2 Kings 16: 1 – 20
How quickly we forget
16 In the seventeenth year of Pekah the son of Remaliah, Ahaz the son of Jotham, king of Judah, began to reign. 2 Ahaz was twenty years old when he became king, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem; and he did not do what was right in the sight of the LORD his God, as his father David had done. 3 But he walked in the way of the kings of Israel; indeed, he made his son pass through the fire, according to the abominations of the nations whom the LORD had cast out from before the children of Israel. 4 And he sacrificed and burned incense on the high places, on the hills, and under every green tree.5 Then Rezin king of Syria and Pekah the son of Remaliah, king of Israel, came up to Jerusalem to make war; and they besieged Ahaz but could not overcome him. 6 At that time Rezin king of Syria captured Elath for Syria, and drove the men of Judah from Elath. Then the Edomites went to Elath, and dwell there to this day. 7 So Ahaz sent messengers to Tiglath-Pileserking of Assyria, saying, “I am your servant and your son. Come up and save me from the hand of the king of Syria and from the hand of the king of Israel, who rise up against me.” 8 And Ahaz took the silver and gold that was found in the house of the LORD, and in the treasuries of the king’s house, and sent it as a present to the king of Assyria. 9 So the king of Assyria heeded him; for the king of Assyria went up against Damascus and took it, carried its people captive to Kir, and killed Rezin. 10 Now King Ahaz went to Damascus to meet Tiglath-Pileser king of Assyria and saw an altar that was at Damascus; and King Ahaz sent to Urijah the priest the design of the altar and its pattern, according to all its workmanship. 11 Then Urijah the priest built an altar according to all that King Ahaz had sent from Damascus. So, Urijah the priest made it before King Ahaz came back from Damascus. 12 And when the king came back from Damascus, the king saw the altar; and the king approached the altar and made offerings on it. 13 So he burned his burnt offering and his grain offering; and he poured his drink offering and sprinkled the blood of his peace offerings on the altar. 14 He also brought the bronze altar which was before the LORD, from the front of the temple—from between the new altar and the house of the LORD—and put it on the north side of the new altar. 15 Then King Ahaz commanded Urijah the priest, saying, “On the great new altar burn the morning burnt offering, the evening grain offering, the king’s burnt sacrifice, and his grain offering, with the burnt offering of all the people of the land, their grain offering, and their drink offerings; and sprinkle on it all the blood of the burnt offering and all the blood of the sacrifice. And the bronze altar shall be for me to inquire by.” 16 Thus did Urijah the priest, according to all that King Ahaz commanded. 17 And King Ahaz cut off the panels of the carts and removed the lavers from them; and he took down the Sea from the bronze oxen that were under it, and put it on a pavement of stones. 18 Also he removed the Sabbath pavilion which they had built in the temple, and he removed the king’s outer entrance from the house of the LORD, on account of the king of Assyria. 19 Now the rest of the acts of Ahaz which he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah? 20 So Ahaz rested with his fathers and was buried with his fathers in the City of David. Then Hezekiah his son reigned in his place.
If we are believers, children of God, then why do we go through physical, emotional, and spiritual issues? I heard various teachers, in trying to prove that there will be a ‘Rapture’ say, ‘we are the bride of Christ so do you think our bridegroom – The Lord Jesus Christ – will allow His bride to get beat up?’. Do you see anything wrong with this analogy?
Behind these thoughts lies the fact that we all would like to avoid going through the Great Tribulation. So, we are hoping that our Lord Jesus Christ will come and snatch us out of it before it happens. In truth the ‘Tribulation’ has nothing do with getting beat up. As you study the book of Revelation you will find out that people who dwell on the earth go through terrible natural catastrophes as our Holy Master and Lord Jesus Christ tells us in the Gospel of Matthew chapter 24, “21 For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time, no, nor ever shall be. 22 And unless those days were shortened, no flesh would be saved; but for the elect’s sake those days will be shortened.”
