Today we will conclude the brief account in the Scriptures regarding the reign of Jeroboam II.
Yesterday we learned that through this king the Lord gave Israel relief from the Arameans. The Arameans had repeatedly attacked the nation and had been occupying and controlling a number of areas, pushing the Israelites out of their homes and farms. Although the Bible doesn't provide us with any of the details of Jeroboam's military battles against the Arameans, we were told that he "restored the boundaries of Israel from Lebo Hamath to the Dead Sea".
Today's portion of Chapter 14 pretty much wraps up the account of Jeroboam's reign like this: "As for the other events of Jeroboam's reign, all he did, and his military achievements, including how he recovered for Israel both Damascus and Hamath, which had belonged to Judah, are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Israel? Jeroboam rested with his ancestors, the kings of Israel. And Zechariah his son succeeded him as king." (2 Kings 14:28-29)
The "book of the annals of the kings" has been mentioned a number of times before. It is a book that has been lost to the mists of time but is assumed to have been a detailed accounting of the achievements of the kings. It likely contained lists of the battles they won and information about the building projects they undertook. I think it's highly possible that the book was a compilation of only the military, political, and architectural achievements of the kings; it may have contained little to no information regarding their spiritual achievements. If it did contain information about the spiritual lives of the kings, it must not have been anything we didn't already know about them from the books we still possess, because the Lord is more than able to keep a spiritually-necessary book from becoming lost. As I've said before, the Bible doesn't tell us everything we want to know but it tells us everything we need to know in order to come to a saving knowledge of the Lord and to build a relationship with Him. I would love to know so many more details about the people in the Bible---particularly the people we consider great heroes of the faith---but a volume large enough to contain the detailed day-to-day events of their lives would be too large to carry with us and would perhaps be too overwhelming to study regularly.
The prophet Amos lived during the reign of King Jeroboam II. In the book of Amos we find a priest of Bethel named Amaziah making up lies about Amos, claiming to Jeroboam II that Amos is part of a conspiracy to kill him. Amaziah is a priest who officiates at the golden calf site at Bethel, so we know he is not a man who worships the Lord where and how the Lord commanded the people to worship. Jeroboam II himself is not a man who worships the Lord where and how the Lord commanded the people to worship, and since the altar at Bethel (one of two golden calf sites) is the one used by the kings of the northern kingdom, Jeroboam is used to interacting with this priest regularly and taking his advice to heart. Amaziah the priest goes to Jeroboam and claims that Amos is the instigator of the conspiracy and that he is going around proclaiming, "Jeroboam will die by the sword". (Amos 7:11a)
Amos was not in on a conspiracy against the king. If he ever said, "Jeroboam will die by the sword", it was a prophecy from the Lord and not a threat from the prophet. But there is no evidence in the Bible that Jeroboam II died by the sword. His manner of death is not known. Considering that he engaged the Arameans in battle a number of times, it's possible he was killed in battle, but the Bible usually tells us whenever a king receives a mortal wound in battle. The authors of the Bible are usually in the habit of telling us whenever a king is killed by conspirators too; we've already seen several kings assassinated by men who plotted against them. I tend to think that Amos never said that Jeroboam would die by the sword and that he did not die by the sword. My opinion is that the wicked priest Amaziah made up these words to back up his claim that Amos was a threat to the king. The priest probably felt threatened by Amos's popularity in Israel because the people may have been putting more stock in what Amos said than in anything Amaziah said. The king himself may have been calling Amos to the palace to hear what he had to say, causing the priest to fear he might lose power and influence over the king.
We don't know what action Jeroboam II took when Amaziah told the lies about Amos. The king may or may not have believed the priest's words. In the book of Amos we will find the priest ordering Amos to leave the nation, so it may be that he lived the remainder of his life in exile from Israel. There is also an ancient tradition that states that the son of Amaziah put Amos to death. But there is no evidence that Jeroboam II did any harm to Amos and I like to think that he saw through the lies of the jealous priest.
The main thing we can take away from the brief account of Jeroboam's reign is that he did some good things for Israel in relieving the oppression of the Arameans. It is believed that his reign was a time of material prosperity for the nation. It was not, however, a time of spiritual prosperity because the king and the people were still using the golden calf sites of worship and considering the calves to be "representations" of the God of Israel. This was wrong but not as wrong as the situation was during the era of the Ahab Dynasty in which Baal worship was the state religion. Material prosperity and spiritual prosperity don't always go together. In fact, material prosperity can sometimes hinder spiritual growth if the ones who are enjoying the prosperity are placing their trust in their worldly belongings and not in the Lord.
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