There is no such thing as unintended consequences in God’s oversight of men’s affairs. He knows when to bring judgment and when to restrain. He shapes the affairs of men’s lives through the hardships and calamities of life. Yet at the same time “he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sendeth rain on the just and the unjust” (Matthew 5:45).

Chapter 21 of Second Chronicles records God’s dealing with Jehoram, a wicked king of Judah. The Scriptures record that he did not walk in the ways of Jehoshaphat, his father, or Asa, both godly kings of Judah. Rather, he “walked in the way of the [evil] kings of Israel, and hast made Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to go a whoring [departing from the LORD after idols]…and also hast slain thy brethren of thy father’s house, which were better than thyself” (v. 13).

For these sins “the LORD stirred up against Jehoram the spirit of the Philistines, and of the Arabians…and they came up into Judah, and brake into it, and carried away all the substance that was found in the king’s house, and his sons also, and his wives” (vs. 16-17). Note that it was the LORD who stirred up the spirit of these nations against Judah. We are not told how he did it, but merely that he did.

God’s sovereign control over the affairs of men was emphasized to Isaiah, the prophet, when the LORD declared that he would use Cyrus to deliver the Jews from a future captivity. This prophetic utterance was two hundred years before Cyrus was born! He became king of the Medes and Persians and ultimately defeated the Babylonians. He then opened the door for the Jews to return from their Babylonian captivity and rebuild the temple in Jerusalem. God sovereignly directed all of this from the moment he declared it.

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