And Jehoshaphat the son of Asa began to reign over Judah in the fourth year of Ahab king of Israel.
After so much ruin in the north, the record turns south to Judah. It dates the start of Jehoshaphat's reign by the reign of Ahab, setting a godly king beside a wicked one and raising the question of what passed between them.
One writer reads these closing verses, 41 to 50, as a moment of relief:
A few words close this book (vv. 41-50) and refresh our heart a little in the middle of so much ruin. Jehoshaphat was faithful, though not free from reproach. He was not zealous enough to destroy the high places, the remains of the idolatry planted in Judah.
The verse names Jehoshaphat by his father. One writer traces the line of kings, and sets this reign beside the prophets of the same years:
Abijam follows Rehoboam in evil; Asa shows piety, but trusts in a Syrian alliance to his sorrow (1 Kings 15). The godly Jehoshaphat succeeded, though he too failed in allying with Ahab and Ahaziah. At this time was the ministry of Elijah the prophet and of Micaiah (1 Kings 17-22).
The father leaned on a foreign power; the son leaned on the house of Ahab.
His first act as king guarded the very point where he later gave way:
Jehoshaphat's first act was to "strengthen himself against Israel." This is worthy of notice. Israel and Israel's king were always a snare to the heart of Jehoshaphat. But at the opening of his course, in the season of his early freshness, he was able to fortify his kingdom against the power of Israel. We often see this in the history of Christians. The evils which in later life prove their greatest snares are the ones they watched against most carefully at first. Often we find Christians of some years' standing giving in to things their consciences would once have shrunk from.
The date lets us measure how long his resolve lasted:
He began his reign with a determined opposition to the idolatrous northern kingdom. This was in the fourth year of Ahab. A few years later all this opposition ceases, and we read, "Jehoshaphat made peace with the king of Israel" (1 Kings 22:44). This peace evidently came from the marriage of Jehoshaphat's son Jehoram to Athaliah, daughter of Ahab and of the notorious Jezebel. It was a sad thing for Jehoshaphat and his descendants that he ever gave his consent to this unholy alliance.
One writer adds up what each side gave the other:
Jehoshaphat helped Ahab against Syria. He helped Jehoram against Moab. But neither Ahab nor his son helped Jehoshaphat in any one thing, except to be unfaithful to Jehovah.
A summary of his whole life gathers both halves, the seeking and the erring:
He sought God, walked in the "first" ways of David, and took away the high places and groves out of Judah. God established the kingdom in his hand, and the fear of the Lord fell upon the kingdoms around. He sent Levites and priests throughout all Judah to teach the people... He erred, however, in making alliance with idolatrous Israel, and in allowing his son to marry Athaliah, the daughter of Ahab and Jezebel. He went with Ahab to war against Ramoth-gilead, and nearly lost his life, but God delivered him. Jehu the seer rebuked him... Then he sought the Lord, and set his heart to bring all his people to fear the Lord.
Commentators differ on the high places: this summary says he took them away, while Rossier says he was not zealous enough to destroy them.
- Begin guarded. Jehoshaphat's first act was to guard his kingdom against Israel. That was the very danger he later welcomed. What you watch most carefully at the start is often what trips you in the end.
- Watch the drift. In Ahab's fourth year he stood firmly against the north. A few years later he made peace with its king. Nothing announced the change.
- Mind the door it came through. Jehoshaphat married his son to the daughter of Ahab and Jezebel, and that sealed the alliance. The family, not the battlefield, carried the compromise in.
- Count the traffic. Jehoshaphat helped Ahab, and then helped Ahab's son. They helped him in nothing except unfaithfulness to God.
- Faithful, not flawless. He refreshes the heart after so much ruin, yet he lacked the zeal to clear away the high places. After the rebuke he sought the Lord again. Real godliness, real failure and real repentance can share one reign.
Jehoshaphat was thirty-five years old when he began to reign; and he reigned twenty-five years in Jerusalem; and his mother's name was Azubah, the daughter of Shilhi.
After Ahab's death, 1 Kings turns to the throne of Judah. One line sums up a whole reign: Jehoshaphat's age, his years on the throne, and his mother's name.
Kings gives Jehoshaphat only a brief notice. What it does say sets him beside his father.
Not a great deal is said about Jehoshaphat in Kings, though more is recorded of him in 2 Chronicles 17-20. He became king at 35 years of age and reigned 25 years. He followed the example of his father Asa, in general doing what was right before God.
Add the two numbers and you have the length of his life. His mother's name appears in only one other place in Scripture.
Jehoshaphat reigned twenty-five years, and died at the age of sixty. His mother, Azubah, was the only other person in Scripture to bear the name of Caleb's first wife (1 Chron. 2:18).
Kings names the mother of one king after another. One writer follows that thread through these books, and finds it again in a family Paul knew.
Throughout these books we will see how the mothers' character, and where they came from, influenced their children. A godly mother sees her sons prospering around her. The apostle Paul reminds Timothy of his blessed ancestry: "I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, dwells in you as well" (2 Tim. 1:5).
