Abijah of Judah - War Against Jeroboam of Israel

War Against Jeroboam of Israel

Abijah went to considerable lengths in his short reign to reunite the northern Kingdom of Israel with Judah, by bringing Israel under his control. He waged a major battle against King Jeroboam of Israel in the mountains of Ephraim. 2 Chronicles 13:3 gives the sizes of the two armies as 400,000 on Abijah's side and 800,000 on Jeraboam's.

Before the battle, Abijah addressed the armies of Israel, urging them to submit and to let the Kingdom of Israel be whole again. However, his plea fell on deaf ears. Abijah then rallied his own troops with a phrase which has since become famous: "Jehovah (God) himself is with us for a captain (commander of the army)." His elite warriors fended off a pincer movement to rout Jeroboam's troops. According to 2 Chronicles 13:17, 500,000 of Jeroboam's troops were killed.

Jeroboam was crippled by this severe defeat at the hands of his southern rival, and posed little threat to the Kingdom of Judah for the rest of his reign. However, Abijah failed in his attempt to reunite Israel and Judah.

After the breakdown of the united kingdom, the border between Benjamin and Ephraim (which was the border between the northern and southern kingdoms) became a matter of dispute between them. Though Bethel had originally been allocated to Benjamin, by the time of the prophetess Deborah, Bethel is described as being in the land of the Ephraim. Some twenty years after the breakup of the united kingdom, Abijah took the occasion of the defeat of Jeroboam to take back the towns of Bethel, Jeshanah and Ephron, with their surrounding villages. Ephron is believed to be the Ophrah that was also allocated to the Tribe of Benjamin by Joshua.