Bible Commentaries
2 Chronicles 26

XIV

THE REIGNS OF JEHOASH AND JEROBOAM (OF ISRAEL) AND OF AMAZIAH AND UZZIAH (OF JUDAH)

2 Kings 13:10-14:29; 2 Chronicles 24:25-26:15

Jehoahaz was followed by Jehoash his son who was a better man and an abler man and more successful. He had great encouragement from Elisha to fight with Syria and to redeem his kingdom from the iron grasp of Benhadad. Jehoash was encouraged at the outset. Elisha told him to shoot his arrows against Syria, and three times he smote upon the ground. The prophecy came true. Three times Jehoash smote the Syrian army and recovered the cities taken from his father by Benhadad. In the meanwhile Syria and Damascus had been assaulted by Assyria and were brought almost to the verge of extinction. Assyrian annals tell how the king of Assyria took Damascus and almost destroyed it, and it was largely because Syria was thus weakened by Assyria that Jehoash was able to recover and relieve Israel from its oppression.

Amaziah succeeded Joash on the throne of Judah. His character is described as one who was wicked and lazy, though he was better than the general run of the northern kings. His policy was to destroy the servants who killed his father, but he spared their children in accordance with the positive prohibition found in Deuteronomy 24:16. Here arises a question of the morality of the killing of Achan’s sons, Naboth’s sons and Ahab’s sons. Two causes operated in favor of the exception to this prohibition: (1) the sons were apt to be accessories to the crimes of their fathers and thus incriminate themselves; and (2) the “blood feud” that was to follow. Then we should consider these cases either under the direct command of God or in the hands of Oriental monarchs.

In 2 Kings 13:20-21, we have recorded the last miracle of Elisha, viz: that in his tomb. This occurred, perhaps, to give special light to the heathen, a testimony to the power of the God of Israel, and to encourage the king and the people with respect to Elisha’s unfulfilled prophecies. Close upon this follows the account of the fulfilment of Elisha’s dying prophecy and Joash’s success over Benhadad (2 Kings 13:23-25). In this we note that, notwithstanding the sins of Israel, God gave them victory over Syria for the sake of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; that the "as yet" shows his mercy still extended to Israel; that Hazael, king of Syria) died, and that Benhadad III, his son, reigned in his stead.

We will find that Amaziah in the latter part of his reign committed a very grievous and particular sin that brought a host of evil consequences. The sin committed by him was that, when he proposed to wage war against Edom lying south of his territory, he hired a hundred thousand mercenary soldiers of the Northern Kingdom to aid him in the war, and when an unnamed prophet of God comes and rebukes him, he says, "If I don’t take these men now that I have paid for them, I will lose my hundred talents of money." The prophet replied, "The Lord can give you more than that." So he yielded to the protest of the prophet and rejected the services of the men – a hundred thousand – whom he had already paid for. That of course made the mercenaries very mad. They were not only buoyed up with the hope of their pay but the hope of capturing a great deal of booty in the war, and when they were not permitted to go to the war, on their return home they swept all that part of Judah that lay between them and their own land as dry as if a fire had passed over it. Now Amaziah having committed the sin, first, of relying upon the mercenaries instead of relying upon Jehovah, committed a second sin by importing the gods of Edom for which a prophet rebuked him, and he made him forbear. Stirred up in his mind by these degradations that had been committed upon his people by the hundred thousand mercenaries on their way home and the prophet’s rebuke, without consulting God or any prophet he sends a braggadocio challenge to the king of Israel, and says, "Come, set your face up before mine," and the king of Israel replied, "Why should you make this challenge? It will likely prove to be very disastrous to you." Well, Amaziah shook his fist at him and told him to come on and set his face up, and he did come and set his face up, and he wiped the army of Amaziah off the face of the earth in the great battle that followed, and Judah was sorely straightened by that defeat; even Jerusalem was captured, her walls broken down, and all her vast treasures plundered and carried away. All this indicates that Jehoash was one of the most fortunate, most successful, most able, and most kind and benevolent rulers northern Israel ever had, but at the same time southern Israel had a foolish king.

