to readers home from Babylon (6:37; 33:11–13)? What does Amon teach (33:23)?

Sources

Scripture: 2 Chronicles 6–7, 10, 12–13, 15–16, 20–21, 28–34, 36; 1 Chronicles 9, 28; 2 Kings 6, 18–21, 23–25; 1 Kings 18; Genesis 15, 25; Exodus 23, 32; Leviticus 2; Numbers 28–29; Deuteronomy 4, 6, 8, 12, 18, 31; Joshua 10; Ruth 2; 1 Samuel 17; 2 Samuel 7, 16; Psalms 23, 116; Song of Songs 2; Isaiah 1, 8–10, 22, 30–31, 37–38; Jeremiah 17, 26, 33; Ezekiel 8, 19, 45; Habakkuk 2; Malachi 2–3; Nehemiah 13; Matthew 1, 14; Luke 1, 15; John 3, 9; 1 Corinthians 9; 1 Timothy 1; Hebrews 11.

Talmud and Midrash: Berakhot 10a; Pesachim 54a, 56a; Yevamot 49b; Bava Kamma 17a; Sanhedrin 94a, 94b, 101a–b, 103a; Mishnah Pesachim 4:9; Mishnah Rosh Hashanah 3:8; Mishnah Bikkurim 1:6; Mishnah Sanhedrin 10:2; Jerusalem Talmud, Sanhedrin 10:2.

Our teachers and materials: First Fruits of Zion, End of Days (5786), Lesson 16, “Gog and Magog”; Lesson 35, “Egypt My People”; Rabbi Efraim Palvanov, “Who is Mashiach?” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rvL-sW5J04) and “Secrets of the Ark & Temple” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fAklN3Z31M); Ariel Cohen Alloro, “The Tale of the Seven Beggars by Rabbi Nachman – Part 2” (https://youtu.be/8f2YdGbxqXs); Benei Avraham classes “Discover the Synagogue: A Center of Jewish Worship and Community” (https://youtu.be/dpKsWyJEKjw) and “Shavuot: Torah, Ruth, and Return” (https://youtu.be/9FW62wzzfGM); our 1 Chronicles commentary on 3:10–16, 9:1–3, 9:17–27, 22:11–13 and 24:7–19; our 2 Samuel commentary on chapter 16; Benei Avraham Statement of Faith.

Before we begin

“Josiah was eight years old when he began to reign” (34:1). The last good king of David’s line is a child, the grandson of Manasseh. He seeks Hashem young, finds the book of the Torah in the House, keeps a Pesach like none since Samuel, and falls at Megiddo. Four kings follow him in about twenty-two years, the House burns, and the land keeps her sabbaths for seventy years. Then a Persian king writes, “let him go up” (36:23).

These chapters end the book and this page. They also end the Tenakh in the order of the Talmud (Bava Batra 14b) and of our printed Hebrew Bibles, and in that order the Tenakh’s last word is וְיָעַל (ve-ya’al), “and let him go up.” (The great Tiberian codices of Aleppo and Leningrad put Chronicles first among the Writings instead.) Kings ends in Babylon, with Jehoiachin eating at the king’s table (2 Kings 25:27–30). Chronicles ends at an open door.

The book’s rule holds to the last reign: “if ye seek him, he will be found of you; but if ye forsake him, he will forsake you” (15:2; 1 Chronicles 28:9). Josiah “began to seek” (34:3); Huldah’s word is “Because they have forsaken me” (34:25). The book’s other word, humble (see 7:13–16), comes for the last times: Josiah “didst humble thyself” (34:27), and Zedekiah “humbled not himself” (36:12). In these chapters the Hebrew and English verse numbers are the same.

How this commentary is built. We read the text first, in Hebrew where it matters, because Torah comes first and the Prophets and Writings are measured by it. Then we hear the sages: the Talmud, the Midrash, Rashi, Radak and Rambam. Then our own teachers: the FFOZ End of Days lessons, Rabbi Efraim Palvanov and Ariel Cohen Alloro, along with our own Benei Avraham classes. Last, we ask what the passage shows us about Mashiach.

A word on our teachers. Rabbi Palvanov and Ariel Cohen Alloro bring a great deal of Kabbalah and gematria. We use their insights as remez, a hint that opens a door, and never as proof. Gematria can show a connection the text already makes, but it cannot make a doctrine by itself. Where a teacher’s framework goes beyond what Benei Avraham confesses (for example, on reincarnation or on the nature of God), we take the insight and leave the framework. “To the Torah and to the testimony” (Isaiah 8:20) is the test for all of it, our own words included.

Scripture is quoted from the King James Version with Hashem in place of LORD, as in our Statement of Faith.

Chapter 34 · The Book of the Torah Found

Read 2 Chronicles 34 in Hebrew and English →

34:1–7 · “While he was yet young, he began to seek”

“And he did that which was right in the sight of Hashem, and walked in the ways of David his father, and declined neither to the right hand, nor to the left” (34:2). The last words are the Torah’s charge to the king, that he “turn not aside from the commandment, to the right hand, or to the left” (Deuteronomy 17:20); both verses have יָמִין וּשְׂמֹאול (yamin u-smol).

“For in the eighth year of his reign, while he was yet young, he began to seek after the God of David his father: and in the twelfth year he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem” (34:3).

