Ahaz, son of Jotham, assumed the throne of Judah aged 20 where he reigned for 16 years in a perverse sinful regime. He introduced child sacrifices and even sacrificed one of his own sons! Then King Rezin of Aram and King Pekah of Israel besieged Jerusalem but Ahaz managed to resist. So Ahaz sought out an alliance with King Tiglath-Pileser of Assyria to resist the pressure from Syria and Israel, paid him with all the silver and gold of the royal palace and temple, and the alliance was formed. This alliance became totally syncretistic when Ahaz went to Damascus now captured by Syria. He was impressed by a pagan altar there and had it copied to replace the Lord's altar in Judah! Ahaz then offered every sort of sacrifice on this pagan altar in the temple! In deference to the King of Assyria Ahaz told Uriah the priest to make multiple alterations to the temple. Ahaz died leaving Judah in total apostasy and his son Hezekiah succeeded him to throne.
Tuesday, 2 September 2025
2 Kings 15 (résumé): Various Kings of Israel & Judah
Azariah became king of Judah when he was 16-years-old and he reigned for 52 years. He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord yet he allowed pagan rituals in the high places to continue. He lived in a separate house owing to his skin disease so his son Jotham took charge of the palace and government and then officially succeeded him when he died.
Zechariah assumed the throne of Israel during the 38th year of Azariah's reign in Judah but he only reigned for 6 months when he was assassinated and replaced by Shallum. Further violence saw Shallum replaced even quicker after a month! He was assassinated and replaced by Menahem, and when Menahem was refused entry to Tiphsah he sacked the city and ripped open all its pregnant women! Menahem reigned in Israel for 10 years and did evil before God. When the king of Assyria invaded Israel Menahem bribed him with silver to withdraw, and when he died his son Pekahiah replaced him and reigned in Israel for 2 years. Pekahiah again sinned against God like his predecessors until he too was assassinated and replaced by Pekah. Pekah was king of Israel for 20 years and also practiced evil. At this time the king of Assyria came and conquered various parts of the land and deported people to Assyria. Then Hoshea assassinated Pekah and replaced him.
Meanwhile Jotham came to power in Judah whilst Pekah was in his second year in Israel. Jotham came to the throne aged 25 and he reigned for 16 years doing better before God without however eliminating the pagan high places. He did rebuild the upper gate of the temple, and when he died his son Ahaz replaced him as king.
2 Kings 14 (résumé): Amaziah king of Judah
In the second year of Jehoash's reign as king of Israel Amaziah became king of Judah at the age of 25, and he reigned for 29 years. He was a partial improvement in terms of religion although pagan worship in the high places continued. Once his reign was firmly established he proceeded to execute the officials who had murdered his father. Then Amaziah defeated 10,000 Edomites in the Valley of Salt. This victory inflated Amaziah's self confidence so he challenged king Jehoash to battle. Jehoash told him to calm down, but when he insisted Israel attacked Judah and won and Amaziah was taken captive. Jehoash then plundered all the gold and silver from Jerusalem. Then Jehoash died and was succeeded by his son Jeroboam, but Amaziah lived on another 15 years before he was killed at Lachish, being replaced by his 16-yer-old son Azariah.
In the 15th year of Amaziah's reign Jeroboam II came to power in Israel where he reigned for 41 years. He did evil in the sight of the Lord but he did restore some of Israel's boundaries including the capture of Damascus and Hamath. When he died his son Zechariah succeeded him as king.
Monday, 1 September 2025
2 Kings 13 (résumé): Jehoahaz & Jehoash - Kings of Israel
In the 23rd year of Joash, Jehoahaz became king of Israel in Samaria, and he reigned for 17 years. He was an evil king which angered God and meant Israel was for a long time under the power of King Hazael of Syria. But then Jehoahaz turned to the Lord who delivered Israel from the Syrians, but paganism still persisted in Israel. After the death of Jehoahaz his son Jehoash succeeded him as king.
Jehoash came to power and reigned for 16 years doing evil before God maintaining similar patterns of paganism as was with his father. Jehoash went to visit Elisha who was ill. Elisha told the king to fire some arrows out of the window which symbolized the arrow of victory over the Arameans. He then told King Jehoash to strike the ground and the 3 times he struck represented the number of victories he would have over Aram. Then Elisha died and was buried, and one day a dead body was thrown into the tomb, touched Elisha's bones and came back to life and stood up!
Then the Syrian king Hazael died and was succeeded by his son Ben-Hadad. Jehoash recaptured the towns that had been taken by the Syrians.
2 Kings 12 (résumé): Joash repairs the Temple
This chapter summarizes Joash's 40 year reign under the mentorship of the priest Jehoiada. In general Joash did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, but he did not remove the pagan high places where the people still offered pagan sacrifices.
Joash's principal concern seems to have been the repair of the temple. He organized a collection box or chest to collect money for this at the entrance to the temple, and the money collected was used to buy timber and blocks of dressed stone, and to pay the carpenters, builders, masons and stonecutters. They did not use the money to purchase expensive items of gold and silver.
Then Hazael king of Aram turned to attack Jerusalem after having captured Gath, but Joash appeased Hazael by giving him the gold and silver from the temple and the palace so that Hazael went away. Later Joash's officials betrayed him and murdered him and his son Amaziah succeeded him as king.
2 Kings 11 (résumé): Athaliah & Joash
When Athaliah, the mother of Ahaziah, saw that her son had been killed by Jehu she proceeded to kill all the remaining members of the royal family in order to make herself queen. However what she didn't realize was that one baby son of Ahaziah by the name of Joash was hidden away with his nurse during the 6-year reign of Queen Athaliah. In the 7th year of her reign Priest Jehoiada organized the revealing of Joash's existence, with strong security measures, so as to dethrone Athaliah. So it was that at 7-years-of-age Joash was crowned king and Athaliah was executed. Then they tore down the temple of Baal, smashed the pagan altars and idols and killed Mattan the priest of Baal.
2 Kings 10 (résumé): Ahab's family and Servants of Baal killed
These chapters of 2 Kings are particularly gory with large numbers of people reaching gruesome deaths. I understand this to be God revealing himself within primitive aggressive cultures of millenniums ago.
Jehu challenged Ahab's children's guardians to place the best that they had on the throne and fight for it. However in fear and trembling of Jehu they refused to do this. So Jehu took the opportunity to request the heads of all 70 of Ahab's sons and they were all slaughtered accordingly and 2 piles of heads were placed at the entrance to the city gate. Jehu then proceeded to slaughter too 42 relatives of Ahaziah and he also killed all remaining members of Ahab's family.
Next Jehu contrived a plan to annihilate the servants of Baal from the land. For Jehu pretended that he was to be a Baal worshipper and he summoned all Baal's servants and priests to come to a great sacrifice making absence punishable by death. They all crowded into the temple from far and wide and Jehu posted 80 men outside to allow nobody to escape. The guards then attacked all the Baal priests and servants and killed them all, and they turned Baal's temple into a public toilet.
God rewarded Jehu's ruthless action with the promise of a 4 generation dynasty, but he was not totally faithful because he adhered to the worship of golden calves. Because of this God began to reduce the size of Israel, and Jehu died after a reign of 28 years, with his son Jehoahaz succeeding him as king.