When I Don’t Know What to Do (2 Chronicles 20)

A Few Thoughts to Consider

Have you ever had a situation that left you in a place where you did not know what to do?

Jehoshaphat certainly did. 2 Chronicles 20 recounts a dramatic episode during the reign of King Jehoshaphat of Judah when the kingdom was threatened by a vast coalition of armies from Moab, Ammon, and other groups. Soon after 853 BC, these groups attacked by means of a little-used route, advancing around the south of the Edomite end of the Dead Sea. It seems likely that revenge motivated the pact of aggression against Judah between Moab and Ammon.

Jehoshaphat’s back was against the wall. So what did he do? Verses 3-4 say, ³ “Jehoshaphat was afraid, and he resolved to seek the Lord. Then he proclaimed a fast for all Judah, ⁴ who gathered to seek the Lord. They even came from all the cities of Judah to seek him.” Even though he was fearful, he still directed the people to seek God.

As Andrew Hill notes, “In the Old Testament, fasting was usually directed toward securing direction or deliverance from God in times of national crisis (like war) or natural disaster (like famine). The fact that people from ‘every town’ (20:4) in Judah rally together to seek the Lord indicates the lasting spiritual impact Jehoshaphat’s revival has upon the nation.”^[1] This is what a crisis can do. Jehoshaphat then stands in the temple and addresses God with this powerful prayer:

⁶ Lord, God of our ancestors, are you not the God who is in heaven, and do you not rule over all the kingdoms of the nations? Power and might are in your hand, and no one can stand against you. ⁷ Are you not our God who drove out the inhabitants of this land before your people Israel and who gave it forever to the descendants of Abraham your friend? ⁸ They have lived in the land and have built you a sanctuary in it for your name and have said, ⁹ “If disaster comes on us—sword or judgment, pestilence or famine—we will stand before this temple and before you, for your name is in this temple. We will cry out to you because of our distress, and you will hear and deliver.”

Jehoshaphat’s prayer, “If disaster comes on us,” was a quotation from Solomon’s prayer offered at the temple’s dedication (2 Chronicles 6:28-30). He’s reminding God that the moment they’re in is linked to God’s promises of the past. Jehoshaphat goes on to say,

¹⁰ Now here are the Ammonites, Moabites, and the inhabitants of Mount Seir. You did not let Israel invade them when Israel came out of the land of Egypt, but Israel turned away from them and did not destroy them. ¹¹ Look how they repay us by coming to drive us out of your possession that you gave us as an inheritance. ¹² Our God, will you not judge them? For we are powerless before this vast number that comes to fight against us. We do not know what to do, but we look to you.

Again, Jehoshaphat is reminding God of the past, specifically Deuteronomy 2:5, where he instructed the Israelites, “Don’t provoke them, for I will not give you any of their land, not even a foot of it, because I have given Esau the hill country of Seir as his possession.” It’s as if Jehoshaphat is saying, “But God, you told us not to hurt them, and now they are out to destroy us!” He then makes this statement in Verse 12, “Our God, will you not judge them? For we are powerless before this vast number that comes to fight against us. We do not know what to do, but we look to you.”