Hebrew lesson: עוֹדֶנּוּ נַעַר (odennu na’ar), “while he was yet young.” Crowned at eight, he was about sixteen in the eighth year of his reign and about twenty in the twelfth. First he “began to seek,” הֵחֵל לִדְרוֹשׁ (hechel lidrosh), the book’s verb since Gibeon (see 1:1–6); then he began לְטַהֵר (letaher), “to make clean.” A year later the word came to Jeremiah, “in the thirteenth year of his reign” (Jeremiah 1:2), and he answered, “I cannot speak: for I am a child,” כִּי נַעַר אָנֹכִי (ki na’ar anochi, Jeremiah 1:6). The young king and the young prophet began together.

What Chronicles changes. Kings says nothing of the eighth and twelfth years; there the purge comes after the book is found in the eighteenth year (2 Kings 22:3; 23:4–20). Chronicles tells the purge first (34:3–7), then the book (34:8–21). Here the king seeks before he has the book, and the book answers a heart already looking.

Moses’ verbs. Moses burned the calf and ground it עַד אֲשֶׁר דָּק (ad asher dak), “to powder” (Exodus 32:20); in Deuteronomy, וָאֶכֹּת (va-ekkot), “and stamped it,” until it was “as small as dust” (Deuteronomy 9:21). Josiah “made dust of them,” וְהֵדַק (ve-hedak, 34:4), and beat the images כִּתַּת לְהֵדַק (kittat le-hedak, 34:7). Both of Moses’ verbs are here. Manasseh’s grandson treats Judah’s idols as Moses treated the calf.

“And he burnt the bones of the priests upon their altars” (34:5). Kings tells where: at Bethel, “according to the word of Hashem which the man of God proclaimed” (2 Kings 23:16). Centuries earlier that man had cried against Jeroboam’s altar: “Behold, a child shall be born unto the house of David, Josiah by name” (1 Kings 13:2). Chronicles names neither the place nor the man, but the word came true.

“And so did he in the cities of Manasseh, and Ephraim, and Simeon, even unto Naphtali” (34:6). Long after Assyria took Samaria, Josiah cleanses “all the land of Israel” (34:7). The sages say that Jeremiah brought back some of the ten tribes and that Josiah reigned over them (Megillah 14b).

34:8–13 · “The men did the work faithfully”

In the eighteenth year Josiah sent Shaphan and others “to repair the house of Hashem his God” (34:8). The money had been gathered by the Levites “of the hand of Manasseh and Ephraim, and of all the remnant of Israel, and of all Judah and Benjamin” (34:9).

Only in Chronicles. Kings says only “of the people” (2 Kings 22:4). Chronicles names the north first. It is the stream that began when “such as set their hearts to seek Hashem” came south (see 11:13–17). The repairs were for what “the kings of Judah had destroyed” (34:11), most of it, we may suppose, in the fifty-seven years of Manasseh and Amon (33:1, 21).

“And the men did the work faithfully: and the overseers of them were Jahath and Obadiah, the Levites… and other of the Levites, all that could skill of instruments of musick” (34:12).

Hebrew lesson: בֶּאֱמוּנָה (be-emunah), “faithfully.” Kings has the same word: no reckoning was made with the workmen, “because they dealt faithfully” (2 Kings 22:7). Chronicles adds who stood over them: Levites who were musicians, and Levite “scribes, and officers, and porters” (34:13; see our 1 Chronicles commentary on 25:1–3).

34:14–21 · “A book of the Torah of Hashem given by Moses”

“Hilkiah the priest found a book of the Torah of Hashem given by Moses” (34:14).

Hebrew lesson: בְּיַד־מֹשֶׁה (beyad Moshe), “by the hand of Moses.” Kings has only “the book of the law” (2 Kings 22:8). Chronicles says whose Torah it is and by whose hand it came, and says it again at the Pesach (35:6). Ezra, who by tradition wrote Chronicles (see the introduction to our 1 Chronicles commentary), was “a ready scribe in the law of Moses” (Ezra 7:6).

What scroll was it? Moses told the Levites to put “this book of the law” beside the Ark “for a witness against thee” (Deuteronomy 31:26). Huldah will speak of “all the curses that are written in the book” (34:24), where Kings has “all the words of the book” (2 Kings 22:16), and that points to Deuteronomy 28. Most readers take the scroll to be Deuteronomy, or a whole Torah with Deuteronomy in it. The book of Moses had been lost inside the House of Hashem.

“And it came to pass, when the king had heard the words of the Torah, that he rent his clothes” (34:19).

“Go, enquire of Hashem for me, and for them that are left in Israel and in Judah… for great is the wrath of Hashem that is poured out upon us, because our fathers have not kept the word of Hashem” (34:21).

Word by word with Kings. “Enquire” is דִּרְשׁוּ (dirshu), “seek”: the king who began to seek sends others to seek. Kings has “for the people, and for all Judah” (2 Kings 22:13); Chronicles has “them that are left in Israel,” the remnant of the north again. Kings has wrath “kindled,” נִצְּתָה (nitztah); Chronicles has “poured out,” נִתְּכָה (nittechah), the verb Rehoboam’s princes escaped (see 12:5–8).

34:22–28 · Huldah: “Because thine heart was tender”

They went “to Huldah the prophetess, the wife of Shallum… keeper of the wardrobe; (now she dwelt in Jerusalem in the college:)” (34:22).

What the sages say. The Talmud asks two questions (Megillah 14b). How could Huldah prophesy while Jeremiah was prophesying? She was his relative, and he did not mind. Why did Josiah send to her, not him? One answer: “women are compassionate.” Rabbi Yochanan’s: Jeremiah was away, bringing back the ten tribes (see 34:6).

