I always struggle with what to make of this chapter because genealogies have never been of great importance to me. That being said, today’s passage tells us how the Israelites viewed their relationship with the peoples with whom they had some interaction. The people of western Asia and Europe were the descendants of Japheth. The peoples of Africa and living around them were descendants of Ham. And the people living in Mesopotamia were descended from Shem. I am not sure why the writers of this book thought that was important, but the fact that they did reveals something about how they thought. In addition, this breakdown of the peoples of the world does not divide up according to the way we divide people up into races even though the origins of the way we view races today came from how people reading their own biases back into this passage. This should remind us to be careful about reading our own biases into the Scripture.
Today, I am reading and commenting on 2 Kings 22-25.
Josiah took the throne at eight years old when his father was assassinated. Despite the fact that his father and grandfather were evil men, Josiah was a godly king. We do not know who inspired Josiah in his love for God, but the record here is clear. As soon as he was old enough to begin taking action as king without requiring the approval of his advisers/regents Josiah ordered the repair and cleansing of the Temple. As soon as the priests began clearing the Temple they found a copy of the Law of Moses, which they brought to Josiah. Josiah was horrified to learn how badly the people had been violating their covenant with God. His response was to seek God’s guidance on what they should do. The message from God was that the curses for breaking God’s covenant with the people could not be avoided, but because Josiah had humbled himself and sought to do God’s will God would delay them until after his death.
Upon hearing this message King josiah could have limited himself to worshiping God and doing God’s will himself, leaving the people to continue in their sin. However, he did not do this. Instead, he led a revival among his people. He called a convocation of the people and renewed their covenant with God. He launched a crusade to cleanse the land of idolatry, and not just the land of Judah, but all of the land which God had given the people of Israel. King Josiah systematically destroyed all of the idolatrous shrines throughout the land. He even got people to destroy their own personal shrines and household gods and to give up their “harmless” consultations with psychics and mediums. The writer tells us that King Josiah called the people to celebrate the Passover in a way which had not been done since before there were kings in Israel. The reforms King Josiah implemented could not have been executed purely as a top down reformation. He must have had the support of the people in order to accomplish all of this. Josiah’s enthusiasm for God was contagious and the people followed his lead. Unfortunately, he did not pass his love for God on to his sons or grandson. If we are enthusiastic about our love of God, others will follow us. But, lasting change will only happen if people do more than just follow a charismatic leader. They need to enter into a relationship with God themselves.
Today, I am reading and commenting on 2 Kings 19-21.
Now we read how King Hezekiah responded to the King of Assyria’s demands and threats. He did not arrogantly reply to the Assyrians that the God he worshiped was more powerful than they knew, or that God would show them His power. No, Hezekiah sent word to the prophet Isaiah asking for Isaiah to pray to God for them and to find out what God would say that they should do. Through Isaiah God’s answer was, “I will take care of the Assyrians.” The Assyrian emissaries needed to return to the main army, but before they left they sent Hezekiah one more message, doubling down on their claim to be more powerful than God, declaring that they had defeated other peoples and none of their gods had been able to stop them. Therefore, neither would God be able to stop them.
Once again Hezekiah turned to God. This time he took the Assyrian letter and laid it before God. He declared his faith in God. He did not deny the reality of the situation he was in. The Assyrians had indeed defeated all of those other nations, but those nations relied on idols, on gods that were not God. Once more God replied through Isaiah. God’s answer was that yes indeed the Assyrians had marched their armies where they willed and conquered all who stood against them. They were the mightiest nation on earth and no nation could stand against them. But now they had declared that God, the Creator, could not stand against them. What they failed to understand was that their power and conquest was all according to God’s plan. Now God would show the world His power and, despite his boasting, the King of Assyria would return to his land without conquering Jerusalem, without even beseiging it. And here is the lesson for us. King Hezekiah did not defeat the Assyrians, by force of arms or any other means, but God protected him and his kingdom. A plague struck the Assyrian army, killing such a large number that the King of Assyria was forced to return home and regroup. He died before he was able to threaten Judah again, and the Assyrian Empire fell without ever marching against Jerusalem. We do not need to defeat our enemies, not with money, not with violence, not at the ballot box. We need to pray to God and do His will. Let Him defeat our enemies.
