2 Chronicles 28:9 - Exposition

The very interesting contents of this and the following six verses are not found in the parallel. A prophet of the Lord … Oded . We do not know any particulars of this prophet; for his name and its possible identity with the name Iddo, see notes on 2 Chronicles 9:29 ; 2 Chronicles 15:1 , 2 Chronicles 15:8 . The growingly frequent references to the interposition of the prophets is much to be noticed, and their dignity, courage, fidelity, are brought into grand relief. They are very typical of the moral presence of which no national history, a.s centuries solemnly flow on, gives the slightest symptom of a slackening need. The very same may be said alike of the truth and those qualified and commissioned to bear it, of the message and the messenger. Before the host ; i.e. in very face of the host, somewhat too mildly rendered "to meet" the host, in 2 Chronicles 15:2 , etc. In a rage that reacheth up unto heaven . To the wonderful life of this figure, that must strike every reader, must be added the force that comes of its moral rather than merely material suggestion—a moral suggestion that reminds us of that of the sentence of far greater antiquity, and from the sacred lip of the Inspirer of all prophets, "The voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground." The rage had not been that on which the sun did not go down; it had been so fierce that upon it the sun ought never to hare been required to look. See for interesting particulars and then more general references, Jeremiah 51:9 ; Ezra 9:6 ; Psalms 38:4 ; Genesis 18:21 ; Genesis 28:12 ; Job 20:6 . The expression of the text, however, "reacheth," or "toucheth," cannot be understood to reproduce as a perfect equivalent the older above-quoted one of "crieth." In other words, the magnitude of the rage is the first thing set forth, and the particular language in which it is set forth well postulates the inference of its abominableness in God's sight.