Now Jeroboam had sent troops around to ambush from the rear, so that while he was in front of Judah, the ambush was behind them.
We do not find that Jeroboam offered to make any answer at all to Abijah's speech. Though it was much to the purpose, he resolved not to heed it, and therefore he heard it as though he heard it not. He came to fight, not to dispute. The longest sword, he thought, would determine the matter, not the better cause.
Commenting on 2 Chronicles 13:13-22
And when Judah looked back,.... On hearing a noise behind them: behold, the battle was before and behind; men were set in battle array, and the battle was begun, and an attack made upon them both ways: and they cried unto the Lord; for help against their enemies, and to deliver them out of their hands: and the priests sounded with the trumpets; to inspire...
But Jeroboam caused an ambushment to come about behind them--The oration of Abijah, however animating an effect it might have produced on his own troops, was unheeded by the party to whom it was addressed; for while he was wasting time in useless words, Jeroboam had ordered a detachment of his men to move quietly round the base of the hill, so that when Abijah...