2 Chronicles 19 · a question people ask
Weren't there judges in Judah already?
The chapter doesn't say. The law had said, "You shall make judges and officers in all your gates" (Deuteronomy 16:18). In David's day, of the Levites (1 Chronicles 23:3), "six thousand were officers and judges" (1 Chronicles 23:4). 19:5 says only that Jehoshaphat "set judges in the land throughout all the fortified cities of Judah, city by city" (19:5). 1 Kings sums up Jehoshaphat's reign in 1 Kings 22:41-50, and neither the judges nor Jehu's words to him are in it; they are told only in 2 Chronicles.
The verses
“You shall make judges and officers in all your gates, which the LORD your God gives you, according to your tribes; and they shall judge the people with righteous judgment.”
“The Levites were counted from thirty years old and upward; and their number by their polls, man by man, was thirty-eight thousand. David said, “Of these, twenty-four thousand were to oversee the work of the LORD’s house, six thousand were officers and judges,”
“He set judges in the land throughout all the fortified cities of Judah, city by city,”