Bible Strands
2 Chronicles 21:13
but you have walked in the ways of the kings of Israel and have caused Judah and the people of Jerusalem to prostitute themselves, just as the house of Ahab prostituted itself. You have also killed your brothers, your father’s family, who were better than you.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The passage is a prophetic letter from Elijah to Jehoram, king of Judah, delivered after Jehoram secured his throne. It directly contrasts Jehoram’s conduct with the faithful reigns of his father Jehoshaphat and grandfather Asa.
The words — וַתֵּלֶךְ (va.tēlek) means "you have walked," combined with בְּדֶרֶךְ (bə-derekh), "in the way of," to describe Jehoram’s adoption of Israel’s royal practices. וַתַּזְנֶה (va.tazneh), "you have caused to prostitute," denotes the forced idolatrous corruption Jehoram imposed on Judah and Jerusalem.
The thread — The charge of leading the people to prostitute themselves repeats the specific indictment found in 2 Chronicles 21:11 regarding the high places on Judah’s hills. The accusation of killing "your brothers, your father’s family" directly parallels the fratricidal consolidation of power recorded in 2 Chronicles 21:4.
Why it lands — The text requires the reader to trace how religious compromise and familial violence operate as a single covenant breach. It demands recognition that institutional apostasy and moral violence directly provoke the judicial strike announced in the surrounding context.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
But hast walked in the way of the kings of Israel, and hast made Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to go a whoring, like to the whoredoms of the house of Ahab, and also hast slain thy brethren of thy father’s house, which were better than thyself:
Cross-references
- 2 Chronicles 21:4 When Jehoram had established himself over his father’s kingdom, he strengthened himself by putting to the sword all his brothers along with some of the princes of Israel.
- 2 Chronicles 21:11 Jehoram had also built high places on the hills of Judah; he had caused the people of Jerusalem to prostitute themselves and had led Judah astray.
- 1 Kings 16:30 However, Ahab son of Omri did evil in the sight of the LORD, more than all who were before him.
- 2 Chronicles 21:6 And Jehoram walked in the ways of the kings of Israel, just as the house of Ahab had done. For he married a daughter of Ahab and did evil in the sight of the LORD.
- Genesis 4:10 “What have you done?” replied the LORD. “The voice of your brother’s blood cries out to Me from the ground.
- Genesis 42:21 Then they said to one another, “Surely we are being punished because of our brother. We saw his anguish when he pleaded with us, but we would not listen. That is why this distress has come upon us.”
- Exodus 34:15 Do not make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, for when they prostitute themselves to their gods and sacrifice to them, they will invite you, and you will eat their sacrifices.
- Deuteronomy 31:16 And the LORD said to Moses, “You will soon rest with your fathers, and these people will rise up and prostitute themselves with the foreign gods of the land they are entering. They will forsake Me and break the covenant I have made with them.
- Judges 9:56 In this way God repaid the wickedness that Abimelech had done to his father in murdering his seventy brothers.
- 1 Kings 2:31 And the king replied, “Do just as he says. Strike him down and bury him, and so remove from me and from the house of my father the innocent blood that Joab shed.