Bible Reading Challenge Blog

It is neat to see the overlap of the prophets with these kings.  We find both Zechariah and Isaiah mentioned in this chapter, and they are prophets that we know and with whom we are familiar.  So Uzziah takes over for his father after his father was killed.  He begins his rule when he is 16.  Can you imagine the US with a president who is 16 years old?  We read in vs.4 that he did what was right in the sight of the Lord.  The reason for this is because Zechariah was guiding and directing him in the way of the Lord.  God makes him prosper as long as he seeks the Lord.

We read about his military conquests and of his rebuilding of the walls and the towers and the cisterns and all of the success that he has.  But then over time we read in vs. 16 that when he became strong he became proud.  This pride manifested itself by going into the temple and thinking that he didn’t need the presence of the priests in order to give of a sacrifice.  The priests gathered together and told him to leave, and he became angry, but then leprosy began to break out on his face and he decided to leave.

Nothing like a little leprosy breaking out on your face to make you realize that you probably shouldn’t do something that is against God’s will.  What would happen if each of us had a little leprosy break out on our face when we went against God’s will?  This world would probably be a better place if that were to happen.

King Amaziah starts off strong at a young 25 and he follows the way of the Lord, at least for a short time.  It is interesting that in vs.2 it states that he did what was right in the sight of the Lord but not with his whole heart and then this whole chapter is about him murdering and worshipping other gods,  strange.

He gets ready to go into battle after he has killed those who killed his father.  But he spares the children of those who killed his father because of the mosaic law that states you cannot blame the children for the sins of their fathers.  That seems almost kind even in the face of cold-blooded murder.

As he gets ready to go into battle he listens to the Lord and pears down his soldiers and those he sent home are so angry that they end up invading the home land and killing three thousand people and taking a lot of loot.  For me this is a bit unfair because Amaziah does what God asks him to do.  Okay, granted he comes home from battle with other gods and begins to worship them, but that was after the fact.  

He tries to get nice with the king of Israel, the northern king, but it backfires and as a result they kill him in Lachish and bring him back on horses.  Not a fun way to day.

Joash is 7 when he takes over the throne and become king.  We know that he has Jehoiadah who is guiding and directing him which is a good thing because what could a 7 year old do that would be helpful.  He reigns for ten years and he is only 17 at that time.  What good could a 17 year old do.  We do see that he reigns for a total of 40 years which would make him 47 when he was killed at the end of this chapter.

Now, Jehoiada continued to give him direction and guidance and together they rebuilt the temple and did all things that needed to be done in order to restore the presence of the Lord back in Jerusalem at the temple.  This included a temple tax which the people joyfully gave and celebrated because they could see the direct impact that tax had on rebuilding the temple.  That is the key component to any giving.  If you can see a direct result of your giving you will be more than likely grateful to give.

Once Jehoiada dies, then things go downhill fast.  Not even his son, Zecheriah, is able to prevent the downslide.  Joash kills Zecheriah and as a result he opens himself up to an invasion which comes shortly after that.  This invasion then leads to his death.  Upon his death his son, Amaziah, succeeds him.  You wonder if the cycle is going to continue or if Amaziah is going to lead the people in the direction that God would want them to go.  We will see the next chapter.

Talk about cleaning house.  While in the past we see the king take the initiative in ensuring that God’s will would be done and that order was established in the land, here it is the high priest who takes the reins and reinstates the king, drives out the false queen, Athaliah, and throws out the gods and their temples and reinstates not only the political king but also the presence of the Lord as the sole presence of the deity.  Jehoiada is the reformer who brings back that which the Lord wanted from Israel all along.

The most pernicious cycle that we see happening in the life of Israel is that they do that which is evil in the sight of the Lord which primarily consists of worshipping false gods.  God raises up someone to bring order and a refocus on the priorities of the people of God, that person reigns and then they die and then confusions reigns.  

We find ourselves in the state where Athaliah is dethroned.  She enters the temple and see that Joash is being crowned the new king, he was the son of the king after all, and she yells treason expecting the crowd in the temple to follow after her.  Well, they do follow after her but only to kill her.  Joash is now king and we hope that this also means an instilling of peace and the pursuit of God as a result.  Let’s see what happens next.

Remember when I mentioned that I believe in the inerrant truths of Scripture?  That is far different from believing that every single word is inerrant.  Here we have what we call a text critical issue.  The king Jehoram dies when he is 40 (21:18-20) and his son takes over, according to the text, when the son, Ahaziah, is 42.  How in the world can the son be older than the father?  While the Hebrew may say 42 it is thought that there was a misrepresentation over time and it should be 22.  I do not have an issue with the text not representing accurately for every single line.  Have you seen my typos?

But back to the Scripture.  Jehoram followed the ways of the north as they worshipped false gods, his son does the same.  This ill fated rule which was set up because all of the royal family and specifically the brothers were killed only lasts a single year.  Then something historic happens.  The mother of Ahaziah takes over the throne.  This was unheard of because it is not like what we find in the United Kingdom.  There was no such thing as the queen, it was the male who took over the throne.  Only a male could be crowned king.  But not here since everyone else was killed the mom of Ahaziah, Athaliah, takes over and her first step is to kill the entire royal family.  

But she misses someone.  Joash was hid by his mom and you will see that he ends up taking over as time goes on.  But that is for another chapter.

