The children of Israel fled before Judah, and God delivered them into their hand. Abijah and his people killed them with a great slaughter, so five hundred thousand chosen men of Israel fell down slain.
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2 Chronicles 13:16-17 sits inside this longer paragraph.
But Jeroboam caused an ambush to come about behind them; so they were before Judah, and the ambush was behind them. When Judah looked back, behold, the battle was before and behind them; and they cried to Yahweh, and the priests sounded with the trumpets. Then the men of Judah gave a shout. As the men of Judah shouted, God struck Jeroboam and all Israel before Abijah and Judah. The children of Israel fled before Judah, and God delivered them into their hand. Abijah and his people killed them with a great slaughter, so five hundred thousand chosen men of Israel fell down slain. Thus the children of Israel were brought under at that time, and the children of Judah prevailed, because they relied on Yahweh, the God of their fathers. Abijah pursued Jeroboam, and took cities from him, Bethel with its villages, Jeshanah with its villages, and Ephron with its villages.
Parallel Translations
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The children of Israel fled before Judah, and God delivered them into their hand.
Abijah and his people killed them with a great slaughter, so five hundred thousand chosen men of Israel fell down slain.
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And the children of Israel fled before Judah: and God delivered them into their hand.
And Abijah and his people slew them with a great slaughter: so there fell down slain of Israel five hundred thousand chosen men.
Show all 3 translations
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And the children of Israel fled before Judah; and God delivered them into their hand.
And Abijah and his people slew them with a great slaughter; so there fell down slain of Israel five hundred thousand chosen men.
Examined in Scripture Analysis
Science (1)
Historical claims about the natural world, weighed against the scientific record.
Cross-references (16)
- 2 Chronicles 16:8 (v16) Weren’t the Ethiopians and the Lubim a huge army, with chariots and exceedingly many horsemen? Yet, because you relied on Yahweh, he…
- Genesis 14:20 (v16) Blessed be God Most High, who has delivered your enemies into your hand.” Abram gave him a tenth of all.
- Deuteronomy 2:36 (v16) From Aroer, which is on the edge of the valley of the Arnon, and the city that is in the valley, even to Gilead, there was not a city too…
- Deuteronomy 3:3 (v16) So Yahweh our God delivered into our hand Og also, the king of Bashan, and all his people. We struck him until no one was left to him…
- Joshua 10:12 (v16) Then Joshua spoke to Yahweh in the day when Yahweh delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel. He said in the sight of Israel,…
Show all 16 cross-references
- Joshua 21:44 (v16) Yahweh gave them rest all around, according to all that he swore to their fathers. Not a man of all their enemies stood before them. Yahweh…
- Judges 1:4 (v16) Judah went up, and Yahweh delivered the Canaanites and the Perizzites into their hand. They struck ten thousand men in Bezek.
- Judges 11:21 (v16) Yahweh, the God of Israel, delivered Sihon and all his people into the hand of Israel, and they struck them. So Israel possessed all the…
- 1 Samuel 23:7 (v16) Saul was told that David had come to Keilah. Saul said, “God has delivered him into my hand; for he is shut in by entering into a town that…
- 2 Chronicles 13:3 (v17) Abijah joined battle with an army of valiant men of war, even four hundred thousand chosen men; and Jeroboam set the battle in array…
- 2 Chronicles 13:12 (v17) Behold, God is with us at our head, and his priests with the trumpets of alarm to sound an alarm against you. Children of Israel, don’t…
- 2 Chronicles 28:6 (v17) For Pekah the son of Remaliah killed in Judah one hundred twenty thousand in one day, all of them valiant men, because they had forsaken…
- Isaiah 10:16-19 (v17) Therefore the Lord, Yahweh of Armies, will send among his fat ones leanness; and under his glory a burning will be kindled like the burning…
- Isaiah 37:36 (v17) Then Yahweh’s angel went out and struck one hundred and eighty-five thousand men in the camp of the Assyrians. When men arose early in the…
- Nahum 1:5 (v17) The mountains quake before him, and the hills melt away. The earth trembles at his presence, yes, the world, and all who dwell in it.
- 1 Corinthians 10:22 (v17) Or do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than he?
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this passage (12 sources)
Historical commentary, presented as a primary source — not an endorsement.
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John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On v17 2Ch 13:17 And Abijah and his people slew them…
2Ch 13:17 And Abijah and his people slew them with a great slaughter: so there fell down slain of Israel five hundred thousand chosen men.
Ver. 17. So there fell down slain of Israel five hundred thousand.] A monstrous and matchless slaughter, far beyond that of Tamerlane when he took Bajazet, or Aetius, the Roman prefect, when he fought with Attilas and his Huns in the fields of Catalaunia, where were slain on both sides one hundred and sixty-five thousand. See on 2Ch 13:3.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On v17 A vast number: but it hath been oft observed…
A vast number: but it hath been oft observed and recorded by sacred and profane historians, that in those ancient times there were very numerous armies, and ofttimes very great slaughters; and if this slaughter was more than ordinary, there is nothing strange nor incredible, because the Almighty God fought against the Israelites.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv16–17 And Abijah and his people slew them with a…
And Abijah and his people slew them with a great slaughter,.... As they fled, pursuing them:
so there fell down slain of Israel five hundred thousand chosen men; such a slaughter as is not to be met with in any history, as Josephus (s) observes; though Abarbinel wonders he should say so, and affirms that he had read of larger numbers slain at once; but he is the only man that ever pretended to it; Jerom (t) makes the number but 50,000, and some copies of the Vulgate Latin (u), and Josephus Ben Gorion, as Abarbinel (w) relates; but the true Josephus, the Targum, and all the ancient versions, agree with the Hebrew text; more than half Jeroboam's army was cut off, and 100,000 more than Abijah had in his.
