J.J. Blunt's Undesigned Scriptural Coincidences
AN ARGUMENT FOR THE VERACITY OF THE HOLY BIBLE
Introduction
Part One:
The Books of Moses
Part Two:
The Historical Scriptures
Part Three:
The Prophetical Scripture
Part Four:
The Gospels and Acts
Appendix:
The Gospels, Acts
and Josephus

XVII. THE INCREASE OF JUDAH AND DECREASE OF ISRAEL

Nor is this all. Still keeping in mind this single consideration, that the more godly of the people of the ten tribes were disgusted at the calves, and retired, we may at once account for the progressive augmentation of the armies of Judah, and the corresponding decrease of the armies of Israel, which the subsequent history of the two kingdoms casually, and at intervals, displays.

Immediately after the separation, Rehoboam assembled the forces of his two tribes, and found them, as I have said, one hundred and eighty thousand men. Some eighteen years afterwards, Ahijah, his son, was able to raise against Jeroboam (who still, however, was vastly stronger) four hundred thousand. [2 Chron. 13:3.] This is a considerable step. Some six or seven years later, Asa, the son of Ahijah, is invaded by a countless host of Æthiopians. On this occasion, notwithstanding the numbers which must have fallen already in the battle with Jeroboam, he brings into the field five hundred and eighty thousand: so rapidly were the resources of Judah on the advance. About two and thirty years later still, the army of Jehoshaphat, the son of Asa, consists of one million one hundred and sixty thousand men [2 Chron. 17:14–18.] ; a prodigious increase in the population of the kingdom of Judah.

On the other hand, we may trace (the act, it must be observed, is altogether our own, no such comparison being instituted in the history,) the gradual decay and depopulation of the kingdom of Israel. Jeroboam himself, we have found, was eight hundred thousand strong. The continual diminution of this national army, we cannot, in the present instance, always trace from actual numbers, as we did in the former; but, from circumstances which transpire in the history, we can trace it by inference. Thus, Ahab, one of the successors of Jeroboam, and contemporary with Jehoshaphat, whose immense armaments we have seen, is threatened by Benhadad and the Syrians. Benhadad will send men to take out of his house, and out of the houses of his servants, whatever is pleasant in their eyes [1 Kings 20:6.] . It is the insolent message of one who felt Israel to be weak, and being weak, to invite aggression. Favoured by a panic, Ahab triumphs for the once; but at the return of the year Benhadad returns. Ahab is warned of this long before. “Go strengthen thyself,” is the friendly exhortation of the prophet (v. 22);—no doubt he did so, to the best of his means, but after all, “when the children of Israel were numbered, and were all present, and went against them, the children of Israel pitched before the Syrians like two little flocks of kids, but the Syrians filled the country” (v. 27). And in Joram’s days, the son and successor of Ahab, such was the boldness of Syria, and the weakness of Israel, that the former was constantly sending marauding parties, “companies,” as they are called, or “bands,” [2 Kings 5:2; 6:23; 13:21.] into Israel’s quarters, sometimes taking the inhabitants captive, and sometimes even laying siege to considerable towns [2 Kings 6:14.23.] . And in the reign of Jehu, the next king, Syria, with Hazael at its head, crippled Israel still more terribly, actually seizing upon all the land of Jordan eastward, Gilead, the Gadites, the Reubenites, and the Manassites, from Aroer to Bashan [2 Kings 10:33.] . And to complete the picture, the whole army of Jehoahaz, the next in the royal succession of Israel, consisted of fifty horsemen, ten chariots, and ten thousand foot, Syria having exterminated the rest [2 Kings 13:7.] : so gradually was Israel upon the decline.

Now it must be remembered, in order that the force of the argument may be felt, that no parallel of the kind we have been drawing is found in the history itself; no invitation to others to draw one. The materials for doing so it does indeed furnish, dispersed, however, over a wide field, and less definite than might be wished, were our object to ascertain the relative strength of the two kingdoms with exactness: that, however, it is not; and the very circumstance, that the gradual growth of Judah and declension of Israel are sometimes to be gathered from other facts than positive numerical evidence, is enough in itself to show that the historian could have no design studiously to point out the coincidence of facts with his casual assertion, that the Levites had been supplanted by the priests of the calves, and that multitudes had quitted the country with them, in just indignation.