Please notice the last verse. Who are the ‘elect’ and what does it mean?’ In theology it means ‘chosen by God, especially for eternal life’. So, if the bride is taken out then what about these believers? And before I go on I want you to think about this verse from the mouth of our Great King Jesus Christ as He prayed to Father God which we learn from the Gospel of John chapter 17, “15 I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one.”
When a trial, test or tragedy comes, we can’t get to our knees fast enough. We can’t be in church for worship enough. We can’t pray enough. We can’t serve enough. We can’t give enough. Whatever God says or whatever God wants, we’re there. We’re in. All in. In a way our Loving God says, ‘Hey, it’s nice to hear from you again.’
How quickly we forget.
God answered your prayers and blessed you. But you forgot all that and all He did for you. In fact, forgetting appears to have become your modus operandi. Now, you forget to pray. Forget to have a quiet time every morning. Forget to serve. Forget to give back to God. Forget to be in church for worship on the Lord’s Day. You fill in the blank.
If someone asks, you tell them you’re a Christian and you love God. But the truth is, it sure looks like you’ve forgotten.
How quickly we forget.
The bible in the book of Romans chapter 15 says, “For whatever things were written before were written for our learning, that we through the patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope.”
In studying the word of God we should learn other’s mistakes and hopefully not go down the same road to destruction. Our Holy and Merciful God totally fulfilled all the promises He made to the Israelites yet they forgot how He cared and loved them. Deuteronomy 8: 13, “Then it shall be, if you by any means forget the Lord your God, and follow other gods, and serve them and worship them, I testify against you this day that you shall surely perish.”
Our Omniscient Holy El Shaddai knows that we live in a fallen world due to our ancestor’s sins. The only hope we have to make it through this minefield is to cling to our Gracious Master who will care for us in all things. Yet we forget all this and go about our daily lives not knowing the danger out there waiting to destroy us.
So, what will you do now that you know this important fact – desire to follow our Great and Holy God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength or just take your own chances. For me I want to be all in with the One Who Is my Good Shepherd.
Today we will see how quickly the hammer can come down and it is not pretty. The Northern kingdom had forsaken our Majestic God Yahweh right from the beginning when they went their own ways. Our Lord God over and over tried to win their hearts back. They liked it when He did nice things for them, but they did not want Him as their God. They were cast out of the land just like the Canaanites before them. The only Israelites left were in the Southern kingdom and now we see how they forgot God and started doing the same things their relatives did in the North and which they had ultimately paid the full consequences.
Ahaz came to the throne of Judah as sole ruler at a crucial time in Judah’s history. Never in that history had they faced the challenge of becoming permanently subservient to a large Empire whose requirements would include the placing of their gods in the Temple of YHWH. But as Ahaz faced up to the invasion of Judah by Israel and Aram, who were seeking to depose him and set up a puppet king, probably because of Jotham and Ahaz’s refusal to join in an alliance with them against Assyria, he found himself in a great quandary. As the son of David should he look to YHWH alone for protection, and trust Him for deliverance, or should he forget that the God of Israel Is A Living God and that sonship and submission to the king of Assyria as his ‘father’, and call on his assistance, with the inevitable result that he would become his vassal, along with all the consequences that would follow from that?
Isaiah the prophet assured him that he should look to YHWH alone, and so huge and difficult did YHWH see the decision to be that He offered to do for Ahaz, as the descendent of the house of David, literally anything at all that he requested as a sign that He, YHWH, was totally reliable, was quite able to deliver him from all his enemies, and would prove Himself worthy of his trust (Isaiah 7.11).