The same principle runs the other way. Where the mother's line was corrupt, that too showed in the children:
On the mother's side, the family line was evil, and a mother has enormous influence for good or evil.
Still, a good mother is no guarantee. Some kings broke the pattern in both directions.
But whatever the effect of these good or bad influences, grace alone explains the characters of Hezekiah and of Josiah. The last kings of Judah prove it: they were ungodly despite their Jewish mothers and their godly father.
Jehoshaphat's first act as king was to strengthen Judah against Israel in the north. Israel was the danger he guarded against first — and the one he never shook off.
Jehoshaphat's first act was to "strengthen himself against Israel." This is worth noticing. Israel and Israel's king were always a snare to the heart of Jehoshaphat. But at the start of his reign, while he was still fresh, he was able to fortify his kingdom against the power of Israel. Now, one often observes this in the history of Christians. The evils that prove their greatest snares in later life are the ones they watched against most carefully at first. It is a happy thing when our watchfulness grows as we learn more about what our own hearts can do. But sadly it is not always so. How often we find Christians of some years' standing allowing themselves things their consciences would once have shrunk from.
These closing verses end a book full of collapse. They bring relief — though not without regret.
A few words close this book (vv. 41-50) and refresh our heart a little amid so much ruin. Jehoshaphat was faithful, though not free from reproach. He was not zealous enough to destroy the high places, the remains of the idolatry planted in Judah. He did wipe out the shameful men who had settled in the land along with the idolatry of Canaan. But one sees with regret that he joins himself with Ahab's son Ahaziah, who does wickedly, and joins with him in building ships to go to Ophir for gold.
Yet the record does not end there. Loss taught him what success never did:
Thank God, after the prophet's word and the destruction of his fleet, Jehoshaphat understood the great weakness of his life. An alliance with the world, whatever its purpose, is a thing God disapproves of. It will bring judgment upon His children.
- Named — One line holds a whole life: king at thirty-five, twenty-five years on the throne, dead at sixty, his mother Azubah named beside him.
- Formed — Mothers mattered. Their character and where they came from shaped their sons, for good or for evil.
- Given — Influence is not enough. Grace alone explains why some sons stood and others fell.
- Guarded — He began by strengthening himself against Israel. The evil we watch hardest at the start is often the one that snares us later.
- Finished — Faithful, but not faultless. The high places stayed, yet by the end he knew that an alliance with the world brings God's judgment.
And he walked in all the way of Asa his father; he turned not aside from it, doing what was right in the sight of Jehovah. Only, the high places were not removed the people offered and burned incense still on the high places.
One verse gives Jehoshaphat two verdicts: he did what was right, and yet the high places stayed. That word "yet" raises three questions — what the high places were, why a good king left them, and how God can praise a man and still record his flaw.
Scripture gives honourable mention to kings who handled their own responsibility well. That honour stands beside their failures; it does not deny them.
Each in his own day handled his personal responsibility well, and so honourable mention is made of David (1 Kings 15:5), of Asa (1 Kings 15:11), and of Jehoshaphat (1 Kings 22:43). Each of them could therefore take comfort from the express promise given to such men in Psalm 101:6. Personal failures still searched their hearts, and each had reason to mourn over them with a humbled spirit. Absolute perfection is seen only in the LORD's "Servant."
The problem was not always open idol worship. Some of these sites served the worship of the true God, and that is what makes them so instructive.
Readers should study Deuteronomy 12 carefully. The LORD told His people about the ways of the nations around them, and forbade them to copy those ways. The Word alone must govern them in everything to do with worship, as indeed in everything else. The LORD would choose His own centre, and there His people must bring their burnt offerings and sacrifices... The time soon came, sadly, when Israel chose high places for themselves. Some of these were for idolatrous worship, and some for the worship of the LORD. But all the high places were offensive in His sight, whatever the motives of those who set them up. They expressed the self-will of the creature, and hearts not subject to His commandments.
Chronicles says Jehoshaphat took the high places away. Kings says they were not. Commentators explain the difference in two ways. One reading finds two kinds of high place.
This last statement does not contradict what is said in 1 Kings 22:43. He removed the high places and groves used for the worship of Baal; "yet the high places (dedicated to the LORD) were not taken away, and the people still sacrificed and made offerings (to the true God) on the high places."... He abolished idolatry, but he could not bring the people to see that offering sacrifices anywhere other than Jerusalem was against God's law and dangerous.
The other reading is about timing. He began the work but lost the power to finish it — and his father Asa left the same mixed record.
This only proves that at the beginning of his reign Jehoshaphat set out to abolish them and kept it up himself. But the people quickly slipped back into these idolatrous practices, because their consciences had never been reached. His alliance with the king of Israel had weakened Jehoshaphat, so he could not use his authority to lead the people in the right way. It had been the same with Asa: one passage says he removed the high places out of all the cities of Judah (2 Chronicles 14:5), another that the high places were not removed from Israel (2 Chronicles 15:17)... All this can easily be explained. Let us remember that God never contradicts Himself.
