Being on the right side of prayer (2 Chron 13.14)

They cried out to the LORD, and the priests blew the trumpets.

Do you think it is possible for a sincere follower of God to be wrong about God’s will?

Background

After Solomon’s death, his son Rehoboam became king. Unfortunately, the son was not as wise as the father. Solomon had engaged in many building projects, which required forced labor and high taxes. Solomon’s advisors urged Rehoboam to ease these burdens on the people as a goodwill gesture from the new king. But Rehoboam’s young friends told him that he should increase them, so as not to look weak. The young king listened to his friends. The northern part of Israel revolted, led by a man named Jeroboam. This resulted in the period known to historians as “The Divided Kingdom” with one country in the south called “Judah,” and another in the north, which continued to be called “Israel.” Rehoboam was not remembered as a good king in the books of Kings—the writer gives little attention to him because he split the nation and “did what was evil.”

When Rehoboam died, his son (Solomon’s grandson) Abijah became king. Chronicles contains three times as much about Abijah, and focuses more on his positive actions than the negative.

Since the two kingdoms had split, there had been occasional skirmishes between the two, but no outright battles. Abijah wanted to reunite Israel, so he gathered his army and attacked. During the fight, Judah found themselves outnumbered by Jeroboam’s northern army. Abijah gathered his men together and encouraged them with a speech—a speech that includes many of the themes that the Chronicler wished to emphasize. Abijah appealed—to all Israelites—to honor God and be faithful to Him, and to remember that God placed the David and his descendants on the throne, not Jeroboam and two separate nations.

Jeroboam sent part of his army around behind Abijah’s smaller army in an attempt at an ambush. Judah’s men find themselves fighting a battle in front and behind. The writer of Chronicles is concerned with prayer as a part of faithfulness, so there is a brief mention of the army of Judah crying out to God before attacking. Following the prayer and the battle, the writer tells us that God defeated the northern army—God was on their side. Many were killed that day, and Jeroboam was pursued and died. Abijah took back many of the cities of the north, though he was unable to reunite the kingdom. His success, however, made him a strong king for the rest of his reign.

Meaning

The books of Kings describe Abijah briefly, as a king who was not always faithful. God allowed him to stay on the throne out of loyalty to the promises He made to David. The Chronicler chooses to focus on the early part of his career, where he was faithful to God, as well as to emphasize God’s promises that a defendant of David would sit on the throne forever, and that the proper location of the center of the faith was in Jerusalem. These are the subjects of Abijah’s speech; he argues that the North should not be separate because there should only be one king for all of Israel, and one place of worship—Jerusalem.