2 Chronicles 20:36 - Exposition

This verse tells us the object with which Jehoshaphat had joined himself with Ahaziah, and 1 Kings 22:49 tells us how at last, by a point-blank refusal to Ahaziah, he withdrew from the very brief commercial alliance after he had not merely been witnessed against by the Prophet Eliezer spoken of in our next verse, but more decisively witnessed against by the shattering of his ships. To go to Tarshish . This clause, even if the text is not corrupt, yet cannot mean what it seems to say; but in the word "to go" (Hebrew, לָלֶכֶת ) must mean, of the sort that were wont to go to Tarshish, i.e. that were used for the Tarshish trade. We are guided to some such explanation by 1 Kings 22:48 , where it is said the ships were "ships of Tarshish to go to Ophir " ( 1 Kings 10:22 ; 2 Chronicles 8:18 ). That the ships could not be to go to Tarshish is plain from the fact of the place, Ezion-geber ( 2 Chronicles 8:17 , 2 Chronicles 8:18 ; 1 Kings 9:26 ), on the Red Sea, where they were built. Some, however, have suggested that some other Tarshish ( e.g. in the Gulf of Persia)than that of Spain ( Tartessus ) may conceivably be meant. The clear statement of the parallel saves the necessity of any such supposition, however.