Her answer has two halves. To “the man that sent you” (34:23): “Because they have forsaken me… therefore my wrath shall be poured out upon this place, and shall not be quenched” (34:25). That is the second half of David’s charge. Then to “the king of Judah”:

“Because thine heart was tender, and thou didst humble thyself before God… and humbledst thyself before me, and didst rend thy clothes, and weep before me; I have even heard thee also, saith Hashem” (34:27).

Hebrew lesson: רַךְ־לְבָבְךָ (rach levavcha), “thine heart was tender.” Rach is soft, as Jacob’s “children are tender” (Genesis 33:13). Hearing, a soft heart, humbling, tearing, weeping, and then “I have even heard thee.” Kings says “humbled” once (2 Kings 22:19); Chronicles says it twice, וַתִּכָּנַע (va-tikkana), the first verb of 7:14. The last king will be the opposite: Zedekiah “hardened his heart” (36:13). Ezekiel, a prophet of those same years, promised what Josiah had: “I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh” (Ezekiel 36:26).

“Behold, I will gather thee to thy fathers, and thou shalt be gathered to thy grave in peace, neither shall thine eyes see all the evil that I will bring upon this place” (34:28).

In peace? Josiah will die of arrows (35:23). The verse says what its peace is: his eyes would not see the fall. He was “buried in one of the sepulchres of his fathers” (35:24) while the House still stood. “The righteous is taken away from the evil to come. He shall enter into peace” (Isaiah 57:1–2). Ariel Cohen Alloro, in his video “General Overview – First Coming & Second Coming of the Messiah – Part 3,” puts the question plainly: “A prophet told him that he will go to his father in peace, and he died in where?” His answer is the sages’: “they say that he died in a sword of peace” (see 35:20–24). “I will gather thee to thy fathers” is a lying down with them; as our Statement of Faith confesses, death is sleep until the resurrection.

34:29–33 · “He read in their ears”

“And the king went up into the house of Hashem… and the priests, and the Levites, and all the people, great and small: and he read in their ears all the words of the book of the covenant” (34:30).

Word by word with Kings. Kings has “the priests, and the prophets” (2 Kings 23:2); Chronicles has “the priests, and the Levites.” And “went up” is וַיַּעַל (va-ya’al), the letters of the book’s last word.

“In their ears,” בְּאָזְנֵיהֶם (be-ozneihem), is the Torah’s word for the reading at the end of every seven years: “thou shalt read this law before all Israel in their hearing” (Deuteronomy 31:11). The Mishnah says the king himself read at that gathering, from Deuteronomy, on a wooden platform in the Temple court (Mishnah Sotah 7:8). Josiah did not hand the book to a scribe.

“And the king stood in his place, and made a covenant before Hashem… with all his heart, and with all his soul” (34:31). Kings has “by a pillar,” עַל־הָעַמּוּד (al ha-ammud, 2 Kings 23:3); Chronicles has עַל־עָמְדוֹ (al omdo), “in his place.” When Ezra read the Torah, the Levites “caused the people to understand the law: and the people stood in their place,” עַל־עָמְדָם (al omdam, Nehemiah 8:7).

“And all his days they departed not from following Hashem” (34:33).

Why this matters. The covenant held “all his days.” Jeremiah, speaking “in the days of Josiah the king,” saw beneath it: “Judah hath not turned unto me with her whole heart, but feignedly” (Jeremiah 3:6, 10). A king can make a people stand; he cannot make them turn.

Messianic reading. At Nazareth Yeshua “stood up for to read,” read Isaiah, and said, “This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears” (Luke 4:16, 21). Josiah read the Torah in their ears; Yeshua read the Prophets in their ears. As our Statement of Faith confesses, the Torah is not replaced.

Chapter 35 · The Pesach, and the Mourning at Megiddo

Read 2 Chronicles 35 in Hebrew and English →

35:1–6 · “Put the holy ark in the house”

Josiah kept the Pesach “on the fourteenth day of the first month” (35:1), the Torah’s own date; Hezekiah had to keep his in the second (see chapter 30).

“And said unto the Levites that taught all Israel, which were holy unto Hashem, Put the holy ark in the house which Solomon the son of David king of Israel did build; it shall not be a burden upon your shoulders: serve now Hashem your God, and his people Israel” (35:3).

The plain question. Why was the Ark not in its place? Many read it plainly: it had been moved, perhaps when Manasseh set his idol “in the house of God” (33:7), and Josiah tells the Levites to put it back. The Kohathites carried it “upon their shoulders” (Numbers 7:9; 1 Chronicles 15:15), and David had said the Levites “shall no more carry the tabernacle” (1 Chronicles 23:26; see our 1 Chronicles commentary on 23:24–27). With the Ark at rest the Levites are free to “serve now Hashem your God, and his people Israel.” The Levites who “taught,” הַמְּבִינִים (ha-mevinim), are the Levites of Ezra’s reading, who “caused the people to understand,” מְבִינִים (mevinim, Nehemiah 8:7). On the teaching Levites, see 17:7–9.

What the sages say.

Who hid it? Josiah hid it. What did he see, that he hid it? He saw it written, “Hashem shall bring thee, and thy king which thou shalt set over thee, unto a nation which neither thou nor thy fathers have known” (Deuteronomy 28:36). He arose and hid it, as it is said, “And he said unto the Levites that taught all Israel… Put the holy ark in the house.” (Yoma 52b; also Horayot 12a)

The verse he read is one of the curses of the book he had found.

