At that time, the seer Hanani came to King Asa of Judah and said to him, ‘Because you depended on the king of Aram and have not depended on the Lord your God, the army of the king of Aram has escaped from you.
Although the Aramean army came with only a few men, the Lord handed over a vast army to them because the people of Judah had abandoned the Lord, the God of their ancestors. So they executed judgement on Joash.
which sends envoys by sea, in reed vessels over the water. Go, swift messengers, to a nation tall and smooth-skinned, to a people feared far and near, a powerful nation with a strange language, whose land is divided by rivers.
Asa had an army of three hundred thousand from Judah bearing large shields and spears, and two hundred and eighty thousand from Benjamin bearing shields and drawing the bow. All these were valiant warriors.