And there came out against them Zerah the Ethiopian with an host of a thousand thousand, and three hundred chariots; and came unto Mareshah.

And Zara the Ethiopian came out against them with his army of ten hundred thousand men, and with three hundred chariots: and he came as far as Maresa.

And there came out against them Zerah the Cushite, with a host of a thousand thousand, and three hundred chariots; and came to Mareshah.

And come out unto them doth Zerah the Cushite with a force of a thousand thousand, and chariots three hundred, and he cometh in unto Mareshah,

And Zerah the Ethiopian, with an army of a million, and three hundred war-carriages, came out against them to Mareshah.

Then Zerah, the Ethiopian, went forth against them with his army of one million men, and three hundred chariots. And he approached as far as Mareshah.

Zerah the Ethiopian is probably Usarken (Osorkon) II, the third king of Egypt after Shishak, according to the Egyptian monuments. Osorkon II may have been by birth an Ethiopian, for he was the son-in-law, not the son, of the preceding monarch, and reigned in right of his wife. The object of the expedition would be to bring Judaea once more under the Egyptian yoke.
An host of a thousand thousand - This is the largest collected army of which we hear in Scripture; but it does not exceed the known numbers of other Oriental armies in ancient times. Darius Codomannus brought into the field at Arbela a force of 1,040, 000; Xerxes crossed into Greece with certainly above a million of combatants.

Zerah the Ethiopian - Probably of that Ethiopia which lay on the south of Egypt, near to Libya, and therefore the Libyans are joined with them, 2-Chronicles 16:8.
A thousand thousand - If this people had come from any great distance, they could not have had forage for such an immense army.

And there came out against them Zerah the (d) Ethiopian with an host of a million, and three hundred chariots; and came unto (e) Mareshah.
(d) The king of Ethiopia, or Egypt.
(e) Which was a city in Judah, (Joshua 15:44) where Michaiah the prophet was born.

And there came out against them Zerah the Ethiopian, with an host of thousand thousand, and three hundred chariots,.... According to Josephus (b), this army consisted of 900,000 foot, and 100,000 horsemen, and certain it is there were horsemen among them, 2-Chronicles 16:8 some say these were not the Ethiopians in Africa, beyond Egypt, being, as is said, too far off for such an army to travel, and it would be hard to say what should induce them to it; and besides it is urged, the king of Egypt would never have suffered them to pass through his dominions, as they must to come to Judea; but that they were the Cushite Arabs, that inhabited Midian, part of Arabia Petraea, and Arabia Felix, near Judaea; see Gill on Numbers 12:1, but since this great host consisted of Lubim or Libyans, inhabitants of Africa, as well as of Ethiopians, 2-Chronicles 16:8, these Ethiopians seem to be rather those in Africa, who were masters of Egypt and Libya, as well as Ethiopia, quickly after the death of Shishak, or Sesostris, see 2-Chronicles 12:2, which accounts for the size of this army, and their passage through Egypt: that there were two sorts of Ethiopians, the western and eastern ones, the one that dwelt in Africa, the other in Asia, appears clearly from Homer (c), Herodotus (d), and Heliodorus (e), the former of which seem here meant; nor need this army be thought incredible, especially since they were joined by the Lubim or Libyans, and assisted by the Philistines, as appears by what follows; besides, the two armies of Israel and Judah we read of in the preceding chapter, when put together, exceed this; see also 2-Chronicles 17:14, so the armies of Tamerlane and Bajazet, that of the former being 1,600,000, and that of the latter 1,400,000 (f):
and came unto Mareshah; a city in the tribe of Judah, on the borders of it, 2-Chronicles 11:8.
(b) Antiqu. l. 8. c. 12. sect. 1. (c) Odyss. 1. ver. 23, 24. (d) Polymnia, sive, l. 7. c. 69, 70. (e) Ethiopic. l. 9. c. 6. (f) Laonic. Chalcocond. de rebus Turc. l. 3. p. 98, 102.

HE OVERCOMES ZERAH, AND SPOILS THE ETHIOPIANS. (2-Chronicles 14:9-15)
there came out against them Zerah the Ethiopian--This could not have been from Ethiopia south of the cataracts of the Nile, for in the reign of Osorkon I, successor of Shishak, no foreign army would have been allowed a free passage through Egypt. Zerah must, therefore, have been chief of the Cushites, or Ethiopians of Arabia, as they were evidently a nomad horde who had a settlement of tents and cattle in the neighborhood of Gerar.
a thousand thousand, and three hundred chariots--"Twenty camels employed to carry couriers upon them might have procured that number of men to meet in a short time. As Zerah was the aggressor, he had time to choose when he would summon these men and attack the enemy. Every one of these Cushite shepherds, carrying with them their own provisions of flour and water, as is their invariable custom, might have fought with Asa without eating a loaf of Zerah's bread or drinking a pint of his water" [BRUCE, Travels].

Thither Asa marched to meet them, and drew up his army in battle array in the valley Zephathah, near Mareshah. The valley Zephathah is not, as Robins., Pal. sub voce, thinks, to be identified with Tel es Safieh, but must lie nearer Mareshah, to the west or north-west of Marsch.

Ethiopian - Or, the Arabian, as the Hebrew word Cush is commonly used: these being much nearer to Asa than the Ethiopians.