Our teachers. Our Sukkot 5787 drash “Where Is the Ark” set out the debate (see 5:7–10 and 12:9–12) and named this verse as its source: the Talmud says Josiah hid the Ark “along with the jar of manna, the flask of anointing oil, and Aaron’s staff,” and “the verse behind it is Josiah’s command to the Levites.” Rabbi Palvanov, in his class “Secrets of the Ark & Temple,” reads it with the Rambam’s hidden chamber built by Solomon: “So even in the time of Yoshiyahu, the ark was still there.” FFOZ’s End of Days adds that Josiah “hid away the sacred anointing oil along with the ark,” and cites the Midrash that Elijah will one day show such tokens to Israel (Lessons 22–23, “The Ten Tribes–Shechinah”; Midrash Tanchuma, Beshalach 21).

Jeremiah spoke in the same reign. “In the days of Josiah the king” (Jeremiah 3:6) he promised a day when “they shall say no more, The ark of the covenant of Hashem: neither shall it come to mind” (Jeremiah 3:16). Our drash read it with Rashi: the whole assembly will be holy, and Hashem will dwell in it as in the Ark, so “the whole people is His Ark.” The king hid the Ark; the prophet promised a day when no one would need to look for it.

“So kill the passover, and sanctify yourselves, and prepare your brethren, that they may do according to the word of Hashem by the hand of Moses” (35:6), in courses by “the writing of David king of Israel, and… the writing of Solomon his son” (35:4; see 8:12–16). Moses’ Torah, kept in David’s order.

35:7–19 · “There was no passover like to that”

Count them. The king gave 30,000 lambs and kids and 3,000 bullocks “of the king’s substance” (35:7). The rulers of the House gave the priests 2,600 small cattle and 300 oxen (35:8), and the chiefs of the Levites gave the Levites 5,000 and 500 (35:9). That is 37,600 from the flock and 3,800 oxen. For the extra days of Hezekiah’s feast, he and his princes gave 17,000 sheep and 2,000 bullocks (30:24).

“And they roasted the passover with fire according to the ordinance: but the other holy offerings sod they in pots” (35:13).

Hebrew lesson: וַיְבַשְּׁלוּ… בָּאֵשׁ (va-yevashlu… ba-esh), “they roasted… with fire.” Exodus forbids the lamb “sodden at all with water, but roast with fire” (Exodus 12:9). Deuteronomy says וּבִשַּׁלְתָּ (u-vishalta), “thou shalt roast,” with the verb that usually means “boil” (Deuteronomy 16:7). Chronicles uses Deuteronomy’s verb and adds ba-esh, “with fire,” as Exodus commands. The Chronicler holds the two books of Moses together in one sentence.

“And there was no passover like to that kept in Israel from the days of Samuel the prophet” (35:18).

One superlative, three ways. Kings says “from the days of the judges” (2 Kings 23:22), and Samuel was the last of them (1 Samuel 7:15). Of Hezekiah’s Pesach Chronicles said, “since the time of Solomon… there was not the like in Jerusalem” (30:26), and it spoke of the joy. This one was kept on the right date, by the book, with the Ark at rest. Each “never” praises one thing. It was “the eighteenth year” (35:19), the year the book was found (34:8).

Messianic reading. At his last Pesach Yeshua said, “With desire I have desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer” (Luke 22:15). Paul wrote, “For even Messiah our passover is sacrificed for us: Therefore let us keep the feast” (1 Corinthians 5:7–8). He says keep it.

35:20–24 · “Forbear thee from meddling with God”

“After all this, when Josiah had prepared the temple, Necho king of Egypt came up to fight against Charchemish by Euphrates: and Josiah went out against him” (35:20).

“After all this” covers some thirteen years, from the eighteenth year to the end of a reign of thirty-one. Kings says Necho went up עַל (al) the king of Assyria (2 Kings 23:29), “against” or “to”; historians know from Babylonian records that he went to help Assyria against Babylon. Necho sent word: “I come not against thee this day… for God commanded me to make haste: forbear thee from meddling with God, who is with me, that he destroy thee not” (35:21).

“Nevertheless Josiah would not turn his face from him, but disguised himself, that he might fight with him, and hearkened not unto the words of Necho from the mouth of God, and came to fight in the valley of Megiddo” (35:22).

Only in Chronicles. Kings has only “he slew him at Megiddo, when he had seen him” (2 Kings 23:29). Chronicles says a pharaoh carried the word of God and the righteous king did not hear it. The words were “from the mouth of God,” מִפִּי אֱלֹהִים (mi-pi Elohim), whoever carried them.

Word by word with Ahab. “Disguised himself,” הִתְחַפֵּשׂ (hitchapes), is what Ahab did at Ramoth-gilead (18:29) and Saul before Endor (1 Samuel 28:8). The Tenakh uses the verb of only these three kings, and each went to his death. Josiah said, “Have me away; for I am sore wounded,” כִּי הָחֳלֵיתִי (ki hocholeti, 35:23); Ahab said “for I am wounded,” כִּי הָחֳלֵיתִי (18:33). The Chronicler tells the death of Judah’s best king in the words of Israel’s worst.

What the sages say. Josiah read the Torah’s promise, “neither shall the sword go through your land” (Leviticus 26:6), as meaning any sword, even one passing through in peace; but he did not know that his generation was not worthy of it. As he died, Jeremiah bent to his lips and heard him say, “Hashem is righteous; for I have rebelled against his commandment” (Lamentations 1:18; Taanit 22b). The same page faults him for not asking Jeremiah first, and one sage there takes Necho’s god for an idol. The Chronicler says “from the mouth of God”; Josiah’s last words in Hebrew are כִּי פִיהוּ מָרִיתִי (ki fihu mariti), “for I rebelled against His mouth.” We hear in it the mouth of God he had not heard in Necho. Rehoboam’s princes had said it too (see 12:5–8).