God blessed men who had grown up inside this practice and never questioned it. That blessing was not approval of the practice.
God met these good men, honoured and blessed them, as He does thousands inside religious systems today... These godly men had grown up in the evil and been taught it, so the question of whether it was right had never arisen in their consciences. God therefore blessed and owned their faithfulness up to the light they had... Did He therefore approve this direct violation of His own word, or endorse it, or even turn a blind eye to it? He has answered that Himself with unmistakable clearness: "Yet the high places were not taken away." Again and again this qualifies the approval He expresses of the otherwise faithful acts of His servants. It shows that He never lost sight of the sin, even though they had grown up unaware of it.
Sincerity does not settle how we may come to God. What we offer must match what He has revealed.
Clearly man is not to decide his own ways as a worshipper. Willingness in worship is right; wilfulness destroys it all... we are to worship "in spirit" — that is perfectly true — in the grace and liberty of the Holy Spirit whom God has given us. But we are to worship "in truth" also, according to God's revelation of Himself and of His worship... Keeping groves and high places in Israel always showed that the people had not properly prepared their hearts to seek the LORD God of Israel. He is the only true God, and He had set His name at Jerusalem.
- Commended — Scripture gives Jehoshaphat honourable mention for doing right. Only God's "Servant" is perfect.
- Qualified — the word "yet" is God's own comment. He blesses faithfulness up to the light a person has, but He never loses sight of the sin.
- Defined — a high place could honour the true God and still be wrong. It expressed self-will, not submission to His Word.
- Explained — commentators differ on the Chronicles account. Some see two kinds of high place. Others see a reform that began well and then failed.
- Applied — willingness in worship is right, but wilfulness ruins it. Worship must be in spirit and in truth, on ground God Himself has chosen.
And Jehoshaphat was at peace with the king of Israel.
This verse is one short line inside a mostly positive summary of Jehoshaphat's reign. Judah's king stopped opposing Israel's king and made peace. That king was Ahab. Commentators treat this line as the turning point of Jehoshaphat's whole story, because peace with Ahab cost him more than war ever had.
Jehoshaphat had not always been friendly toward the northern kingdom. One writer sets his early policy beside this verse and names what held the peace together.
The first thing recorded of Jehoshaphat is that he "strengthened himself against Israel... and set garrisons in the land of Judah, and in the cities of Ephraim, which Asa his father had taken" (2 Chron. 17:1-2). He began his reign firmly opposed to the idolatrous northern kingdom... A few years later all that opposition stops, and we read, "Jehoshaphat also made peace with the king of Israel" (1 Kings 22:44). Clearly a marriage brought this peace about: Jehoshaphat's son Jehoram married Athaliah, the daughter of Ahab and of the notorious Jezebel. Alas for Jehoshaphat and his descendants that he ever agreed to this unholy alliance, and made peace with the man "who did evil in the sight of the Lord above all that were before him" (1 Kings 16:30)!
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The peace was not forced on him by weakness. He was strong when he made it. His strength is what made the arrangement look respectable.
God had blessed him with prosperity because of his faithfulness. That prosperity made him worth having as an ally, and made him harder to attack. So, at ease, Jehoshaphat for his part ties himself to Israel by marriage. His wealth let him do it on terms that made the alliance look honourable. When God does not keep the human heart, it can be generous toward evil that it does not fear; but this is not love. Outwardly Jehoshaphat is faithful to Jehovah, but the wrath of Jehovah is on him.
Another writer names the mistake plainly.
Jehoshaphat failed also in his making peace with Ahab, king of Israel. Perhaps he thought he was being gracious in this friendship. But this was a mistaken view of grace, because it ignored faithfulness to God.
Peace between two kings sounds mutual. But count the help each king gave, and the account does not balance.
Jehoshaphat helped Ahab against Syria, and he helped Jehoram against Moab. But neither Ahab nor his son helped Jehoshaphat in any one thing, except to help him be unfaithful to Jehovah. Ahaziah was indeed willing to go with him, but only to get gold from Ophir.
Jehoshaphat came back alive from the battle at Ramoth, and Jehu rebuked him for going. He then made the same kind of friendship with Ahab's son, and God answered it.
It is sad to see that he does not at once learn the lesson Jehu had taught him when he returned from Ramoth. He joins himself to Ahab's son Ahaziah, who acts wickedly (2 Chr. 20:35-37), and teams up with him to build ships and to sail together to Ophir for gold... But the Lord does rebuke him: "And Eliezer the son of Dodavah, of Mareshah, prophesied against Jehoshaphat, saying, Because you have joined yourself with Ahaziah, Jehovah has broken your works. And the ships were broken, and could not go to Tarshish" (2 Chr. 20:37).
The heaviest results came after Jehoshaphat's death, and they fell on the royal line itself.
