2nd Chronicles Chapter 13 verse 17 Holy Bible
And Abijah and his people slew them with a great slaughter: so there fell down slain of Israel five hundred thousand chosen men.
read chapter 13 in ASV
And Abijah and his people put them to death with great destruction: five hundred thousand of the best of Israel were put to the sword.
read chapter 13 in BBE
And Abijah and his people slew them with a great slaughter; and there fell down slain of Israel five hundred thousand chosen men.
read chapter 13 in DARBY
And Abijah and his people slew them with a great slaughter: so there fell down slain of Israel five hundred thousand chosen men.
read chapter 13 in KJV
And Abijah and his people slew them with a great slaughter: so there fell down slain of Israel five hundred thousand chosen men.
read chapter 13 in WBT
Abijah and his people killed them with a great slaughter: so there fell down slain of Israel five hundred thousand chosen men.
read chapter 13 in WEB
and Abijah and his people smite among them a great smiting, and there fall wounded of Israel five hundred thousand chosen men.
read chapter 13 in YLT
Pulpit Commentary
Pulpit CommentaryVerse 17. - Slain; Hebrew, חֲלָלִים. Even if we accept for a moment the immense numbers written here and elsewhere as authentic, a considerable deduction may be made from our difficulty by virtue of the fact that this word need not mean to describe the actually slain. It occurs about ninety-one times. Of these, in our Authorized Version, it is found rendered, including marginal options, as many as fifteen times "wounded," or by even a less severe meaning. However, whether "slain" or "wounded and slain," the alleged, numbers of our present text are, in our opinion, incredibly enormous.
Ellicott's Commentary
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(17) Slew them with a great slaughter.--Literally, Smote in them a great smiting. Numbers 11:33.Five hundred thousand chosen men.--Or more than half of Jeroboam's entire army.It is hardly true to say that "there is nothing in the original to indicate that this slaughter was all on one day." (Speaker's Commentary.) On the contrary, it is perfectly evident from the whole narrative that this verse describes the issue of a single great and decisive encounter of the rival hosts.The result is certainly incredible, if the numbers be pressed; but it seems more reasonable to see in them "only a numerical expression of the belief of contemporaries of the war, that both kings had made a levy of all the fighting men in their respective realms, and that Jeroboam was defeated with such slaughter that he lost more than half his warriors" (Keil). The Syriac reads "five thousand."The number of slain on the other side is not stated. But it is absurd to talk as Reuss does, of Abijah's 400,000 as being "still intact," and then to ask why they did not proceed to reduce the northern kingdom.