Our teachers. FFOZ’s End of Days notes that Armageddon (Revelation 16:16) is Har Megiddon, the hill of Megiddo, and that “King Josiah lost his life at Mount Megiddo when he tried to hold that strategic location against Pharaoh Neco’s northbound army as they passed through the land” (Lesson 16, “Gog and Magog”).

“And they brought him to Jerusalem, and he died, and was buried in one of the sepulchres of his fathers. And all Judah and Jerusalem mourned for Josiah” (35:24). Kings has him carried “dead from Megiddo” and buried “in his own sepulchre” (2 Kings 23:30). In Chronicles he dies in Jerusalem and lies with his fathers, as Huldah said.

35:25–27 · “Jeremiah lamented for Josiah”

“And Jeremiah lamented for Josiah: and all the singing men and the singing women spake of Josiah in their lamentations to this day, and made them an ordinance in Israel” (35:25).

Only in Chronicles. “The lamentations,” הַקִּינוֹת (ha-kinot), were a collection of their own; the verse does not say they are our book of Lamentations. Still, the Talmud says that over the dying king Jeremiah began Lamentations 4:20 (Taanit 22b): “The breath of our nostrils, the anointed of Hashem, was taken in their pits.”

Hebrew lesson: בְּבִקְעַת מְגִדּוֹן (be-vik’at Megiddon), “in the valley of Megiddon.” Only two verses in the Tenakh have “the valley of Megiddo”: the place where Josiah fell (35:22), and Zechariah’s prophecy. “And they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him… In that day shall there be a great mourning in Jerusalem, as the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the valley of Megiddon” (Zechariah 12:10–11).

What the sages say.

Rav Yosef said: Were it not for the Targum of this verse, we would not know what it says: “On that day the mourning in Jerusalem will be great, like the mourning for Ahab son of Omri, whom Hadadrimmon son of Tabrimmon killed at Ramoth-gilead, and like the mourning for Josiah son of Amon, whom Pharaoh the lame killed in the valley of Megiddo.” (Megillah 3a; Moed Katan 28b)

The Targum joins the same two kings the Chronicler joined. Zechariah’s mourning for the pierced one is measured by the mourning for Josiah, the righteous son of David cut down before his time.

Messianic reading. The Talmud reads Zechariah 12:10 of Mashiach ben Yosef, “who was killed” (Sukkah 52a; see our 1 Chronicles commentary on 3:1–9), and our Statement of Faith quotes that page. FFOZ’s End of Days notes that the Talmud uses “Zechariah 12:10–11 as a proof text for the idea of a messiah who suffers and dies for Israel,” and that the sages “did not recognize that Yeshua is the real suffering Messiah son of Joseph, who was killed by Rome… rose from the dead, and will soon return as the victorious Messiah son of David” (Lesson 15, “Abaddon”). John saw the verse at the cross, “They shall look on him whom they pierced” (John 19:37), and at the return, “every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him” (Revelation 1:7). Josiah was mourned and did not rise. The one Zechariah saw is mourned, and lives.

“Now the rest of the acts of Josiah, and his goodness, according to that which was written in the Torah of Hashem” (35:26).

Hebrew lesson: וַחֲסָדָיו (va-chasadav), “his goodness.” Literally “his kindnesses.” Chronicles says it of only two kings, Hezekiah (32:32) and Josiah, and Josiah’s was “according to that which was written in the Torah.” Jeremiah told Josiah’s son what it looked like: “did not thy father eat and drink, and do judgment and justice… He judged the cause of the poor and needy… was not this to know me? saith Hashem” (Jeremiah 22:15–16).

Chapter 36 · The House Burned, and the Door Opened

Read 2 Chronicles 36 in Hebrew and English →

36:1–10 · Carried to Egypt, bound for Babylon

“Then the people of the land took Jehoahaz the son of Josiah, and made him king” (36:1). He reigned three months. Pharaoh put him down, fined the land, and “made Eliakim his brother king… and turned his name to Jehoiakim” (36:3–4).

The brothers. Jehoahaz was twenty-three (36:2) and Jehoiakim twenty-five (36:5): the people passed over the elder, and Egypt put him in. Jeremiah calls Jehoahaz “Shallum” and says he “shall die in the place whither they have led him captive” (Jeremiah 22:11–12). On Josiah’s four sons, see our 1 Chronicles commentary on 3:10–16.

“Against him came up Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and bound him in fetters, to carry him to Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar also carried of the vessels of the house of Hashem to Babylon, and put them in his temple at Babylon” (36:6–7).

Not in Kings. Kings says only that “Jehoiakim slept with his fathers” (2 Kings 24:6). Follow the vessels: to Babylon (36:7, 10, 18; Daniel 1:2), and home again when “Cyrus the king brought forth the vessels of the house of Hashem” (Ezra 1:7).

Two tearings. When Josiah heard the book, “he rent his clothes,” וַיִּקְרַע (va-yikra, 34:19). When Jeremiah’s scroll was read to his son, Jehoiakim cut it and burned it, יִקְרָעֶהָ (yikra’eha), “he tore it,” and “they were not afraid, nor rent their garments” (Jeremiah 36:23–24). The father tore his clothes before the word; the son tore the word.

“Jehoiachin was eight years old when he began to reign, and he reigned three months and ten days” (36:9).

