The Kings Of Israel And Judah. Day 189, Hezekiah King Of Judah, Part Six

In our last study session we talked about the purification and rededication of the temple after King Hezekiah came to the throne. His father, Ahaz, had defiled the temple by placing a pagan altar in it and by demanding that all offerings and sacrifices be made upon this sinful altar.

We will learn in today's reading that Hezekiah instituted other reforms in the land, including the removal of the high places. This is something the kings before him should have done, yet not even the godly kings undertook this task. These hilltop altars had been used in the past for bringing offerings and sacrifices to the Lord but these were not to be used any longer once the temple---a central location of worship---was built. Having these remote altars allowed people to go about religion in their own way, being separated from the main body of believers, and this led to worshiping the right God but in the wrong ways and in some cases it led to worshiping false gods at those altars. 

Hezekiah removes the hilltop altars along with heathen religious sites that have cropped up in the land. "He removed the high places, smashed the sacred stones and cut down the Asherah poles. He broke into pieces the bronze snake Moses had made, for up to that time the Israelites had been burning incense to it. (It was called Nehushtan.)" (2 Kings 18:4) The word "Nehushtan" is believed to mean "Bronze Serpent". 

We first heard about this bronze serpent in Numbers 21. Moses was leading the people on their way to the promised land at that time and they became impatient on the journey and spoke out against him and against the Lord, claiming that the Lord was using Moses to lead them into the wilderness to kill them with hunger and thirst. They spoke out against the food the Lord was providing for them, stating that they hated it, and as a result of their accusations and their ingratitude the Lord "sent venomous snakes among them; they bit the people and many Israelites died". (Numbers 21:6)

When this judgment came upon them, they began to repent. They went to Moses and confessed that they had sinned against the Lord and they asked Moses to intercede for them with the Lord so He would not destroy them. In response the Lord ordered Moses to fashion a snake out of bronze and place it on a pole. Then, when anyone was bitten by a snake, they could look at the snake (in faith that the Lord would heal them) and be healed of their snake bite. 

We don't know what kind of snakes these were; various experts have proposed various species for the type of snakes prevalent in the region at that time that were capable of producing the burning deadly bite described in the book of Numbers. But the object the Lord commanded Moses to make was never intended to be used as an object of worship. It was intended to make them look to the Lord in faith for their healing. Keeping this object to commemorate the healing they received in the book of Numbers is not sinful in itself but over the centuries, as idolatry crept into the land, they began to regard the bronze snake as something with magical powers. Instead of considering it simply as a symbol of the Lord's healing of their ancestors, they began treating it as a talisman. They were burning incense to it as if it could do anything for them, forgetting that the only reason their ancestors were healed by looking upon it was that they were trusting in God to heal them of their snakebites. 

Why did looking upon the bronze snake produce healing in Numbers 21? The snakebites were judgment for their blasphemous allegations against the Lord, so it's important to note that bronze is used as a symbol for judgment in the Scriptures. (The feet of the Lord Jesus have the appearance of bronze in the book of Revelation, for example, when He speaks of the judgment that's about to fall upon the earth.) The connection between bronze and judgment is almost certainly why the Lord said the snake had to be fashioned of bronze. Fashioning it out of a softer metal would have been easier. Carving it out of wood would have been easier. But the Lord said it must be bronze because bronze symbolized judgment and because lifting the bronze snake up on a pole signified the removing of His judgment from them for this incident of faithlessness. If they looked up at the bronze snake on the pole, by faith they received healing from their snake bites. By faith they received the removal of His judgment from them. This is why the Lord Jesus compared His crucifixion to the lifting up of the serpent in the wilderness. (John 3:14-15) The Lord Jesus, who took our judgment upon Himself, was lifted up on the cross and we look to Him in faith for salvation. In trusting in what He did on the cross for us, we receive the removal of God's judgment that was upon us for our sins. 

As we move on in our study of Hezekiah tomorrow we will find him ordering Passover to be observed. Evidently this sacred holiday, among others, fell by the wayside during his father's reign. Hezekiah is a man of faith and he is encouraging his people to be men and women of faith. They are all about to be faced with a terrifying threat from a formidable enemy soon---a threat that could mean the extinction of their people and of their nation---and it is only by faith that this disaster is diverted. 

The Kings Of Israel And Judah. Day 188, Hezekiah King Of Judah, Part Five

As soon as the priests and Levites inform him that the temple has been purified, Hezekiah arranges a celebration to commemorate the temple being put back into use.

"Early the next morning King Hezekiah gathered the city officials together and went up to the temple of the Lord. They brought seven bulls, seven rams, seven male lambs and seven male goats as a sin offering for the kingdom, for the sanctuary and for Judah. The king commanded the priests, the descendants of Aaron, to offer these on the altar of the Lord." (2 Chronicles 29:20-21) 

In the Old Testament law only one animal is specified to be brought for the sin of a priest, for the sin of a king or other official, for the sin of a nation, or for the sin of an individual citizen. (See Leviticus 4 for examples of this.) But this type of offering was specified for unintentional sin---cases where the priest, leader, or average citizen realized they had made a mistake after they had made it. In the case of the people of Hezekiah's father's generation and in the case of many of the people of his own generation, the sin was intentional. Idolatry abounded during that era. The people knew the Lord's commandments against idolatry but engaged in it anyway. It makes sense that Hezekiah would make a larger offering for sin that was deliberate. It also makes sense that he would make a larger offering for sin that was widespread throughout the nation. The people have engaged in individual idolatry and they have engaged in corporate idolatry. This is why the author tells us that the offering was made "for the kingdom, for the sanctuary and for Judah": it was made for all the people of the land, it was made to rededicate the temple they had defiled, and it was made for the nation (the land, the name) of Judah itself.

We naturally feel repelled by the idea of animal sacrifice. As an animal lover, it's always difficult for me to read passages like the one we are reading today. But I don't think we are intended to be comfortable with the idea. Death is the penalty for sin---our sin---and although the Lord allowed substitutionary deaths I do not think He intended the sacrificial system to be pretty or to be comforting or to rest easy in our minds. If man had never sinned, no animal would ever have been sacrificed. If man had never sinned, nothing bad would ever have existed in this world, but sin is a pollution that affects everything. 

Our sin brought imperfection into a perfect creation. We see the acknowledgement of this when the assembled people lay their hands on the goats who are serving as stand-ins for them. "So they slaughtered the bulls, and the priests took the blood and splashed it against the altar; next they slaughtered the rams and splashed their blood against the altar; then they slaughtered the lambs and splashed their blood against the altar. The goats for the sin offering were brought before the king and the assembly, and they laid their hands on them. The priests then slaughtered the goats and presented their blood on the altar for a sin offering to atone for all Israel, because the king had ordered the burnt offering and the sin offering for all Israel." (2 Chronicles 29:22-24) 

I am grateful we no longer have to perform animal sacrifices for atonement, for, "We have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all...By one sacrifice He has made perfect forever those who are being made holy." (Hebrews 10:10,14) 

Now King Hezekiah and the people celebrate the temple being put back to its intended use. "He stationed the Levites in the temple of the Lord with cymbals, harps and lyres in the way prescribed by David and Gad the king's seer and Nathan the prophet; this was commanded by the Lord through His prophets. So the Levites stood ready with David's instruments, and the priests with their trumpets. Hezekiah gave the order to sacrifice the burnt offering on the altar. As the offering began, singing to the Lord began also, accompanied by trumpets and the instruments of David king of Israel. The whole assembly bowed in worship, while the musicians played and the trumpets sounded. All this continued until the sacrifice of the burnt offering was completed. When the offerings were finished, the king and everyone present with him knelt down and worshiped. King Hezekiah and his officials ordered the Levites to praise the Lord with the words of David and of Asaph the seer. So they sang praises with gladness and bowed down and worshiped." (2 Chronicles 29:25-30)

In addition to the offerings commanded by the king, he encourages the people to participate by bringing their offerings as well. The temple is for everyone, not just for the king and the priests and the Levites. "Then Hezekiah said, 'You have now dedicated yourselves to the Lord. Come and bring sacrifices and thank offerings to the temple of the Lord.' So the assembly brought sacrifices and thank offerings, and all whose hearts were willing brought burnt offerings." (2 Chronicles 29:31) You'll recall that a burnt offering was an offering for atonement and that it signified a complete giving up of something to God. It symbolized denying oneself and submitting oneself to God. After the sacrifice had been slaughtered by one swift stroke across the jugular with a knife specially designed to kill as instantaneously and humanely as possible, the bringer of the sacrifice gave it up entirely to the Lord, not retaining any part of it for himself in the way he could with other types of offerings.

"The number of burnt offerings the assembly brought was seventy bulls, a hundred rams and two hundred male lambs---all of them for burnt offerings to the Lord. The animals consecrated as sacrifices amounted to six hundred bulls and three thousand sheep and goats. The priests, however, were too few to skin all the burnt offerings; so their relatives the Levites helped them until the task was finished and until the other priests had been consecrated, for the Levites had been more conscientious in consecrating themselves than the priests had been. There were burnt offerings in abundance, together with the fat of the fellowship offerings and the drink offerings that accompanied the burnt offerings. So the service of the temple of the Lord was reestablished. Hezekiah and all the people rejoiced at what God had brought about for His people, because it was done so quickly." (2 Chronicles 29:32-36) 

You'll recall that when Hezekiah's father was on the throne of Judah, all the regular sacrifices and offerings were still being made, only he had commanded them to be made at his pagan altar to his false gods. There was no atonement to be had in that. There was no fellowship to be had in that. But now revival has broken out in the land because of the faith and example of Hezekiah---and it has broken out quickly and it has accomplished a lot already---so the people give thanks.

The Kings Of Israel And Judah. Day 187, Hezekiah King Of Judah, Part Four

In Wednesday's study we found Hezekiah encouraging the priests and Levites to remember what the Lord called them to do. During his father's administration they perhaps went astray from the Lord; at the very least they do not appear to have attempted to prevent his father from defiling the temple with a pagan altar. But no matter what they might have done (or what they may have failed to do) in the past, they can make a fresh start now. He announced his intention to commit his heart wholly to the Lord and he urged them to do the same.