Today, I am reading and commenting on 2 Kings 17-18.
In Judah, Hezekiah ascended to the throne. The writer tells us that King Hezekiah was fully devoted to God in everything that he did. He went beyond any of his predecessors by destroying the pagan shrines at which the people worshiped, leaving the Temple in Jerusalem as the only place of worship in the land. I wonder if King Hezekiah recognized the importance of a centralized, unified worship of God from what happened to his north after the fall of Samaria. Or, perhaps, King Hezekiah did this because he desired the people to worship God fully and completely. Certainly everything the Bible tells us about King Hezekiah tells us that he put his faith fully in God.
King Hezekiah rebelled against Assyria at about the same time as King Hoshea of the Northern Kingdom did. Perhaps Hezekiah’s rebellion was what inspired King Hoshea to rebel. In any case, King Hezekiah was able to extend his control over what we now know as the Gaza strip. I must add that the passage does not make clear that King Hezekiah rebelled against Assyria around the same time as King Hoshea. That is just the conclusion I reach from where in the passage it tells that he did and that he would have been unlikely to do so after the fall of Samaria. In any case, several years after taking the people of the Northern Kingdom into exile, the King of Assyria decided to re-exert his authority over Judah. When the King of Assyria invaded Judah King Hezekiah gave him a large payment and offered to resume paying tribute.
The passage does not say so explicitly, but the King of Assyria appears to have decided to take at least some of the people of Judah and settle them elsewhere (and bring others in to replace them as he had in the Northern Kingdom). What exactly was his intention, he sent a large army to Jerusalem in support of his representatives whom he sent to confront King Hezekiah. The Assyrian emissaries initially presented their demands to Hezekiah’s representatives, but they did so in a way which was heard and understood by the people on the walls of Jerusalem. In these initial demands they were respectful of God, suggesting that King Hezekiah could not rely on God because he had insulted Him by tearing down the shrines throughout the land (side note: This suggests, as happens at a few other places in the Old Testament, that the worship at these shrines was not completely idolatrous).
However, when King Hezekiah’s representatives asked them to speak so that the people on the walls would not understand them, the Assyrian emissaries addressed the people of Jerusalem directly. This time they revealed their true attitude towards God. This second statement sounds a lot like the words of a prophet. The emissaries called on the people to choose life instead of death. They told the people that if they accepted the commands of the King of Assyria they would receive many good things. Then the emissaries told the people that God was not powerful enough to save them from the King of Assyria. They claimed dominion over all others for the King of Assyria. As I read this it reminded me of many secular promises of Utopia. When they promised good things for the people if they followed the commands from the King of Assyria (the government they would establish), they did not actually promise anything the people did not already have. They merely promised that after completely disrupting their lives they would make things just as good again. Then they used the fact that the King of Assyria could spare from his army more military supplies than King Hezekiah could field men to use to show how God could not stand against them. They used the argument that just look at the way things are, how could the King of Assyria fail at anything he tried to do. Tomorrow, we will read about how King Hezekiah responded and how that turned out.
Today, I am reading and commenting on 2 Kings 15-16.
In Judah, there were a series of kings who did what was pleasing in the Lord’s sight. As a result, when Joash was assassinated, his son Amaziah was made king. Then when Amaziah was assassinated, his son Uzziah was made king. On the other hand, in Israel, king after king did evil in God’s sight. There king after king was assassinated and the assassin was able to seize the throne. None of these kings of Israel turned from the evil done by their predecessors and none of them acknowledged God as sovereign. Each successive king was more interested in their own power and comfort than in doing what was best for the people over whom they ruled.
