2 Chronicles 13:17

17 Abijah and his army dealt the Israelites a crushing defeat - half a million of Israel's best soldiers were killed.

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


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 The Judeans gave a loud shout, and led by Abijah, they attacked; God defeated Jeroboam and the Israelite army.
16 The Israelites fled from the Judeans, and God let the Judeans overpower them.
17 Abijah and his army dealt the Israelites a crushing defeat - half a million of Israel's best soldiers were killed.
18 And so the people of Judah were victorious over Israel, because they relied on the Lord, the God of their ancestors.
19 Abijah pursued Jeroboam's army and occupied some of his cities: Bethel, Jeshanah, and Ephron, and the villages near each of these cities.
Scripture taken from the Good News Translation - Second Edition, Copyright 1992 by American Bible Society. Used by Permission.