II Chronicles 26-28
Dear RTB’ers,
Three kings covered in today’s three chapters – Uzziah with his good-then-bad pattern that we have seen in a number of previous kings; then Jotham, only good (except that II Kings 15:34-35 notes that the high places had not been removed); then Ahaz, only bad.
The Chronicles author often connects battle victory and defeat with righteousness and obedience – or failures in that regard. Uzziah and Jotham were enormously successful in battles with the Philistines, the Arabians, the Meunites (a southeastern border people), and the Ammonites. By contrast, Ahaz who …did not do what was right in the eyes of the Lord… (v. 28:1b) was first defeated by the Syrians, then by the Northern Kingdom, Israel, then even later by the Philistines and the Edomites. In spite of all his failures, Ahaz did not turn to the Lord as had his predecessors: In the time of his distress he became yet more faithless to the Lord… (v. 28:22a).
Therein lies another good lesson for us. When we see one difficulty after another after another, do we take Job’s wife’s advice, “Curse God and die…” (Job 2:9), …or some similar response! Or do we seek Him all the more? There is no end to His loving help and presumably no end to His willingness to allow testing in our lives. We simply praise Him, thank Him, and move on.
So, the outcome of all the bad that we see in Ahaz? The good news is that Hezekiah is his son. But that’s tomorrow!
Blessings!
Fred
Personal note: In 1981 I saw seven consecutive months of fairly major difficulties, one per month, including a broken engagement between Carol and me; thankfully, we both remained faithful to God and to each other.