YHWH wanted him to remain totally independent and promised deliverance on that basis. But Ahaz did not feel that YHWH was trustworthy, and the result was that instead of maintaining the honor of the house of David by holding to the Davidic covenant and to YHWH as his Father and Lord God he submitted to the king of Assyria as his father and overlord. It was the low point in Judah’s history. YHWH had finally been rejected as King over His people, and as Father to the sons of David. But equally as momentous as the initial option was the consequence, for YHWH informed Ahaz that because of the choice that he had made the coming promised future king would not be descended from Ahaz, whose house had been rejected. Rather He would be born of a virgin (Isaiah 7.14). And Ahaz was to see that as a sign, not of YHWH’s continued favor, but of the fact that he was now totally rejected. The offer was no longer open.
The somewhat inevitable further result of Ahaz’s decision to reject YHWH to His face was that he reacted to it by sinking into spiritual degradation. In the desperation and spiritual bankruptcy that resulted from his decision he threw himself into the lowest forms of Canaanite worship, by indulging in child sacrifice, and entering fully into the debased worship of the worst of the high places. Having despised YHWH and been rejected by Him he had totally lost his way spiritually. It was not therefore surprising that he also yielded the Temple to the gods of Assyria. By becoming a vassal of the king of Assyria (and of the gods of Assyria) he had to some extent made that inevitable, but he went far beyond what was required, and thrust YHWH right into the background in His own Temple, replacing the Temple paraphernalia with some patterned on a model which had impressed him in Damascus and turned the true altar of YHWH into a private source of divination. He had become a total reprobate.
16 In the seventeenth year of Pekah the son of Remaliah, Ahaz the son of Jotham, king of Judah, began to reign.
Ahaz the son of Jotham of Judah commenced his sole reign in the seventeenth year of Pekah the son of Remaliah. This was the seventeenth year of Pekah commencing from his becoming deputy and co-regent (or rival ruler) to Pekahiah in Gilead.
The full name of Ahaz was Jeho-ahaz. It may be that his behavior was seen as so abominable that the name of YHWH was dropped from his name. It may even be that Ahaz chose to drop the name of YHWH from his name himself when he became an apostate.
2 Ahaz was twenty years old when he became king, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem; and he did not do what was right in the sight of the LORD his God, as his father David had done. 3 But he walked in the way of the kings of Israel; indeed, he made his son pass through the fire, according to the abominations of the nations whom the LORD had cast out from before the children of Israel. 4 And he sacrificed and burned incense on the high places, on the hills, and under every green tree.
When Ahaz became co-regent to his father he was twenty years old, the co-regency lasted the length of his father’s sole reign (eight years), thus he began his sole reign at twenty-eight years old and reigned ‘in Jerusalem’ (i.e. as sole Davidic ruler) for sixteen years.
Apart from when under the influence of the house of Ahab, the kings of Judah since the days of Asa had ‘done what was right in the eyes of YHWH’ even though they had not sufficiently clamped down on the illegitimate high places which had proliferated in the days of Rehoboam (1 Kings 15.23). But now Ahaz did a full turnabout and became eviler than all who had gone before him in either Judah or Israel. There were two reasons for this. The first was the political necessity that resulted from his submission to the king of Assyria. The second was because of his own reaction to his refusal to respond to YHWH when he rejected YHWH’s almost incredible offer to give him any sign that he wanted in heaven or earth so that he might stand firm in his trust in YHWH in the face of all opposition (Isaiah 7.11).
Thus Ahaz’s evil is emphasized in three ways:
• he walked in the ways of the kings of Israel, both in their full worship of Baal, and in their ignoring of the covenant of YHWH.
• he made his sons to pass through the fire according to the abomination of the nations whom YHWH cast out from before the children of Israel. Jeremiah 19.5 makes clear that this refers to child sacrifice.
• he sacrificed and burnt incense in the high places, and on the hills and under every green tree. This had become common practise among many in Judah in the time of Rehoboam (1 Kings 14.23) following on the example of Solomon in his later years and had never been properly stamped out even by kings who did ‘right in the eyes of YHWH’. But now the king was indulging in it himself. The hills were seen as being nearer to the abode of the gods, and as even being such. The spreading green trees were containing ‘divine’ life, in other words, animism.
