2 Chronicles 14 - Asa's Reign in Judah | Bible Podcast, David Alley, Peace Christian Church
The Bible by David Alley · David Alley
Audio is streamed directly from the publisher (content.rss.com) as published in their RSS feed. Play Podcasts does not host this file. Rights-holders can request removal through the copyright & takedown page.
Show Notes
In this video listen to 2 Chronicles Chapter 14, read by David Alley, followed by comments and prayer.
In 2 Chronicles 14 Asa becomes king and begins to put back in place things which have slipped in Judah. We know that if we stop having our prayer times it's hard to restart them, but easy to stop them. Or it's easy to slip into being on your phone all day, but hard to discipline yourself. And so here the king makes an effort to clean up a nation from false gods.
He is rewarded for doing so with a great victory against Zerah the Cushite This is apparently the biggest army assembled in the bible, which has caused commentators to question the figure. And yet other ancient armies were assembled with similar numbers. For example, while the figure is in question, King Xerxes of the Persian empire also assembled a huge army to attack Greece.
It was reported by Herotodus to have 2.5 million people. Another writer, Simonides wrote that he sent 4 million soldiers and a third Ctesias said it was only 800,000 soldiers. Even the minimum estimate by a somewhat contemporary writer was still a huge number. The only reason the number is questioned is because people lean towards disbelief.
This battle is not recounted in the book of 1 Kings, so we have a story here of how the Lord hear the cry of one who called out to Him. If a giant army of a million soldiers approaches, would you cry out to the Lord? A number of experts think that Zerah the Cushite might be Osorkon II the 5th pharaoh of the 22nd dynasty. There are some things that don’t nearly fit, but future archaeological discoveries might make it clear if this is true.
Either way, the point remains true, a victory over an insurmountable force is possible for weak or strong only with the Lord’s help. What insurmountable problem do you have right now? Time to seek the Lord.