Psalms 33, 66-67, 100

Many thanks to Fred for stepping into the gap to provide commentary for the past few days while I was traveling. As it turns out, we get to hear more from him today, too!

See:

• March 27 (2022) / Psalm 33:1-12
• March 28 (2022) / Psalm 33:13-22
• June 15 (2022) / Psalm 66
• June 16 (2022) / Psalm 67
• August 26 (2022) / Psalm 100

II Kings 23:1-27; II Chronicles 34:1-35:19

In today’s readings we have only one king, Josiah, and he is good – not a single bad word mentioned! He became king at 8 years old, he began to seek the LORD when he was 16, and he began his cleansing of Jerusalem and Judah when he was 20 years old (II Chronicles 34:2-3). He lived another 19 years and served the LORD with all his heart during his lifetime.

The list of his accomplishments is impressive and is described in detail in II Kings 23. First, you may recall from yesterday that the Book of the Covenant had been discovered when the workmen began to cleanse the Temple area. Josiah’s first order of business was to read from this Book with all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem. Then he continued that cleansing of the Temple area and all of Jerusalem and all of Judea and even all of Israel. These activities occupy almost all of II Kings 23. The details occupy a full 17 verses in that chapter, with substantial detail on all the evil that had been perpetrated by his father and grandfather and earlier kings – surprisingly, including even Solomon. Josiah’s purging was complete!

Finally, when Josiah was 26 he restores the Passover for himself and all of Judah and Israel. We move to II Chronicles 35 for those details. And the details are, in fact, overwhelming: 30,000 lambs and goats and 3,000 bulls from the king’s possessions; 2,600 lambs and 300 bulls from the chief officers of the Temple; and 5,000 lambs and goats and 500 bulls from other chiefs of the Levites. I can’t stop myself from adding those numbers up – 37,600 lambs and goats and 3,800 bulls offered for this Passover for Josiah and the elders and the people of Judah and Israel! Huge!!

So, what do we see from Josiah’s early reign?

1. Finding and reading from the Book of the Covenant
2. Cleansing the Temple area and all of Jerusalem through the destruction of all the altars and idols to foreign gods
3. Moving on even to the northern parts of Israel to cleanse all of the Promised Land of these foreign gods
4. Celebrating the Passover for himself and all of Judah and Israel.

Quite an accomplishment!! Would that my own seeking and serving the Lord could be so extensive!

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One more very important item…

Still the LORD did not turn from the burning of His great wrath, by which His anger was kindled against Judah, because of all the provocations with which Manasseh had provoked Him. And the LORD said, “I will remove Judah also out of My sight, as I have removed Israel, and I will cast off this city that I have chosen, Jerusalem, and the house of which I said, My name shall be there.”

II Kings 23:26-27

Josiah’s reforms, as great and extensive as they were could not undo the harm done by his father and grandfather and previous kings. Under Josiah, Judah’s cleansing had only begun!

II Kings 22; Zephaniah 1-3

I noted yesterday that Josiah was regarded as a good king. We see that today, right off the bat:

And [Josiah] did what was right in the eyes of the LORD and walked in all the way of David his father, and he did not turn aside to the right or to the left.

II Kings 22:2

Today we see Josiah concerned about the restoration of the Temple, an item that had been both ignored and blasphemed by his father and grandfather. We’ll read more about Josiah over the next few days. For now, Zephaniah…

Zephaniah is known as a “minor prophet”, one of twelve so named in the Old Testament. They are “minor” in length, not in importance and are less well known because they are shorter and are less often quoted. By contrast, we are more well acquainted with the major prophets – Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel.