Disaster after disaster falls on Judah because of this connection with the house of Ahab. To tie yourself to something that claims to be of God and to follow His religion, but is not, is intolerable to God... Athaliah, who belonged to this family, seizes the throne. She destroys all the royal children except one, and God in His grace took care of that child. He would not have the lamp of David put out at Jerusalem, although He did discipline David's family.
One writer draws a rule from Jehoshaphat's alliance for any believer today.
Nothing can ever justify a believer yoking himself with an unbeliever. So however fair, attractive, and convincing the Ramoth expedition might look to people, in God's judgment it was "helping the ungodly, and loving those who hate the Lord" (2 Chr. 19:2). The truth of God strips men and things of the false colours that a spirit of convenience paints on them, and shows them in their true light.
- Strength — Jehoshaphat began by strengthening himself against the idolatrous northern kingdom. This verse records that resistance ending.
- Prosperity — his wealth made the peace possible and made it look honourable. Comfort, not pressure, drew him in.
- Grace misnamed — the heart can be generous toward evil it does not fear, and call that grace. Real grace never sets faithfulness to God aside.
- One-way traffic — he helped Ahab and Ahab's sons again and again. They helped him in nothing except unfaithfulness, and God broke the shipping venture that followed.
- Cost — the marriage that sealed this peace brought Athaliah into David's house. She came within one preserved child of ending the royal line that God Himself kept alive.
And the rest of the acts of Jehoshaphat, and his might which he shewed, and how he warred, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah?
Jehoshaphat's reign closes with a footnote rather than a story: the verse points the reader away from this book to another set of records that held his might and his wars. That raises two questions — what was in those lost records, and why did God's account keep so little of them?
The "Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah" is not the Bible book we call Chronicles. One writer traces where each biblical historian got his material.
In Kings the material always seems to come from state records: "the book of the acts of Solomon" (1 Kings 11:41); "the book of the Chronicles of the kings of Judah" (1 Kings 14:29); "the book of the Chronicles of the kings of Israel" (1 Kings 14:19), and so on. Chronicles holds more of the writings of particular men, or selections from them: "Samuel the seer," "Nathan the prophet," "Gad the seer," "the prophecy of Ahijah the Shilonite," "the visions of Iddo the seer."
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Scripture names another record of Jehoshaphat's acts, and it has vanished too.
We have read of much that was good in the history of Jehoshaphat. Other acts of his were also recorded in the book of Jehu, son of Hanani, which is not available today. But Jehu seems to have valued Jehoshaphat, since he recorded Jehoshaphat's actions, but not those of Asa, who had persecuted Jehu's father (2 Chron. 16:10).
The missing books are no real loss. What they held and what Scripture holds are two different things.
People drew up these chronicles during the reigns of all the rulers of those times, Jewish or Gentile. They have nothing to do with the Word of God. What the Lord did not choose to record or explain is what they wrote down. These chronicles have been lost. The believer has no need for any of them; he has God's Word. In God's account he finds everything he needs, and God's own evaluation of people, events, and things. Non-inspired writings may record certain deeds, and even record them with great exactness. But nothing more than human evaluation ever goes with them. Men of God — prophets and seers — could be the ones who drew up these chronicles, made these genealogical registers, wrote these commentaries (2 Chron. 12:15; 2 Chron. 13:22). These writings are still not the inspired Word of God.
The same writer adds what survives the loss of every archive:
Amid the ruin and disappearance of these things the Word of God remains, the only monument, the only document that cannot be shaken!
Other parts of Scripture fill in the scale of that might: what he built, and the army he kept ready.
Jehoshaphat grew very great. He built fortresses and storage cities in Judah, and he had much business in the cities of Judah. It was a time of great commercial prosperity, and the kingdom stood at the height of its power and glory. He had an organized army of over a million men, ready for war (2 Chron. 17:12-19).
Set against the ruin filling the rest of the book, these closing verses bring relief — and a mixed verdict on the king.
A few words close this book (vv. 41-50) and refresh our heart a little in the middle of so much ruin. Jehoshaphat was faithful, though not free from blame.
One writer answers the verse's closing question with a yes, then widens where the record is kept.
Yes, and those acts, along with the wicked acts recorded here, are written in God's books above. Those books are not merely "the chronicles of the kings of Israel." They hold the deeds and doings of every person's life, whether good or evil. Solemn facts for us all!
- Two records. Kings draws on state archives. Chronicles draws more on the writings of individual seers and prophets. This verse sends you to the first kind.
- Lost record. Those royal records, and the book of Jehu son of Hanani, are gone. The Word of God is the one document that cannot be shaken.
- Human record. Non-inspired writings may be exact, and prophets may even have compiled them, but they carry only human evaluation.
- Honest record. Weighed as a whole, the same reign reads: faithful, yet not free from blame. Strength, wealth and a huge army never get the last word.
- Your record. God writes the deeds of every life, good or evil, in His books above.
And the remainder of the sodomites, which were left in the days of his father Asa, he put away from out of the land.
