Passage
Did You not, O our God, dispossess the inhabitants of this land before Your people Israel and give it to the seed of Abraham Your friend forever?
2 Chronicles 20:7 (LSB)
Nearby Context
2 Chronicles 20:5 Then Jehoshaphat stood in the assembly of Judah and Jerusalem, in the house of Yahweh before the new court,
2 Chronicles 20:6 and he said, “O Yahweh, the God of our fathers, are You not God in the heavens? And are You not ruler over all the kingdoms of the nations? Power and might are in Your hand so that no one can take their stand against You.
2 Chronicles 20:7 Did You not, O our God, dispossess the inhabitants of this land before Your people Israel and give it to the seed of Abraham Your friend forever?
2 Chronicles 20:8 And they have lived in it, and have built You a sanctuary there for Your name, saying,
2 Chronicles 20:9 ‘Should evil come upon us, the sword, or judgment, or pestilence, or famine, we will stand before this house and before You (for Your name is in this house) and cry to You in our distress, and You will hear and save us.’
Study Lenses
The verse centers on "dispossess", "inhabitants", "land", "before", "people", "israel", "give", and "seed". It is saying that the verse draws attention to "dispossess" and "inhabitants", so its meaning should be read from those terms before moving to application.
The nearby context moves from verse 6's "and he said O Yahweh the God..." into verse 8's "And they have lived in it and...", so "dispossess" and "inhabitants" belong inside that flow. In 2 Chronicles context, the local focus is covenant, worship, and faithfulness.
A plain takeaway is to answer the verse's own emphasis on "dispossess" and "inhabitants" with trust shaped by these words, not by a vague optimism outside the passage.