His enthusiasm for the Lord spurs men to action. "Then these Levites set to work: from the Kohathites, Mahath the son of Amasai and Joel son of Azariah; from the Merarites, Kish son of Abdi and Azariah son of Jehallelel; from the Gershonites, Joah son of Zimmah and Eden son of Joah; from the descendants of Elizaphan, Zechariah and Mattaniah; from the descendants of Heman, Jehiel and Shemei; from the descendants of Jeduthun, Shemaiah and Uzziel." (2 Chronicles 29:12-14)

These men have the honor of having their names listed in the word of God. We don't know what type of men they were before Hezekiah spoke the encouraging words we studied earlier in the week but we know that they stepped forward in faith after hearing those words. You and I may not have a lot in our pasts to be proud of---perhaps these men didn't either---but our God is a forward-looking God. He's concerned about what we do from this day forward. We find nothing written here about what the men in verses 12-14 were doing before Hezekiah asked them to commit themselves to the Lord because the Scriptures are concerned only with what they are doing from that point on. The Lord will not keep bringing up anything from the past that we've repented of and turned away from. Those things have been dealt with! Those things are under the blood of Christ and we have been washed clean of them. 

Hezekiah's love for the Lord has affected these men in a positive way. They, in turn, have a positive affect on the other priests and Levites. "When they had assembled their fellow Levites and consecrated themselves, they went in to purify the temple of the Lord, as the king had ordered, following the word of the Lord. The priests went into the sanctuary of the Lord to purify it. They brought out to the courtyard of the Lord's temple everything unclean that they found in the temple of the Lord. The Levites took it and carried it out to the Kidron Valley. They began the consecration on the first day of the first month, and by the eighth day of the month they reached the portico of the Lord. For eight more days they consecrated the temple of the Lord itself, finishing on the sixteenth day of the first month." (2 Chronicles 29:15-17)

The fact that it takes sixteen days to remove unholy objects and to perform a thorough cleaning of the temple shows us just how much the temple had been neglected during the reign of King Ahaz. To use a modern example, the church I attend is quite large---the main building is larger than the temple would have been and it has far more furnishings in it than the temple had---and yet I do not believe it would take a large group of people sixteen days to thoroughly clean the building and the objects within it. Other than keeping the area around his pagan altar cleared for use, Ahaz must not have ordered even the simplest of tasks to be performed in the building. 

After checking everything over and making sure nothing has been left undone, the men joyfully let the king know that the temple is once again ready for its intended use. "Then they went in to King Hezekiah and reported: 'We have purified the entire temple of the Lord, the altar of burnt offering with all its utensils, and the table for setting out the consecrated bread, with all its articles. We have prepared and consecrated all the articles that King Ahaz removed in his unfaithfulness while he was king. They are now in front of the Lord's altar.'" (2 Chronicles 29:18-19)

Upon hearing this good news, in tomorrow's study we will find Hezekiah holding a celebratory ceremony at the temple.

The Kings Of Israel And Judah. Day 186, Hezekiah King Of Judah, Part Three

King Hezekiah began religious reforms in Judah as soon as he came to the throne. In yesterday's study we found him calling the priests and Levites together for a meeting. He now encourages them to take spiritual steps in the right direction. 

"Listen to me, Levites! Consecrate yourselves now and consecrate the temple of the Lord, the God of your ancestors. Remove all defilement from the sanctuary. Our parents were unfaithful; they did evil in the eyes of the Lord our God and forsook Him. They turned their faces away from the Lord's dwelling place and turned their backs on Him. They also shut the doors of the portico and put out the lamps. They did not burn incense or present any burnt offerings at the sanctuary of the God of Israel." (2 Chronicles 29:5-7) This happened during the reign of his father, Ahaz, when Ahaz set up a pagan altar in the temple and ordered all offerings to be made on it.

"Therefore, the anger of the Lord has fallen on Judah and Jerusalem; He has made them an object of dread and horror and scorn, as you can see with your own eyes. This is why our fathers have fallen by the sword and why our sons and daughters and our wives are in captivity." (2 Chronicles 29:8-9) In 2 Chronicles 28 we were told that during Ahaz's reign the king of Israel and the king of Aram banded together to attack Judah. The king of Aram won at least one battle against Ahaz's forces and took many women and children back to Damascus with him as captives. The king of Israel also defeated Ahaz in a battle, killing 120,000 soldiers of Judah and taking 200,000 women and children captive. Hezekiah makes it clear that these calamities came upon Judah because so many people of his father's generation forsook the Lord.

In yesterday's study we talked about how Hezekiah is breaking the cycle and that he is asking these men to do the same. They don't have to perpetuate generational sin. Hezekiah was raised by one of the most evil men in the Bible but he is going to be nothing like his father. The priests and Levites don't have to be like their fathers either. They can turn away from what their fathers did (and they can turn away from what they may have done themselves) and give their hearts fully to the Lord. Hezekiah states his intention to give his heart fully to the Lord: "Now I intend to make a covenant with the Lord, the God of Israel, so that His fierce anger will turn away from us. My sons, do not be negligent now, for the Lord has chosen you to stand before Him and serve Him, to minister before Him and to burn incense." (2 Chronicles 29:10-11)

These men haven't sinned too much to be forgiven by the Lord. We don't know how many of them may have engaged in idolatry. At the very least they have allowed idolatry to take place in the Lord's house, for we found no mention of any of them protesting the modifications Ahaz made to the temple and we found none of them trying to prevent him from making offerings on a pagan altar in the temple. It was even a priest (Uriah) who fashioned the pagan altar for the king. Hezekiah reminds these men that the Lord called the tribe of Levi to minister before Him in the temple and that they can still answer this calling. The Lord will hear their prayers of repentance. As He said through the prophet Malachi: "Return to Me, and I will return to you." (Malachi 3:7) 

The current distresses in the nation of Judah have been caused by the people's unfaithfulness to the Lord. The Lord clearly outlined in Deuteronomy 28 the curses that would befall them if they turned away from Him to idols. But the Lord also clearly outlined in Deuteronomy 28 the blessings He would pour out on them if they would be faithful to Him. Hezekiah loves his people and his nation. He wants to see blessings---not curses---given to them. He doesn't want his soldiers defeated by enemy armies or the women and children taken captive to foreign lands. He seeks the Lord's blessing upon Judah and upon every individual in the land. Obtaining the Lord's blessing begins with repentance: repenting for personal sins and repenting for national sins and deciding to follow the Lord with all their hearts.

The Lord calls everyone into fellowship with Him. It's up to us how we answer. But even if we've said no to Him many times in the past we can still make the choice to repent of our sins and turn to Him for salvation. Even if we are already saved but have drifted away from the former closeness we had with Him, we can repent of that and begin spending daily time with Him. He will not reject anyone who wants to know Him, for "God's gifts and His call are irrevocable". (Romans 11:29) The Lord's calling was upon the lives of the men King Hezekiah is speaking to in today's text. These men may not have been obedient to that calling in the past but the Lord hasn't taken back His invitation to know Him. They can still accept the invitation and fulfill His calling upon their lives. You and I can too! That doesn't mean we won't have to deal with any of the natural consequences of the mistakes we've made. Sometimes our mistakes are easily fixable with the Lord's help and we can soon extricate ourselves from situations we should never have gotten into in the first place. There are other mistakes that are so big that they may cause some lifelong consequences but this doesn't mean the Lord can't use us. Our future is going to be far brighter with Him than without Him.

He calls every human being on the face of the earth to know Him. You have not sinned too much to take Him up on His invitation. His calling is irrevocable! It's up to you and to me whether we answer that calling but He has not rescinded it. He will not reject the prayer of repentance and He will not reject our desire to know Him and to follow Him.

The Kings Of Israel And Judah. Day 185, Hezekiah King Of Judah, Part Two

Today we are continuing on with our study of King Hezekiah. As soon as his father, the idolatrous Ahaz dies, he begins religious reforms in Judah. I get the feeling he had been thinking for a long time about all the things he wanted to do for the Lord and for the people. The moment the opportunity arrives, he sets immediately to work.

"In the first month of the first year of his reign, he opened the doors of the temple of the Lord and repaired them." (2 Chronicles 29:3) The temple had not been abandoned during his father's reign but idolatrous objects had been placed in it. Ahaz had seen a pagan altar in Damascus that struck his fancy and he ordered a replica to be made of it in Judah and placed in the temple. He also rearranged some of the objects of the temple to mimic the layout of pagan temples and he cut the panels off the movable stands in the temple for reasons that were not explained to us. I am not certain what damage he had done to the doors or whether the damage mentioned in verse 3 occurred during the reign of a prior king. 

Hezekiah calls the religious leaders together. "He brought in the priests and the Levites, assembled them in the square on the east side and said: 'Listen to me, Levites! Consecrate yourselves now and consecrate the temple of the Lord, the God of your ancestors. Remove all defilement from the sanctuary.'" (2 Chronicles 29:4-5) He is "cleaning house", both literally (by removing unholy objects) and spiritually (by pointing the priests and Levites back to the true worship of the Lord).

He continues, "Our parents were unfaithful; they did evil in the eyes of the Lord our God and forsook Him. They turned their faces away from the Lord's dwelling place and turned their backs on Him." (2 Chronicles 29:6) It wasn't only his father Ahaz who was unfaithful to the Lord, for he uses the expression "our parents". Ahaz enthusiastically embraced every form of idolatry he ever heard of, as far as we can tell, but many of these other men's parents did the same. It wasn't a situation where only the king went astray and the people remained faithful. Hezekiah was raised in an idolatrous household and so were many of the men he is addressing in today's text.

This brings me to a point I'd like to make concerning the text we are studying today: these men's upbringing is no excuse for continuing to remain unfaithful to the Lord. They are not living in a nation where they have never heard of the Lord. They are not living in a nation where the word of God is not available to them. They can't sit back and say, "Well, this is how I was raised. I grew up in a home that had a number of household idols in it. I grew up watching my parents making offerings on the altars of gods of other nations. You can't expect me to have the faith to put all my eggs in one basket and trust only in the God of Israel." If Hezekiah can reject the gods of his father and place all his faith in the Lord, so can they. If anybody has an excuse for not being able to break out of the mold, it's him, because he was raised by one of the most wicked men in the Bible. But he's a grown man capable of making his own decisions and he has made a decision for the Lord. He's asking them to do the same. If they refuse, they can blame no one but themselves because it's not as if they don't have enough knowledge of the Lord to choose Him and to forsake the false deities of foreign lands.