Jehoash was succeeded by Jeroboam II, Jehoash had saved his country from the terrible oppression of Syria, had conquered Judah, had obtained enormous spoils which almost set the kingdom again upon its feet) and ushered in a period of prosperity. He was followed by his grandson Jeroboam il, the greatest of all the monarchs of northern Israel. Jeroboam II was the most successful of all, for in his day nearly all of northern Israel that had previously belonged to Solomon’s kingdom was recovered and he reigned to the north as far as Hamath and to the south all the land of the Jordan and reconquered the land on the east side of the Jordan. The kingdom was at the height of its prosperity under Jeroboam II.

There have been four kings of the dynasty of Jehu, and only in the latter part of the reign of the third king, Jehoash, has Israel in any way succeeded in loosing herself from the bonds of oppression at the hand of Syria. The record says, "The Lord gave Israel a saviour, so that they went out from under the hands of the Syrians: and the children of Israel dwelt in their tents as before time." Who was that saviour? Some think probably it was Jehoash, the preceding king and father of Jeroboam II, who was the means of a threefold defeat of the Syrian army. But it may be interpreted as referring to Jeroboam II, the greatest of all the northern kings, who freed his country entirely from the dominion of Syria. Price in The Monuments and the Old Testament, thinks it refers to an Assyrian king, Adad Nirari, who at about this time made an onslaught on the kingdom of Syria and especially the city of Damascus and almost totally destroyed it. In that case he was indeed saviour, in that he destroyed the country that was oppressing Israel. The dynasty of Jehu lasted altogether about 102 years and in that time there were five kings. Jeroboam II is the fourth and greatest of all. He reigned forty-one years, the longest reign in the history of the Northern Kingdom.

In 2 Kings 14:25 reference is made to Jonah the son of Amittai, the prophet which was of Gathhepher. This is the time in which Jonah the prophet lived. About this time he made his strange expedition to Nineveh the capital of Assyria, and preached there. He had doubtless preached in northern Israel also. At this time arises also a greater prophet, Amos, and in the pictures which Amos gives we have a vivid and lurid representation of the sins of northern Israel. So the reign of Jeroboam II, though the most glorious in the history of northern Israel, was attended by these two great prophets who pronounced the inevitable and irretrievable doom of the nation. Just as this time occurred the death of Amaziah at the hand of his conspirators and Uzziah his son succeeded him. But according to some authorities there was an interregnum between Uzziah and Amaziah. This conclusion is based upon the following facts as given in the record: First, it says that Amaziah died and that he had reigned fifteen years before Jeroboam II, king of Israel. Kings and Chronicles both say that he reigned twenty-nine years in all and that the last fifteen years of the twenty-nine was contemporaneous with the reign of Jeroboam II. In other words, he died in the fifteenth year of Jeroboam, but 2 Kings 15:1 says that Uzziah his successor did not begin to reign until the twenty-seventh year of Jeroboam, so if both statements be correct then Judah had no king from the fifteenth year of Jeroboam to the twenty-seventh year of Jeroboam, a period of at least eleven years and possibly twelve. The whole question turns on the accuracy of the text in 2 Kings 15:1 where it says that Uzziah began to reign in the twenty-seventh year of Jeroboam. Now, if we accept that text as accurate, then there was an interregnum of eleven years. Josephus does not accept it. He says the number is wrong; that it ought to be in the fourteenth year instead of the twenty-seventh year of Jeroboam. But it is quite easy to accept this text, not question it at all, and then we account for that interregnum of eleven years by the extreme youth of Uzziah when Amaziah died. He was only five years old when Amaziah died. They seem to have deferred making him king until he was sixteen. In other words, there was a regency for that period of eleven years. Now, that is the only chronological difficulty in the whole period and it is not a very serious one.