Now we start to see the decline of Judah as we transition to a king who loved God, Jehoshaphat, to his son who was in it for himself.  Look at what he does in his first 100 days in office.  Jehoshaphat had many sons, but his eldest was Jehoram.  As soon as he takes office he kills all of his brothers.  They were a threat to him.  Instead of rooting for his rivals he decides to root up his rivals and destroy them.  He does so.  He also “walked in the way of the kings of Israel.”  That is not a good thing.

God does not destroy him and his lineage because he had promised to David that his kingdom would last forever.  As a result we have these splinter groups break out from Judah because they saw the unfaithfulness of the king and wanted to obey God in ways that would give God glory.  Edom was one of them.  

We also see the prophet Elijah, remember him, the one who killed the prophets of baal.  He sends word from God that God will punish him and destroy his family except for one to take over the throne.  The king is also promised to receive a disease of the bowels that would ultimately destroy him and cause a lot of pain and suffering.  In the meantime the Philistines came and carried away all of the possessions of the land.  

Once Jehoram dies they bury him but do not give him a kingly burial.  I love the understatements that are used in this passage.  Look at vs.20: “He departed with no one’s regret.”  Basically, no one was sorry that he died.  He was buried in the Jerusalem but not in the tombs of the kings.  He was not respected as a king because he was so bad.  I guess that’s what happens when you try to go rogue and govern as you want to and not as God wants you to.

We find ourselves stepping back a bit into time when Jehoshaphat had not teamed up with Ahab and the northern kingdom.  We see that the surrounding countries of Judah were intent on invading the land where Jehoshaphat was king.  Moabites, Ammonites, and some more Ammonites were encamped ready to conquer.  As you can imagine all of the people and the king themselves were terrified for what would come next.

The king calls the people to fast and to come before the Lord asking for guidance and direction.  “We cannot overcome the invading armies by ourselves, there are too many of them.”  God then chooses one of the people there present to speak to the entire population.  He chooses Jahaziel to tell the king and the people of Israel that they do not need to worry about it, God will conquer and God will win this battle.  

What happens next is a bit confusing.  It seems like all of the armies of the invading countries end up fighting against themselves.  The king looks down in the valley and sees a mass of corpses and the battle was already fought and Judah did not lose.  Technically they didn’t win either because they actually didn’t fight it, but they did not lose because all of the invaders were gone.  Before the battle the people of Judah were encouraged to: “Give thanks to the Lord, for his steadfast love endures forever.”  This was before God provided the victory in such an obvious way.  He then follows through.  

The people of Judah return to Jerusalem with joy.  Yeah, that would be an understatement.  I wonder if they were singing this as they returned.

When the king of Judah arrives home after he teamed up with the king of Israel to go against he Arameans, a battle which they lost, he is confronted with his own prophet.  Jehu comes out and and scolds him for teaming up with Ahab.  Why would you team up with the wicked even if you think you are doing a good thing?  God is very angry with you, but since you are a good person and have done good things, then you will be okay.

In fact we see the king of Judah settles in and appoints judges and they do a good job.  He then also set up priests who would give judgment for those cases which were disputed.  He tells all the people who were working for the Lord the following: “Deal courageously, and may the Lord be with the good!”  That is a bit of an unusual encouragement.  Do good and you will prosper.  Sounds more like Star Trek than it does the Bible.  

We find one of the few times in Scripture where the divided monarchy of Israel (the north) and Judah (the south) fight together united against a common enemy, the king of Aram.  Before they go into battle together they ask the prophets to prophecy whether they should go into this battle or not.  They all agree that God was going to give them the victory.  But king Jehoshaphat, the good guy, asks if there is another prophet that they could listen to.  He gets a sense that these prophets were basically hired to do the will and the bidding of the king and not really true spokespeople for God.

In comes Micah who says he can only speak that which God wants him to speak.  He says that Israel will be scattered across the land and destroyed, but does not say much, if anything, about Judah.  There is a somewhat entertaining scene as Ahab tells Jehoshaphat that this prophet doesn’t like him and only prophecies unkind things for him.  Sure enough, that prophecy comes true.  

Notice that the king of Israel goes into battle undercover and the king of Judah goes decked out.  The King of Judah cries out when he is being pursued so they know he can’t be anyone who is important, and by chance the king of Israel is stabbed in a significant place.  It is really difficult at times to be able to discern what is of God and what is not of God.  We can’t really ask God to show us his truth, I mean, we can, but we don’t always recognize God’s glory and God’s truth revealed clearly.  We wish we could.  Most of the time our desires get in the way.

If King Asa followed the Lord then King Jehoshaphat really followed the Lord!  Asa followed the Lord until the very end, but we read last chapter that he did not remove all the high places.  Well, his son takes care of that.  We read in vs.6 that “his heart was courageous in the ways of the Lord; and furthermore he removed the high places and the sacred poles from Judah.”  Now that is devotion.  He might not have kicked his mom off the throne like Asa, but he was still incredibly righteous.

In fact, we read that all of the surrounding countries were also afraid of him because he honored the Lord in a way that was awesome.  If you look at vs.10 you see that they did not make war with Jehoshaphat because it would be obvious that they would be fighting not only the king but the Lord God as well.  Let’s see how long he can make that last.