Someone who is around my same age (early 50s) said to me the other day: "I come from a long line of alcoholics and gamblers. That's why I'm the way I am. I can't help it." But that's simply not true! We don't have to make the same mistakes that our parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents made. I'm not saying we can't be traumatized by generational sin and I'm not saying patterns can't develop because of generational sin. What I'm saying is that we don't have to keep perpetuating generational sin. There are characters in my own family tree who committed some extremely shameful acts but the worst thing my relatives and I could do would be to be just like them. Hezekiah has decided he will not perpetuate generational sin. He doesn't want that for himself, for his family, or for any family in Judah. He and the people of Judah know about the God of Israel and they have His laws and commandments available to them. This means they have the necessary tools for breaking the bonds of generational sin and for making a brighter future for themselves and for their children.

In tomorrow's study he will lay out his plans for turning around the spiritual situation in Judah.

The Kings Of Israel And Judah. Day 184, Hezekiah King Of Judah, Part One

For the past several days our focus has been on the fall of the northern kingdom of Israel. Now we switch our attention back to the southern kingdom of Judah to study the reign of Hezekiah, son of Ahaz.

Hezekiah comes to the throne several years before the northern kingdom is conquered by Assyria. King Hoshea of Israel is in the third year of his nine years as king. "In the third year of Hoshea son of Elah king of Israel, Hezekiah son of Ahaz king of Judah began to reign." (2 Kings 18:1) You'll recall that Ahaz was an exceedingly wicked king. He worshiped many pagan deities and even sacrificed some of his children to the abominable Molek, a god of the Canaanites. We might expect the heir of Ahaz to be just as wicked as he was, or even more so, and if that had been the case I think the nation of Judah would have fallen to an enemy soon after the nation of Israel did. But Hezekiah could not be more unlike his father! He will be one of the godliest leaders the southern kingdom ever had.

"He was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem twenty-nine years. His mother's name was Abijah daughter of Zechariah. He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, just as his father David had done." (2 Kings 18:2-3) The author of 2 Kings compares Hezekiah favorably with his forefather David and not with his biological father. Hezekiah is nothing like his biological father and the reasons for him being the complete opposite of his father are not provided to us in the Scriptures. Some scholars believe it was because his father killed some of his siblings and made burnt offerings of them. In studying the chronology provided to us in the Scriptures, it seems certain that Hezekiah was already born when his father committed these unspeakable acts and it seems certain that Hezekiah was old enough to understand and be able to remember what happened. We can calculate approximately when Hezekiah was born to Ahaz because Ahaz was only twenty when he became king and he reigned for sixteen years. The author of 2 Kings states that Hezekiah was twenty-five when he began to reign and that means he was born when Ahaz was only eleven years old! Is this really possible? 

It was not uncommon in many ancient cultures for the reigning king to provide a wife or wives for his heir-apparent even while his son was still quite young, for they considered it of the utmost importance for their successor to begin siring his own line of succession as quickly as possible. There's very clear evidence that the ancient Egyptians did this, for example. The guardians of the young King Tut married him to his half-sister when he ascended to the throne at the age of nine. This doesn't mean that young royal couples were physically able to immediately consummate their marriages. But if a preteen couple (aged eleven or twelve) was physically mature enough it would certainly not be impossible for them to produce a child. 

I can remember how I and many of my school classmates looked when we were around that age. I seemed to grow up overnight and I was regularly mistaken for being sixteen when I was only twelve. Some of the boys in my class were nearly six feet tall by that age and looked old enough to be learning how to drive a car. But other boys and girls in my class still looked like little kids at that age. So, if we assume that Ahaz was like those boys in my class who matured early, and if we assume that his wife Abijah was like the girls who matured early, then the two of them definitely could have conceived a child when they were the age of a seventh-grader. If that's the case then Hezekiah would have been nine years old when his father ascended to the throne and, since the Bible appears to be stating that Ahaz sacrificed some of his children to Molek during his reign as king, Hezekiah would have been well aware of what was happening and I believe he was horrified by it. 

Some scholars, however, propose that Ahaz was around thirteen or fourteen when he fathered Hezekiah. Another practice that was common in ancient royal families was to bring the successor on board as co-regent several years before the outgoing king passed away. This was most likely to happen if the king was elderly (which Ahaz was not) or if the king had a health condition or serious injury that was expected to prevent him from living into his old age. The Bible doesn't tell us what caused the death of Ahaz at the age of only thirty-six but he evidently perished from natural causes since there is no indication he died in battle or of any other type of injury. The authors of 2 Kings and 2 Chronicles simply say that he "rested with his ancestors", which is what is usually said of kings who die in their own beds. It would not be at all unreasonable to conclude that Ahaz might have been ill for the final years of his life and that his son Hezekiah might have been appointed as co-regent. We will see momentarily why a co-regency is important when trying to figure out the ages of Ahaz and Hezekiah. 

You'll recall that King Uzziah, who was stricken with leprosy, had to appoint his son Jotham as his co-regent for the remaining eleven years of his life. If Ahaz appointed Hezekiah as his co-regent several years before he passed away, we can't accurately gauge Ahaz's age at death or accurately gauge his age when he fathered Hezekiah. This is because we don't know whether the Bible means that Ahaz reigned for sixteen years total or whether it means he reigned for sixteen years alone before Hezekiah became his co-regent. In the records of many ancient cultures we find discrepancies in the records of the reigns of kings, with some of the reigns appearing to overlap. Even in the Bible we will find, for example, the books of Kings and Chronicles not being in total agreement about during which reignal year of a king of Israel a king of Judah came to the throne (and vice versa). This can easily be explained by the practice of co-regency, which is believed to be the reason for the discrepancies in the records of the kings of other ancient nations.

The only thing we can really conclude is that Ahaz was married to a wife somewhere between the ages of eleven and fourteen and that he fathered Hezekiah soon after. And of course we already know that Ahaz was a very wicked, idolatrous, and cold-hearted man---so cold-hearted that he had no pity on some of his own children. As we conclude our introduction to the study of King Hezekiah we can come to one other conclusion: Hezekiah wanted to be nothing like his father. I think he was just waiting for the moment when he would be the sole leader of the nation so he could begin the religious reforms we find him beginning in tomorrow's study. Hezekiah's heart is nothing like Ahaz's heart. Hezekiah's heart is compared instead to that of his ancestor David.

The Kings Of Israel And Judah. Day 183, The Resettling Of Samaria, Part Two

King Shalmaneser of Assyria has conquered Samaria, the capital city of Israel. He has taken King Hoshea into custody and has deported all but the poorest citizens to Assyria. But he doesn't leave Samaria deserted; he resettles it with people from various other regions and kingdoms that he's already conquered. We studied the reasons for this in our last study session and we learned that the new settlers were being attacked by lions.

Some of Shalmaneser's advisors, upon hearing this news, told him that the reason for the bold and repeated lion attacks was likely that the "gods of Samaria" weren't pleased with the foreign settlers because the settlers didn't know the requirements of those gods. They suggested to the king that he send someone to instruct the settlers how to perform the proper rites and rituals.

Scholars and historians don't know quite what to make of these lion attacks. Some of them, especially those who are not Jewish or Christian, believe the lion attacks occurred because so many soldiers and citizens as well had been slain in the battle for Samaria. They state that the smell of blood and of buried or unburied bodies drew the lions to the city. Others believe what the author of 2 Kings believed: that the Lord sent the lions among the settlers so Shalmaneser would have to send a priest to instruct them in the laws of the Lord. (2 Kings 17:25) I am going to agree with the author of 2 Kings on this matter because something about the lion attacks must have been unusual---unusual enough for the king to feel he must take action to protect his newly-conquered city. 

If it had simply been a case of the lions being attracted to the scent of blood and decomposition, I believe the Assyrians would have already seen this same thing happening in other cities they've conquered and I believe they'd have taken steps to remove from the city the material that was attracting predators. Something about these lion attacks suggested there was a supernatural purpose behind them and Shalmaneser's advisors shrewdly concluded that the "gods" of Samaria wanted the new settlers to observe their religious rituals.

When we concluded our last study session we talked about how the sending of an Israelite priest back from Assyria to teach the settlers could have been a good thing. It would have been a good thing if the priests of the northern kingdom had still been worshiping the Lord in the right ways. But the religion this priest teaches is the perverted religion introduced to the northern kingdom by Jeroboam I---the one that uses the golden calves as representations of the Lord. Because the priest was teaching them an adulterated version of the truth, no great revival breaks out. These pagan people don't turn from their false gods to the living God; they simply blend their own religions with the religion of the northern kingdom.

"Nevertheless, each national group made its own gods in the several towns where they settled, and set them up in the shrines the people of Samaria had made at the high places. The people from Babylon made Sukkoth Benoth, those from Kuthah made Nergal, and those from Hamath made Ashima; the Avvites made Nibhaz and Tartak, and the Sepharvites burned their children in the fire as sacrifices to Adrammelek and Anammelek, the gods of Sepharvaim. They worshiped the Lord, but they also appointed all sorts of their own people to officiate for them as priests in the shrines at the high places. They worshiped the Lord, but they also served their own gods in accordance with the customs of the nations from which they had been brought." (2 Kings 17:29-33)

Did anyone at all become curious about the God of Israel and convert wholly to Him? On the one hand I think the reason He sent the lions into the city in order to get a priest there may have been so that at least some people who heard about Him would believe that He is the only God, then they could repent of their idolatry and be saved. A small percentage of the settlers in Samaria may have accepted the Lord as their God after they were taught about Him. On the other hand, perhaps He knew that no one would forsake their false gods and give their hearts fully to Him but He wanted to give them the opportunity. If they heard the word of God and did not accept it, they can never claim at His judgment seat that they were never given a chance to believe in the Lord. 