The gathering threat from Israel and Aram to replace first Jotham, and then after his death Ahaz, with an Aramaean puppet who was ‘the son of Tabeel’ (Isaiah 7.6) became a full reality in the time of Ahaz. The combined forces of Aram and Israel advanced on Jerusalem, wasting the land before them and slaughtering many people, although not necessarily taking all the fortified cities of Judah. But despite being besieged Jerusalem did not yield, and they could not overcome it. At the same time an Aramaean army went to the aid of Edom, who were part of their alliance, and freed Elath from the grasp of Judah.
Ahaz recognized that he was in desperate straits, and as the Book of Isaiah reveals, he was torn three ways. Some called on him to join the anti-Assyrian alliance with Aram and Israel, others called on him to submit to the king of Assyria as his vassal thus obtaining his aid, and still others, no doubt partly influenced by Isaiah, called on him to look to YHWH alone for help. But Ahaz, in spite of an unprecedented offer from YHWH, would choose to submit himself to the king of Assyria and therefore sent messengers offering his submission, promising tribute, and calling for his assistance.
5 Then Rezin king of Syria and Pekah the son of Remaliah, king of Israel, came up to Jerusalem to make war; and they besieged Ahaz but could not overcome him.
Apart from aid given to the Edomites, possibly as part of the package in which they supported the Aramaeans in their war against Judah, the full force of Aram and Israel advanced on Jerusalem, slaying and spoiling as they went, and shutting up many Judaeans in their fortified cities. The aim was not so much to occupy Judah as to set on the throne of Judah a puppet king. We know from Isaiah that this intended king was ‘the son of Tabeel’. This sonship may have been through a daughter of Ahaz married to an Aramaean named Tabeel, or Tabeel may have been the grandfather, whose daughter had married a son of Jotham or Uzziah, who could thus be having a partial claim to the throne.
One way of seeing this is to take it as meaning that Israel and Aram were unable to fight because they could not breach the walls of Jerusalem or entice Judah out to fight. What cannot be avoided is the thought of what Judah had suffered because Ahaz had turned down YHWH’s offer of protection. Many Judaeans not enjoying the protection of the walls of Jerusalem had been carried captive to Damascus and Samaria, and there had been great slaughter (2 Chronicles 28.5-8).
6 At that time Rezin king of Syria captured Elath for Syria and drove the men of Judah from Elath. Then the Edomites went to Elath, and dwell there to this day.
At the same time as they besieged Jerusalem Rezin the king of Aram sent an army to Edom where he assisted the Edomites in recovering Elath which had so long been under the control of Judah (14.22). The Aramaeans appear to have had close connections with Edom and with the other Transjordan tribes, and were regularly involved in assisting them.
Having expressed his unwillingness to rely on YHWH Ahaz had no alternative but to turn to the King of Assyria as the only one powerful enough to help him. As the servant and ‘son’ of YHWH he should, of course, have looked to YHWH. But instead he voluntarily transferred his loyalty to Tiglath-pileser and the gods of Assyria. He thereby ceased to be YHWH’s servant and son, openly confessing himself as the servant and son of the king of Assyria, and thus forfeited any claim on the Davidic covenant. While his appeal was outwardly successful it was at great cost. Judah lost its independence and became a vassal state of Assyria, all its treasures were transferred to the Assyrian treasury, and Judah had to introduce into YHWH’s Temple symbols of the god of Assyria who would have to be paid due honor, at least by the king and his leading courtiers.
7 So Ahaz sent messengers to Tiglath-Pileserking of Assyria, saying, “I am your servant and your son. Come up and save me from the hand of the king of Syria and from the hand of the king of Israel, who rise up against me.”
