2 Chronicles 17:3

3 The Lord was with Jehoshaphat, because he lived as his ancestor David had lived when he first became king. Jehoshaphat did not ask for help from the Baal idols,

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 Jehoshaphat, Asa's son, became king of Judah in his place. Jehosha- phat made Judah strong so they could fight against Israel.

2 He put troops in all the strong, walled cities of Judah, in the land of Judah, and in the towns of Ephraim that his father Asa had captured.

3 The Lord was with Jehoshaphat, because he lived as his ancestor David had lived when he first became king. Jehoshaphat did not ask for help from the Baal idols,

4 but from the God of his father. He obeyed God's commands and did not live as the people of Israel lived.

5 The Lord made Jehoshaphat a strong king over Judah. All the people of Judah brought gifts to Jehoshaphat, so he had much wealth and honor.