Discovery Box2 Chronicles 25:5-16
Context25:5 Amaziah assembled the people of Judah 1 and assigned them by families to the commanders of units of a thousand and the commanders of units of a hundred for all Judah and Benjamin. He counted those twenty years old and up and discovered there were 300,000 young men of fighting age 2 equipped with spears and shields. 3 25:6 He hired 100,000 Israelite warriors for a hundred talents 4 of silver.
25:7 But a prophet 5 visited him and said: “O king, the Israelite troops must not go with you, for the Lord is not with Israel or any of the Ephraimites. 6 25:8 Even if you go and fight bravely in battle, God will defeat you 7 before the enemy. God is capable of helping or defeating.” 8 25:9 Amaziah asked the prophet: 9 “But what should I do about the hundred talents of silver I paid the Israelite troops?” The prophet 10 replied, “The Lord is capable of giving you more than that.” 25:10 So Amaziah dismissed the troops that had come to him from Ephraim and sent them home. 11 They were very angry at Judah and returned home incensed. 25:11 Amaziah boldly led his army to the Valley of Salt, 12 where he defeated 13 10,000 Edomites. 14 25:12 The men 15 of Judah captured 10,000 men alive. They took them to the top of a cliff and threw them over. 16 All the captives 17 fell to their death. 18 25:13 Now the troops Amaziah had dismissed and had not allowed to fight in the battle 19 raided 20 the cities of Judah from Samaria 21 to Beth Horon. They killed 22 3,000 people and carried off a large amount of plunder.
25:14 When Amaziah returned from defeating the Edomites, he brought back the gods of the people 23 of Seir and made them his personal gods. 24 He bowed down before them and offered them sacrifices. 25:15 The Lord was angry at Amaziah and sent a prophet to him, who said, “Why are you following 25 these gods 26 that could not deliver their own people from your power?” 27 25:16 While he was speaking, Amaziah 28 said to him, “Did we appoint you to be a royal counselor? Stop prophesying or else you will be killed!” 29 So the prophet stopped, but added, “I know that the Lord has decided 30 to destroy you, because you have done this thing and refused to listen to my advice.”
[25:5] 1 tn Heb “Judah.” The words “the people of” are supplied in the translation for clarity. The Hebrew text uses the name “Judah” by metonymy here for the people of Judah.
[25:5] 2 tn Heb “young men going out to war.”
[25:5] 3 tn Heb “holding a spear and a shield.”
[25:6] 4 tn The Hebrew word כִּכַּר (kikar, “circle”) refers generally to something that is round. When used of metals it can refer to a disk-shaped weight made of the metal or, by extension, to a standard unit of weight. According to the older (Babylonian) standard the “talent” weighed 130 lbs. (58.9 kg), but later this was lowered to 108.3 lbs. (49.1 kg). More recent research suggests the “light” standard talent was 67.3 lbs. (30.6 kg). Using this as the standard for calculation, the weight of the silver was 6,730 lbs. (3,060 kg).
[25:7] 6 tn Heb “Israel, all the sons of Ephraim.”
[25:8] 7 tn Heb “cause you to stumble.”
[25:8] 8 tn Heb “to cause to stumble.”
[25:9] 9 tn Heb “said to the man of God.”
[25:9] 10 tn Heb “man of God.”
[25:10] 11 tn Heb “and Amaziah separated them, the troops who came to him from Ephraim, to go to their place.”
[25:11] 12 tn Heb “and Amaziah strengthened himself and led his people and went to the Valley of Salt.”
[25:11] 13 tn Or “struck down.”
[25:11] 14 tn Heb “sons of Seir.”
[25:12] 16 tn Heb “and threw them from the top of the cliff.”
[25:12] 17 tn Heb “all of them.”
[25:12] 18 tn Heb “smashed in pieces.”
[25:13] 19 tn Heb “had sent back from going with him to the battle.”
[25:13] 21 map For location see Map2 B1; Map4 D3; Map5 E2; Map6 A4; Map7 C1.
[25:13] 22 tn Heb “struck down.”
[25:14] 24 tn Heb “caused them to stand for him as gods.”
[25:15] 25 tn Heb “seeking,” perhaps in the sense of “consulting [an oracle from].”
[25:15] 26 tn Heb “the gods of the people.”
[25:16] 28 tn Heb “he”; the referent (Amaziah) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
[25:16] 29 tn Heb “Stop yourself! Why should they strike you down?”
[25:16] 30 tn The verb יָעַץ (ya’ats, “has decided”) is from the same root as יוֹעֵץ (yo’ets, “counselor”) in v. 16 and עֵצָה (’etsah, “advice”) later in v. 16. The wordplay highlights the appropriate nature of the divine punishment. Amaziah rejected the counsel of God’s prophet; now he would be the victim of God’s “counsel.”