The book of Zephaniah is mostly about condemnation. That’s all we see in the first two and one-half chapters, condemnation on Judah (Jerusalem), Moab, Philistia, Ammon, Cush (Ethiopia) and Assyria, then finally Jerusalem again. However, prior to those nations being named, Zephaniah speaks condemnation on the whole earth in the first chapter. He speaks of “the day of the LORD”:

Be silent before the Lord GOD!
For the day of the LORD is near;
the LORD has prepared a sacrifice
and consecrated his guests.
And on the day of the LORD’s sacrifice—
“I will punish the officials and the king’s sons
and all who array themselves in foreign attire.
On that day I will punish
everyone who leaps over the threshold,
and those who fill their master’s house
with violence and fraud.
… ”

Zephaniah 1:7-9

Zephaniah is not quoted explicitly anywhere in the Bible, but the “day of the LORD” is widely cited. One Internet reference listed 86 occurrences of that phrase in Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Joel, Amos, Micah, Malachi, Daniel, Hosea, and Zechariah, in addition to a number of New Testament references. (https://bible.knowing-jesus.com/topics/Day-Of-The-Lord)

Zephaniah closes his book with hope. He sees the restoration of Israel’s remnant in Zeph. 3:9-20, a very different tone from the rest of the book. One verse in particular is known in music to many of us:

The LORD your God is in your midst,
a mighty One who will save;
He will rejoice over you with gladness;
He will quiet you by His love;
He will exult over you with loud singing.

Zephaniah 3:17

Here are the lyrics:

The Lord your God is in your midst,
The Lord of lords Who saves;
He will exult over you with joy,
He will renew you in His love,
He will rejoice over you
With shouts of joy! With shouts of joy!
With shouts of joy! With shouts of joy!
With shouts of joy!

Ernie Rettino – Listen to an instrumental version on YouTube

Warning: You’ll have “shouts of joy” in your head the rest of the morning!!

So, a happy ending for Zephaniah!

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One more thing…

As church Treasurer I had to chuckle over II Kings 22:7, But no accounting shall be asked from them for the money that is delivered into their hand, for they deal honestly. The workmen for the Temple restoration had been given the money, but no receipts were required of them. How different that is for us today, where church audits require that every dollar be accounted for!

II Chronicles 32-33; II Kings 21

Today, as in the past we have readings from Chronicles and Kings. If you are reading from The Chronological Study Bible you’ll have to move forward a few pages after II Chronicles 32 and II Kings 21 to get to II Chronicles 33. In between is material that we will cover in the next few days.

Today’s readings… For the past few days we have been reading about Hezekiah, one of the good kings of Judah. Today’s II Chronicles 32 closes out his life, then II Chronicles 33 introduces his son and grandson, Manasseh and Amon, respectively. Actually, we both introduce and close out both of their lives in II Chronicles 33 and in II Kings 21. Surprisingly though, we see different records of Manasseh in the Chronicles and Kings accounts. Kings has nothing good to say about Manasseh:

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, and worshiped all the host of heaven and served them … And he built altars for all the host of heaven in the two courts of the house of the LORD. And he burned his son as an offering and used fortune-telling and omens and dealt with mediums and with necromancers. He did much evil in the sight of the LORD, provoking Him to anger. And the carved image of Asherah that he had made he set in the house of … the LORD…

II Kings 21:2-3, 5-7a

The Chronicles account, however, also details Manasseh’s repentance and humility. After he had been captured by the king of Assyria and taken to Babylon,

…when he was in distress, he entreated the favor of the LORD his God and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers. He prayed to Him, and God was moved by his entreaty and heard his plea and brought him again to Jerusalem into his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the LORD was God.

II Chronicles 33:12-13

Seemingly his repentance was solid:

And he took away the foreign gods and the idol from the house of the LORD, and all the altars that he had built on the mountain of the house of the LORD and in Jerusalem, and he threw them outside of the city. He also restored the altar of the LORD and offered on it sacrifices of peace offerings and of thanksgiving, and he commanded Judah to serve the LORD, the God of Israel.

II Chronicles 33:15-16

So Chronicles leaves Manasseh on a good note.

Following Manasseh and Amon we will move on to another good king, Josiah. So what we see (and as The Chronological Study Bible comments) is Ahaz bad, Hezekiah good, Manasseh and Amon bad, Josiah good. It struck me in a small way that this chronology is a picture of our own lives – certainly mine! We repent and turn it around, then go back to where we were; we repent and turn it around, then go back… Thankfully our Lord is ever-merciful and ever-forgiving! “Oh God, be merciful to me, the sinner.”

