2 Chronicles 28:1-27 Ahaz was twenty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem… I. A DEGENERATE SON. Aliaz, "Grasper" or "Possessor." In the Tigiath-Plleser inscriptions, which probably confounded him with the son of Jehoram (2 Chronicles 21:17), he is called Jehoahaz, "Whom Jehovah grasps," though the Scripture writers may have dropped the prefix "Jeho-" on account of his wickedness (Schrader, 'Die Keillnschriften,' p. 264). 1. He possessed his father's nature. Of necessity, as his father's son (Genesis 5:3). Yet he improved not upon that nature, but rather deteriorated and corrupted it. Heredity in him took a downward direction. Some knowledge of who his mother was might shed important light upon the question of how he came by his peculiarities of character and disposition, 2. He enjoyed his father's example. Jotham "prepared his ways before the Lord his God" (2 Chronicles 27:6), yet his pious conduct seemingly exerted no beneficial influence upon his son. Ahaz followed not his father's footsteps, but carved out a path of his own. Example, especially when good, may be potent, but is not omnipotent. 3. He obtained his father's throne. Yet he rather tarnished it than added to its lustre. New dignities do not give new hearts or new powers. At the age of twenty - five years younger than his father (2 Chronicles 27:1), and only four years older than his grandfather (2 Chronicles 26:1) - he assumed the crown of Judah. If the reading "twenty-five "years (Vatican text of the LXX., Arabic, Syriac) be preferred (Ewald, Thenius, Bertheau, Keil, Bahr), on the ground that otherwise he must have married in his tenth or eleventh year, in order, after sixteen years, to be succeeded by a son as old as Hezekiah, who was twenty-five on ascending the throne (ch. 29:1), he was still but a youth when crowned, which may suggest that early promotion is not the same thing as early conversion. 4. He lacked, i.e. did not possess, his father's goodness. Grace runs not in the blood (John 1:13), though corruption does (Job 14:4; Psalm 51:5). A man may communicate to his son wealth, learning, fame, power; be cannot, certainly, impart either grace or goodness. 5. He attained not to his father's grave. When he died his people buried him in Jerusalem, but not in the sepulchres of the kings of Israel. He who in his lifetime had been no true Israelite, though he wore a crown, must not in his death be laid among the sovereigns who were Israelites indeed. Death, which destroys all time's distinctions between man and man (Joshua 33:14; Job 3:19; Ecclesiastes 8:8), nevertheless effectually distinguishes between the righteous and the wicked (Proverbs 14:32; Luke 16:22; Revelation 14:13). II. AN APOSTATE KING. Immediately he reached the crown, Ahaz discovered what manner of spirit he was of. With a perfect passion for idolatry - "a mania for foreign religious practices" (Stanley) - he soon outstripped his people, if not the heathen themselves, in his misdevotion, becoming their Coryphaeus in superstitious rites, showing himself to be the idolater par excellence in Judah, and by his regal example leading his subjects down into unknown depths of infamy (ver. 19). 1. He renounced the true religion of Jehovah. Not merely as it had been practised by David (ver. 1), Asa (2 Chronicles 15:17), and Jehoshaphat (2 Chronicles 17:3), but as it had been observed by his immediate predecessors, Jotham, Uzziah, and Amaziah. If not discontinued at once as to outward form, it was kept up for a season merely as a form; it was from the first abandoned in heart. He began his reign by practising the arts of a hypocrite. 2. He adopted the false worship of Baal, which had long held sway in the northern kingdom (ver. 2). Whether he introduced the calf-worship of Jeroboam (Keil), or restricted himself to the manufacture of images of Baal (Bahr), in either case he followed in the way of the Israelitish kings (1 Kings 12:28; 1 Kings 16:32; 2 Kings 3:2). "It is hard not to be infected by a contagious neighbourhood: whoever read that the kingdom of Israel was seasoned with the vicinity of the true religion of Judah?" (Bishop Hall). 3. He utilized all the idol-sanctuaries already existing in the land. "He sacrificed and burnt incense in the high places, and on the hills, and under every green tree" (ver. 4). In so doing he copied bad masters, reproducing the slate of matters which had existed in Judah under Rehoboam (1 Kings 14:23), and at the moment flourished in Samaria under Hoshea (2 Kings 17:10) - a state of matters which from the first had prevailed among the heathen inhabitants of the land (Deuteronomy 12:2), but which they had been commanded ruthlessly to destroy. On the nature of this worship consult the Exposition. 