The closing summary of Jehoshaphat's reign includes one line about a clean-up job. He cleared out of the land a group his father Asa had left behind. Two questions sit inside it — who these people were, and why a good king's reform had left any of them standing.
Older translations call them "sodomites." The ESV calls them "male cult prostitutes." One writer asks what the Hebrew word means, and rejects a gentler reading of it:
Few serious readers will agree with the idea that the Hebrew word means a holy woman or seer. Far more likely is the usual view: it means a "consecration" to the corrupt Astarte, or Venus, of early and later idolatry. Besides, those who hold the other view do not try to account for the masculine form of the word, which occurs in Deuteronomy 23:17, 1 Kings 22:46 and 2 Kings 23:7. Can it be argued that holy men, or seers, are meant here? If that form plainly means a class of people of terrible moral corruption, the argument for the other meaning falls apart. Both are forms of the same word, and the idea of holiness, or consecration, of course runs through both. Terrible to say, prostitution was an almost universal part of what pagans called holy!
So this was not only a moral scandal. It was worship. That is why removing these men counts as a reform, not just a police action.
The verse says they had remained "in the days of his father Asa" — yet Asa is also credited with sweeping evil out of Judah. One commentator holds these accounts together, and points to the people:
All this can easily be explained. Let us remember that God never contradicts Himself. Under the reign of these kings, purification had been only partial and temporary. Evil sprang up again everywhere, because the conscience of the people had never really been reached.
The same writer accounts for the pattern by distinguishing the king's own resolve from the state of the people. A reform can be real at the top and still stall below:
This only proves that at the beginning of his reign Jehoshaphat undertook to abolish them and maintained this personally; but the people, whose consciences had not been reached, quickly fell back into these idolatrous practices.
The two books that tell this reign measure different things:
Chronicles emphasizes grace as the only means of keeping the royal line going at a time when the kingdom was in complete decline. It always highlights the good which grace has produced, even if only for a moment, and shows that grace covers a multitude of sins. It is different when it is a matter of responsibility, as in the book of Kings. Then God reveals the evil in its full extent and shows us why it was necessary to execute judgment.
Jehoshaphat cleared out what Asa left, but he did not clear out everything. One writer compares his zeal with that of later kings:
However, he allowed the high places of worship to remain, where the people offered sacrifices and burned incense… Hezekiah later had the spiritual energy to remove the high places (2 Kings 18:4). Yet the high places came back, and Josiah defiled the ones where the priests had burned incense (2 Kings 23:8). But Jehoshaphat did not have the same godly zeal as Josiah.
Jehoshaphat's clean-up did not settle the matter for good. Generations later another king had to deal with the same evil:
Josiah broke down the houses of the Sodomites that were in the house of the Lord, where the women wove hangings for the wooden image. How bold wickedness had become, to invade the house of the Lord like this!
What is left standing does not stay small:
An enemy half conquered is an enemy unconquered. Unless you completely overthrow the power of evil that would keep you from one corner of your inheritance, you will find that enemy come up again. You may hold him down for a time, make him pay tribute, and treat him as a lesser thing. Still, if the enemy is not really a conquered enemy, he will conquer us one day.
- Remnant. The word behind "sodomites" carries the idea of consecration — but to the corrupt worship of Astarte, not to God. Impurity had a place inside religion itself.
- Remained. Asa's reform was real, yet some were left. Kings records what was left because Kings deals with responsibility. Chronicles highlights the good that grace produced.
- Removed. Jehoshaphat finished what his father started, and Scripture credits him for it. One generation can clear out what the last one allowed to stay.
- Retained. He also left the high places standing. Hezekiah and Josiah later went further than he did.
- Returned. By Josiah's day the same evil had moved into the house of the Lord itself. An enemy half conquered is an enemy unconquered.
And there was no king in Edom a deputy reigned.
The chapter closes with short notes on Jehoshaphat's kingdom, and one of them concerns Edom, the nation descended from Esau. Why does Scripture record who was not ruling there, and what had left a nation with its own royal line under an appointed officer?
Scripture uses this word elsewhere for appointed officials.
In the Old Testament, the governor of a district. 1 Kings 22:47; Esther 8:9; Esther 9:3. In the New Testament, a proconsul, one who acted as governor of a Roman province with consular power. Acts 13:7-8, 12; Acts 18:12; Acts 19:38.
A later war against Moab lists a "king of Edom" among the allies. One commentator explains who that man really was.
This "king of Edom" was not a native Edomite. He was a deputy (1 Kings 22:47), probably appointed by Jehoshaphat (2 Kings 8:20). He joined the expedition as a vassal, not as an independent prince.
Edom's lack of a king went back much further than politics. It began with the blessing Isaac spoke over his two sons.