II Chronicles 29-31

Rewind. We get another look at the reign of Hezekiah, this time from the Chronicler’s perspective. Here we see that, right out of the gate, in his first month as king, Hezekiah initiates a complete 180-degree reversal from the practices of his faithless father, Ahaz, who had shut up the Temple and devoted himself to idolatry, including sacrificing his own sons to false gods. Hezekiah’s reforms are extensive, beginning with the total cleansing, consecration, and rededication of the Temple (II Ch. 29) and proceeding to the observance of the Passover (II Ch. 30) and on to the destruction of centers of idol worship throughout Judah and even Israel (II Ch. 31:1).

Here is a man dedicated to the LORD, a man of faith, and of faithfulness. Is he perfect? No, but he is at least pointed in the right direction, and the LORD shows him favor. We would do well to learn from Hezekiah’s example.

As individuals we may not be able to direct the policies or practices of an entire nation like Hezekiah. We may not even have much influence within a town, for that matter. But we each have some sphere of influence, even if that sphere includes only one person, oneself. So here’s the question: Within your sphere of influence, is there anything on which you need to do a 180?

Isaiah 25-27

A tale of two cities…

In that day this song will be sung in the land of Judah:
“We have a strong city;
He sets up salvation
as walls and bulwarks.
Open the gates,
that the righteous nation that keeps faith may enter in.
You keep him in perfect peace
whose mind is stayed on You,
because he trusts in You.
Trust in the LORD forever,
for the LORD GOD is an everlasting rock.
For He has humbled
the inhabitants of the height,
the lofty city.
He lays it low, lays it low to the ground,
casts it to the dust.
The foot tramples it,
the feet of the poor,
the steps of the needy.”

Isaiah 26:1-6

There is the strong city where the LORD sets up salvation as walls and bulwarks. The righteous live there, those who keep faith and who trust in the LORD. And there is the lofty city, with its proud inhabitants, whom the LORD humbles. He lays this city low to the ground, casts it to the dust so that even the poor and needy can trample it underfoot.

I have yet to read Augustine’s The City of God, so I am a bit reluctant to bring it up, but speaking from ignorance has not stopped me before. Let’s just say that Augustine describes two systems at war with one another. One is holy, the other unholy. One is the City of God, the other the Earthly City. One is the work of the LORD, the other the work of man.

We see this conflict throughout our reading today. The LORD is extolled for making one city a heap of ruins, never to be rebuilt. (Isaiah 25:2) But He is a stronghold for the poor and needy. (Isaiah 25:4) We see the LORD laying out a feast for all peoples on “this mountain” (presumably Zion, Jerusalem). (Isaiah 25:6) But we see Moab trampled down in judgment. (Isaiah 25:10-12) We see the path of the righteous made level and the world learning righteousness. (Isaiah 26:7-9) But we see that the wicked do not so learn. (Isaiah 26:10-11)

Two different “cities”. Two different ways of relating to the LORD. Two different destinies.

In which city are you living?

Isaiah 22:1-14; Isaiah 23-24

There is quite a bit in today’s reading that I do not fully understand, or, rather, that I just barely understand, or, rather still, that I do not understand at all. But one verse seems pretty clear to me:

The LORD of hosts has purposed it,
to defile the pompous pride of all glory,
to dishonor all the honored of the earth.

Isaiah 23:9

Although the context would suggest that this verse originally may have been aimed at Tyre specifically, the last phrase — all the honored of the earth — gives it obvious global applicability, right on down to us today.

Pride. What sin does not have pride lurking at its core? We may not recognize it, but it is there, for in every sin we are exalting ourselves over the living God. Our sin declares that we think we know better than God. Rather than submitting to Him as our rightful King, we declare our independence. And in our pride we flaunt our sin. But beware:

The LORD of hosts has purposed it,
to defile the pompous pride of all glory,
to dishonor all the honored of the earth.

