We previously looked at an event in Amaziah's life that was connected with King Jehoash of Israel. You will recall that Amaziah hired mercenaries from the northern kingdom of Israel (100,000 men of the tribe of Ephraim) to join his own army. But a prophet of the Lord warned him that if these men went out with the army of Judah, the Lord would not give him success, so he released the men from their contract and paid them anyway. But allowing them to keep the money didn't prevent them from harboring hard feelings against him. They made repeated incursions into the nation of Judah, attacking various cities and towns, looting the public and private buildings, and killing at least 3,000 citizens of Judah in the process. Amaziah declared war against the king of Israel but lost the battle because Amaziah had brought foreign idols into Judah following his wars with the land of Edom.
Since we have already studied the account of Amaziah's battle with Jehoash, we won't go back over much of that material but will mainly study the other events of his reign. "In the second year of Jehoash son of Jehoahaz king of Israel, Amaziah son of Joash king of Judah began to reign. He was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem twenty-nine years. His mother's name was Jehoaddan; she was from Jerusalem." (2 Kings 14:1-2, 2 Chronicles 25:1)
We learned earlier in the Bible that the high priest Jehoiada chose two wives for King Joash, Amaziah's father. We don't know whether Joash ever took any more wives or any concubines but I feel certain that Jehoaddan was one of the wives chosen for Joash by the priest. I can't imagine the priest choosing foreign women for the king. I also wouldn't expect him to bring women in from the northern kingdom or even from territories in Judah that are far from Jerusalem. The reason I think this is because the best way for Jehoiada to be sure he was selecting godly wives for Joash was to select women from the city in which the priest lived. This way he could thoroughly investigate the character of these women.
Joash lived in God-honoring ways as long as his uncle and mentor, the priest Jehoiada, was alive. After Jehoiada's death he listened to ungodly advice and made some poor choices. We talked about how Joash started his reign better than he finished it, which will be true of Amaziah as well. But in today's study we are looking at the beginning of his reign when it can still be said he is doing the right things. "He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, but not as his father David had done. In everything he followed the example of his father Joash. The high places, however, were not removed; the people continued to offer sacrifices and burn incense there." (2 Kings 14:3-4)
Amaziah's father was king of Judah for forty years. We don't know at what point in Joash's reign that Amaziah was born. We don't know whether the priest Jehoiada died before Amaziah was born or whether Jehoiada was still alive and being a good influence on Joash during Amaziah's formative years. I tend to think that Joash was still doing a lot of things right during at least part of Amaziah's younger years since the author of 2 Kings links Amaziah's "doing what was right" with "the example of his father Joash". The author takes care to point out that Amaziah does far fewer things right than did his forefather David.
One of the errors he makes is not removing the high places in Israel---the hilltop altars where the people used to worship the Lord before they had a centralized location of worship in Jerusalem. Leaving these altars is just asking for trouble, for worshiping at a distance from the house of God and apart from the body of believers tends to cause people to drift from a close relationship with the Lord. Even if the people of Judah don't fall into outright idolatry by straying from the main body of believers, it puts them in a position of weakness when other temptations come their way. This is why the Apostle Peter compared Satan to a lion stalking its prey; the lion prefers to stalk a creature that has strayed from its herd because it's so much easier to tackle and take down a loner. (1 Peter 5:8)
In tomorrow's study we will look at the steps Amaziah takes at the beginning of his reign to protect the security of his throne and the security of his nation, politically and militarily speaking. But today we have learned that he did not do enough, spiritually speaking, to secure his heart and the hearts of the people against temptation. This is why we will find him bowing to images of false deities later on.
No comments:
Post a Comment