there came some that told Jehoshaphat, saying, There cometh a great multitude against thee from beyond the sea from Syria; and, behold, they be in Hazazon-tamar (the same is En-gedi). 3And Jehoshaphat feared, and set himself to seek unto the LORD; and he proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah. 4And Judah gathered themselves together, to seek help of the LORD: even out of all the cities of Judah they came to seek the LORD. 5And Jehoshaphat stood in the congregation of Judah and Jerusalem, in the house of the LORD, before the new court; 6and he said, O LORD, the God of our fathers, art
were an Arabian people whose name seems to be preserved in that of Ma'īn, an Edomitic village (south-east of Petra) on the pilgrim route between Damascus and Mecca. The LXX. here, as also in xxvi. 7; 1 Chr. iv. 41, has Μειναῖοι (Μιναῖοι), and probably intended thereby the Minaeans, a people who established a powerful kingdom in South Arabia (see the note on 1 Chr. iv. 41).
2. from Syria] So also LXX., but undoubtedly the correct reading is from Edom. Confusion of two letters of almost identical shape in Heb. (a ר for a ד) accounts for the difference.
Hazazon-tamar] Gen. xiv. 7. The name seems to describe the place as stony and as containing palm-trees. It is in fact an oasis.
the same is En-gedi] Cp. G. A. Smith, Hist. Geography as quoted above, and Bädeker, Pal.5, p. 171. En-gedi is on the west coast of the Dead Sea at a point where a rugged pass leads up into the hill country of Judah.
3. proclaimed a fast] A fast involved the assembling of the people; 1 Kin. xxi. 9, 12; Jer. xxxvi. 6, 9; Joel ii. 15. Special fasts were proclaimed for war, famine, or any other calamity or serious event.
5—13 (no parallel in Kings). The Prayer of Jehoshaphat.
This prayer should be compared with Solomon's (vi. 14 ff.).
5. stood] Rather, rose up.
before the new court] The Temple of Solomon, strictly speaking, had only one court, but the Chronicler speaks of it in terms which seem more appropriate to the post-exilic Temple with its inner and outer courts (see the note on iv. 9). The terms he uses, however, are unhappily vague and it is not quite easy to determine the precise meaning. Thus here, the word used for "court" is ḥāṣēr, which according to iv. 9 ought to mean the inner court, the court of the priests, as distinguished from the outer court of the people, the "'azārāh." On this view, the phrase means that Jehoshaphat was in the 'azārāh, standing not in but before the ḥāṣēr of the priests. But the inner court must be the old original court, and it seems quite impossible that the Chronicler, as he
