(30) That were with him.--Kings adds, "thirty and two," referring to what is related in 1Kings 20:16; 1Kings 20:24, a matter which the chronicler has not noticed. The Syriac and Arabic supply the number here.

With small or great.--So Kings. Our text is literally, with the small or the great.

They compassed about him.--Or, came round against him. Kings, wrongly, "turned aside against him." In Hebrew the difference turns on half a letter.

But Jehoshaphat cried out.--Probably to bring his followers to the rescue. (1Kings 22:32 ends with these words.)

And the Lord helped him; and God moved (literally, incited, "persuaded," 2Chronicles 18:1) them . . . from him.--Drove them away from him. This addition is evidently from the pen of the chronicler himself. It appears that he understood the verb "cried out" in the sense of a cry to God for help, a sense which it often bears, e.g., Psalm 22:6.

How God "drove them off" is explained in the next verse. The captains discovered their mistake and retired.

This perfectly natural event is regarded by the chronicler as providential, and rightly so. Hebrew faith "knows nothing of an order of the world which can be separated even in thought from the constant personal activity of Jehovah."

Verse 30. - Our had commanded stands rendered in the parallel not so explicitly "commanded," but in both cases the Hebrew text is the same (צִוָּה). Therefore, if the place of vers. 29, 30 were inverted, what reads like the cool suggestion of Ahab in ver. 29 would seem more tolerable. Mean. time, Benhadad's command argues the intensity of his resentment towards Ahab, and not less ungrateful forgetfulness for the ultimate consideration that Ahab had allowed to him (1 Kings 20:31-34).

18:1-34 Jehoshaphat's alliance with Ahab. - This history we read in 1Ki 22. Abundant riches and honour give large opportunities of doing good, but they are attended with many snares and temptations. Men do not know much of the artifices of Satan and the deceitfulness of their own hearts, when they covet riches with the idea of being able to do good with them. What can hurt those whom God will protect? What can shelter those whom God will destroy? Jehoshaphat is safe in his robes, Ahab killed in his armour; for the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong. We should be cautious of entangling ourselves in the worldly undertakings of evil men; and still more we should avoid engaging in their sinful projects. But, when they call upon him, God can and will bring his faithful people out of the difficulties and dangers into which they have sinfully run themselves. He has all hearts in his hand, so that he easily rescues them. Blessed is the man that putteth his trust in the Lord.And after certain years,.... Two years, according to the Syriac and Arabic versions, or in the third year after the affinity was contracted, see 1 Kings 22:2,

he went down to Ahab to Samaria; to pay him a visit upon the alliance, civil and matrimonial, contracted between them:

and Ahab killed sheep and oxen for him in abundance, and for the people that he had with him; entertained him and his retinue in a very grand and liberal manner:

and persuaded him to go up with him to Ramothgilead; from hence, to the end of the chapter, it is the same with 1 Kings 22:4.