We don't know whether even one person was saved; we only know that they weren't left in the dark about who the God of Israel was. The priest would have had to read the Lord's laws and commandments to them in order to obey King Shalmaneser's orders to let them know what was required of the people who lived in the land formerly under the authority of Israel. But based on the words of the author of 2 Kings, we know that the vast majority of these people didn't accept the God of Israel as their Savior and they didn't renounce the false gods of their former nations. "To this day they persist in their former practices. They neither worship the Lord nor adhere to the decrees and regulations, the laws and commands that the Lord gave the descendants of Jacob, whom He named Israel." (2 Kings 17:34)

What became of the citizens the Assyrians did not deport? They may be among those we will later find in 2 Chronicles 30 coming to Jerusalem to celebrate the feasts appointed by the Lord. If that's the case, the poor who were left by the Assyrians in the land were either already faithful to the Lord or became faithful to Him after their nation fell to the enemy. Those who were left in the land also, in many cases, intermarried with the mixed multitude the Assyrians imported to settle the land, which is the main reason we find so many people of Judah in Jesus' time harboring prejudice toward the "Samaritans". The Samaritans of Jesus' day were mainly a mixture of various cultures and even most of them who claimed the Lord as their only God were mixing some heathen rituals in with their worship of Him. But Jesus considered the souls of the people in Samaria equally valuable with the souls of people anywhere else and He visited them, lodged with them, and preached the gospel to them. In John 4 we find many Samaritans believing in Him and accepting Him as Lord. 

But here in 2 Kings we don't find a revival breaking out in Samaria. Instead most of the people there mix a little bit of the Israelite religion in with their own. They pick and choose bits from the religions of the people inhabiting Samaria with them, creating a "customized worship plan" that suits their fallen human natures instead of giving their hearts to the One who can lift them up out of their fallen and lost condition. These people were taught at least this much by the priest: "When the Lord made a covenant with the Israelites, He commanded them: 'Do not worship any other gods or bow down to them, serve them or sacrifice to them. But the Lord, who brought you up out of Egypt with mighty power and outstretched arm, is the One you must worship. You must always be careful to keep the decrees and regulations, the laws and commands He wrote for you. Do not worship other gods. Rather, worship the Lord your God; it is He who will deliver you from the hand of all your enemies.'" (2 Kings 17:35-39)

Chapter 17 ends on this sad note: "They would not listen, however, and persisted in their former practices. Even while these people were worshiping the Lord, they were serving idols. To this day their children and grandchildren continue to do as their ancestors did." (2 Kings 17:40-41) 

The Kings Of Israel And Judah. Day 182, The Resettling Of Samaria, Part One

We learned earlier in the week that after King Shalmaneser of Assyria conquered the Israelite capital of Samaria, he deported the majority of the city's citizens to Assyria. It was a common practice in ancient times for a conquering nation to deport everyone except the lowest classes from a city or region they defeated in battle. They would leave the poorest and least educated people in the land in order to put them to forced labor.

Shalmaneser now resettles Samaria with people of his choice. This was also a common practice in the ancient world. A conquering king would resettle a newly-conquered region with a mixed group of people from regions the king had already conquered. The intent was that the mixed group of people (from different cultures, religions, and languages) would not become a cohesive group of rebels due to their differences. The hope was that, in time, they would become reconciled to their new circumstances and would eventually assimilate into the ways of the nation that conquered them, which in this case is Assyria. 

"The king of Assyria brought people from Babylon, Kuthah, Avva, Hamath and Sepharvaim and settled them in the towns of Samaria to replace the Israelites. They took over Samaria and lived in its towns. When they first lived there, they did not worship the Lord; so He sent lions among them and they killed some of the people. It was reported to the king of Assyria: 'The people you deported and resettled in the towns of Samaria do not know what the god of that country requires. He has sent lions among them, which are killing them off, because the people do not know what He requires.'" (2 Kings 17:24-26) 

While it's true that due to the Israelites' idolatry the Lord allowed Israel (the name "Samaria" is often used interchangeably with "Israel") to fall to the enemy, He lets the king of Assyria know on no uncertain terms that there is still a God in Israel. And He is a God to be reckoned with! The Lord made a covenant with Abraham regarding the promised land and the Lord has a special fondness for the land. He has a special fondness for His covenant people too and some of the lowest peasants of Israel are still in the promised land and the Lord regards the plight of the lowly. The Lord regards the plight of His covenant people wherever they are in the world, which is why those who were carried away into captivity are not "lost"---not to Him!---even though we often find them referred to as "the lost tribes of Israel". 

Ancient pagan people believed that gods were gods of particular regions. For example, when the Arameans were defeated by the Israelites in a battle in the hill country in 1 Kings 20, the officials of the king of Aram advised him to engage the forces of Israel in the plains next time, for they believed that the "gods" of Israel were gods of the hill country and not of the plains. In this same manner, Shalmaneser's advisors tell him that he'd better do something to appease the gods of Samaria or else his settlements there will be decimated. Shalmaneser sends a priest there to instruct the mixed multitude. "Then the king of Assyria gave this order: 'Have one of the priests you took captive from Samaria go back to live there and teach the people what the god of the land requires.' So one of the priests who had been exiled from Samaria came to live in Bethel and taught them how to worship the Lord." (2 Kings 17:27-28) 

The sending of the priest could have been a good thing except that the priests of the northern kingdom had become corrupt. Shalmaneser didn't know that the religious sites at Bethel and at Dan were in violation of the Lord's commands. Shalmaneser didn't know that the golden calf statues weren't supposed to exist and that no one was supposed to be making offerings and sacrifices to the Lord at these altars. The priest who was sent back to teach at Bethel taught the people about the right God but in the wrong way. This is why no great revival broke out. This is why we do not find the settlers forsaking the gods of their ancestors and turning wholeheartedly to the Lord.

"Nevertheless, each national group made its own gods in the several towns where they settled, and set them up in the shrines the people of Samaria had made at the high places." (2 Kings 17:29) In our next study session, when we conclude our look at Chapter 17, we will find these people blending their pagan practices with the worship of the Lord. They will simply incorporate the things taught to them by the priest into their own religions. We will talk about how this is the background behind the distaste with which the people of Judah (in the New Testament) viewed the people they referred to as "Samaritans".

The Kings Of Israel And Judah. Day 181, The Reason For Defeat And Exile, Part Two

We are on our second day of studying the fall of the northern kingdom of Israel. On Tuesday we talked about the political reason for Assyria's attack on Israel but we learned yesterday that the real reason Assyria's attack was successful was because of all the idolatry in the land. 

The Lord promised the people if they would remain faithful to Him that He would "grant that the enemies who rise up against you will be defeated before you". (Deuteronomy 28:7a) He didn't promise that no enemies would ever trouble the Israelites; He promised that if and when they did, He would defend them from their enemies. But He also said that if the people turned away from Him and began serving other gods He would "cause you to be defeated before your enemies" and that He would "drive you and the king you set over you to a nation unknown to you or your ancestors". (Deuteronomy 28:25a, 36a) This is exactly what we saw happening in the text we studied yesterday. The Lord allowed the Assyrian invasion to be successful and He allowed the king, Hoshea, to be taken into custody by the Assyrians and He allowed the people of the capital city of Samaria to be deported to Assyria. When the Lord warned the Israelites back in Deuteronomy about a "nation unknown" to them and their ancestors, Assyria was not a major world power. But now, at the pinnacle of widespread idolatry in Israel, Assyria is so powerful that it has already defeated Babylon and will go on to militarily subdue other prosperous kingdoms such as Phoenicia and Egypt. 

The author of 2 Kings clearly makes a connection between the people's idolatry and their fall to Assyria. We studied the first portion of this yesterday and will look at the second portion of it today.

"They forsook all the commands of the Lord their God and made for themselves two idols cast in the shape of calves, and an Asherah pole. They bowed down to all the starry hosts, and they worshiped Baal. They sacrificed their sons and daughters in the fire. They practiced divination and sought omens and sold themselves to do evil in the eyes of the Lord, arousing His anger." (2 Kings 17:16-17)

Their first step toward idolatry occurred when the first leader of the northern kingdom, Jeroboam I, feared that the people would turn against him if he allowed them to travel into the southern kingdom of Judah to worship the Lord at the temple in Jerusalem. He set up a golden calf at Dan and a golden calf at Bethel to serve as "representations" of the Lord, in disobedience to the Lord's command not to make any images to represent Him. The people of the northern kingdom were to bring their offerings and sacrifices to the altars at these locations, contrary to the Lord's command not to bow to an image of any kind. 

They were on a slippery slope and kept sliding down it, soon mixing the religious rituals of the ancient Canaanites in with their already-perverted worship of the Lord. Then King Ahab married Jezebel of Sidon and converted to her religion of Baal worship (and the worship of Baal's consort, Asherah), making it the state-sponsored religion of Israel. A later king, Jehu, rid the land of the temple of Baal and the prophets of Baal but he didn't revert back to the proper worship of the Lord. Instead he pointed the people back to the golden calves. Another king, Ahaz, adopted the detestable god Molek along with many other foreign gods and sacrificed a son and several daughters in the fire to this abominable deity. Apparently he was not the only person in the northern kingdom participating in such an unspeakable deed, for in verse 17 above we saw that "they" sacrificed their sons and daughters in the fire, meaning more people than just the king committed this act.

"So the Lord was very angry with Israel and removed them from His presence. Only the tribe of Judah was left, and even Judah did not keep the commands of the Lord their God. They followed the practices Israel had introduced. Therefore the Lord rejected all the people of Israel; He afflicted them and gave them into the hands of plunderers, until He thrust them from His presence." (2 Kings 17:18-20) Here we find a warning of Moses coming true: "You who were as numerous as the stars in the sky will be left but few in number, because you did not obey the Lord your God." (Deuteronomy 28:62)

The southern kingdom of Judah will also fall to an enemy but it won't be until a hundred or so years later. I believe the people of Judah took longer to give in to idolatry because they had the temple and the priests among them, for the priests deserted the northern kingdom in droves when Jeroboam I set up the golden calves and began appointing men not of the tribe of Levi as priests. The people of the northern kingdom began going astray when they adopted their own practices of religion and when they began listening to priests who were not accurately teaching them the laws and commandments of the Lord. 

