II Kings 20-21
Dear RTB’ers,
Today, three kings – Hezekiah, Manasseh, and Amon. As STS notes, the events in today’s first chapter (on Hezekiah’s illness and recovery and his hospitality to the envoys from Babylon) actually occurred before the invasion by the Assyrians that we read in yesterday’s readings. We might ask ourselves why Hezekiah was so hospitable to the Babylonians. After all, Solomon had shown the Queen of Sheba all the wealth that he had. For whatever his motive, the Lord was not happy with Hezekiah’s actions: Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, “Hear the word of the LORD: ‘Behold, the days are coming, when all that is in your house, and that which your fathers have stored up till this day, shall be carried to Babylon. Nothing shall be left,’ says the LORD.” (vv. 20:16-17) We will see this prophecy played out two days from now as we finish II Kings – more than a century after the event was prophesied!
Manasseh succeeds Hezekiah. How could a son so quickly undo all the reforms that his father had instituted? And he did what was evil in the sight of the LORD according to the despicable practices of the nations whom the LORD drove out before the people of Israel. For he rebuilt the high places that Hezekiah his father had destroyed, and he erected altars for Baal and made an Asherah, as Ahab king of Israel had done… (vv. 21:2-3a). And more! Sadly, the people of Judah were more than willing to follow Manasseh’s lead: But they did not listen, and Manasseh led them astray to do more evil than the nations had done whom the LORD destroyed before the people of Israel. (v. 21:9) The responsibility of leadership…! Jesus had something to say about this: … but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea. (Matthew 18:6, Mark 9:42)
One of the advantages of reading a chronological Bible (where books, chapters, and verses are rearranged to present Biblical incidents in chronological order) is that we would be reading the Chronicles books alongside the Samuel and Kings books. There we would have learned that Manasseh had a change of heart and turned back to the Lord God before he died. To read that information at the end of Manasseh’s reign go to II Chronicles 33:12-20. (Note also that a chronological Bible would have placed today’s chapter 20 somewhere inside chapter 18.) Only two more days in II Kings…
Blessings!
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