These verses single out one event in the reign of Abijah,whilst the parallel passage in 1 Kings 15. 1-8 gives a brief overview of his reign. Whilst overall the picture of the man is rather unpleasant, he appears favourably in this chapter. In his speech, he accuses Jeroboam and Israel of rebellion against God, and it all sounds very grand, until we remember that ‘he walked in all the sins of his father, which he had done before him: and his heart was not perfect with the Lord his God, as the heart of David his father’, 1 Kgs. 15. 3. However, he believed in at least three things:
1. He believed in the throne of David. ‘Ought ye not to know that the Lord God of Israel gave the kingdom over Israel to David for ever, even to him and to his sons by a covenant of salt’, v. 5. It was a pure and trustworthy covenant. We know that the promises made to David will be fulfilled in Christ; ‘The Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David: and he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end’, Luke 1. 32-33. Words lose their meaning if this promise is not interpreted literally.
2. He believed in the Levitical priesthood. ‘But as for us, the Lord is our God, and we have not forsaken him; and the priests, which minister unto the Lord, are the sons of Aaron, and the Levites wait upon their business’, v. 10. God still has a divinely-ordained priesthood, and divinely-ordained service, in which every believer participates – ‘an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ’, 1 Pet. 1. 5.
3. He believed in the word of God. ‘God himself is with us for our captain, and his priests with sounding trumpets to cry alarm against you’, v. 12. The tide of battle turned in Judah’s favour when they ‘cried unto the Lord, and the priests sounded the trumpets’, v. 14. God honoured His promise of Numbers 10. 9. The two silver trumpets were used in various ways, and remind us that when Israel cried to God for help against an enemy, it was the cry of His redeemed people. Compare Exodus 30. 11-16. As the ‘redeemed of the Lord’, we can always approach Him with confidence enabling us to say, ‘And the Lord shall deliver me from every evil work, and will preserve me …’, 2 Tim. 4. 18.
