2 Chronicles 17:3

3 The LORD was with Jehoshaphat, who lived in the old way like his ancestor David. Jehoshaphat didn't dedicate his life to serving other gods--the Baals.

2 Chronicles 17:3 Meaning and Commentary

2 Chronicles 17:3

And the Lord was with Jehoshaphat
Guiding and directing, prospering and succeeding him in all things; he had, no doubt, his gracious presence in spiritual things, as well as his powerful and directing presence in things civil; the Targum is,

``the Word of the Lord was for his help;''

because he walked in the first ways of his father David;
which were his best; some of his last ways not being good, as in the affair of Uriah and Bathsheba, and his numbering of the people; Jehoshaphat followed him in the one, but not in the other: or, "in the ways of David and his father, the first"; the first of them both; for the latter ways of his father Asa were not so good as his first, as the preceding chapter shows; and the Septuagint version leaves out the word "David", and so restrains it to his own father:

and sought not unto Baalim;
as did Ahab king of Israel, who now reigned there; ( 1 Kings 15:24 ) ( 16:32 ) .

2 Chronicles 17:3 In-Context

1 Asa's son Jehoshaphat succeeded him as king. Jehoshaphat strengthened himself [to wage war] against Israel.

2 He put troops in all the fortified cities of Judah and placed military posts in Judah and in the cities of Ephraim that his father Asa had captured.

3 The LORD was with Jehoshaphat, who lived in the old way like his ancestor David. Jehoshaphat didn't dedicate his life to serving other gods--the Baals.

4 Instead, he dedicated his life to his ancestor's God and lived by God's commands. Jehoshaphat did not do what Israel was doing.

5 So the LORD established Jehoshaphat's power over the kingdom. All the people of Judah gave gifts to Jehoshaphat, and he had a lot of riches and honor.