4. He introduced the worship of Moloch, "the savage god of the Ammonites" (Stanley), as Solomon had done before him (1 Kings 11:7), in open defiance of Divine Law (Leviticus 18:21; Deuteronomy 18:10), setting up an image of that idol - a human figure with a bull's head and outstretched arms - in the valley of Hinnom, a "narrow waterless ravine bounding the site of Jerusalem, and commencing on the west as a shallow dell" (Conder, 'Handbook to the Bible,' p. 330), and even sacrificing to it one (2 Kings 16:3) or more (2 Chronicles 28:3) of his own sons, as Manasseh afterwards did (2 Chronicles 33:6). "The image of metal was made hot by a fire kindled within it, and the children, laid in its arms, rolled from thence into the fiery lap below. Voluntary offering on the part of the parents was essential to the success of the sacrifice. Even the firstborn, nay, the only child of the family, was given up. The parents stopped the cries of their children by fondling and kissing them, for the victim ought not to weep, and the sound of complaint was drowned in the din of flutes and kettledrums" (Dr. Dollinger, 'Heidenthum und Judenthum,' quoted by Rawlinson, 'Story of Phoenicia,' pp. 112-114). That the children were not merely passed through the fire as an act of purgation, but actually burned, seems indisputable; it is not certain that the children were thrown alive into the idol's glowing arms, the opinion that they were first slain (Keil, Bahr, Schurer) appearing to be warranted by certain passages in Scripture (Ezekiel 16:20, 21; Ezekiel 23:39; Isaiah 57:5; Jeremiah 7:31; Jeremiah 19:5; cf. 2 Kings 3:27). 5. He sacrificed to the gods of Damascus. (1) He did this when the Syrians were inflicting on him military reverses, i.e. in the time of his distress (Keil), not after it (Bertheau). Strange that just then, when men most need the help of God, in the hour of affliction and season of calamity, they usually manifest a tendency to run from him, looking for assistance from every quarter blot the right one (Jeremiah 3:23) - exemplified in Ahaziah (2 Kings 1:2, 3). (2) The reason of his doing this was that he imagined his ill success upon the field of battle had been due, not at all to the hand of God who thereby punished his wickedness, but to the assistance derived by the Syrians from their divinities (ver. 23), and conceived that, by paying them respect in sacrificing to them, he would win their favour to himself instead of them (2 Chronicles 25:14). Wicked men seldom ascribe their misfortunes or adversities to the right cause, their own ill deserts and God's hand in punishing the same, but mostly attribute them to the "scientific idols," called "chance," "circumstances," "ill luck," etc., which deities they hope to propitiate in a manner hardly less foolish than that of Ahaz, by sacrificing at their unhallowed shrines. (3) The specific mode in which he served the Syrian gods is not stated, as the divinities themselves are not named, and indeed in Scripture never are (Judges 10:6). The incident of the altar seen by Ahaz at Damascus, and reproduced in Jerusalem (2 Kings 16:10-16), is not referred to by the Chronicler. The altar incident occurred when Ahaz was attending Tiglath-Pileser's durbar at Damascus; "the sacrifices" were performed while Ahaz was fighting with the Syrians. (4) The result of his appeal to the gods of Syria was ruin to himself and to all Israel. So all that forsake God shall be ashamed (Jeremiah 17:13), while "their sorrows shall be multiplied that hasten after other gods" (Psalm 16:4), and "they that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercies" (Jonah if. 8); for "idolaters shall have their part in the lake," etc. (Revelation 21:8). 6. He shut up the doors of the house of the Lord. (Ver. 24.) It was high time. The man who could displace the brazen altar made by Solomon after patterns furnished by Jehovah (Exodus 25:40; Exodus 26:30; Exodus 27:1; 1 Chronicles 28:19), to make room for a new shrine, no matter of what costly material, copied from a heathen temple at Damascus, and fashioned by a servile priest in Jerusalem; the monster who could erect an image of Moloch in his capital and sacrifice to it his own child; the devotee who was so mad upon foreign gods, that the very sight of a heathen temple, altar, or idol caused him to fall a-worshipping; - had obviously no excuse for longer affecting to be a worshipper of Jehovah. Accordingly, he smashed up the vessels and closed the doors of the temple. There should be no more worshipping of Jehovah, if he could help it. It was horrible sacrilege, but it was at least honest. 7. He did his utmost to provoke Jehovah to anger. Building altars in every corner of Jerusalem, till, like Athens in the days of Paul, it was wholly given to idolatry, literally stuffed full of idols (Acts 17:16), and erecting besides in every city of Judah high places to burn incense unto other gods (vers. 24, 25); he did his best to pour contempt upon the God of his fathers; in his outrageous, fanatical, and senseless idolatry eclipsing all his predecessors, leaving behind him in the race to perdition experts in heathen worship like Rehoboam and Jehoram in Judah, like Jeroboam and Ahab in Israel. It was no wonder that Jehovah at length bestirred himself to take vengeance on this nonpareil idolater. III. AN UNSUCCESSFUL WARNING. For the wickedness of himself and people, he and they were "brought low," diminished in numbers, weakened in power, humbled in spirit, by