12 Then a letter came to him from Elijah the prophet saying , "Thus says the Lord God of your father David , 'Because e you have not walked in the ways of Jehoshaphat your father and the ways of Asa king of Judah , 13 but have walked in the way of the kings of Israel , and have caused Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to play the harlot as the house of Ahab played the harlot , and you have also killed your brothers , your own family e , who were better than you, 14 behold , the Lord is going to strike your people , your sons , your wives and all your possessions with a great calamity ; 15 and you will suffer severe sickness , a disease of your bowels , until your bowels come out because of the sickness , day by day .' " 16 Then the Lord stirred up against Jehoram the spirit of the Philistines and the Arabs who bordered e the Ethiopians ; 17 and they came against Judah and invaded it, and carried away all the possessions found in the king's house together with his sons and his wives , so that no son was left to him except e Jehoahaz , the youngest of his sons . 18 So after all this the Lord smote him in his bowels with an incurable e sickness . 19 Now it came about in the course e of time , at the end of two years , that his bowels came out because of his sickness and he died in great pain . And his people made no fire for him like the fire for his fathers . 20 He was thirty-two e years old when he became king , and he reigned in Jerusalem eight years ; and he departed with no one's regret , and they buried him in the city of David , but not in the tombs of the kings .
Matthew Henry's Commentary on 2 Chronicles 21:12-20
Commentary on 2 Chronicles 21:12-20
(Read 2 Chronicles 21:12-20)
A warning from God was sent to Jehoram. The Spirit of prophecy might direct Elijah to prepare this writing in the foresight of Jehoram's crimes. He is plainly told that his sin should certainly ruin him. But no marvel that sinners are not frightened from sin, and to repentance, by the threatenings of misery in another world, when the certainty of misery in this world, the sinking of their estates, and the ruin of their health, will not restrain them from vicious courses. See Jehoram here stripped of all his comforts. Thus God plainly showed that the controversy was with him, and his house. He had slain all his brethren to strengthen himself; now, all his sons are slain but one. David's house must not be wholly destroyed, like those of Israel's kings, because a blessing was in it; that of the Messiah. Good men may be afflicted with diseases; but to them they are fatherly chastisements, and by the support of Divine consolations the soul may dwell at ease, even when the body lies in pain. To be sick and poor, sick and solitary, but especially to be sick and in sin, sick and under the curse of God, sick and without grace to bear it, is a most deplorable case. Wickedness and profaneness make men despicable, even in the eyes of those who have but little religion.