King David ruled over a united kingdom but in the days of his grandson Rehoboam the kingdom split in two because Rehoboam would not give the people any relief from heavy taxation and from conscription into his labor forces. Indeed, when appealed to for relief, he oppressed them even worse in retaliation. The majority of the people of the ten northern tribes decided to follow Jeroboam by seceding from a united nation, by renouncing God's chosen royal line (the house of David) as the royal line of Israel, and by declaring Jeroboam their king. The Lord makes mention of that here: "When He tore Israel away from the house of David, they made Jeroboam son of Nebat their king. Jeroboam enticed Israel away from following the Lord and caused them to commit a great sin. The Israelites persisted in all the sins of Jeroboam and did not turn away from them until the Lord removed them from His presence, as He had warned through all His servants the prophets. So the people of Israel were taken from their homeland into exile in Assyria, and they are still there." (2 Kings 17:21-23) 

The Lord "tore Israel away" from the house of David because Solomon took many foreign wives and built altars for their pagan gods. Solomon himself even attended religious ceremonies at these locations, so the Lord told him that because he had not been fully faithful to Him, "I will most certainly tear the kingdom away from you and give it to one of your subordinates. Nevertheless, for the sake of David your father, I will not do it during your lifetime. I will tear it out of the hand of your son. Yet I will not tear the whole kingdom from him, but will give him one tribe for the sake of David My servant and for the sake of Jerusalem, which I have chosen." (1 Kings 11:11b-13) We were told in 1 Kings 11 that Jeroboam son of Nebat was one of Solomon's officials. He is the man referred to by the Lord as Solomon's "subordinate". 

We can clearly see that as long as the majority of the people of the nation remained faithful to the Lord, the Lord blessed the nation. But Solomon dabbled in idolatry because he had a fetish for pagan women. Then Rehoboam, whose mother was one of those pagan women, also followed idolatrous religious practices. The Bible tells us that he abandoned the law of the Lord. (2 Chronicles 12:1) So the Lord rent the nation in two and the ten northern tribes retained the name of Israel with Jeroboam I as their king and the two southern tribes, the very large tribe of Judah and the small tribe of Benjamin, became collectively known as the kingdom of Judah with Rehoboam as the king. This fulfills what the Lord said to Solomon, that He would tear the kingdom away from Solomon's son with the exception of "one tribe for the sake of David and for the sake of Jerusalem". The area that became Jerusalem was part of the allotment for the tribe of Benjamin but David (of the tribe of Judah) is the one who conquered the area and took it away from the Jebusites. Because of these things it would be correct to say that Jerusalem belonged to Benjamin and it would also be correct to say it belonged to Judah. 

The first time any idolatrous practices began taking place, the downfall of the nation as a whole actually began. Over the centuries between then and where we are now in our Bible study, the Lord sent many prophets with many warnings to the people, but because He was repeatedly rejected in favor of the false gods of the heathen nations, He eventually allowed the northern kingdom to be conquered by a heathen nation. It will take a while longer before idolatry reaches its zenith in Judah but at that time the Lord will allow Judah to be conquered by a heathen nation as well.

Nothing good ever comes of rejecting the Lord---the only God---who called all things into existence and who loves us and who wants to have a relationship with us. There is no help to be found in any other god, for there is no other god. There is no salvation to be found in anyone but Him.

The Kings Of Israel And Judah. Day 180, The Reason For Defeat And Exile, Part One

In yesterday's study the nation of Assyria invaded the northern kingdom of Israel and laid siege to the capital city of Samaria. The city fell to the enemy after three years. Shalmaneser put King Hoshea of Israel in prison and deported the citizens of Samaria to Halah in Assyria. His forces did the same thing in many other cities and towns of Israel until the nation was virtually decimated. 

The political reason for this is that King Hoshea refused to remain a vassal of King Shalmaneser of Assyria and rebelled against his earlier agreement to be subject to the house of Tiglath-Pileser III (the father of Shalmaneser). When Shalmaneser ascended to the throne, Hoshea tried to forge a military alliance with Egypt so that Israel and Egypt could band together against Assyria. Believing the king of Egypt was going to help him, Hoshea stopped paying tribute to Shalmaneser, but Pharaoh So (likely Osorkon IV) did not come to his aid. Hoshea could not defend Israel without the help of an ally and he lost his bid for independence. 

That was the political reason for the fall of Israel to Assyria. But the remainder of 2 Kings 17 provides us with the spiritual reason. The Lord had promised the people before bringing them into the promised land that if they remained faithful to Him no enemy would be able to stand against them. But He also warned them that if they did not remain faithful they would be conquered by their enemies. I want to take a moment for us to remind ourselves that we are all sinners and that it's not simply because the people of the northern kingdom were sinners that the Lord allowed them to be conquered. It's because they committed a particular type of sin: they forsook the Lord---the one and only God, the God who rescued them from slavery, the God who performed many miracles among them, the God who drove out the heathen tribes of Canaan and planted them in their place and made them into a great nation. No other god has ever done anything for them. No other god ever can because no other god exists. 

The only example I can think of to compare this situation to would be if I, for example, decided that I was going to renounce the Lord Jesus Christ who saved my soul in order to bow down to false gods. Another example would be if, like those of the northern kingdom who mixed pagan worship rituals with their worship of the Lord, I still believed in and prayed to the Lord but I also believed in and prayed to other gods along with Him. No god has ever done anything for me except the Lord and to repudiate Him in favor of some other deity would be the worst type of sin. I would be harming not only my own life and the eternal destiny of my own soul but I might also influence others to do the same. The Lord would be within His rights if He put an end to my life for doing such a thing. 

"All this took place because the Israelites had sinned against the Lord their God, who had brought them up out of Egypt from under the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt. They worshiped other gods and followed the practices of the nations the Lord had driven out before them, as well as the practices that the kings of Israel had introduced. The Israelites secretly did things against the Lord their God that were not right. From watchtower to fortified city they built themselves high places in all their towns. They set up sacred stones and Asherah poles on every high hill and under every spreading tree. At every high place they burned incense, as the nations whom the Lord had driven out before them had done." (2 Kings 17:7-11a) There were secret sins of idolatry and there were public sins of idolatry. The Lord saw them all because nothing is hidden from Him. When we arrive at the books of the prophets we will see the charges the Lord brought against the people and we will get a better idea of just how long the Lord pleaded with them to repent and just how many opportunities He gave them to do so. The Lord did not want the nation to fall to the enemy but this was the penalty He warned them about in Deuteronomy 28:36a: "The Lord will drive you and the king you set over you to a nation unknown to you or your ancestors." 

This has come to pass because, "They did wicked things that aroused the Lord's anger. They worshiped idols, although the Lord had said, 'You shall not do this.' The Lord warned Israel and Judah through all His prophets and seers: 'Turn from your evil ways. Observe My commands and decrees, in accordance with the entire law that I commanded your ancestors to obey and that I delivered to you through My servants the prophets.' But they would not listen and were as stiff-necked as their ancestors, who did not trust the Lord their God. They rejected His decrees and the covenant He had made with their ancestors and the statutes He had warned them to keep. They followed worthless idols and themselves became worthless. They imitated the nations around them although the Lord had ordered them, 'Do not do as they do.'" (2 Kings 17:14-15)

The Lord had made it clear to them that He was uprooting the tribes of Canaan and planting them in their place because of the idolatry of the people of Canaan. He warned them that if they fell into idolatry He would uproot them too. Yet they fell into the same practices as the heathen tribes who had previously inhabited the land. Did they not believe the Lord would do as He said? Did they think the Lord would not judge them in the same way? Did they think that their relationship to Abraham, to whom the Lord made great promises and with whom the Lord made a covenant, would exempt them from judgment? I cannot say for certain what their reasoning was. I do know that all of us are capable of deceiving ourselves when we begin compromising our godly values. When we begin deliberately dabbling in sin, we begin rationalizing our reasons for doing so. We start making excuses for ourselves. We might even convince ourselves that we are hiding things from the Lord or that He understands why we are sinning and that He won't take any disciplinary action against us. We might delude ourselves into thinking that because we have enjoyed His blessings in the past, He will keep on blessing us. But He is not obligated to bless sin. If we do not continue living by godly principles, He has the right to remove blessings from our lives in an effort to encourage us to repent. He has the right to discipline us as a method of convincing us we need to repent. If we continue obstinately in sin, negatively affecting our lives and our souls and negatively affecting those around us, He has the right to take any action necessary as judgment for our refusal to listen to Him and to turn from our wicked ways. 

As we continue to move through Chapter 17 for the next couple of days we will look at the sins of the northern kingdom in more detail and will study the fall of the kingdom in more detail.

The Kings Of Israel And Judah. Day 179, Hoshea King Of Israel

For several days now we've been studying the reign of Ahaz, one of the kings of Judah. The narrative now switches back to the northern kingdom of Israel. Pekah was king of Israel when Ahaz first ascended to the throne. But Pekah was assassinated by a man named Hoshea son of Elah after Ahaz had been ruling in Judah for twelve years.

"In the twelfth year of Ahaz king of Judah, Hoshea son of Elah became king of Israel in Samaria, and he reigned nine years." (2 Kings 17:1) We first heard of this man in 2 Kings 15 when he conspired against Pekah to assassinate him. Although Hoshea is a wicked man, he's not as wicked as some of the kings have been. "He did evil in the eyes of the Lord, but not like the kings of Israel who preceded him." (2 Kings 17:2)

Considering that Hoshea was the final king of Israel before the nation fell to Assyria, it's surprising that not a great deal is told to us about him in the Scriptures. We know that he "did evil in the eyes of the Lord" and that may be a reference to his assassination of King Pekah. It may also be that he followed the religion of Jeroboam I by making offerings and sacrifices to the golden calves (that were being used as "representations" of the Lord). However, the Bible says that his wickedness was "not like the kings of Israel who preceded him", and I don't know precisely what to make of that. Certainly he was not as wicked as King Menahem who slaughtered many of his own people in 2 Kings 15. He was also not as wicked as the kings of the Ahab Dynasty who forsook the Lord entirely and gave their hearts to Baal. 

According to the surviving records of ancient Assyria, Hoshea was a captain in King Pekah's army. Hoshea conspired with the Assyrian king, Tiglath-Pileser III, to assassinate Pekah. In return for Hoshea's service, Tiglath-Pileser wrote in the annals of the Assyrian kings: "I placed Hoshea as king over them." This means that Hoshea was only a vassal king over Israel. He served at Tiglath-Pileser's pleasure and he did so faithfully until Tiglath-Pileser's son, Shalmaneser V, ascended to the throne upon his father's death. Shalmaneser V became not only king of Assyria but also inherited the title of King Of Babylon like his father before him.

