2 Chronicles 13:17

17 Abijah and his troops slaughtered them - 500,000 of Israel's best fighters were killed that day.

2 Chronicles 13:17 Meaning and Commentary

2 Chronicles 13:17

And Abijah and his people slew them with a great slaughter,
&c.] 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

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FOOTNOTES:

F19 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 ^F20 makes the number but 50,000, and some copies of the Vulgate Latin ^F21, and Josephus Ben Gorion, as Abarbinel ^F23 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.

F19 Antiqu. l. 8. c. 11. sect. 3.
F20 Trad. Heb. fol. 84. M.
F21 So that of Sixtus V. in James's Corruption of the Fathers, p. 294.
F23 Comment in 1. Reg. xv. 6. fol. 250. 3.

2 Chronicles 13:17 In-Context

15 At the battle cry, God routed Jeroboam and all Israel before Abijah and Judah.

16 The army of Israel scattered before Judah; God gave them the victory.

17 Abijah and his troops slaughtered them - 500,000 of Israel's best fighters were killed that day.

18 The army of Israel fell flat on its face - a humiliating defeat. The army of Judah won hands down because they trusted God, the God of their ancestors.

19 Abijah followed up his victory by pursuing Jeroboam, taking the towns of Bethel, Jeshanah, and Ephron with their surrounding villages.