Eight or eighteen? Kings has “eighteen years old” (2 Kings 24:8), and says “the king’s wives” went into exile with him (2 Kings 24:15), which fits eighteen. Such numbers are easily confused in copying, and the plainest answer is that eighteen is right.

“And when the year was expired, king Nebuchadnezzar sent, and brought him to Babylon… and made Zedekiah his brother king” (36:10). Kings calls Zedekiah “his father’s brother” (2 Kings 24:17): he was a son of Josiah (Jeremiah 37:1), Jehoiachin’s uncle. Hebrew uses brother for a kinsman, as Lot, Abram’s nephew, is “his brother” (Genesis 14:14). On Jehoiachin’s line after Babylon, see our 1 Chronicles commentary on 3:17–24.

36:11–16 · “Till there was no remedy”

“And he did that which was evil in the sight of Hashem his God, and humbled not himself before Jeremiah the prophet speaking from the mouth of Hashem” (36:12).

The last “humbled.” The verb כָּנַע (kana), “humble,” appears here for the last time in the book (for the kings who humbled themselves, see 7:13–16). Like Amon (33:23), Zedekiah did not. He “asked him secretly in his house… Is there any word from Hashem?” (Jeremiah 37:17). He asked, and did not bow.

“And he also rebelled against king Nebuchadnezzar, who had made him swear by God: but he stiffened his neck, and hardened his heart from turning unto Hashem God of Israel” (36:13). “Stiffened his neck,” וַיֶּקֶשׁ אֶת־עָרְפּוֹ (va-yekesh et orpo), is the Torah’s word, “be no more stiffnecked” (Deuteronomy 10:16), and Hezekiah’s to the north: “Now be ye not stiffnecked, as your fathers were” (30:8).

The priests and people “transgressed very much” and “polluted the house of Hashem” (36:14). “Transgressed” is מַעַל (ma’al), the Chronicler’s word for the unfaithfulness that loses the land (see our 1 Chronicles commentary on 9:1–3).

“And Hashem God of their fathers sent to them by his messengers, rising up betimes, and sending; because he had compassion on his people, and on his dwelling place: But they mocked the messengers of God, and despised his words, and misused his prophets, until the wrath of Hashem arose against his people, till there was no remedy” (36:15–16).

Hebrew lesson. הַשְׁכֵּם וְשָׁלוֹחַ (hashkem ve-shalo’ach), “rising up betimes, and sending,” is Jeremiah’s own phrase (Jeremiah 7:25; 25:4; 26:5). מַלְעִבִים (mal’ivim), “mocked,” is found nowhere else in the Tenakh. מִתַּעְתְּעִים (mitta’te’im), “misused,” is the word Jacob feared: “I shall seem to him as a deceiver” (Genesis 27:12). They treated the prophets as frauds. And מַרְפֵּא (marpe), “remedy,” is from רָפָא (rafa), “heal.” Hashem had promised to “heal their land” (7:14), and He “healed the people” at Hezekiah’s prayer (30:20). Now no healing was left. Hashem “had compassion,” חָמַל (chamal, 36:15); the Chaldean “had no compassion” (36:17). They refused the One who pitied them and fell to one who did not.

What Chronicles changes. Kings lays the exile on Manasseh (2 Kings 23:26; 24:3–4). Chronicles has told Manasseh’s repentance (see 33:12–13), and here it names Zedekiah, the priests, and the people, and their contempt for the prophets. Each generation answers for itself.

Our teachers. Our class “Tisha B’Av and the Messianic Jew: A Call to Remember, Mourn & Hope” said it of the fall: “this wasn’t just bad luck or political defeat. It was the result of covenant disobedience. God warned through the prophets again and again. And when the people refused to listen, judgment came.”

Messianic reading. Yeshua told it as a parable: the husbandmen “took his servants, and beat one, and killed another… But last of all he sent unto them his son” (Matthew 21:35, 37). On Zechariah son of Jehoiada, killed in the court of the House, see 24:20–22. And “because he had compassion” stands before “no remedy”: Yeshua “beheld the city, and wept over it” (Luke 19:41).

36:17–21 · “Until the land had enjoyed her sabbaths”

“Therefore he brought upon them the king of the Chaldees, who slew their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary” (36:17). “And they burnt the house of God, and brake down the wall of Jerusalem” (36:19).

What Chronicles leaves out. No siege or famine, no flight by night, no sons killed before Zedekiah’s eyes, no blinding (2 Kings 25:1–7), and no Gedaliah (2 Kings 25:22–26). Kings dates the fire to the seventh of the fifth month (2 Kings 25:8), Jeremiah to the tenth (Jeremiah 52:12). The Talmud joins them: the enemy entered the Sanctuary on the seventh, set it on fire toward evening on the ninth, and it burned through the tenth (Taanit 29a). So the ninth of Av became the day of mourning for the House (Mishnah Taanit 4:6). Our Tisha B’Av class read Zechariah’s promise that the fast of the fifth month will become “joy and gladness” (Zechariah 8:19): “Mourning now, joy later.”

The survivors “were servants to him and his sons until the reign of the kingdom of Persia” (36:20), as Jeremiah said: “all nations shall serve him, and his son, and his son’s son” (Jeremiah 27:7).

“To fulfil the word of Hashem by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed her sabbaths: for as long as she lay desolate she kept sabbath, to fulfil threescore and ten years” (36:21).

