2 Chronicles 11:16
Those from every tribe of Israel who had set their hearts to seek the LORD their God followed the Levites to Jerusalem to sacrifice to the LORD, the God of their fathers.
Sermons
The Strengthening of a KingdomT. Whitelaw 2 Chronicles 11:5-17
Fidelity to ConscienceW. Clarkson 2 Chronicles 11:13-18














This migration of priests and people from the other tribes of Israel to Judah and Jerusalem was a serious event in the history of the people of God, and it presents a striking and suggestive spectacle to all time. It is an early illustration of fidelity to conscience.

I. THE SEVERITY OF THE STRUGGLE. These servants of Jehovah, priests and people, had to triumph over great obstacles in order to take the step on which they decided. They had:

1. To set at nought the commandments of the king. This was a more serious thing then than it would be now; it meant more rebelliousness in action, and it involved more danger to the person.

2. To cut themselves adrift from old and sacred associations. They had to forsake their neighbours and (many of them, no doubt) their relatives; many had to leave their vocation or, at any rate, its exercise in familiar spots and among old and early acquaintances; they had to make little of those sentiments of which it is in our human heart to make much.

3. To sacrifice material advantages. Of the Levites we read that they "left their suburbs and their possession" (ver. 14); and we may be sure that those who were not Levites, and who, consequently, would have a much greater interest in the occupancy and holding of the land (Deuteronomy 10:9), made still greater sacrifices than they. The families must have gone forth "not knowing the things that would befall them," but knowing that they would encounter serious loss and discomfort, and would miss much which they had been accustomed to possess and to enjoy.

II. THE WISDOM OF THEIR CHOICE.

1. They pleased God. God would accept and honour their fidelity, which was an act of faithfulness and obedience to himself.

2. They retained their self-respect. This they would not have done if they had conformed to the false rites which Jeroboam had instituted and on which he was insisting; in that case they would have sunk far and fast spiritually, and would soon have lost all hold upon the truth. For we cannot dishonour the truth in the eyes of men and retain our own appreciation of it.

3. They took a course which ennobled them - a course by which they not only became entitled to the honour of their countrymen, but by which they committed themselves definitely to the service of God and confirmed their own faith in him. They did that for which their children and their children's children would "call them blessed" and noble.

4. They added materially to the strength of the kingdom which bore witness to the truth (ver. 17), and helped to make durable its godly institutions.

5. They became located where they could take part in the worship of God according to the requirements of their own conscience. Setting their hearts to seek the Lord God of Israel, they came where they could "sacrifice unto the Lord God of their fathers" (ver. 16). They lost much temporal, but they gained much spiritual advantage. They sowed "not to the flesh, but to the Spirit." They left houses of brick behind them, but they came where they could build up the house of a holy character, of a noble and useful life. There are those in Christian lands who do not likewise, but otherwise. For some temporal considerations they leave the home where there is everything to illumine the mind and enlarge the spirit and enrich the soul, and go where all this is absent. Doubtless the removal from one town to another is an action in which many motives may and should have their force, but let spiritual considerations have a great weight in the balance. - C.

Ye shall not go up, nor fight against your brethren.
I.Restraints made UNMISTAKABLY CLEAR.

II.Restraints MERCIFUL IN DESIGN.

III.Restraints TIMELY MADE.

IV.Restraints IMPLICITLY HEEDED.

(J. Wolfendale.)

Pity it is that God seems to allow us to go to such costs and then stops us just at the last moment. "Ye shall not go up." There is pity in the arrangement, but it is not on the side of God. It is a pity that we did not consult God before we called the enemy together. He will be consulted at one end. He wishes to be consulted at the beginning, but if we will not consult Him there, we must consult Him at the end. Our preparations amount to nothing if they are not inspired. All our education comes to smoke and wind if it be not an education derived from the altar and enriched with the wisdom of God. Send out a hundred and fourscore thousand chosen men from academy and college and university, loaded with the blank cartridges of ten thousand certificates and testimonials; if the Lord is not in it He will send them all back again until He calls for their aid.

(J. Parks, D. D.)

People
Abigail, Abihail, Abijah, Absalom, Attai, Benjamin, David, Eliab, Israelites, Jerimoth, Jeroboam, Jesse, Jeush, Levites, Maacah, Maachah, Mahalath, Rehoboam, Shamariah, Shelomith, Shemaiah, Shemariah, Solomon, Zaham, Ziza, Zur
Places
Adoraim, Adullam, Aijalon, Azekah, Bethlehem, Beth-zur, Etam, Gath, Hebron, Jerusalem, Lachish, Mareshah, Soco, Tekoa, Ziph, Zorah
Topics
Fathers, Fixed, Followed, Giving, Heart, Hearts, Jerusalem, Levites, Offer, Offerings, Sacrifice, Sacrifices, Seek, Seeking, Tribes
Outline
1. Rehoboam raising an army to subdue Israel, is forbidden by Shemaiah
5. He strengthens his kingdom with forts and provisions
13. The priests and Levites, and such as feared God, forsaken by Jeroboam,
17. strengthen the kingdom of Judah
18. The wives and children of Rehoboam

Dictionary of Bible Themes
2 Chronicles 11:16

     5015   heart, and Holy Spirit
     6185   imagination, desires
     8160   seeking God

Library
The Exile Continued.
"So David fled, and escaped and came to Samuel to Ramah, and told him all that Saul had done unto him. And he and Samuel went and dwelt in Naioth" (1 Sam. xix. 18)--or, as the word probably means, in the collection of students' dwellings, inhabited by the sons of the prophets, where possibly there may have been some kind of right of sanctuary. Driven thence by Saul's following him, and having had one last sorrowful hour of Jonathan's companionship--the last but one on earth--he fled to Nob, whither
Alexander Maclaren—The Life of David

Tiglath-Pileser iii. And the Organisation of the Assyrian Empire from 745 to 722 B. C.
TIGLATH-PILESER III. AND THE ORGANISATION OF THE ASSYRIAN EMPIRE FROM 745 to 722 B.C. FAILURE OF URARTU AND RE-CONQUEST Of SYRIA--EGYPT AGAIN UNITED UNDER ETHIOPIAN AUSPICES--PIONKHI--THE DOWNFALL OF DAMASCUS, OF BABYLON, AND OF ISRAEL. Assyria and its neighbours at the accession of Tiglath-pileser III.: progress of the Aramaeans in the basin of the Middle Tigris--Urartu and its expansion into the north of Syria--Damascus and Israel--Vengeance of Israel on Damascus--Jeroboam II.--Civilisation
G. Maspero—History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, V 7

Chronicles
The comparative indifference with which Chronicles is regarded in modern times by all but professional scholars seems to have been shared by the ancient Jewish church. Though written by the same hand as wrote Ezra-Nehemiah, and forming, together with these books, a continuous history of Judah, it is placed after them in the Hebrew Bible, of which it forms the concluding book; and this no doubt points to the fact that it attained canonical distinction later than they. Nor is this unnatural. The book
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament

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