inflicted a great blow (defeat) on the Israelites, so that 500,000 of them, i.e., more than the half of Jeroboam's whole army, fell.
Verses 18-19
The results of this victory. The Israelites were bowed down, their power weakened; the men of Judah became strong, mighty, because they relied upon Jahve their God. Following up his victory, Abijah took from Jeroboam several cities with their surrounding domains: Bethel, the present Beitin, see on Jos 7:2; Jeshanah, occurring only here, and the position of which has not yet been ascertained; and Ephron (עפרון, Keth.; the Keri, on the contrary, עפרין). This city cannot well be identified with Mount Ephron, Jos 15:9; for that mountain was situated on the southern frontier of Benjamin, not far from Jerusalem, while the city Ephron is to be sought much farther north, in the neighbourhood of Bethel. C. v. Raumer and others identify Ephron or Ephrain both with Ophrah of Benjamin, which, it is conjectured, was situated near or in Tayibeh, to the east of Bethel, and with the Ἐφραΐ́μ, Joh 11:54, whither Jesus withdrew into the wilderness, which, according to Josephus, Bell. Jud. iv. 9. 9, lay in the neighbourhood of Bethel. See on Jos 18:23.<ref> The account of this war, which is peculiar to the Chronicle, and which de Wette declared, on utterly insufficient grounds, to be an invention of the chronicler (cf. against him my apol. Vers. über die Chron. S. 444ff.), is thus regarded by Ewald (Gesch. Isr. iii. S. 466, der 2 Aufl.): “The chronicler must certainly have found among his ancient authorities an account of this conclusion of the war, and we cannot but believe that we have here, in so far, authentic tradition;” and only the details of the description are the results of free expansion by the chronicler, but in the speech 2Ch 13:4-13 every word and every thought is marked by the peculiar colouring of the Chronicle. But this last assertion is contradicted by Ewald's own remark, i. S. 203, that “in 2Ch 13:4-7, 2Ch 13:19-21, an antiquated manner of speech and representation appears, while in the other verses, on the contrary, those usual with the chronicler are found,” - in support of which he adduces the words בליּעל בּני, 2Ch 13:7, and מלח בּרית, 2Ch 13:5. According to this view, Abijah's speech cannot have been freely draughted by the chronicler, but must have been derived, at least so far as the fundamental thoughts are concerned, from an ancient authority, doubtless the Midrash of the prophet Iddo, cited in 2Ch 13:22. But Ewald's further remark (iii. S. 466), that the author of the Chronicle, because he regarded the heathenized Samaria of his time as the true representative of the old kingdom of the ten tribes, seized this opportunity to put into King Abijah's mouth a long denunciatory and didactic speech, addressed at the commencement of the battle to the enemy as rebels not merely against the house of David, but also against the true religion, is founded upon the unscriptural idea that the calf-worship of the Israelites was merely a somewhat sensuous form of the true Jahve-worship, and was fundamentally distinct from the heathen idolatry, and also from the idolatry of the later Samaritans. In the judgment of all the prophets, not only of Hosea and Amos, but also of the prophetic author of the book of Kings, the calf-worship was a defection from Jahve, the God of the fathers, - a forsaking of the commands of Jahve, and a serving of the Baals; cf. e.g., 1 Kings 13; 2 Kings 17:7-23. What Abijah says of the calf-worship of the Israelites, and of Judah's attitude to Jahve and His worship in the temple, is founded on the truth, and is also reconcilable with the statement in 1Ki 15:3, that Abijah's heart was not wholly devoted to the Lord, like David's heart. Abijah had promoted the legal temple-worship even by consecratory gifts (1Ki 15:15), and could consequently quite well bring forward the worship of God in Judah