Jacob, because he lacked faith in God, got his father's blessing by a trick. Isaac, against God's choice, had meant it for Esau. In that blessing Isaac said that he had made Jacob Esau's lord, and had given all his brothers to be his servants. The words of Isaac were fulfilled. David put garrisons throughout all Edom (where the descendants of Esau lived, Genesis 36:8) and all of Edom became his servants, 2 Samuel 8:14. But later on, in the days of Joram, Edom revolted from the rule of Judah. Joram was able to punish them, yet Judah was growing weaker, and "Edom revolted from the rule of Judah to this day." 2 Kings 8:20-22. Obadiah announces Edom's final judgement: no remnant is restored.
One writer dates the revolt to the reign of Jehoshaphat's own son, and looks past it to what God has still promised.
In time saviours will come to Zion and judge the mount of Esau. Obadiah 21. The tabernacle of David, which has now fallen, will be raised up, and Israel will possess Edom and the rest of the nations. Amos 9. This will be made good in its season, for the elder shall serve the younger — the promise is yes and amen. But ever since the days of Jehoram, the son of Jehoshaphat, Esau or Edom has been in revolt. Jehoram belonged to the house of David, of the line of Jacob. And the promise is delayed and complicated and burdened in ways the grace of God and the gift by grace had never designed — ways Jacob would never have passed through, had his faith been more simple.
Jehoshaphat could hold Edom down, yet this same chapter ties him to Ahab's war. One writer adds up what these friendships gave him.
Jehoshaphat helped Ahab against Syria. He helped Jehoram against Moab. But neither Ahab nor his son helped Jehoshaphat in any one thing, except to be unfaithful to Jehovah.
Another writer names what was at work in a godly king.
How could a man of such piety and faith be led again and again into these wrong alliances? It would be hard to explain, if we did not know what "the flesh" is. The flesh is no better in the saint than in the sinner. It is always ready to betray the saint into wrongdoing, unless he watches against it in a spirit of humility and self-distrust.
- Deputy — The word means an appointed district governor. Edom had an administrator where a king should have been.
- Vassal — The later "king of Edom" was this deputy, most likely Jehoshaphat's appointee. He went to war as a subject, not as an equal.
- Fulfilment — The empty throne fulfilled Isaac's blessing. David's garrisons had made Esau's line servants of Jacob's.
- Forfeit — What faith held, unbelief lost. Under Jehoshaphat's own son, Edom broke free. Weak faith burdened the promise, but never cancelled it.
- Certain — God has not dropped the promise. Saviours will come to Zion and judge the mount of Esau, for the elder shall serve the younger.
Jehoshaphat made Tarshish-ships to go to Ophir for gold; but they went not, for the ships were broken at Ezion-geber.
Jehoshaphat built a fleet at Ezion-geber to sail for the gold of Ophir, and it never left the harbour. Those few words about wrecked ships raise the real question: why did God break the works of a king He had just rescued?
The plan itself looks like an echo of an earlier reign. One writer reads the harbour's name as a comment on the whole scheme:
Jehoshaphat clearly wanted to follow Solomon in building ships to bring gold from Ophir. But the ships were wrecked at Ezion-geber. 2 Chronicles 20:37 shows us the reason. Jehoshaphat had made an unwise alliance with Ahaziah the son of Ahab, who followed his father in wickedness. So God sent a prophet to tell Jehoshaphat that He would destroy his works. Ezion-geber means "the counsel of a man." Jehoshaphat had sought such counsel, not the counsel of God.
Kings records the wreck. Chronicles gives the reason: a prophet spoke first, and then God acted on His own word.
On this occasion the partnership was not for war, but for gold, as 1 Kings 22:48 records… From 2 Chronicles 20:37 we learn of God's intervention. First, He sent His prophet Eliezer the son of Dodavah to rebuke him with the words, "Because you have joined yourself with Ahaziah, the Lord has broken your works." Then the Lord carried out His word: "and the ships were broken, so that they were not able to go to Tarshish."
Ahaziah was Ahab's son and king of the northern kingdom of Israel. One writer sets this new alliance against everything God had just done for Jehoshaphat:
He had already been rebuked, in grace, for his unholy alliance with Ahab. God had delivered him from the united armies of Moab and Ammon, and had given him rest. After all this he joined himself with Ahaziah, king of Israel, who did very wickedly… The prophet rebuked him for joining with the father, and he repeats it with the son. There is to be no alliance with Israel, with the haters of the Lord, neither for war nor for commerce.
Jehoshaphat was a good king, which makes this relapse hard to explain. One writer points to something every believer still carries:
It would be impossible to explain how a man of such godliness and faith kept falling into unholy alliances, if we did not know what "the flesh" is. It is no better in the saint than in the sinner. It is always ready to betray the saint into wrongdoing, unless he watches against it in a spirit of humility and self-distrust… So he linked himself during his reign with three kings of the wicked house of Ahab, to his humiliation and sorrow.
Wealth played its part too. One writer notes that Jehoshaphat's riches and honour left him feeling secure in himself before he ever joined Ahab's family (Arno Clemens Gaebelein).
Nothing about the plan looked reckless. It still failed:
Again Jehoshaphat had to learn something from the destruction of his fleet at Ezion-geber. When children of God join with those who walk in the ways of sin, the work can only end in disappointment and failure. It makes no difference how well it was planned, or how free from outward danger it looked.
A business partnership is today's version of Jehoshaphat's fleet:
A believer may yoke himself with an unbeliever by a business partnership. Before he is finished with it, he may suffer much spiritual loss, and the Lord's Name may be dishonoured. He has to share the responsibility for the evil things his unconverted partner does.
Another writer sees a power at work behind such partnerships:
The ships built in partnership were hardly launched before they were broken at Ezion-geber. There is always something of Satan's cunning or power in these unequal yokes. Child of God, beware of them!
Commentators differ on what lay behind Jehoshaphat's later refusal (v. 49). One asks whether he was more worried about losing ships than about obeying God (Leslie M. Grant). Another sees a man who had learned his lesson:
Thank God, after the prophet's word and the destruction of his fleet, Jehoshaphat understood the great weakness of his life. An alliance with the world, whatever its purpose, is a thing God disapproves of, and it will bring judgment on His children.
- Counsel — The harbour's name means "the counsel of a man." Jehoshaphat followed that counsel, not God's.
- Partner — The fault was not the shipbuilding but the shipmate. He joined himself to Ahaziah, of the house the prophet had already rebuked him for joining.
- Word — God spoke through Eliezer before He acted, then broke the works He had named.
- Wreck — Good planning could not save the venture. Children of God had joined with those who walk in sin.
- Lesson — The loss taught him. He refused the next offer, because God disapproves of any alliance with the world, whatever its purpose.
Then said Ahaziah the son of Ahab to Jehoshaphat, Let my servants go with thy servants in the ships. But Jehoshaphat would not.
Jehoshaphat's trading fleet lay wrecked at Ezion-geber. Now Ahab's son invites him into a fresh joint venture with a shared crew. His answer is short: he was not willing. It is the last recorded act of his reign in this book. So what had changed in a man who spent years drifting into partnerships with Ahab's family?
The refusal follows a rebuke and a wreck, both recorded in 2 Chronicles.
This time the partnership was not for war, but for gold. 1 Kings 22:48 records it: "Jehoshaphat made ships of Tarshish to go to Ophir for gold." From 2 Chronicles 20:37 we learn of God's intervention. First, He sent His prophet Eliezer the son of Dodavah to reprove him: "Because you have joined yourself with Ahaziah, the Lord has broken your works." Then the Lord carried out His word, "and the ships were broken, so that they were not able to go to Tarshish."
(The ESV renders Eliezer's words, "Because you have joined with Ahaziah, the LORD will destroy what you have made.")
Something in Jehoshaphat had changed. One writer names what he had at last understood.
Thank God, after the prophet's word and the destruction of his fleet, Jehoshaphat understood what had been the great weakness of his life . An alliance with the world, whatever its purpose, is something God disapproves of. It will bring judgment upon His children.
Another writer notes that the same rebuke had come twice, and states the rule behind it.
The prophet reproved him for joining with the father, and he repeats it with the son. There is to be no alliance with Israel, with the haters of the Lord, neither for war nor for trade. Ahaziah asks him to try again, but Jehoshaphat would not (1 Kings 22:49). No doubt he felt the reproof given by Eliezer, and that the destruction of his ships was Jehovah's judgment.
Refusing meant turning down a clear commercial advantage.
Now, this may seem narrow, and to the natural mind it would appear foolish. If Ahab's servants sailed the ships alongside Jehoshaphat's, the crews would double. That strength would greatly increase the golden spoils and make each kingdom far richer. Jehoshaphat no doubt felt the truth of this, but still he "would not." He had solid reasons for refusing the help of these men. He had learned a lesson that is hard to put into practice: "Bad company ruins good morals." That company had already corrupted him. His royal manners and spiritual bearing had already been badly humbled. So now he flatly declines the offer.
The problem lies in the wording of Ahaziah's proposal: his servants alongside Jehoshaphat's.
Joining with open unfaithfulness is always a source of constant weakness and defeat. Jehoshaphat had learned his lesson, for a time at least. If he needed the gold of Ophir, he must undertake the enterprise single-handed. He cannot let his ships carry a mixed crew that cannot work as one. The servants he sends must obey one master, and the gold they bring home must belong to one claimant, otherwise all is confusion.
The Chronicles account of the same episode stops at the judgment and never mentions the refusal. One writer reads that silence as deliberate.
Our passage records a commercial alliance between Jehoshaphat and Ahaziah. But it leaves out the matching statement that the first book of Kings supplies (1 Kings 22:49). There we see that Jehoshaphat understood the warning Jehovah gave him after the destruction of his fleet at Ezion-geber, and refused to renew the enterprise with Ahaziah. Here, there is nothing of the kind. Only God's judgment upon Jehoshaphat on the first occasion is recounted. Chronicles usually shows the results of grace in the king's heart. If that were the subject here, Jehoshaphat's refusal to enter a new partnership could never have been left out.
