[2 Chronicles, xvii., 14–18.] Jehoshaphat, son of Asa, had an army of 1,160,000 soldiers, “all mighty men of valour!”
[2 Chronicles, xxv., 5, 6.] Amaziah, King of Judah, had 300,000 “choice men, handling spear and shield, above 20 years old,” and a mercenary contingent of 100,000 Israelites, which he hired for 100 talents of silver (£34,200).
[2 Chronicles, xxvi., 12–13.] Uzziah’s army consisted of 307,500 trained soldiers “under 2,600 chief officers.”
No such armies as these correspond with our experience. Compare the armies of Europe with those of these petty princes, and see how wholly irreconcilable are these statements to the plain unvarnished statements of dry facts.
We have given one instance of slaughter under Abijah, king of Judah, and will now add one example of Pekah, king of Israel.
[2 Chronicles, xxviii., 6, 8.] Pekah is said to have slain in one day 120,000 valiant men of Judah, and to have carried away captive 200,000 souls, with much spoil.
Mr. Cardwell proposes to raise our army to 108,000 men. “This,” says The Times, “is more than twice as large as the largest army ever taken into battle by Wellington, and three times as large as [the English contingent of] that with which he conquered at Waterloo.” What would The Times say of the armies of Judah and Israel?
Where there is no motive for exaggeration the numbers are much more modest. Thus the army of Sennacherib, king of Assyria, no doubt, was very formidable, but it dwindles to nothing compared to the gigantic armies of Judah and Israel. The army of the “great king” amounted only to 185,000 men (2 Kings, xix., 35); if Judah could muster its million or even half million of valiant men, all in the prime of life, there was no need of a miracle to lay the invaders in the dust.
We will conclude this part of our subject with a few examples of incredible statements, which cannot be classed under the foregoing heads.