2 Chronicles 26:11 - Exposition

That went out to war by bands ; Hebrew, יוֹצְאֵי צָבָא לִגְדוּד . The last of these words occurs thirty-three times, and is rendered "troop" ten times, "company" four times, "band" fourteen times, and (too generically) "army "five times. The middle word occurs above four hundred times, is rendered "host" an immense preponderance of these times, and probably should have been so rendered without exception. The first word is the pool participle kal of the familiar verb יָצָא , and compels the translation (given literally),' the goers out of the host by hands." Meantime, if the persons here spoken of were leaders, as seems possible, the hiph. participle is required (which would postulate an initial mem for the present initial yod ) , and a most typical example among some thirty others essentially similar may be quoted from Isaiah 40:26 . Their account by the hand of Jeiel; i.e. their muster tabulated by Jeiel, whose office is mentioned before in our 2 Chronicles 25:11 . Under the hand of Hananiah . That is, Hananiah was head of the whole matter of the registering, etc.