Commentators differ on how much credit the refusal earns. One asks what moved him to say no.
Even after this, Ahaziah asked Jehoshaphat to let his servants go with those of Jehoshaphat in the ships, but Jehoshaphat had learned a serious lesson, so he refused (v. 49). Why should he have more ships wrecked? Yet we might ask: was he more concerned about the consequences of wrong alliances, such as wrecked ships, than about honouring God by keeping clear of them? Whether we suffer for this or not, God has told us, "Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers." Simple faith will want to obey the Word of God without questioning. But it seems Jehoshaphat was slow to learn. Why are we so slow to learn?
- Warning. A prophet told Jehoshaphat why God broke his works: he had joined himself with Ahaziah.
- Wreck. God backed the word with action: the ships never sailed, and the loss drove the warning home.
- Refusal. When the same offer came again, he was not willing — the one point in the story where he acts on what he has learned.
- Reason. One voyage cannot serve two masters; a mixed crew and a divided claim on the gold end in confusion.
- Test. Do we refuse such ties because we fear the wreckage, or because God has spoken?
And Jehoshaphat slept with his fathers, and was buried with his fathers in the city of David his father; and Jehoram his son reigned in his stead.
Three facts close Jehoshaphat's long reign: a death, a burial in David's city, and a son on the throne. Behind that quiet line sit two questions — what did God make of this king, and what would his son's reign cost Judah?
One writer reads the verse as a verdict on the whole man — the good and the failures together.
Verse 50 records Jehoshaphat's death, and his burial in Jerusalem. In the main he had been a good king, and God fully approved of this. Yet we cannot ignore his blemishes. We should learn well not to fail in the same sad ways that he did. Jehoram his son then took the throne of Judah.
One writer sets Jehoshaphat among the kings who handled their own responsibility well. He also shows what comforts such men, and where their praise stops.
Each of these men, in his own day, did well in carrying out his personal responsibility. So honourable mention is made of David (1 Kings 15:5), of Asa (1 Kings 15:11), and of Jehoshaphat (1 Kings 22:43). Each of them could take comfort from the clear promise given to such men in Psalm 101:6, even while searching their hearts over personal failures, which each had reason to mourn over with a humbled spirit. Absolute perfection is seen only in the LORD'S "Servant." He alone could stand being tested by this high standard of excellence.
Asa's record ends with the same words. One writer warns against reading too much comfort into them.
"Asa slept with his fathers" — the same words used of Jeroboam, of Rehoboam, and of so many others. It may be a special favour, since the opposite is said of certain wicked kings and their descendants. But this favour is far from showing that the Lord took pleasure in them. Nor does it show that beyond the grave they found the happiness their hearts had looked for in vain in the world. It is still the same everywhere here below. Sons are buried beside their fathers. They die, so to speak, a natural death. But that gives us no comforting conclusion about their eternal future.
Commentators read the close of Jehoshaphat's life differently. One sees a man who at last understood the weakness he had lived with.
Thank God, after the prophet's word and the destruction of his fleet, Jehoshaphat understood what had been the great weakness of his life. An alliance with the world, whatever its purpose may be, is a thing God disapproves of. It will bring judgment on His children.
Another records the refusal, then presses a harder question about the motive behind it.
Even after this, Ahaziah asked Jehoshaphat to let his servants go with Jehoshaphat's servants in the ships. But Jehoshaphat had learned a serious lesson, so he refused. Why should he have more ships wrecked? Yet we might ask: was he more concerned about the consequences of wrong alliances, such as having his ships wrecked, than about honouring God by keeping clear of them? Whether we suffer for this or not, God has told us, "Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers." Simple faith will want to obey the Word of God without questioning.
The last clause names the cost of one old decision.
Jehoram was Jehoshaphat's firstborn... He walked in wickedness. "For the daughter of Ahab was his wife, and he did what was evil in the sight of the LORD." When Jehoram was in power, he killed all his brothers with the sword... Jehoshaphat had joined himself to Ahab by marriage, and married his son Jehoram to Athaliah. "Whatever one sows, that will he also reap." His unholy alliance began to bear fruit. And how often have Christian parents seen their children depart from God and follow the wicked ways of the world, because they themselves had set the example.
Jehoram's evil did not end David's line. One writer names what held it in place.
But Jehovah would not wipe out the house of David. His covenant with David held back His righteous wrath from Judah. That covenant was a powerful influence for mercy in dark days of unbelief and evil.
- Commended — in the main he was a good king, and God approved him. The honourable mention stands, and so do his blemishes.
- Buried — sleeping with his fathers sounds peaceful, but the same words cover wicked kings and tell us nothing about eternity.
- Learned — his last recorded act was refusing an alliance. Commentators differ: had he grasped the principle, or only feared more wrecked ships?
- Sown — his old alliance handed the throne to Jehoram, Ahab's son-in-law. The harvest was murder and evil in Judah.
- Kept — God's covenant preserved the house of David, not Jehoshaphat's record. Mercy held firm where a good man's choices failed.