After Shalmaneser's ascension to the throne, Hoshea felt it did not behoove him to remain a subject of the Assyrians. He attempted to secure an alliance with the king of Egypt in an effort to regain independence. At that time he stopped paying the required tribute to Assyria, which was correctly interpreted as rebellion against Assyrian sovereignty, and Shalmaneser acted quickly to quell the rebellion. "Shalmaneser king of Assyria came up to attack Hoshea, who had been Shalmaneser's vassal and had paid him tribute. But the king of Assyria discovered that Hoshea was a traitor, for he had sent envoys to So king of Egypt, and he no longer paid tribute to the king of Assyria, as he had done year by year. Therefore Shalmaneser seized him and put him in prison." (2 Kings 17:3-4) 

Scholars and historians suggest that Hoshea felt his negotiations with the king of Egypt were going so well that he could go ahead and stop paying tribute to Assyria. They believe he felt so confident of help from Egypt that he thought his bid for independence would prove successful. But King So (largely believed to be Osorkon IV) did not come to his aid for reasons that are unknown. Perhaps So believed if Egypt maintained neutrality then Egypt would not be attacked by Assyria. If that was his reasoning, it proved to be a false belief because Assyria invaded and conquered Egypt, though not during the reign of King So. Some scholars posit that So was unable to muster a powerful enough army to help Hoshea successfully repel the forces of Shalmaneser V and that this is why he appears to have considered a military alliance with Hoshea but then backed out. It would have been to Egypt's advantage if Assyria could have been defeated at this time but for whatever reason there was no attempt made to do so.

Hoshea could not defend Israel from Assyria on his own. It is thought that after he was arrested he likely vowed his allegiance to Shalmaneser and promised to get caught up on the tribute owed to him and to continue paying it from there on out. But it was too late to appease Shalmaneser. He was no longer interested in being paid tribute by a vassal king over Israel. He wanted to seize the entire nation instead. "The king of Assyria invaded the entire land, marched against Samaria and laid siege to it for three years. In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria and deported the Israelites to Assyria. He settled them in Halah, in Gozan on the Habor River and in the towns of the Medes." (2 Kings 17:5) 

We will be learning more about the fall of the northern kingdom as we continue moving through our study of the kings and later when we arrive at the books of the prophets. But in all these books the Bible makes it perfectly clear that the fall of the nation was due to the people's abandonment of the Lord. Before the Lord brought them into the promised land He stated that no kingdom would be able to conquer them if they remained faithful to Him. And He warned them that they would not be able to stand against their enemies if they turned away from Him. I believe this principle holds true for any individual and for any nation who has been faithful to the Lord and then falls away from Him: there is no guarantee they can continue to stand for much longer. If they are not on the Lord's side, the Lord is not on their side.

The Kings Of Israel And Judah. Day 178, Ahaz King Of Judah, Part Six

In yesterday's study session we found King Ahaz in the wrong place: in Damascus where he was meeting with a foreign king to help him in his struggle against the Arameans. We studied a passage from Isaiah in which the Lord invited Ahaz to place all his trust in Him but as usual Ahaz declined a relationship with the Lord, preferring instead to give his allegiance to pagan gods who do not ask him to live in a godly and moral manner. 

So Ahaz went to meet King Tiglath-Pileser of Assyria who had overcome the Aramean city of Damascus in battle. While Ahaz was there he saw a pagan altar that struck his fancy. He sent a letter to Uriah the priest in Judah instructing him to build an altar just like the one in Damascus. Ahaz thinks if he serves the Aramean gods---better than the Arameans are serving them---their gods will help him instead of the Arameans. It's not terribly surprising that a man like Ahaz, who has fallen so far into idolatry that he sacrificed some of his children to the Canaanite god called Molek, would adopt yet another heathen religion. What is surprising is that the priest would go along with this. 

Was it a life or death choice for Uriah? If so, would the Lord not have given him the grace and strength to stand firm even in the face of a threat of death? The Lord gave the apostles enough grace and strength in the New Testament to stand firm in the face of death. It could be that Uriah gave in to fear and submitted to King Ahaz instead of to the Lord. But a worse possibility is that Uriah himself has fallen into idolatry. The prophet Isaiah will refer to him as one of the "reliable witnesses" he calls for when he needs to sign a legal document. (Isaiah 8:2) Some scholars take this to mean that at one time Uriah was doing the right things but later fell into sin and idolatry. Another theory is that Uriah was reliable in that he would not lie about witnessing Isaiah's signing of the document. I know people who are unbelievers in the Lord but who would not dream of giving false testimony, don't you? A person can live by a strict moral code without belonging to the Lord and it could be that Uriah is that type of person. He wouldn't dream of committing perjury in court but he doesn't balk at constructing a pagan altar in Judah.

"So Uriah the priest built an altar in accordance with all the plans that King Ahaz had sent from Damascus and finished it before King Ahaz returned. When the king came back from Damascus and saw the altar, he approached it and presented offerings on it. He offered up his burnt offering and grain offering, poured out his drink offering, and splashed the blood of his fellowship offerings against the altar. As for the bronze altar that stood before the Lord, he brought it from the front of the temple---from between the new altar and the temple of the Lord---and put it on the north side of the new altar." (2 Kings 16:11-14) These are offerings that should have been made to the Lord but Ahaz makes them to a false God. He orders his own personal offerings to be made there and he orders the offerings made on behalf of all the people to be made there as well. 

"King Ahaz then gave these orders to Uriah the priest: 'On the large new altar, offer the morning burnt offering and the evening grain offering, the king's burnt offering and his grain offering, and the burnt offering of all the people of the land, and their grain offering and their drink offering. Splash against this altar the blood of all the burnt offerings and sacrifices. But I will use the bronze altar for seeking guidance.'" (2 Kings 16:15) The offerings mentioned here are only effective if made to the Lord, for no one else can forgive sins and save souls. Ahaz is wasting his time making such offerings to gods who don't exist. He retains the bronze altar of the Lord for "seeking guidance", he says, as if he ever really seeks the Lord's guidance in anything. He likely retains this altar to make a show of consulting the Lord in order to appease the people and any of the priests who are not idolaters like him. 

He now removes some items to appease Tiglath-Pileser, and whether this is with the intention of sending these items to him (he previously paid Tiglath-Pileser with valuable objects from the temple and from the royal treasury) or whether it's because Tiglath-Pileser is offended by certain items is not known. "King Ahaz cut off the side panels and removed the basins from the movable stands. He removed the Sea from the bronze bulls that supported it and set it on a stone base. He took away the Sabbath canopy that had been built at the temple and removed the royal entryway outside the temple of the Lord, in deference to the king of Assyria." (2 Kings 16:17-18)

"As for the other events of the reign of Ahaz, and what he did, are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Judah? Ahaz rested with his ancestors and was buried with them in the City of David. And Hezekiah his son succeeded him as king." (2 Kings 16:19-20) We no longer have the book mentioned in verse 19 but everything we've been told about Ahaz is bad and I can't imagine the book of the annals containing anything good about him. He was wicked in all of his ways, as far as we can tell, but thankfully his son Hezekiah will not be. Hezekiah will begin religious reforms in Judah when he comes to the throne.

The Kings Of Israel And Judah. Day 177, Ahaz King Of Judah, Part Five

In our last study session we found King Ahaz of Judah going to Damascus to meet with King Tiglath-Pileser of Assyria. Judah was being attacked by the Arameans and Ahaz had called upon the king of Assyria for help, paying him with silver and gold taken from the temple and from his own royal treasury. Tiglath-Pileser attacked Damascus, the capital city of Aram, and killed the king of Aram and deported the citizens to Kir. The exact location of Kir is debated among scholars but it must have been a territory under Assyrian control during the time period we are studying. The meaning of the word "Kir" is "walled place" so it may have been a heavily fortified city where the Assyrians held prisoners or where they maintained a colony of forced laborers. 

Ahaz did not need to turn to the pagan Assyrians for help. In the book of Isaiah we find the Lord urging Ahaz, through the prophet Isaiah, to trust Him to protect Judah. The Lord sends Isaiah out to meet Ahaz to tell him not to be afraid of King Rezin of Aram and King Pekah (son of the late King Remaliah) of Israel, who have joined forces to attack Judah. The Lord's message to Ahaz is, in part: "Be careful, keep calm and don't be afraid. Do not lose heart because of these two smoldering stubs of firewood---because of the fierce anger of Rezin and Aram and of the son of Remaliah. Aram, Ephraim and Remaliah's son have plotted your ruin, saying, 'Let us invade Judah; let us tear it apart and divide it among ourselves, and make the son of Tabeel king over it.' Yet this is what the Sovereign Lord says: 'It will not take place, it will not happen.'" (Isaiah 7:4-7)

The Lord tells Ahaz not to panic. He is not to rush out and call for the Assyrians to help him. The disaster threatened by Aram and Israel (referred to in Isaiah 7 as "Ephraim") will not come to pass. The Lord knows the human tendency to make poor decisions while in a panic, which is why He says to Ahaz, "Be careful, keep calm and don't be afraid." I've made poor choices when in deep mental distress. Have you ever done that? Instead of calming myself and taking the time to logically consider all my options, I've made hasty choices in my panic that weren't the best choices. The Lord is being merciful to Ahaz, considering how wicked he's been, and not only tries to calm him down but in Isaiah 7 He even offers him a sign as proof that the Arameans and Israelites will not conquer Judah. But, when we get to the book of Isaiah, we will find Ahaz refusing to ask for a sign or to trust the Lord. Instead he attempts to ally himself with Assyria by purchasing the services of Tiglath-Pileser's army and by promising to become the servant (a vassal king) of Assyria. This only serves to draw Ahaz further away from the Lord and further into idolatry.

