John Gill Commentary 2 Chronicles 13:17

"And Abijah and his people slew them with a great slaughter: so there fell down slain of Israel five hundred thousand chosen men." — 2 Chronicles 13:17 (ASV)

And Abijah and his people slew them with a great slaughter, &c.] As they fled, pursuing them:

so there fell down slain of Israel five hundred thousand chosen men; such a slaughter as is not to be met with in any history, as Josephus^F19 observes; though Abarbinel wonders he should say so, and affirms that he had read of larger numbers slain at once; but he is the only man that ever pretended to it;

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Jerom^F20 makes the number but 50,000, and some copies of the Vulgate Latin^F21, and Josephus Ben Gorion, as Abarbinel^F23 relates; but the true Josephus, the Targum, and all the ancient versions, agree with the Hebrew text; more than half Jeroboam's army was cut off, and 100,000 more than Abijah had in his.

FOOTNOTES:

• F19: Antiqu. l. 8. c. 11. sect. 3.
• F20: Trad. Heb. fol. 84. M.
• F21: So that of Sixtus V. in James's Corruption of the Fathers, p. 294.
• F23: Comment in 1. Reg. xv. 6. fol. 250. 3.