This abject message from Ahaz to Tiglath-pileser finally confirmed his refusal to look to YHWH for help. Instead of pleading with YHWH based on his sonship (2 Samuel 7.14) and as ‘the son of David’ (on the basis of the Davidic covenant), he submitted to Tiglath-pileser by describing himself as his ‘servant and son’. In the passage Tiglath-pileser is only named here and in verse 10 where Ahaz made his personal submission, otherwise he is ‘the king of Assyria. This emphasizes the personal nature of his submission in this letter. There is here a clear transfer of his loyalty from YHWH to the king and gods of Assyria. And it is to Tiglath-pileser that he appeals as his savior against the kings of Aram and Israel who are attacking him.
8 And Ahaz took the silver and gold that was found in the house of the LORD, and in the treasuries of the king’s house, and sent it as a present to the king of Assyria.
But it cost Judah dearly, for once again the treasury of Judah was emptied. Officially it was given as a ‘present’ because it had not been demanded but the king of Assyria would see it as tribute, and as an indication of vassal ship.
9 So the king of Assyria heeded him; for the king of Assyria went up against Damascus and took it, carried its people captive to Kir, and killed Rezin.
The king of Assyria responded to his request, probably by continuing to do what he had already intended to do. This verse is very much a summary of that response. He had in fact firstly invaded Philistia as far as the borders of Egypt, then he turned back and invaded Israel, with Pekah being replaced by Hoshea, an exchange which saved Israel from final destruction, and finally he crushed Aram, killing Rezin, and carrying the cream of the people of Aram captive to Kir (in Elam - Isaiah 22.5-6). The process took some time, but it relieved the pressure on Jerusalem.
10 Now King Ahaz went to Damascus to meet Tiglath-Pileser king of Assyria and saw an altar that was at Damascus; and King Ahaz sent to Urijah the priest the design of the altar and its pattern, according to all its workmanship.
Because of his appeal king Ahaz then had to go to Damascus to meet Tiglath-pileser in person and make his submission. Such a submission would confirm his vassal ship and would inevitably result in Assyrian gods being required to be introduced into the Temple in Jerusalem. He was required to introduce a copy into the Temple, for part of his obligations under his vassal ship would be to introduce an altar, and probably an image, into the Temple as bidden by the king of Assyria, in order that Assyrian gods might be worshipped there, alongside the national God. This would be an acknowledgement of the superiority of the Assyrian gods who had given Assyria dominance over Judah. And presumably the one that he was required to introduce was the one of which he sent details to Urijah the priest. By this means Ahaz had voluntarily brought himself into covenant with Assyria and its gods and had accepted the king of Assyria as his overlord and ‘father’ thus demoting YHWH. He had forfeited the possibility of any help from YHWH.
11 Then Urijah the priest built an altar according to all that King Ahaz had sent from Damascus. So, Urijah the priest made it before King Ahaz came back from Damascus.
Having received his instructions Urijah ‘the Priest’ did what was required of him, and built an altar in accordance with Ahaz’s specifications, ready for when the king returned. The Temple takeover was in process. In Isaiah 2 Urijah is mentioned as a reliable witness to Isaiah’s ‘advertisement’ concerning the name of his son, but not necessarily as in favor of Isaiah’s position. Here he is depicted as meekly submitting to what he knew to be wrong. (Isaiah would not have done it).
What followed was unquestionably an abomination that makes desolate of the Temple. The ‘true’ altar of YHWH was replaced with one based on a foreign pattern, and the offerings made on that altar would partly be to the gods of Assyria and partly to YHWH (possibly often both at the same time in the eyes of different worshippers). The Temple had thus become a world religious site. This was further confirmed by the fact that the Temple ceased to be the royal chapel, with the special passageway leading from the palace to the Temple being closed, in recognition of the new situation whereby the Temple was now under the sovereignty of Assyria. Furthermore, the altar of YHWH became Ahaz’s own altar for the purposes of divination, and all signs of the special relationship of YHWH with Judah, indicating His rule over the twelve tribes, such as the twelve oxen under the molten sea, and the lions, oxen and cherubim on the plates covering the laver stands, were removed. Judah was now to be wholly subservient to Assyria in both its worship and its rule. It was not that the Assyrians sought to interfere with the local gods of their servant nations, they simply required that the gods of Assyria be acknowledged as well, and that Assyria be pre-eminent. But Ahaz took it further than required.
