Глава 21

1–20. The wicked reign of Jehoram, 5th king of Judah. 2 Chronicles 21:1. And Jehoshaphat slept with his fathers, and was buried with his fathers in the city of David. And Joram his son reigned in his stead. 2 Chronicles 21:2. And he had brothers, the sons of Jehoshaphat: Azariah and Jehiel, and Zechariah and Azariah, and Michael and Shephatiah: all these were the sons of Jehoshaphat king of Israel. 2 Chronicles 21:3. And their father gave them great gifts of silver and gold and precious things, together with the fortified cities in Judea; He gave the kingdom to Joram, because he was the firstborn. 2 Chronicles 21:4. And Joram entered into the kingdom of his father and established himself, and killed all his brothers with the sword and also some of the princes of Israel. Verse 1 is a literal repetition of (1 Kings 22:50) (cf. (2 Kings 8:16)). The subsequent (vv. 2–4) news about the sons of Jehoshaphat, about their father’s reward, and about the fratricide of Joram are found only in 2 Chronicles, as belonging to the area of ​​family documents of the royal house. By endowing his younger sons with gifts and estates (v. 3), Jehoshaphat could be guided by the example of Rehoboam (above (2 Chronicles 11:23)), but, unlike the latter and David (1 Kings 1:32–35), he appointed his firstborn Joram as heir to the throne (v. 3), although the succession to the throne did not necessarily belong to the eldest of the king’s sons (cf. “Explanatory Bible,” vol. II, pp. 362–363). In verse 2 Heb. and Russian In the texts, Jehoshaphat is called “the king of Israel”: this is how he was called only in the general sense: Jewish, but not in the special sense: king of the ten-tribe kingdom. Codes 71, 82, 150 and many others in Kennicott and Rossi, as well as translations LXX, Vulgata, Slavic call Jehoshaphat (verse 2) “king of Judah.” The brutal extermination of all the brothers, committed by Joram with power-hungry and selfish views, is not unusual in the history of the reigning dynasties of the East, ancient and new: Jehoram’s bloodthirsty wife Athaliah subsequently acted in a similar manner (2 Kings 11:1; 2 Chronicles 22:10); see The Interpretive Bible, vol. II, p. 513. 2 Chronicles 21:5. Joram was thirty-two years old when he began to reign, and he reigned in Jerusalem for eight years; 2 Chronicles 21:6. and he walked in the way of the kings of Israel, as the house of Ahab did, because Ahab's daughter was his wife, and he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord. 2 Chronicles 21:7. However, the Lord did not want to destroy the house of David for the sake of the covenant that he made with David, and because he promised to give him a lamp and his sons for all time. 2 Chronicles 21:8. In his days Edom came out from under the authority of Judah, and they set a king over them. 2 Chronicles 21:9. And Jehoram went with his captains, and all the chariots with him; and rising by night, he struck down the Edomites who surrounded him, and those in charge of the chariots [and the people fled to their dwellings]. 2 Chronicles 21:10. However, Edom came out from under the control of Judah to this day. At the same time Libnah also came out from under his power, because he forsook the Lord God of his fathers. Literally similar to (2 Kings 8:17–22), (“Explanatory Bible,” vol. II, pp. 505–509). 2 Chronicles 21:11. He also built high places on the mountains of Judea, and led the inhabitants of Jerusalem into astray and seduced Judah. 2 Chronicles 21:12. And a letter came to him from Elijah the prophet, in which it said: Thus says the Lord God of David your father: Because you have not walked in the ways of Jehoshaphat your father, and in the ways of Asa king of Judah, 2 Chronicles 21:13. but you went the way of the kings of Israel and led Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem into fornication, just as you led the house of Ahab into fornication, and you also killed your brothers, the house of your father, who were better than you, 2 Chronicles 21:14. Therefore, behold, the Lord will strike your people and your sons and your wives and all your property with a great defeat, 2 Chronicles 21:15. you yourself - with a strong illness, an illness of your insides to the point that your insides will fall out from the illness from day to day. The accusatory letter of the prophet Elijah to Jehoram of Judah gave rise to great bewilderment and gave rise to various exegetical conjectures in view of the fact that, according to the usual opinion (directly in the biblical text, however, unfounded), the ascension of the prophet Elijah to heaven (2 Kings 2: 1–11) occurred under Jehoshaphat. To eliminate this apparent inconsistency, the ancient rabbis believed that the letter was sent from heaven by an already deceased prophet through an angel; others (Kimhi, Buddei, Michaelis, Derezer, Cape) suggested that the prophet Elijah, while still alive, by foresight wrote an accusatory letter to Joram and handed it over to one of his disciples for safekeeping, who in due time sent it to its intended destination. Grotius, on the contrary, believed that Joram received Elijah’s letter only in a vision, and the Cleric made an error in the biblical text of Art. 12: the name Elijah, according to him, was added later instead of the original name Elisha. But in all these rather shaky and risky assumptions there is hardly any real need: it is possible that the prophet Elijah was still alive at the very beginning of the reign of Joaram of Judah - in the chronology of the reign of the latter, this assumption does not encounter difficulties (cf. commentary on (2 Kings 1:17) in the "Explanatory Bible", vol. II, p. 482), but the year of the ascension of the prophet Elijah is unknown (see G.K. Vlastova, “The Sacred Chronicle”, volume four, part II, St. Petersburg, 1893, p. That the prophet Elijah does not appear to Jehoram of Judah personally (as he appeared to the kings of Israel Ahab and Ahaziah), but writes a letter to him, is self-evident: the prophet Elijah lived and acted only in the kingdom of Israel, and even at the time of persecution he did not move to Judea for any long time. As for the contents of the letter, the prophet accuses the king of the Jews of two crimes; 1) in betraying Jehovah and leading the people into the sin of idolatry (verses 12-13, see verse 11), and 2) in fratricide (verse 13, see verse 4), and accordingly, he predicts a double punishment for him and his house and people: 1) a great defeat for the people and family of Jehoram (verse 14) and 2) a terrible, chronic, incurable, fatal disease of the insides of Jehoram himself (verse 15). Both parts of the prophecy were fulfilled to the fullest extent. 2 Chronicles 21:16. And the Lord stirred up the spirit of the Philistines and the Arabians, neighboring the Ethiopians, against Joram; 2 Chronicles 21:17. and they went to Judea and broke into it, and seized all the property that was in the king's house, also his sons and his wives; and he had no son left except Ahaziah, the youngest of his sons. Only 2 Chronicles speaks about the raid of the Philistines and Arabians, adjacent to the Cushites (according to the context of speech here, the Cushites are not African or residents of Ethiopia, but Asian ones - residents of Arabia), on Judea under Jehoram. The enemies captured not only the property, but also almost the entire family of the king, excluding his wife (Athaliah) and youngest son Jehoahaz, as he is called in the accepted Masoretic text and in the Vulgate, or Ahaziah, as the LXX and Slavic text more accurately convey. In (2 Chronicles 22:1) and in the Hebrew text the name Ahaziah appears (the latter is also read in verse 17 according to code 332 in Kennicott). 2 Chronicles 21:18. And after all this, the Lord struck his insides with an incurable disease. 2 Chronicles 21:19. This happened from day to day, and by the end of the second year his insides fell out from his illness, and he died in severe suffering; and his people did not burn incense for him, as they had done for his fathers. 2 Chronicles 21:20. He was thirty-two years old when he began to reign, and he reigned in Jerusalem for eight years, and he departed unmourned, and they buried him in the city of David, but not in the royal tombs. The nature and essence of the chronic disease of the viscera that befell Joram (news of it is also found only in 2 Chronicles) can hardly be defined in terms of modern medical science. However, most researchers see here chronic dysentery with general peritonitis and perforation of the intestines, and it often happens that the part of the intestines affected by gangrene is separated and exits through the anus (cf. verse 19 - about prolapse of the viscera). See T. Popov, “Biblical data on various diseases and their healing,” Kyiv, 1904, p. 102. The biblical view highlights the view that Joram's illness was a punishment for his wickedness. According to Blessed Jerome, “wasting away from prolonged illness and infirmities is a sign of the wrath of God. Therefore, Joram, the son of Jehoshaphat, dies from a long illness” (Interpretation of the book of the prophet Jeremiah, Russian translation, part 7, ed. 2, Kyiv, 1906, p. 347). A manifestation or consequence of God’s judgment over Joram was also the contempt of the people for him, who did not give his ashes the usual royal honors (vv. 19–20); similarly, Joash (2 Chron. 24:24–25) and Joachim (Jer. 22:18) were subsequently deprived of a royal burial; the latter was buried in a “donkey’s burial” ( Jer.22:19). Joram died when he was 40 years old (v. 20). You might be interested in: