I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on 2 Chronicles 26-28.

    As I wrote earlier this year, until I started writing this blog I was under the impression that the kings of Judah after Solomon were mostly evil, with the occasional godly king thrown in. However, since I have been reading through the books of Kings and Chronicles every year I have come to realize that most of the kings of Judah were men who strove imperfectly to serve God. In today’s passage we have two kings, father and son, who were mostly godly. Really, the only failing between them was that Uzziah. the father, became arrogant and tried to claim priestly duties for himself. It is not clear to me how what Uzziah did was different from when Solomon burned incense to the Lord. The only clue the passage gives us is that it tells us that Uzziah’s pride led to his downfall. The best I can come up with is that Solomon offered sacrifices and burned incense to the Lord on his own behalf while Uzziah was attempting to act as an intermediary between the people and God. Certainly the latter is a temptation to which many leaders fall prey.

    Unfortunately, after four more or less godly kings in a row (in yesterday’s passage we saw that Uzziah’s father and grandfather had done what was pleasing to God for most of their reigns), the Southern Kingdom had a truly evil king. King Ahaz sought out false gods to worship and encouraged the people to worship them as well. But what made him truly evil was that he actively prevented those who wished to do so from worshiping God.