2 Chronicles 17:3

3 The LORD was with Jehoshaphat. That's because in his early years he lived the way King David had lived. He didn't ask for advice from the gods that were named after Baal.

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 was the son of Asa. Jehoshaphat became the next king after him. He made his kingdom strong in case Israel would attack him.

2 He placed troops in all of the cities of Judah that had high walls around them. He stationed some soldiers in Judah. He also put some in the towns of Ephraim that his father Asa had captured.

3 The LORD was with Jehoshaphat. That's because in his early years he lived the way King David had lived. He didn't ask for advice from the gods that were named after Baal.

4 Instead, he looked to the God of his father. He followed the LORD's commands instead of the practices of Israel.

5 The LORD made the kingdom secure under Jehoshaphat's control. All of the people of Judah brought gifts to Jehoshaphat. So he had great wealth and honor.