2 Chronicles 13:20

20 Jerobo'am did not recover his power in the days of Abi'jah; and the LORD smote him, and he died.

2 Chronicles 13:20 Meaning and Commentary

2 Chronicles 13:20

Neither did Jeroboam recover strength again in the days of
Abijah
So as to bring an army into the field against him, and fight him:

and the Lord struck him;
by some Jewish writers ^F1, this is interpreted of Abijah; and the reason of his being stricken, they say, was because he did not destroy the calf when he took Bethel; but it is best to understand it of Jeroboam, since Abijah is afterwards said to wax mighty:

and he died;
not immediately, for he lived two years after Abijah, ( 1 Kings 14:20 ) ( 15:9 ) , but continued under a lingering disease he was smitten with, and which issued in his death.

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FOOTNOTES:

F1 Bereshit Rabba, sect. 65. fol. 58. 8. Seder Olam Rabba, c. 16.

2 Chronicles 13:20 In-Context

18 Thus the men of Israel were subdued at that time, and the men of Judah prevailed, because they relied upon the LORD, the God of their fathers.

19 And Abi'jah pursued Jerobo'am, and took cities from him, Bethel with its villages and Jesha'nah with its villages and Ephron with its villages.

20 Jerobo'am did not recover his power in the days of Abi'jah; and the LORD smote him, and he died.

21 But Abi'jah grew mighty. And he took fourteen wives, and had twenty-two sons and sixteen daughters.

22 The rest of the acts of Abi'jah, his ways and his sayings, are written in the story of the prophet Iddo.