May 6, 2021: Day 61 – II Chronicles 28

Ahaz was a bad, bad man and an even worse king.  We read about how he immediately moved away from the ways of the Lord and we read in detail about some of the things that he did which might surprise us.  He began by making cast images of baals, the god of the times and made offerings for those same baals as well.

But then we read in vs.3 something even more heinous than we could imagine.  It states that he made his sons “pass through fire”.  That means that he actually conducted human sacrifices of his own sons in order to appease and please these false gods that now consumed him and his way of being.  He was a mess and he was a disaster for Judah right at a time when Judah had experienced great prosperity under his father.  

As a result of his apostasy Judah was handed over to the king of Aram who took the people of Judah into captivity, this first captivity that took place under the prophet Isaiah, while he was still prophesying.  Then the northerners, the Israelites, they came and invaded as well.  This was actually a bit of a problem so God came and told them off, the northerners, and they left and did not take the people and the booty that they had originally planned on taking.  

In the middle of all this Ahaz asked for help from the king of Assyria, the sworn enemy to the people of God, and instead of coming to help, he came and conquered and took over Judah.  You read in vs.19 that the Lord brought Judah low because of king Ahaz.  In fact, the worse things got, we read in vs.22, the more faithless he was to the Lord.  In every city in Judah he made high places to all of the foreign gods.  He didn’t get the honor of being buried with the other kings.  Not a good king.  Hezekiah is next.  Let’s see how he does.