In Judah there were four successive kings who did what was pleasing in God’s sight, Joash, Amaziah, Uzziah, and Jotham. But all of them allowed the people to continue worshiping at pagan shrines throughout the land. Then came King Ahaz, who followed the example of the kings of Israel, even going to far as to sacrifice his own son. When Israel and Aram allied against him, King Ahaz bribed the king of Assyria to relieve the siege, making himself a vassal of the king of Assyria. Then King Ahaz replaced the altar in the Temple with one modeled after the altar used by the King of Assyria. King Ahaz further remodeled the Temple to symbolize his subordination to the King of Assyria.
Today, I am reading and commenting on 2 Kings 13-14.
Today’s passage mentions three descendants of Jehu who ruled over Israel, the Northern Kingdom. It says of each of them, “He did what was evil in the Lord’s sight.” Immediately following this it says that they continued the sins which Jeroboam had led Israel to commit. I have traditionally seen this interpreted as an explanation of what they did which was evil, but I realized today that the writer said that Jehu had continued those sins, but did not say that he did what was evil in God’s sight. This made me realize that continuing the worship of the calves which Jeroboam had built was a separate, less serious charge against these kings than doing evil in the Lord’s sight. I now realize that when the writer refers to people, either individually or as a group, doing evil in the Lord’s sight he does not mean idolatry even though he generally mentions idolatry right before or right after writing that. Evil in the sight of the Lord is not just worshiping other gods. Worshiping other gods is merely the first step towards doing evil.
We see a similar thing when the passage discusses King Amaziah of Judah. The writer tells us that he did what was pleasing in the Lord’s sight even though he did not tear down the pagan shrines and allowed the people to continue worshiping at them. Here the writer actually gives us an example of how Amaziah was a good ruler. When he was sufficiently established in power, he had the men who assassinated his father, King Joash, executed, but he did not otherwise punish their children because the Law of Moses said that people should only die for their own crimes. We have this contrast between the kings of Israel, who did evil in the Lord’s sight, and King Amaziah of Judah, who did what was pleasing in the Lord’s sight. Yet, when Amazaih initiated war against Jehoash, one of those evil kings of Israel, he lost.
Today, I am reading and commenting on 2 Kings 10-12.
Once Jehu had killed King Jehoram and his mother Jezebel, he consolidated his power by having the leaders of Samaria kill all of King Ahab’s remaining sons. Jehu then proceeded to kill all of Ahab’s remaining relatives, except for Athaliah, Ahab’s daughter who had married Jehoshaphat’s son (more on her shortly). The story mentions that Jehu encountered some relatives of King Ahaziah, the king of Judah who was Ahab’s grandson and whom Jehu had killed when he killed King Jehoram. Why did Jehu kill these men? Perhaps it was just because they were relatives of King Ahaziah and on the way to visit with the family of the king he had just deposed, but I suspect there was more to it than that. It seems to me that we need to consider why these men were visiting the sons of Ahab and the sons of the queen mother (I assume they meant Jezebel). These were wealthy, politically connected men who were likely visiting the Northern Kingdom to take part in activities which would have been frowned upon in Judah. In short, I think they were sex tourists. At the very least, they had traveled to the Northern Kingdom to more openly partake in Baal worship and Jehu killed them as part of his pogrom against Baal worship.
Meanwhile, Athaliah, King Ahaziah’s mother and Ahab’s daughter, moved to seize power in Judah by killing the rest of the royal family. However, Ahaziah’s sister (who may not have been Athaliah’s daughter) hid Ahaziah’s infant son, Joash, in the Temple. Jehoiada, a priest (perhaps the high priest, he certainly became the high priest), raised Joash and taught him to serve God. After seven years, Jehoiada organized a rebellion against Athaliah and placed Joash on the throne. In the aftermath of the rebellion, Jehoiada led the people to rededicate themselves to worshiping God and to destroy the temple of Baal in Jerusalem. King Joash showed his youthful devotion to God by ordering the priests to use some of the money offered in the Temple for Temple repairs. When it became obvious that the priests were unable, or unwilling, to manage such repairs, Joash worked with Jehoiada to arrange for offerings to go directly to workmen who worked to repair the Temple. Joash serves as an example of the influence of a righteous upbringing.