Amaziah’s son, Uzziah, at a very tender age became king and he reigned fifty-two years. That is a long period, over half a century. The record about it is very fine on a number of points. While he did not destroy the high places, he did walk in the ways of David so far as relates to the worship of Jehovah in the appointed place in the Temple. He was a great builder of fortifications and towns and cities. One thing said about him constitutes a fine text: He loved husbandry. In his wars he had conquered a fine section of country, very fruitful, all the Philistine country clear on to the entrance of Egypt and that Negeb, or south country, from the days of Isaac was remarkable for the yield of its crops. It is said of Isaac that he reaped a hundredfold, i.e., if he sowed one bushel of wheat, he would reap a hundred bushels from that one. Uzziah devoted a great deal of attention to matters of that kind. He was very successful in his wars, not only against Philistia but against the Arabians and against the Ammonites. He became exalted in his power.

In 2 Kings 14:28-29 we have a summary of the reign of Jeroboam and an account of his death. The condition of Syria during the reign of Jeroboam II was one of weakness and consequent inactivity. The great kings had come and gone, and some weak monarchs sat on the throne which had been almost crushed by Assyria, and was in no position to oppress Israel. This gave Jeroboam II his opportunity. Being a great man, an able general and administrator he carried the boundaries of northern Israel almost as far north as David and Solomon had done, capturing all the northern part that had been taken by Syria. He retook all eastern Palestine as far as the land of Moab, and likewise he recaptured the land of Moab that had revolted and freed itself from the dynasty of Omri. The extent of his kingdom was almost as great as that of David’s with the exception, of course) of southern Israel, and with this great extension of his kingdom there was a great influx of wealth and prosperity. The depression of the three reigns preceding was followed by an abundance of prosperity and the result was a corresponding excess of luxury and sin. Their prosperity produced all the evils of civilization, and they went to excess with it. Jeroboam died and after an interregnum of twenty-two years, was succeeded by his son Zechariah. This interregnum is determined by comparing 2 Kings 14:23 and 2 Kings 15:1-2; 2 Kings 15:8.

QUESTIONS

1. What was the character of Jehoash?

2. What was Elisha’s encouraging prophecy on his deathbed, and what incidents of its delivery?

3. Who succeeded Joash and what was his character?

4. What was his policy, and where in the book of Moses is found the statement which occurs in 2 Kings 14:6 and 2 Chronicles 25:4, and how do you harmonize this passage in Deuteronomy with the killing of Achan’s sons, Naboth’s sons, and Ahab’s sons?

5. What was the last miracle of Elisha and why this miracle?

6. Notwithstanding the sins of Israel what the Lord’s dealings with them and why, what change occurred just at this time in Syria, and what prophecy of Elisha was here fulfilled?

7. What were Amaziah’s plans against Edom, what was the result of each step taken and what can you say of the cruelty of Judah?

8. How did the Israelitish mercenaries deport themselves when sent back?

9. What was Amaziah’s further wickedness, what was his warning and how did he receive it?

10. Recite the account of the war between Amaziah and Jehoash, and what was the parable of Jehoash and its application, what was the result and what is the modern name of stealing?

11. Who succeeded Jehoash and what was his character?

12. What were the possibilities of Jeroboam II, and what did he accomplish for Israel?

13. What prophet comes in here, what was his commission and how did he receive and discharge it?

14. Give an account of the death of Amaziah.

15. What of the interregnum in Judah here and how does the author determine it?

16. Uzziah – what was his other name, how was he made king, how long his reign, and how does it compare with the reigns of others?

17. What of his character and prosperity and wherein did he fail?

18. During his prosperous years what (1) of his building of Eloth, (2) of his success of war, (3) of his building and husbandry, (4) of his army, (5) of his fame?