Hebrew lesson: רָצְתָה הָאָרֶץ אֶת־שַׁבְּתוֹתֶיהָ (ratztah ha-aretz et shabbetoteha), “the land had enjoyed her sabbaths.” These are the Torah’s words: “Then shall the land enjoy her sabbaths, as long as it lieth desolate,” תִּרְצֶה הָאָרֶץ אֶת־שַׁבְּתֹתֶיהָ (Leviticus 26:34), and “As long as it lieth desolate it shall rest,” כָּל־יְמֵי הָשַּׁמָּה תִּשְׁבֹּת (Leviticus 26:35); the Chronicler writes כָּל־יְמֵי הָשַּׁמָּה שָׁבָתָה. The land had its own Shabbat (Leviticus 25:2); what Israel would not give, the land took. Then the Chronicler joins Moses to Jeremiah’s number: “these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years” (Jeremiah 25:11), and “after seventy years be accomplished at Babylon I will visit you” (Jeremiah 29:10). Rashi on Leviticus 26:35 counts the seventy years against seventy sabbatical and jubilee years that Israel did not keep.

Daniel and the seventy. In Babylon Daniel “understood by books the number of the years… that he would accomplish seventy years in the desolations of Jerusalem” (Daniel 9:2). Gabriel answered with “Seventy weeks,” שָׁבֻעִים שִׁבְעִים (shavu’im shiv’im), seventy sevens (Daniel 9:24). FFOZ’s End of Days notes that “Gabriel’s oracle draws its organizing structure from the Torah’s laws of the Sabbatical Year,” and warns that “Apocalypses use numbers symbolically without regard for literal precision” (Lesson 10, “The Septennate”). We set no dates. Our Tisha B’Av class took the lesson from Daniel’s prayer: “He doesn’t excuse or separate himself. He identifies with Israel’s failures and pleads for mercy.”

Why this matters. The exile was a Shabbat, not an ending. The land rested, and a Shabbat ends.

36:22–23 · “Let him go up”

“Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of Hashem spoken by the mouth of Jeremiah might be accomplished, Hashem stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia” (36:22).

“Stirred up the spirit” (see 21:16–20) is what Hashem did to Pul of Assyria at the first exile (1 Chronicles 5:26; see our 1 Chronicles commentary on 5:23–26). Now He stirs a king to send them home.

“Thus saith Cyrus king of Persia, All the kingdoms of the earth hath Hashem God of heaven given me; and he hath charged me to build him an house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Who is there among you of all his people? Hashem his God be with him, and let him go up” (36:23).

Isaiah had named him: “That saith of Cyrus, He is my shepherd… even saying to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be built” (Isaiah 44:28); “Thus saith Hashem to his anointed, to Cyrus” (Isaiah 45:1). Our class “The Essence and Mission of Yeshua from a Jewish Perspective” explained the word: “in Judaism, remember there are many Messiahs. Every single king of Israel was Messiah… There was even pagan kings like… King Cyrus who was called Messiah.” An anointed one is someone Hashem appoints for a task.

What the sages say.

Was Cyrus the Messiah? Rather, the Holy One, blessed be He, said to the Messiah: I complain to you about Cyrus. I said, He shall build My house and gather My exiles; and he said, “Who is there among you of all his people… let him go up.” (Megillah 12a)

Cyrus opened the door; he did not build the House or gather the exiles. Our Statement of Faith gives that work to Mashiach ben David, who “gathers the exiles, rebuilds the Temple, and establishes the kingdom.”

Hebrew lesson: וְיָעַל (ve-ya’al), “and let him go up.” Ezra gives the decree in full: “his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and build the house” (Ezra 1:3). Where Ezra has יְהִי אֱלֹהָיו עִמּוֹ (yehi Elohav immo), “his God be with him,” Chronicles has יְהוָה אֱלֹהָיו עִמּוֹ (Hashem Elohav immo), and stops at ve-ya’al. To go up is the Torah’s word for coming to Jerusalem, “when thou shalt go up to appear before Hashem thy God” (Exodus 34:24); so moving to the land is called aliyah, and Ezra “went up from Babylon” (Ezra 7:6). In these chapters the same letters stood at the reading of the book, “the king went up into the house of Hashem” (34:30), and at the judgment: “Therefore he brought upon them,” וַיַּעַל (va-ya’al), “the king of the Chaldees” (36:17). Hashem brought the enemy up against them; at the end He lets His people go up.

A remez. Near its close, Genesis gives Joseph’s promise: “God will surely visit you,” פָּקֹד יִפְקֹד (pakod yifkod), “and bring you out,” וְהֶעֱלָה (ve-he’elah), literally “bring you up” (Genesis 50:24). Jeremiah’s seventy years end with “I will visit you,” אֶפְקֹד (efkod, Jeremiah 29:10). And Cyrus says “he hath charged me,” פָקַד עָלַי (pakad alai), and then ve-ya’al. Joseph’s two words return in the Tenakh’s last verse. We hold it as a hint.

Another exodus. Our class “Rosh Hashana: A Time for Reflection and Renewal” said that since the Temple fell “we need another Exodus… from the nations of the world in order to come back to Israel.” The Tenakh ends by offering it, and leaves the answer to each one: “Who is there among you?”

Messianic reading. Yeshua spoke of what was written “in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me” (Luke 24:44); the first page of the Brit Hadashah picks up where this page stops: Matthew counts “from the carrying away into Babylon unto Messiah” (Matthew 1:17), through Jeconiah and Zerubbabel (Matthew 1:12). And John saw where the road of ve-ya’al ends: “the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven… Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men” (Revelation 21:2–3). Cyrus said “let him go up” and left the House unfinished. The Son of David will finish it.

Drawing it together

1. Seek while you are young; keep the heart soft. Josiah sought Hashem at about sixteen, before he had the book (34:3), and when he heard it his heart was tender (34:27). His son tore the scroll; Zedekiah hardened his heart (36:13).