Jehovah, who raised up against them three foreign foes. 1. The Syrians and Israelites. (Vers. 5-7.) (1) The leaders of the allied forces were - of the Syrians, Rezin, or Rezon - in the inscriptions, Razinu, King of Syria, whose capital was Damascus; of the Israelites, Pekah, the son of Remaliah - in the inscriptions, Pakaha, a usurper; whose metropolis was Samaria ('Records,' etc., 5:48-52). (2) The time selected for their assault upon Judah was the beginning of the reign of Ahaz, although for some years previous to Jotham's death similar attacks had not been wanting (2 Kings 15:37). (3) The object contemplated by the expedition was to overturn the Davidie dynasty, and place upon the throne of Judah "a vassal king, whose father's name, Tabeel, shows that he must have been a Syrian" (Sayce); the Hauran inscriptions exhibiting several names, like Tab'el, compounded with el, and the Syrian Tab'-rimmon forming an exact parallel (Delitzsch, on Isaiah 7:6). It is supposed that a party in Jerusalem favoured the contemplated revolution (Isaiah 8:6). (4) The plan of campaign appears to have been that Rezin should invade Judah from the south, capturing Eloth on the Red Sea, which Uzziah had restored to Judah (2 Chronicles 26:2), that Pekah should send a force directly from the north across the borders of the southern kingdom, and that both armies should meet in front of Jerusalem, to reduce it, if possible, by a siege. (5) The result of the invasion, so far as Ahaz and his people were concerned, was disastrous in the extreme. The capital, as Isaiah had predicted, was not taken. It may be questioned if the programme was carried out to the extent of besieging the city. There is ground for thinking this was prevented by the appearance upon the scene of Tiglath-Pileser II. of Assyria (ver. 16; 2 Kings 16:7). But (a) Rezin of Damascus, besides recovering Eloth (2 Kings 16:6), defeated Ahaz m a pitched battle, and carried away a multitude of his subjects captive to Damascus. (b) Pekah also routed him with great slaughter in one day's fight, slaying a hundred and twenty thousand of his veteran troops. In particular, Zichri, an Ephraimite hero, struck down three warriors closely related to Ahaz - Maaseiah the king's son, i.e. cousin or uncle, as in 2 Chronicles 18:25 and 2 Chronicles 22:11, since Ahaz could hardly at the commencement of his reign have had a son capable of bearing arms; Azrikam, the ruler of the house, not of the temple (2 Chronicles 31:13; 1 Chronicles 9:11), but of the palace, hence a high official in the royal household; and Elkanah, that was next or second to the king, i.e. his prime minister. In addition, two hundred thousand women, sons and daughters, with much spoil, were carried captive to Samaria. The great number of the slain and of the captives may be accounted for by remembering that it was practically a war for the existence of the southern kingdom, which would require Ahaz to call out all his able- bodied population; that the Israelites were accustomed to act with great cruelty in war (2 Kings 15:16), and probably did so on this occasion (ver. 9); and that Jehovah had delivered Ahaz and his people into the hands of their enemies on account of their apostasy, as by the lips of Moses (Leviticus 26:17, 37) he had threatened he would in such cases do. 2. The Edomites. These, whom Uzziah had reduced to subjection (2 Chronicles 26:2), were probably emboldened by Rezin's successful attack upon Eloth (2 Kings 16:6) to throw off the yoke of Judah, and even attempt reprisals in the shape of an invasion of Judaean territory. This they executed with such military skill, that they carried off, as the Syrians and Israelites had done, a number of prisoners. 3. The Philistines. During the previous reign these also had been conquered, and their country occupied by garrisons of Judaean soldiers (2 Chronicles 26:6); but, embracing the opportunity afforded by the simultaneous attacks directed upon their ancient enemy and present suzerain, they asserted their independence, made an irruption into the low land and south country of Judah, captured and occupied a number of cities, with their dependent villages: Beth-shemesh (see on 2 Chronicles 25:21); Ajalon, the modern Jalo (2 Chronicles 11:10); Gederoth, in the hill country of Judah (Joshua 15:36); "the Gedor of the 'Onomasticon,' ten miles from Eleutheropolis, on the road to Diospolis, now the ruin Jedireh (Conder, 'Handbook,' p. 411); Shocho (2 Chronicles 11:7), the Shuweike of to-day; Timnah, the present Tibneh, on the frontier of Judah three quarters of an hour from Ain-shems; Gimzo, now Jimsu, a large village between Lydda and Jerusalem. LESSONS. 1. The degeneracy of human nature - a good Jotham begets a wicked Ahaz. 2. The madness of idolatry, exemplified in the career of Ahaz. 3. The certainty of retribution, illustrated by the bringing low" of Judah. - W. Parallel Verses KJV: Ahaz was twenty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem: but he did not that which was right in the sight of the LORD, like David his father: |
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