19. Give an account of the death of Jeroboam II.

20. What of the interregnum here in Israel and how determined by the author?

Verses 16-17

XV

THE REIGNS OF UZZIAH, JOTHAM, AND THAZ (OF JUDAH) AND ZECHARIAH, SHALLUM, PEKAHIAH, AND PEKA (OF ISRAEL)

2 Kings 15:1-16:20; 2 Chronicles 26:16-28:17

In this chapter we begin with the brief reign of Zechariah who was the last king of the dynasty of Jehu. He was a weakling preceded by four strong men, but himself very inferior to his predecessors. Zechariah reigned only six months, and during that six months we have the same story of sin and corruption repeated as we have had in all the reigns previous to him. He was murdered by a usurper named Shallum, and thus ends the dynasty of Jehu as had been prophesied: that his children to the fourth generation only should sit upon the throne.

Then follows the brief reign of Shallum. The usurper succeeds in removing Zechariah and seizes the throne. His reign is short lived, but during that time we have an even more terrible picture of the condition of the people as described in the book of Hosea, Hosea 4-14. It is during this period and after, that Hosea gives us the bulk of his prophecy. In Hosea 10:3, referring to one of these revolutions when the dynasty was changed, we find this statement: "Surely now shall they say, We have no king; for we fear not the Lord; and the king, what can he do for us?" which indicates that the people felt themselves without a king. They cared not for God nor for the king. The kingdom was without a head) without a central government, the result of such condition of affairs is the anarchy which he describes. In Hosea 4:1-2 we have a catalogue of the sins of the people: "Hear the word of the Lord, ye children of Israel; for the Lord hath a controversy with the inhabitants of the land, because there is no truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land; nought but swearing, and lying, and killing, and stealing, and committing adultery; they break out, and blood toucheth blood." So frequent were the murders that the blood of one is not dried up before another one takes place and there is a continuous stream of blood.

Next comes the brief reign of Menahem, who seized the throne through murder, destroyed all the dynasty preceding him, and the brief statement made in regard to his character would indicate that he was a man, barbarous in his ferocity, a murderer and a relentless freebooter.

The record tells us that when Uzziah was exalted, his heart was lifted up with pride, and he assumed to perform the functions of the priesthood. He thrust himself into the Temple to offer the incense which the law placed in other hands. There the priest met him, bravely stood in the way of that offering, and while the spirit of persistence was upon him, God smote him with leprosy, and from the day that leprosy struck him he had to be isolated from the throne and the people and though he lived years afterward a regency was established by his son, Jotham. It is called Uzziah’s reign, but Jotham acted as king until his leprosy killed him.

In 2 Kings 15:19-20 and 1 Chronicles 5:26 we find that Pul, king of Assyria, or the great Tiglath-Pileser, approaches the Northern Kingdom, and Menahem had to pay a large tribute in order to maintain his kingdom, a thousand talents of silver: "And Menahem exacted the money of Israel, even of all the mighty men of wealth, of each man fifty shekels of silver, to give to the king of Assyria, so the king of Assyria turned back, and stayed not there in the land." Thus he was able to maintain his throne and kingdom by paying Tiglath-Pileser a heavy tribute. Then follows the reign of Pekahiah, the son of Menahem. He was a little improvement upon his father. In a short time he was himself butchered by Pekah who seized the throne and established another dynasty. His character was in line with the other kings of Israel in general: "He departed not from the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat."

About this time Uzziah died. It is notable that he was buried "in the field of burial with his fathers, for they said, He was a leper." Just at this time, Isaiah, the greatest of Old Testament prophets, had his vision, and also the prophetic work of Amos and Hosea of Israel and Micah of Judah falls in this period. From these prophets we get a fine description of the customs and practices of this time.