"Then King Ahaz went to Damascus to meet Tiglath-Pileser king of Assyria. He saw an altar in Damascus and sent to Uriah the priest a sketch of the altar, with detailed plans for its construction. So Uriah the priest built an altar in accordance with all the plans that King Ahaz had sent from Damascus and finished it before King Ahaz returned." (2 Kings 16:10-11) The author of 2 Chronicles says that the reason Ahaz wanted to copy an altar of the Arameans is because the Arameans had previously defeated his forces in battle. "He thought, 'Since the gods of the kings of Aram have helped them, I will sacrifice to them so they will help me.'" (2 Chronicles 28:23b) While it's true that the Arameans did some damage to King Ahaz, they have not been able to conquer his nation by the help of their "gods". Also the king of the Arameans has been killed by the king of Assyria; the false gods of Aram didn't protect King Rezin from King Tiglath-Pilezer. So why does Ahaz think these pagan deities will be any help to him?

Perhaps he believes King Rezin angered the Aramean gods somehow and that in retaliation those gods didn't protect Rezin from the Assyrians. Perhaps Ahaz thinks he can do a better job serving the gods of the Arameans and that these gods, in combination with the other false gods he already serves and with the help of the Assyrians, will keep him safe from King Pekah of Israel. Or it could be that he intends to get himself out of the vow of servitude he's made to the king of Assyria. Perhaps he thinks that serving the gods of Aram in addition to serving the gods of other nations will give him enough power to refuse to remain a subject of Assyria. 

I can't really say for certain what his reasoning is and it might not be the type of reasoning that would make any sense to us if it was explained to us. Idolatry itself is unreasonable. Hating the Lord and repudiating Him is unreasonable. Because Ahaz did not want to serve the Lord, he has allowed himself to be deceived by Satan, and we cannot really expect anything he does to be logical now that he has given himself over to dark spiritual forces. Satan's goal is to lead the king and the people of the nation into idolatry and to bring about their destruction. The penalty for widescale national idolatry is destruction as a nation. The Lord warned the people before He took them into the promised land that if they fell into the religious practices of the other nations, He would put an end to them as a nation. Their fate would be the same as the fate of the idolatrous tribes of Canaan who inhabited the promised land before them. Satan wants Judah to be utterly destroyed. Satan wants the line of David to be completely cut off. If this happens, the Promised One of the line of David cannot come into the world. If this happens, the human race is doomed. 

But the Lord never breaks a promise. When we conclude our study of King Ahaz tomorrow, we will learn that his sins of idolatry persuaded many of the citizens of Judah to follow him into idolatry. But there will always be a faithful remnant in the land and the Lord will not cut off the line of royal succession from the house of David. The Promised One will indeed come. That time is still far off from where we are studying in the Old Testament but we see Him with eyes of faith and so do those who continue to steadfastly serve the Lord. To quote an Old Testament prophet from Numbers 24:17: "I see Him, but not now; I behold Him, but not near." If only Ahaz had believed the promise of the Lord he would have known the Lord was not going to utterly destroy Judah and the royal line of succession! If only Ahaz had looked toward the future with eyes of faith he would not have fallen for the lies of Satan and bowed on his knees to false gods who cannot help him!

The Kings Of Israel And Judah. Day 176, Ahaz King Of Judah, Part Four

King Pekah of Israel and King Rezin of Aram attacked the nation of Judah, with both armies taking some of the people of Judah captive and with the Arameans taking some of the territory that had been conquered by Judah. In yesterday's study we found a prophet of the Lord warning the army of Israel that they must send the captives home or else face the Lord's wrath; the soldiers wisely released the people.

King Ahaz of Judah does not respond to the Lord's correction appropriately. He doesn't repent of his idolatry or of his sins of murder and turn to the Lord. He also does not respond to the Lord's mercy appropriately. The Lord caused the northern kingdom of Israel to send the 200,000 people of Judah back home but Ahaz doesn't thank the Lord and repent of his sins. More trouble comes the king's way due to his stubborn rejection of the Lord but still he seeks help from other sources.

"At that time King Ahaz sent to the kings of Assyria for help. The Edomites had again come and attacked Judah and carried away prisoners, while the Philistines had raided towns in the foothills and in the Negev of Judah. They captured and occupied Beth Shemesh, Aijalon and Gederoth, as well as Suko, Timnah and Gizmo, with their surrounding villages. The Lord had humbled Judah because of Ahaz king of Israel, for he had promoted wickedness in Judah and had been most unfaithful to the Lord." (2 Chronicles 28:16-19) We previously learned that Ahaz participated in the rituals of several pagan religions, including the most abominable practice of all: child sacrifice. He has promoted his false religions and has encouraged others to practice these rituals along with him. We don't know how many citizens of Judah have fallen into the same sins as the king but even those who have not sinned in the manner of Ahaz are suffering from the repeated invasions by enemy armies.

Sin never hurts just the person who commits it. Sin affects those around the person too. I've suffered because of other people's mistakes before, haven't you? Suffering for my own sins isn't pleasant but at least there's a sense of justice in that. But when hardship comes into my life because of something somebody else did, it's much more difficult to accept. In our passage today we find Ahaz and his fellow idolaters suffering because of their own sins and we also find hardships befalling those who haven't engaged in idolatry. 

Ahaz sends a message to the king of Assyria asking for his help against those who are attacking Judah. "Ahaz sent messengers to say to Tiglath-Pileser king of Assyria, 'I am your servant and vassal. Come up and save me out of the hand of the king of Aram and of the king of Israel, who are attacking me.' And Ahaz took the silver and gold found in the temple of the Lord and in the treasuries of the royal palace and sent it as a gift to the king of Assyria. The king of Assyria complied by attacking Damascus and capturing it. He deported its inhabitants to Kir and put Rezin to death." (2 Kings 16:7-9) 

The author of 2 Chronicles states that Tiglath-Pileser was no help to Ahaz. This doesn't mean that there is a contradiction between what that author says and what the author of 2 Kings says. Tiglath-Pileser did indeed take action against King Rezin of Aram but he did so only because Ahaz impoverished his household and the house of God to pay him to do it. The only thing Ahaz accomplished was trading one master for another; instead of potentially becoming subject to the Arameans he is now subject to the Assyrians. Judah will have to pay tribute to Assyria, sending the nation further into economic hardship. In addition, Tiglath-Pileser is no friend to anyone. He does whatever is most advantageous to himself and to his country. If another king offers him more than Ahaz, he has no problem turning against Ahaz and going with whoever is the highest bidder.

In our next study session we will find Ahaz going up to Damascus to meet with Tiglath-Pileser after the Assyrian king killed Rezin of Aram. There Ahaz will see a pagan altar that strikes his fancy. He will commission a replica of it to be made in Judah.

The Kings Of Israel And Judah. Day 175, Ahaz King Of Judah, Part Three

Yesterday we learned that the King Pekah of Israel and King Rezin of Aram teamed up to attack the nation of Judah. We read in yesterday's text that the Arameans defeated King Ahaz of Judah in at least one battle and took many of the people of Judah back with them to Damascus as captives. Today we see that the Israelites also defeated him in a battle and took many people back to their capital city as captives. "The Arameans defeated him and took many of his people as prisoners and brought them to Damascus. He was also given into the hands of the king of Israel, who inflicted many casualties on him. In one day Pekah son of Remaliah killed a hundred and twenty thousand soldiers in Judah---because Judah had forsaken the Lord, the God of their ancestors." (2 Chronicles 28:5b-6)

We had already been told about Ahaz's idolatry. Here we learn that a number of the people have fallen into idolatry as well. Invasion and defeat by their enemies is a direct result of their forsaking of the Lord. The plan of King Pekah and King Rezin is to tear Judah apart and divide it between them and to appoint a puppet king (a man they refer to as "the son of Tabeel") over Judah. (Isaiah 7:6) It is assumed by many scholars that this son of Tabeel is an Aramean but we know nothing about him because the plan doesn't come to fruition. The Lord does not allow the Davidic Dynasty to be cut off; He made a promise to David that He will never break. In Isaiah 7 we will find the Lord saying to Ahaz through the prophet Isaiah that Aram and Israel will not be successful in taking over the kingdom of Judah. We will find the Lord urging Ahaz to place all his trust in Him, but Ahaz will not do it. Instead Ahaz will turn to the Assyrians for help and will be disappointed by them. 

Pekah and Rezin are not able to make the nation of Judah fall and they are not able to dethrone Ahaz but they do a great deal of damage. A man of the northern kingdom of Israel even manages to kill a son of the king. "Zikri, an Ephraimite warrior, killed Maaseiah the king's son, Azrikam the officer in charge of the palace, and Elkanah, second to the king. The men of Israel took captive from their fellow Israelites who were from Judah two hundred thousand wives, sons and daughters. They also took a great deal of plunder, which they carried back to Samaria." (2 Chronicles 28:7-8) 

We know that Ahaz sacrificed at least one son and perhaps several daughters to the Canaanite deity Molek. We don't know whether the son he sacrificed was his firstborn but the son named Maaseiah was likely the crown prince. This could mean that Maaseiah was the firstborn but it could also mean that he's the oldest surviving son. But Zikri kills him along with the two top men of Ahaz's administration. A different son, Hezekiah, will succeed Ahaz as king and Hezekiah will be one of the best kings Judah ever had. Perhaps Maaseiah was as evil as his father and the Lord allowed him to be killed in the war between Judah and Israel to spare Judah from being ruled by another idolatrous king right after Ahaz.

When the soldiers of Israel arrive at the capital city with the prisoners from Judah, a prophet goes out to meet them with a warning. "But a prophet of the Lord named Oded was there, and he went out to meet the army when it returned to Samaria. He said to them, 'Because the Lord, the God of your ancestors, was angry with Judah, He gave them into your hand. But you have slaughtered them in a rage that reaches to heaven. And now you intend to make the men and women of Judah and Jerusalem your slaves. But aren't you also guilty of sins against the Lord your God? Now listen to me! Send back your fellow Israelites you have taken as prisoners, for the Lord's fierce anger rests on you.'" (2 Chronicles 28:9-11) 

The Lord allowed the kingdom of Judah to be invaded by enemies as a method of correction for idolatry. But this didn't mean the soldiers of the northern kingdom had the right to do anything they pleased. They were merely an instrument of discipline in the Lord's hand but they themselves are not safe from His wrath, for they adhere to the golden calf religion put in place by Jeroboam I. The golden calf religion was intended to represent the Lord (although such representations were forbidden by Him) and in the very strictest sense of the word they are not precisely idolaters---at least not on the level of Ahaz and those who have followed him into the worship of false deities---but they have no right to look down on the people of Judah. They have no right to slaughter them unmercifully far beyond what took place in battle. They have no right to take over 200,000 captives from Judah with the intent to sell them as slaves. The people of Judah are the kinsmen of the people of the northern kingdom and in Leviticus 25 the Lord expressly forbade anyone of any tribe of Israel to make a slave out of anyone from any tribe of Israel.

