2 Chronicles 13:17

17 And Abijah and his people struck a great blow against them, and the dead from Israel [that] fell [were] five hundred thousand chosen men.

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 Then the men of Judah shouted, and it happened [that] when the men of Judah were shouting, then God defeated Jeroboam and all Israel before Abijah and Judah.

16 And the {Israelites} fled from before Judah, and God gave them into their hand.

17 And Abijah and his people struck a great blow against them, and the dead from Israel [that] fell [were] five hundred thousand chosen men.

18 And the {Israelites} were subdued at that time, and the people of Judah were victorious, for they relied upon Yahweh the God of their ancestors.

19 And Abijah pursued after Jeroboam and took cities from him: Bethel with its villages, Jeshanah with its villages, and Ephron with its villages.