2. The book found and read aloud. A Torah “given by Moses” was lost inside the House and found (34:14). The king read it “in their ears” (34:30), as Ezra did later, and as Yeshua read Isaiah at Nazareth. The Torah is not replaced; it is found and read again.

3. A Pesach by the book, and an Ark at rest. The first month, the right roasting, every Levite at his post, and the Ark off their shoulders (35:3–15). Jeremiah promised a day when no one would need to look for it.

4. The mourning at Megiddo. Judah’s best king fell at Megiddo, and Zechariah measured the mourning for the pierced one by that day. Yeshua came first in the pattern of Mashiach ben Yosef and will return as Mashiach ben David.

5. No remedy, a Shabbat, and an open door. Hashem sent His messengers “because he had compassion” (36:15); they mocked them “till there was no remedy” (36:16). The land kept her sabbaths, and then a Persian king said, “let him go up” (36:23).

2 Chronicles as a whole. The book began with a son of David asking for wisdom at Gibeon (see 1:7–13). It built a House, and Hashem gave the rule: “If my people… shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn… then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land” (7:14; see 7:13–16). A prophet gave Asa the other half: “if ye seek him, he will be found of you; but if ye forsake him, he will forsake you” (15:2). Every reign since has been read by those words, and those who humbled themselves were heard, even Manasseh. At the end the House burned and there was “no remedy.” Yet Jeremiah had written to the exiles: “ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart. And I will be found of you, saith Hashem” (Jeremiah 29:13–14). So the book ends with the door open: “Hashem his God be with him, and let him go up.”

Questions for discussion

1. How does Chronicles’ order of seeking, purging and finding the book (34:3–8) differ from Kings’?
2. What do Exodus 32:20 and Deuteronomy 9:21 add to 34:4 and 34:7? What had 1 Kings 13:2 said?
3. Who paid for the repair (34:9), and what does that say about the north?
4. What book did Hilkiah likely find (34:14, 24; Deuteronomy 31:26), and how could it have been lost?
5. Why did the king’s men go to Huldah (Megillah 14b)? How did “in peace” (34:28) come true?
6. What do Deuteronomy 31:11, Nehemiah 8:7 and Luke 4:21 share with 34:30–31?
7. What do Yoma 52b and Jeremiah 3:16 say about the Ark of 35:3?
8. How does 35:13 join Exodus 12:9 and Deuteronomy 16:7? How can 35:18 and 30:26 both be true?
9. Why might the Chronicler tell Josiah’s death in Ahab’s words (35:22–23; 18:29, 33)? How do the Targum to Zechariah 12:11 and Sukkah 52a lead from Megiddo to Mashiach?
10. How do Leviticus 26:34–35, Jeremiah 29:10–14 and Megillah 12a help us read the Tenakh’s last two verses?

Sources

Scripture: 2 Chronicles 1, 5, 7–8, 11–12, 15, 17–18, 21, 24, 30, 32–36; 1 Chronicles 5, 15, 23, 28; 1 Kings 13; 2 Kings 22–25; Genesis 14, 27, 33, 50; Exodus 12, 32, 34; Leviticus 25–26; Numbers 7; Deuteronomy 9–10, 16–17, 28, 31; 1 Samuel 7, 28; Isaiah 8, 44–45, 57; Jeremiah 1, 3, 7, 22, 25–27, 29, 36–37, 52; Lamentations 1, 4; Ezekiel 36; Daniel 1, 9; Zechariah 8, 12; Ezra 1, 7; Nehemiah 8; Matthew 1, 21; Luke 4, 19, 22, 24; John 19; 1 Corinthians 5; Revelation 1, 16, 21.

Talmud and Midrash: Bava Batra 14b; Megillah 3a, 12a, 14b; Moed Katan 28b; Yoma 52b; Horayot 12a; Taanit 22b, 29a; Sukkah 52a; Mishnah Sotah 7:8; Mishnah Taanit 4:6; Midrash Tanchuma, Beshalach 21 (as cited by FFOZ); the Targum to Zechariah 12:11 (as quoted in the Talmud).

Commentators: Rashi on Leviticus 26:35; Rashi on Jeremiah 3:16 (as cited in our drash); Rambam, Hilchot Beit HaBechirah 4:1 (as cited by Rabbi Palvanov and our drash).

Our teachers and materials: First Fruits of Zion, End of Days (5786), Lesson 10, “The Septennate”; Lesson 15, “Abaddon”; Lesson 16, “Gog and Magog”; Lessons 22–23, “The Ten Tribes–Shechinah”; Rabbi Efraim Palvanov, “Secrets of the Ark & Temple” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fAklN3Z31M); Ariel Cohen Alloro, “General Overview – First Coming & Second Coming of the Messiah – Part 3” (https://youtu.be/twprJIf5zfA); Benei Avraham classes “Tisha B’Av and the Messianic Jew: A Call to Remember, Mourn & Hope” (https://youtu.be/d3mT7q_R6DA), “The Essence and Mission of Yeshua from a Jewish Perspective” (https://www.youtube.com/live/NcguCQbsk8E) and “Rosh Hashana: A Time for Reflection and Renewal” (https://youtu.be/H-ptcsjbKms); our Sukkot 5787 drash “Where Is the Ark”; our 1 Chronicles commentary on 3:1–9, 3:10–16, 3:17–24, 5:23–26, 9:1–3, 23:24–27 and 25:1–3, and its introduction; Benei Avraham Statement of Faith.