12 And when the king came back from Damascus, the king saw the altar; and the king approached the altar and made offerings on it. 13 So he burned his burnt offering and his grain offering; and he poured his drink offering and sprinkled the blood of his peace offerings on the altar.
Once the king returned from Damascus he dedicated the new high altar (the fact that this was a dedication is evidenced by the fact that the blood was sprinkled on it), and acting as a king-priest, offered his own burnt offering, meal offering, drink offering, and blood of the peace offerings. By this he was committing both himself and Judah fully to worship at the new foreign altar. This was indeed the very purpose of the new altar, and the reason for its existence. Ahaz was not just ‘modernizing’ the Temple, he was making it an abomination. Against all God’s commands he had introduced an altar made of hewn stone, one that was approached by steps up to the altar. (Exodus 20.25-26).
14 He also brought the bronze altar which was before the LORD, from the front of the temple—from between the new altar and the house of the LORD—and put it on the north side of the new altar.
The true altar of YHWH, ‘the bronze altar which was before YHWH’ (and was acknowledged by Him) he had removed from its central position and put on the north side of the new foreign altar.
15 Then King Ahaz commanded Urijah the priest, saying, “On the great new altar burn the morning burnt offering, the evening grain offering, the king’s burnt sacrifice, and his grain offering, with the burnt offering of all the people of the land, their grain offering, and their drink offerings; and sprinkle on it all the blood of the burnt offering and all the blood of the sacrifice. And the bronze altar shall be for me to inquire by.”
From now on all of Judah’s recognized offerings had to be offered on the new altar. In effect these offerings now served a multiple purpose. Offered by the authorized priests of YHWH they could be seen as offerings to YHWH, but as offered on the foreign altar they would also be offerings to the gods of Assyria and Aram, and this was especially so when they were offered by the king-priest himself.
16 Thus did Urijah the priest, according to all that King Ahaz commanded
The High Priest made no objection to all this but carried out all the instructions of Ahaz. He did not seek to defend the purity of the worship of Yahweh in any way. He took the way of compromise.
17 And King Ahaz cut off the panels of the carts and removed the lavers from them; and he took down the Sea from the bronze oxen that were under it and put it on a pavement of stones.
Furthermore, Ahaz removed all the symbols which emphasized the independence of the Jews and the significance of God’s people. He cut off the panels on the bases of the lavers which were decorated with lions, oxen and cherubim, representing the heavenly connection of God’s people with YHWH, and removed the twelve oxen which held up the molten sea, which represented the twelve tribes and their princes.
There may also have been in this an attempt to obtain as much valuable metal as possible in view of the need to pay tribute, but that is not what the context is all about, and it is not consistent with the fact that the bronze bulls were still in existence in Jeremiah 52.20. Thus, the bronze bulls were put in storage (and possibly reinstated by Hezekiah). The context is stressing the stripping away from the Temple of all that was distinctively connected with the religious position of Judah.
18 Also he removed the Sabbath pavilion which they had built in the temple, and he removed the king’s outer entrance from the house of the LORD, on account of the king of Assyria.
The final alteration was the closing of the private access of the king to the Temple. It was no longer the king’s chapel. It was under the control of the king of Assyria. The outside entry from the palace, and the covered way in the Temple by which the king approached the altar area each Sabbath, were both closed in recognition of the overall lordship of the king of Assyria.
19 Now the rest of the acts of Ahaz which he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah? 20 So Ahaz rested with his fathers and was buried with his fathers in the City of David. Then Hezekiah his son reigned in his place.
Ahaz ‘slept with his fathers’, that is, he died. (Even an assassinated king ‘slept with his fathers’). And he was buried with them in the city of David. It is pointedly not said that he was buried in the tomb of the kings. He was an outcast.
