Verse Lens · Expanded explanation
2 Chronicles 25:13 Explained in Context
Use this verse as a doorway into the larger passage—not as an isolated saying.
Verse 13. 13But the soldiers of the army which Amaziah sent back, that they should not go with him to battle, fell upon the cities of Judah, from Samaria even unto Beth-horon, and smote three thousand of them, and took much spoil.
King James Version — public domain in the United States · Bible text and permissions
Quick Meaning
Shows the dismissed troops raid Judahite towns, kill, and plunder.
Read It With
- 2 Chronicles 25:11–25:16
Shows the dismissed troops raid Judahite towns, kill, and plunder. Read 2 Chronicles 25:13 within 25:11–25:16. The complete unit records: Amaziah defeats Edom, Judah throws ten thousand captives from a cliff, and the king then worships captured gods and silences a prophet's warning.
Why This Verse Appears Here
The narrative refuses to call battlefield success moral success by immediately exposing atrocity, contradiction, and rejected counsel. In this exact position, the line beginning “But the soldiers of the army which Amaziah sent back, that they should not…” shows the dismissed troops raid Judahite towns, kill, and plunder.
Follow the Context
- Amaziah defeats Edom, Judah throws ten thousand captives from a cliff, and the king then worships captured gods and silences a prophet's warning.
- The narrative refuses to call battlefield success moral success by immediately exposing atrocity, contradiction, and rejected counsel.
Phrase-by-Phrase Explanation
“But the soldiers of the army which Amaziah sent back, that they should not…”
In plain language: Shows the dismissed troops raid Judahite towns, kill, and plunder.
The line beginning “But the soldiers of the army which Amaziah sent back, that they should not…” shows the dismissed troops raid Judahite towns, kill, and plunder.
Why it matters: The wording carries a material literary, historical, temple, royal-power, violence, ethnic, illness, gender, exile, reception, or misuse boundary.
How certain? probableWhat This Verse Is Not Saying
This account does not authorize killing captives, humiliating defeated peoples, ethnic stigma toward Edomites, or treating victory as permission for cruelty.
What Remains True
Shows the dismissed troops raid Judahite towns, kill, and plunder. This concrete detail supports a bounded truth: Faithful memory tells the truth about worship and power together: it preserves covenant hope while naming labor, victims, institutional limits, human agency, and uncertainty.
How It Can Shape Life
- Because this verse shows the dismissed troops raid Judahite towns, kill, and plunder, keep it inside 25:11–25:16, compare its Samuel-Kings relationship honestly, protect affected people from coercion or stigma, and apply only the accountable principle the complete unit supports.
Teach It Back
Explain why 2 Chronicles 25:13 shows the dismissed troops raid Judahite towns, kill, and plunder. Use 25:11–25:16, paraphrase “But the soldiers of the army which Amaziah sent back, that they should not…,” state one source or reconstruction limit, identify one person or group power can obscure, and reject one conclusion this verse does not authorize.
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Continue in Context
The full thought-unit study remains the final contextual authority for this Verse Lens.
Read 2 Chronicles 25:11–25:16 — Victory over Edom turns into cruelty and idolatrySources used for this Verse Lens
How certain is this explanation? probable
Where care is needed
2 Chronicles 25:13 remains within this thought-unit limit: The enormous totals and cult transfer are part of a theological narrative; the mass killing must not be euphemized even where event-level reconstruction is limited.
These are the sources used directly for this lens. Language, grammar, disagreements, and the complete source shelf remain attached to the full thought-unit research record.
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 25:11–25:16, 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 25:11–25:16
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 25:11–25:16, verse-attached translation and translator notes
Open source ↗