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(s) Antiqu. l. 8. c. 11. sect. 3. (t) Trad. Heb. fol. 84. M. (u) So that of Sixtus V. in James's Corruption of the Fathers, p. 294. (w) Comment in 1. Reg. xv. 6. fol. 250. 3.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On v17 Verse 17. Slain - five hundred thousand chosen men.]…
Verse 17. Slain - five hundred thousand chosen men.] Query, fifty thousand? This was a great slaughter: 2Ch 13:3, where all these numbers are supposed to be overcharged.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On v17 Slain - The word means strictly “pierced,” and will…
Slain - The word means strictly “pierced,” and will include both the killed and the wounded. It is translated “wounded” in Lam 2:12.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On v17 Five. Some Latin editions have 50,000, (Calmet) which number…
Five. Some Latin editions have 50,000, (Calmet) which number is found in some manuscripts of Epiphanius. (Hudson’s Josephus) --- Hentenius has the same, and only remarks five manuscripts which had the greater number. See ver. 3. (Haydock) --- We do not read of such a slaughter in any one battle. But Israel made no resistance, and God assisted the four hundred thousand. (Menochius) --- Valiant. Protestants, "chosen." See chap xiv. 13. (Haydock) --- So many were either slain or wounded. (Du Hamel) --- Protestants intimate all were "slain." (Haydock)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On v17 17. There fell down slain of Israel five hundred…
17. There fell down slain of Israel five hundred thousand chosen men — These many slain (חללים, pierced, wounded) probably include both killed and wounded during the whole war; not those who fell in any one engagement.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On v17 17. five hundred thousand] Contrast this statement with 2Ch_28:6,…
17. five hundred thousand] Contrast this statement with 2Ch_28:6, a hundred and twenty thousand in one day. The absence of the phrase in one day from the present passage is significant. It seems probable, when we consider the small interest taken by the Chronicler in military matters as such and the consequent looseness of his language regarding them, that he may intend 500,000 to represent the losses, not of a single battle, but of the whole campaign. That some farther fighting took place is suggested by 2Ch_13:19. Even so the losses are doubtless exaggerated.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On v17 (17) Slew them with a great slaughter.—Literally, Smote in…
(17) Slew them with a great slaughter.—Literally, Smote in them a great smiting. Num_11:33.
Five hundred thousand chosen men.—Or more than half of Jeroboam’s entire army.
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It is hardly true to say that “there is nothing in the original to indicate that this slaughter was all on one day.” (Speaker’s Commentary.) On the contrary, it is perfectly evident from the whole narrative that this verse describes the issue of a single great and decisive encounter of the rival hosts.
The result is certainly incredible, if the numbers be pressed; but it seems more reasonable to see in them “only a numerical expression of the belief of contemporaries of the war, that both kings had made a levy of all the fighting men in their respective realms, and that Jeroboam was defeated with such slaughter that he lost more than half his warriors” (Keil). The Syriac reads “five thousand.”
The number of slain on the other side is not stated. But it is absurd to talk as Reuss does, of Abijah’s 400,000 as being “still intact,” and then to ask why they did not proceed to reduce the northern kingdom.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On v17 Slain; Hebrew, Even if we accept for a moment…
Slain; Hebrew, Even if we accept for a moment the immense numbers written here and elsewhere as authentic, a considerable deduction may be made from our difficulty by virtue of the fact that this word need not mean to describe the actually slain. It occurs about ninety-one times. Of these, in our Authorized Version, it is found rendered, including marginal options, as many as fifteen times "wounded," or by even a less severe meaning. However, whether "slain" or "wounded and slain," the alleged, numbers of our present text are, in our opinion, incredibly enormous.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On v17 (See Scofield "1Co 10:8").
five
(See Scofield "1Co 10:8").
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On v16 fled before Judah
fled before Judah
Here the word "Judah" represents the army of Judah. AT: "fled before the army of Judah" (See: Metonymy)
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God gave them into the hand of Judah
Here the word "hand" represents power. God enabling the army of Judah to defeat the army of Israel is spoken of as if God had put the army of Israel in the hand of the army of Judah. AT: "God enabled Judah to defeat the people of Israel" (See: Metonymy and Metaphor)
killed them with great slaughter
This idiom means that they thoroughly defeated them, or that they killed very many of the soldiers. AT: "thoroughly defeated them" or "slaughtered many of their soldiers" (See: Idiom)
500,000 chosen men
"five hundred thousand chosen men." The phrase "chosen men" is an idiom that refers to elite soldiers who were skilled in battle. AT: "500,000 of the best soldiers" (See: Numbers and Idiom)
the people of Israel were subdued
This can be stated in active form. AT: "the army of Judah subdued the people of Israel" (See: Active or Passive)
translationWords
hand
slaughter
chosen one
die
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.