2 Chronicles 19:4–7, King James Version
Italic words were supplied in the English translation for clarity.
2 Chronicles 19:4–7
Judges are charged to judge for God without partiality
The king goes out among the people, then stations judges
Jehoshaphat dwells at Jerusalem, and goes out again through the people from Beer-sheba to mount Ephraim, and brings them back unto the LORD God of their fathers. He sets judges in the land throughout all the fenced cities of Judah, city by city, and says to the judges, Take heed what ye do: for ye judge not for man, but for the LORD, who is with you in the judgment.
The response to Jehu is institutional, not only private remorse. From Beer-sheba to Ephraim is a teaching-and-return circuit. Judges in fortified cities are the new structure.
No injustice, no partiality, no gift
Wherefore now let the fear of the LORD be upon you; take heed and do it: for there is no iniquity with the LORD our God, nor respect of persons, nor taking of gifts. Respect of persons means partiality based on status or identity. Gifts here are bribes.
Invoking God does not make judges infallible. The charge does not permit theocracy as a modern slogan, bribery, partiality, or denial of appeals and due process. Fear of the LORD in this unit is a reason to refuse a payoff, not a reason to skip evidence.
How this should shape us
After public failure, repair the courts. Judge as if God sees the case, and still keep process, evidence, and equal treatment. Do not take gifts, and do not baptize a bench as beyond review.
Teach it back
Explain 2 Chronicles 19:4–7 in your own words. Include its movement, placement in Chronicles, one Samuel-Kings comparison, one material uncertainty, one affected person or group, and one modern use the complete context rules out.
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Go deeper
The explanation above is meant to stand on its own. Open these notes only if you want language, history, disagreements, or source locations.
Where careful interpreters disagreeThe strongest options and their difficulties
Where do careful interpreters disagree?
Best judgment: The received text's literary claim is clear, while source history, exact chronology, numbers, speech wording, and event-level reconstruction remain questions of graded historical judgment.
How certain? probableResearch trail and exact locationsThe source record behind this section
Supports: Exact KJV wording, paragraph metadata, supplied-word markup, and complete verse coverage for this thought unit.
2 Chronicles 19:4–7, pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM corpus
Supports: Hebrew wording, morphology, names, clauses, regnal formulas, temple vocabulary, older-English controls, and translation limits.
Open Scriptures MorphHB v.2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/2Chr.xml, Masoretic words and morphology for 19:4–7
Supports: Unit-bounded translation comparisons and only those lexical, textual, grammatical, numerical, historical, and parallel-passage notes attached to these verses.
STEP Bible NET2full, 2 Chronicles 19:4–7, verse-attached translation and translator notes
Supports: Publisher-visible framing of the Chronicler's God, worship, Israel, kingship, retribution, and hope, used within its access limitation rather than as uninspected detailed commentary.
Japhet, The Ideology of the Book of Chronicles (2009), chapter 3, 'The People of Israel,' pp. 209–307, and chapter 4, 'Kingship,' pp. 308–383; only the official exposed openings and ranges were inspected
Supports: A focused account of Chronicles' distinctive teaching and judicial material as creative legal reinterpretation, not proof of a complete implemented modern-style system.
Glatt-Gilad, 'Jehoshaphat's Judicial Reform,' complete article and notes on 2 Chronicles 17–19 and Deuteronomy 17
Supports: A recent critical reading of institutional legitimation and selective historical discourse, used without reducing all worship to elite manipulation.
Geyser-Fouché, HTS 79.1 (2023), complete official HTML, sections on selective narration, temple and personnel, royal patronage, Athaliah and Joash, exile, and power
Supports: Case-sensitive distinction between events and literary presentation in ancient historiography, including credibility limits and rhetorical shaping.
Kalimi, 'History, Historiography, Historical Evaluation and Credibility,' repository PDF pp. 7–25
Sources for This Section
These records identify the source, the claim it supports, and the exact location used. A source remains evidence to evaluate; it does not replace the biblical text.
Biblical text
King James (Authorized) Version — eng-kjv2006
eBible.org and CrossWire Bible Society
USFM archive eng-kjv2006_usfm.zip; source files dated 2026-08-19; downloaded 2026-08-24; archive SHA-256 aec1b3b26c622fd3d963d2bbac963016b9513246ffbfa20da00bb100372ea007; normalized corpus SHA-256 09aef51d90488aa7b9722b3fd9a93f4b25f6bf2064c5fd798fb39673c300ddf2.
Supports: Exact KJV wording, paragraph metadata, supplied-word markup, and complete verse coverage for this thought unit.
Exact location: 2 Chronicles 19:4–7, pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM corpus
Open source ↗hebrew text and morphology
Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible: 2 Chronicles
Open Scriptures
Open Scriptures, release 2.2
Supports: Hebrew wording, morphology, names, clauses, regnal formulas, temple vocabulary, older-English controls, and translation limits.
Exact location: Open Scriptures MorphHB v.2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/2Chr.xml, Masoretic words and morphology for 19:4–7
Open source ↗translation and translator notes
NET Bible Full Notes: 2 Chronicles
Biblical Studies Press
Biblical Studies Press; STEP Bible presentation, 2019 edition; current web presentation
Supports: Unit-bounded translation comparisons and only those lexical, textual, grammatical, numerical, historical, and parallel-passage notes attached to these verses.
Exact location: STEP Bible NET2full, 2 Chronicles 19:4–7, verse-attached translation and translator notes
Open source ↗modern scholarly monograph limited access
The Ideology of the Book of Chronicles and Its Place in Biblical Thought
Sara Japhet
Eisenbrauns / Penn State University Press, English edition 1989; reprint 2009
Supports: Publisher-visible framing of the Chronicler's God, worship, Israel, kingship, retribution, and hope, used within its access limitation rather than as uninspected detailed commentary.
Exact location: Japhet, The Ideology of the Book of Chronicles (2009), chapter 3, 'The People of Israel,' pp. 209–307, and chapter 4, 'Kingship,' pp. 308–383; only the official exposed openings and ranges were inspected
Open source ↗scholarly public education article
Jehoshaphat's Judicial Reform: How the Book of Chronicles Updates and Reinterprets Deuteronomy
David Glatt-Gilad
TheTorah.com, 2016
Supports: A focused account of Chronicles' distinctive teaching and judicial material as creative legal reinterpretation, not proof of a complete implemented modern-style system.
Exact location: Glatt-Gilad, 'Jehoshaphat's Judicial Reform,' complete article and notes on 2 Chronicles 17–19 and Deuteronomy 17
Open source ↗peer reviewed open access scholarly article
1 and 2 Chronicles as a discourse of power
Ananda Geyser-Fouche
HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies 79(1), article 8011, 2023
Supports: A recent critical reading of institutional legitimation and selective historical discourse, used without reducing all worship to elite manipulation.
Exact location: Geyser-Fouché, HTS 79.1 (2023), complete official HTML, sections on selective narration, temple and personnel, royal patronage, Athaliah and Joash, exile, and power
Open source ↗peer reviewed open access scholarly article
History, Historiography, Historical Evaluation and Credibility: Chronicles in Its Ancient Context
Isaac Kalimi
Poznań Theological Studies repository edition, pp. 7-25, 2019 repository edition
Supports: Case-sensitive distinction between events and literary presentation in ancient historiography, including credibility limits and rhetorical shaping.
Exact location: Kalimi, 'History, Historiography, Historical Evaluation and Credibility,' repository PDF pp. 7–25
Open source ↗