Today, I am reading and commenting on 2 Kings 8-9.
Elisha encouraged two coups in today’s passage, one in Aram and one in Israel (the Northern Kingdom). In the first account, Elisha went to Damascus, the capital of Aram, while the king who ruled from there was sick. The king sent an aid to ask Elisha if he would get better. Elisha told the man to tell the king that he would get better while telling the man that the king would not get better. Then telling the man that he would be king of Aram. The man returned to the king of Aram and killed him. Then later in the passage, Elisha sent another prophet to anoint Jehu king of Israel. This inspired Jehu to lead a coup against King Joram, King Ahab’s son, killing Joram and his brother-in-law, King Ahaziah of Judah. Perhaps these rebellions would have occurred anyway, but I believe that God sent the message through Elisha to cause these specific men to launch their rebellions exactly when they did.
In between these two messages delivered by Elisha, the writer tells us about King Jehoshaphat’s son and grandson succeeding him on the throne of Judah. For all of the positive things the writer said about Jehoshaphat, he arranged for his son Jehoram, to marry King Ahab’s daughter. Jehoram, and his son, Ahaziah, after him, then followed the example of Ahab rather than of his father. A father should oppose their child marrying an ungodly person, but Jehoshaphat did the opposite.
Today, I am reading and commenting on 2 Kings 5-7.
Today’s passage contains accounts of several miracles performed by Elisha. In one of those stories, the king of Aram sent an army to capture Elisha. When Elisha’s servant saw the army, he was frightened. Elisha reassured him by telling him that their were more on their side than against them, and then asking God to allow him to see. There are times when we will feel like Elisha’s servant did that morning, when we feel like their is overwhelming force mustered against us. God assures us that the forces on our side will always outnumber those against us. Let us especially bear this lesson in mind in today’s age, when many in our society are trying to convince us that evil and perversion are winning hearts and minds everywhere.
The other account I want to look at closely is the story about the siege of Samaria. Things were bad in Samaria, so bad that a woman cooked and ate her own child. The king of Israel confronted Elisha, questioning what point there was in having continued faith in God. Elisha’s answer was that, as bad as things were today, by tomorrow food would be available in abundance. The officer with the king said that such an event was not possible, even for God. Again, we may find ourselves in similar situations where all hope seems lost, but we must not lose faith in God’s power, not even when those around us tell us that there is no hope. Evil will not triumph, no matter how dire the situation may seem. The king’s officer told Elisha that what he prophesied in God’s name was not possible, he lived to see that he was wrong, but not long enough to benefit from the change. Do not be like that officer.
Today, I am reading and commenting on 2 Kings 3-4.
After King Ahaziah’s death, his brother Joram took the throne of the Northern Kingdom. As king Joram got rid of Baal worship in Israel, but continued to worship the golden calves set up by Jeroboam. Which leads us to the scene where King Joram has led his army combined with that of Jehoshaphat of Judah and that of the king of Edom into a situation where they had insufficient water. Despite this situation being the result of his own poor plannning, King Joram concluded that God had led them into this disaster in order for them to be defeated. Note that Joram had not consulted God before making his plans, but now concludes that it was God who led him to make bad decisions. He does not seem to be so much blaming God as concluding the situation is hopeless because God decreed this result. At this point, Jehoshaphat suggests that they try asking God what they should do. A bit late, but never too late, as the passage points out. This is a situation we all too often find ourselves in. We make plans without consulting God. Then when things go bad, we throw up our hands in frustration thinking that nothing can be done because this is where God wanted us to be. Hopefully at that point we are like Jehoshaphat and seek God’s guidance, or have a friend like Jehoshaphat who gives us such advice. But wouldn’t it be better to consult God before we made our plans?
