2 Chronicles 14
Battle of Zephathah Valley
Asa, good-guy king of Judah
1When Abijah died, he was buried in the City of David. His son Asa succeeded him. For the next 10 years, Judah enjoyed peace in the land.2Asa was one of the good guys. He lived his life on the right side of his God. 3He destroyed hilltop shrines and altars where people offered sacrifices to pagan gods. He smashed their stone idols and cut down their sacred Asherah [1] poles. 4He ordered the people in his kingdom to worship the LORD, God of their ancestors, and to obey the laws he gave them. 5Asa also demolished pagan incense [2] altars throughout the land. The kingdom lived in peace.
6The king took advantage of those peaceful years by building walls around cities in Judah, to shore up the kingdom’s defenses. 7He told the people of Judah, “This land is our land because we’ve stuck with God who gave it to us. He’s the reason we live in peace. During this peaceful time, let’s prepare our defenses by surrounding our cities with walls. Let’s equip them with guard towers and with gates we can shut and lock with metal bars.”
8Asa commanded two powerful armies—one from the tribe of Judah and another from Benjamin. Judah’s army of 300,000 men preferred to fight with spears and large shields. Benjamin’s army of 280,000 preferred bow and arrows along with shields. These were strong warriors.
Africans invade Judah
9A million-man [3] army from south of Egypt invaded Judah. Zerah from Ethiopia [4] led the invasion force as far north as Mareshah. [5]10Asa took his combined armies to Mareshah, and set up a front line in the Zephathah Valley, opposite Zerah’s battleline. 11Before the battle, Asa prayed, “LORD, you’re the only one who can help the weak defend themselves against the powerful. Today, we’re the weak ones, terribly outnumbered. Help us. We trust you. We’re counting on you because we’re here to fight in your name, as your people. Don’t let these mere humans win.”
12The LORD won that battle. The invaders turned and ran, in the face of Asa’s defenders.
Invaders run for their lives
13Asa’s army chased and killed the Ethiopians all the way to Gerar. [6] By the time Asa’s soldiers got there, all the Ethiopians were dead. No survivors. Asa’s army took whatever they wanted from the Ethiopian invaders—and it was a rich plunder.14Asa’s army overran and plundered the town of Gerar and all the outlying villages and communities. There was plenty to plunder. 15Asa’s soldiers attacked herders who lived in tents, and stole their livestock—sheep, goats, and camels. They took it back to Jerusalem.
Footnotes
These poles may have been trees or poles meant to represent trees, as symbols of a Canaanite fertility goddess known as Asherah, goddess of motherhood. She was the love interest of Baal. He was chief god of the people who lived in Canaan, now known as Israel and Palestinian Territories. Sometime later, Israel’s Queen Jezebel tried to murder all God’s prophets and replace them with prophets and priests devoted to Baal and Asherah (1 Kings 18:4, 18-19). People worshiped this goddess with sacred poles described as repulsive and obscene. But we’re left to guess how the people used those poles in worship.
The debated Hebrew word is hamman. Scholars used to translate it as “sun pillar.” The preferred interpretation at the moment is “incense altar” or a brazier, a small pan used to burn something. People burned perfumed incense as offerings to their gods. Ancient Israelites burned incense to God. Temple priests had a recipe exclusively for Temple incense (Exodus 30:34-38). No one else was allowed to use this recipe.
Some scholars buck at numbers this high—an army of a million fighting an army of 580,000. Some suggest that the word for “thousand” might refer to units, squads, or even individuals. If that guess is right, there may have been 1,000 Ethiopian invaders trying to fight through Asa’s army of 580 soldiers. Either way, the point might be that God’s army seemed outnumbered by almost two to one.
It was the land of Cush in Bible times.
Mareshah is linked to the ruins of Maresha, about 25 miles (40 km) southwest of Jerusalem—a day’s march. Zephathah (ZEFF-uh-thaw) Valley was somewhere north of there.
Gerar was a Philistine city about a day’s walk south of Mareshah, roughly 20 miles or 32 kilometers. It was also about a half-day’s walk southeast of the Philistine city of Gaza and another day’s walk south to the Israelite border with Egypt.
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