Wait… What month is this again?

II Kings 19:8-37; Isaiah 37:8-38; II Kings 20:20-21

Unlike his father, Ahaz, Hezekiah listens to the right voice. He listens to what the LORD says through Isaiah. In faith, he recognizes that all those so-called gods of the other nations that Assyria has defeated are no gods at all. And so Hezekiah prays:

Truly, O LORD, the kings of Assyria have laid waste the nations and their lands and have cast their gods into the fire, for they were not gods, but the work of men’s hands, wood and stone. Therefore they were destroyed. So now, O LORD our God, save us, please, from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that You, O LORD, are God alone.

II Kings 19:17-19 (cf. Isaiah 37:18-20)

Note that Hezekiah does not pray just for his own safety and that of Jerusalem. He prays that God would be honored, that all would know that the LORD alone is God. That is what is really on the line here.

The LORD answers accordingly: I will defend this city to save it, for My own sake and for the sake of My servant David. (II Kings 19:34; Isaiah 37:35)

In our own prayers, what do we seek? Are we just looking out for our own interests, our own health and prosperity, or perhaps for that of our loved ones? Or are we seeking God’s glory? Just something to think about…

II Kings 18:17-19:7; Isaiah 36:2-37:7

Imagine yourself standing on the wall of Jerusalem, peering over the parapet, listening to the Rabshakeh of Assyria taunt Hezekiah’s officials and the people of Jerusalem (including yourself). You’ve heard reports of Assyrian brutality for years. You know that nations larger and stronger than Judah have fallen before the might of Assyria. You’ve watched refugees from all over Judah stream into Jerusalem, looking for protection within its walls. You’ve heard their tales of destruction — their homes, their possessions, their crops set ablaze, their daughters raped, their sons killed. You’ve watched the Assyrian army advance towards Jerusalem, and now they are about to lay siege.

As the Rabshakeh speaks, his words seem so reasonable. He questions foreign aid from Egypt. (And indeed, looking across the field, all you see are Assyrian forces, no Egyptian chariots in sight.) He questions whether you have good reason to trust in the LORD after Hezekiah has torn down the high places. (Hasn’t Judah worshipped at those high places for generations?) He claims that the LORD sent him against Judah. (Haven’t the prophets said the same?) He says Hezekiah is misleading you by saying the LORD will deliver Jerusalem. (You ask yourself: Is there any indication at all of such deliverance?) He promises to resettle you to another land where you will prosper. (That sounds so much better than starving in Jerusalem under siege!) He claims the gods of the other nations could not withstand Assyria? (Isn’t that obviously so?)

But King Hezekiah has said to be silent. You look to your right and to your left. Your neighbors are obeying the king’s command, but they look just as scared as you know yourself to be. You hear rumors that Isaiah is assuring the king that the LORD will rescue Jerusalem. But you wonder how. To whom do you listen, to the Rabshakeh or to the king and his eccentric prophet?

We know the right answer here, because we can review the story with 20/20 hindsight. We can peek at tomorrow’s reading and learn the rest of the story. The more challenging question for us is this: To whom do we listen today?

Do we listen to scientists, whose brilliant insights have led to marvelous technological improvements in life but who insist that we are just the result of a long series of random events? Do we listen to politicians with their claims of compassion for the poor, but whose welfare policies (perhaps unintentionally, but predictably) lead to fatherlessness, the primary root cause of poverty and crime? Do we listen to the wealthy, those who are clearly successful in business? Do we listen to the mainstream media (which is called “mainstream” because most people tune in) with its claims of truth? Do we listen to our “friends” on social media with their alternate claims of truth? Do we listen to “experts” with their steady stream of facts and figures? Do we listen to celebrities?

Do we listen to the world? Or do we listen to the Word of God? Do we listen to a smooth-talking devil? Or do we listen to Christ? Do we listen to our own pride? Or do we listen to the Holy Spirit?

To whom do we listen?