2 Chronicles 20:14

THE PROPHETIC ANSWER TO JEHOSHAPHAT'S PRAYER

"Then upon Jehaziel the son of Zechariah, the son of Benaiah, the son of Jeiel, the son of Mattaniah, the Levite, of the sons of Asaph, came the spirit of Jehovah in the midst of the assembly; and he said, Hearken ye, all Judah, and ye inhabitants of Jerusalem, and thou king Jehoshaphat: Thus saith Jehovah unto to you, Fear not ye, neither be dismayed by reason of this great multitude; for the battle is not yours, but God's. Tomorrow go ye down against them: behold, they come up by the ascent of Ziz; and ye shall find them at the end of the valley, before the wilderness of Jeruel. Ye shall not need to fight in this battle: set yourselves, stand ye still, and see the salvation of Jehovah with you, O Judah and Jerusalem; fear not, nor be dismayed: tomorrow go out against them; for Jehovah is with you. And Jehoshaphat bowed his head with his face to the ground; and all Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem fell down before Jehovah, worshipping Jehovah. And the Levites, of the children of the Kohathites and the children of the Korahites, stood up to praise Jehovah the God of Israel, with an exceeding loud voice."

Here we have the picture of a worshipping, praying Israel as the background of a most remarkable deliverance of God's people from the ravages of a hostile invasion. There cannot be any doubt that many such deliverances of God's people were similarly preceded by this same kind of a spiritual awakening of God's people, and by their most fervent prayers and supplications.

There was one exceedingly unfortunate result of these many divine deliverances of Israel. Long after the nation as a whole had lost all faith in God and were indulging themselves in the most shameful immoralities, when they were threatened, as here, they pleaded for God's deliverance; and the frequency of those rescues led eventually to a conviction in Israel that, regardless of their gross sins and immoralities, God would always rescue them, solely upon the basis of who they were, namely, the seed of Abraham the friend of God.

Even after Israel rejected the Messiah, God's Only Begotten Son, and during the siege of Jerusalem by the Romans, the last High Priest, comforted and encouraged the people with his declaration that they had nothing to fear, "Because," he said, "The Messiah has not yet come." They truly believed that no matter what they did, God would still bless them at the expense of the whole Gentile world, whom they hated, supposing that when the Messiah came he would either kill all the Gentiles or subject them to Jewish rule, as in the days of their beloved Solomon.

The events of this chapter reveal that, at this time, there still remained an effective reservoir of faith among the Chosen People.