The prophet Oded is saying something to the army of Israel that is similar to what the Apostle Paul said to the Christian church: "So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don't fall!" (1 Corinthians 10:12) They have no business thinking they are any better than the people of Judah and should not boast against the kingdom of Judah. The Lord is just as capable of humbling the northern kingdom as He was in humbling the southern kingdom.

To their credit, the top officials of Israel take the prophet's words to heart. "Then some of the leaders in Ephraim---Azariah son of Jehohanan, Berekiah son of Meshillemoth, Jehizkiah son of Shallum, and Amasa son of Hadlai---confronted those who were arriving from the war. 'You must not bring those prisoners here,' they said, 'or we will be guilty before the Lord. Do you intend to add to our sin and guilt? For our guilt is already great, and His fierce anger rests on Israel.'" (2 Chronicles 28:12-13) 

The soldiers stood to gain a lot of money by selling these captives as slaves but when confronted by the leaders they release the captives. They likely could have held onto them by force but I think that they took the words of the leaders to heart, just as the leaders took the words of Oded to heart. They still fear the Lord, though they are not worshiping Him in the right ways or in the right place, and they do not want His wrath falling upon them. They acknowledge that they did wrong in taking the captives and they set them free, along with the plunder they took from them. "So the soldiers gave up the prisoners and plunder in the presence of the officials and all the assembly. The men designated by name took the prisoners, and from the plunder they clothed all who were naked. They provided them with clothes and sandals, food and drink, and healing balm. All those who were weak they put on donkeys. So they took them back to their fellow Israelites at Jericho, the City of Palms, and returned to Samaria." (2 Chronicles 28:14-15)

Ahaz didn't respond correctly to the Lord's discipline and he won't respond correctly to the Lord's mercy either. It won't soften his heart that the Lord allowed him to retain his throne and his nation. It won't soften his heart that the Lord sent the captives back to Judah. Rather than turning to the Lord, Ahaz will turn to Assyria and to even more false gods. 

The Kings Of Israel And Judah. Day 174, Ahaz King Of Judah, Part Two

Today we are continuing on with our study of one of the most wicked kings in history. Ahaz is the son and and the grandson of two kings who were godly men and who did good things for the nation. But he is an idolater. He is willing to serve anyone and anything other than the one true God, probably because the false gods of the pagan nations around him don't require holy, moral living. He is not interested in holy, moral living. As we learned yesterday, he has sunk so low into utter depravity that he sacrificed some of his children to a god of the Canaanites. 

Thinking about the unspeakable sins of Ahaz serves as a sharp reminder to me that we are studying actual historical figures in the Bible. I mean, we already know that, but we are so far removed from them in time that it can be easy to think of them only in spiritual terms---to concentrate mainly on whether or not they loved and served the Lord. But they were historical figures too and this man Ahaz actually took the lives of his children and made burnt sacrifices out of them! He struck them down in their youth, preventing them from growing up, preventing them from marrying and having children and grandchildren of their own, preventing them from perhaps doing good things for the nation of Judah. It's unfathomable that a person could have no pity whatsoever for their offspring. But in this fallen world there have been (and still are) people who have little to no regard for their children. 

The only comfort I can draw from studying the wicked life of King Ahaz is that his children went immediately into the presence of the Lord when they passed out of this world and that they did not have to grow up under his cruelty and under his idolatrous teachings. It could be that if they'd remained on the earth they would have been just like him as adults. This doesn't excuse what he did and it doesn't mean it was the Lord's will for him to commit murder. It just means that at least one good thing came out of something horrifying: those children have been with the Lord for thousands of years now instead of growing up to be as evil and cruel as their father, which they might have done if he'd had more time to be a bad influence on them. 

Because Ahaz is such an evil man, the Lord will not bless his reign with peace and prosperity. "Therefore the Lord his God delivered him into the hands of the king of Aram. The Arameans defeated him and took many of his people as prisoners and brought them to Damascus. He was also given into the hands of the king of Israel, who inflicted heavy casualties on him." (2 Chronicles 28:5) The king of Israel and the king of Aram allied themselves against Ahaz and marched out against the nation of Judah. "Then Rezin king of Aram and Pekah son of Remaliah king of Israel marched up to fight against Jerusalem and beseiged Ahaz, but they could not overpower him. At that time, Rezin king of Aram recovered Elath for Aram by driving out the people of Judah. Edomites then moved into Elath and have lived there to this day." (2 Kings 16:5-6) King Rezin and King Pekah were not able to cause the fall of Jerusalem; Ahaz and his forces were strong enough to defend the city. But his enemies were able to wreak havoc in other parts of his kingdom, even taking back the city of Elath where the Edomites (who have been in rebellion against Judah for some time now) moved in and occupied it. 

In tomorrow's study we will find King Ahaz turning to Assyria for help. But the king of Assyria will not be a true friend to him. Nothing will go right for Ahaz because he persists in his sins. In fact, the author of 2 Chronicles will inform us that, "In his time of trouble King Ahaz became even more unfaithful to the Lord." What a sad thing that is to read! Ahaz could have responded to his troubles (his correction) appropriately and his soul could have been saved and his nation could have successfully repelled all enemies. But we will find him continuing to move farther and farther away from the Lord.

The Kings Of Israel And Judah. Day 173, Ahaz King Of Judah, Part One

Today we begin our study of one of the worst---or we could say the worst---king of Judah. This is Ahaz son of Jotham. 

King Jotham and his father, King Uzziah, had remained faithful to the Lord. Neither of them ever worshiped any other god. But Jotham's son Ahaz only wants to serve pagan gods. His idolatry leads to him participating in the most detestable heathen religious ritual of all.

Ahaz comes to the throne of Judah while Pekah is still king of Israel. "In the seventeenth year of Pekah son of Remaliah, Ahaz son of Jotham king of Judah began to reign. Ahaz was twenty years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem sixteen years. Unlike David his father, he did not do what was right in the eyes of the Lord his God." (2 Kings 16:1-2, 2 Chronicles 28:1) It is said of some of the kings of Judah that they did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, remaining faithful to Him just as their forefather David was. But Ahaz is not one of those kings.

We don't know why he goes astray from the example set for him by his father and grandfather. Unlike with many of the other kings, we are not told the name of Ahaz's mother, and it could be that she was a foreign woman who followed heathen religious practices. If that's the case, she could have influenced her son into idolatry. Then again, would a man like King Jotham take as his wife a heathen woman?

Ahaz's wickedness could simply be a case that proves a statement made by David: "Even from birth the wicked go astray; from the womb they are wayward, spreading lies." (Psalm 58:3) David had observed a fact that we have all probably observed at one time or another---that some people from a very young age appear to harbor animosity toward the Lord and toward the laws of both God and man. They want to be a law unto themselves. Ahaz has probably been wicked for a long time if he is as depraved as we find him being after he attains the throne at age twenty. He wants to be a law unto himself and he refuses to acknowledge the Lord's sovereignty over his life. Instead he bows to false deities and commits the most unimaginable type of atrocity.

"He followed the ways of the kings of Israel and also made idols for worshipping the Baals. He burned sacrifices in the Valley of Ben Hinnom and sacrificed his children in the fire, engaging in the detestable practices of the nations the Lord had driven out before the Israelites. He offered sacrifices and burned incense at the high places, on the hilltops and under every spreading tree." (2 Chronicles 28:2-4) It's not enough for him to cling to an adulterated form of worship such as is going on in the northern kingdom of Israel at this time: the religious system of worshiping images at the altars placed at Dan and Bethel. He's not even satisfied by allowing himself to be seduced into Baal worship like the Ahab Dynasty of Israel. He adopts the most detestable practice of all: that of sacrificing his children to the abominable Canaanite deity known as Molek. (Some translations of the Bible and various other historical texts render the spelling of this deity's name as Molech or Moloch.) 

In Leviticus 20 the Lord clearly stated, a number of times, that this is a death penalty offense. Any person who does what King Ahaz does is to be stoned to death by the members of his community. In addition to the perpetrator being guilty of a death penalty crime, anyone who was aware that this crime had been committed and did not turn the person in for his crime would fall under the judgment of the Lord. He said such persons would be "cut off" from their people. Whether this means excommunication from the house of the Lord and a life of exile outside of the nation or whether this means the Lord will cut their lives short to remove them from this earth, we do not know, but the Lord stated in no uncertain terms that anyone who conspired with such a person or hid the crime of such a person would be dealt with by Him. 

Ahaz is the king of Judah. He bears more legal responsibility for following and enforcing the laws of the Lord than anyone else in the nation, yet he is the greatest transgressor. The members of his household and his community do not carry out the penalty they are required by law to carry out against him. Ahab's family and his top officials may have turned a blind eye to his sins because they agree with him politically---because he is the man they want on the throne. Or they may also have given themselves over to idolatry and may have believed Molek would give them and their nation success if the king sacrificed his children. Certainly, if those closest to King Ahaz protected him from justice, there was nothing the average citizens could do to him. Many members of the community may have wanted to see him die for his unspeakable deeds but attempting to take action against him would have resulted in his bodyguards striking them down. 

The author of 2 Chronicles says Ahaz sacrificed "his children" to Molek but the author of 2 Kings only says that he sacrificed "his son". It could be that he sacrificed one son along with one or more daughters. In the ancient pagan nations who performed child sacrifice, it was fairly common for a man to sacrifice his firstborn son to a false god. After all, what greater gift could a man offer than his firstborn son and heir? But they also offered sons other than their firstborns and they offered daughters as well. So it could be that the author of 2 Kings mentions only a son because this was the only son Ahaz offered to Molek. We don't know whether Ahaz offered several children at once or if, on several different occasions, he sacrificed a child to Molek.

Is there any lower depth to which a person can sink than deliberately killing their own child? Is there any greater depravity than not having any compassion toward their own flesh and blood? This is the type of man who is now king over the people of Judah! A very heavy layer of spiritual, moral, and political darkness is settling over the land.