Upon the death of Uzziah, his son Jotham, reigned in his stead. His mother’s name was Jerusha, the daughter of Zadok. His character was ahead of any other king in the period except Hezekiah. He didn’t put down the high places, but he didn’t commit particular sins to aggravate the condition of the people. He carried forward some important building enterprises. He built the upper gate of the Temple, the wall of Ophel, cities in the hill country of Judah and castles and towers in the forest. He was also successful in war with the Ammonites who paid him large tribute.

During the reign of Pekah several things happened. The kingdom was now nearing its end and we read that Pul, the great Assyrian king approached eastern Palestine, conquered it, deported the entire population "and brought them unto Halah, and Habor and Hara, and to the river of Gozan," and there they remained. Tiglath-Pileser was the first of the great Assyrians that inaugurated the system of deporting a rebellious people, thus rendering them powerless to oppose him. He picked them up, and transported them to other countries, and brought in others to take their places, simply transferred whole nations. Thus all eastern Palestine had gone into exile.

We now come to Ahaz and the whole picture is black. He reigned sixteen years and he crowded into that time as much meanness, vileness, as a man can put into sixteen years. Let us glance at the record itself to see some of the things that he did. In the sketch of his character it is said, "He did not that which was right in the sight of the Lord his God, like David his father. But he walked in the way of the kings of Israel, yea, and made his son to pass through the fire, according to the abominations of the heathen, whom the Lord cast out from before the children of Israel. And he sacrificed and burnt incense in the high places, and on the hills, and under every green tree." There was a confederacy formed against him to which the prophets give particular notice. The king of Israel and the king of Syria entered into an alliance to destroy Judah. Here the prophet Oded comes in and the record says, "Behold, because the Lord, the God of your fathers, was wroth with Judah, he hath delivered them into your hand, and ye have slain them in a rage which hath reached up unto heaven. And now ye purpose to keep the children of Judah and Jerusalem for bondmen and bondwomen unto you: but are there not even with you trespasses of your own against the Lord your God?" You acted as the sword of God against Judah. Ought it not to put you to thinking that God would make some other nation the sword against you? ’Spurgeon has a great sermon on that text: "Are there not even with you trespasses of your own against the Lord your God?" Spurgeon preached his sermon to those harsh censorious people who with an eye of a buzzard can detect anything fowl, or dead, or decaying in the character of other people, and he made this charge in the sermon: "You that condemn others, you who are so ready to pass a harsh and inexorable judgment upon them, are there not even with you some trespasses against the Lord your God?" Our Lord carried out the thought thus: "What judgment ye mete unto others shall be measured unto you." Not only was Ahaz smitten by this confederacy from the north, but the Edomites on the south revolted against him; on every side the enemies came in and smote him.

Now we come to his next sin. Instead of turning to God with repentance and asking the Lord to help him he seeks an alliance with Tiglath-pileser, the king of Assyria, and invites him to smite Syria for a consideration: "Now I will foot the bills." In order to foot the bills he strips the house of God of all of its precious ornaments and with that gold he buys the service of the Assyrian king to smite the Syrians and the Assyrian was ready enough to do the smiting. He had an eye in that direction already and he did smite, but he demanded that Ahaz should come up to Damascus and pay tribute to him.

So we come to the third great sin of Ahaz. When in Damascus he studied the form of the altar of burnt offerings that the idolaters had up there and was very much pleased with it; so before he leaves he sends a plan of it to a certain priest and instructs him to make one just like it, and when he gets home he moves God’s altar off to one side, and puts up this heathen altar that he had copied. He didn’t stop at that; he shut up the holy place, and closed up all the services of the worship of the true God. That gives some idea of his sins.

In 2 Kings 15:29 we have the account of another terrible deportation by Tiglath-Pileser. He came "and took Ijon, and Abel-beth-maacah, and Janoah, and Kedesh, and Hazor, and Gilead, and Galilee, all of the land of Naphtali, and he carried them captive to Assyria." Thus we see that northern Israel was stripped of all of its land east of the Jordan and of all its land north of the plain of Esdraelon, and only the hill country of Ephraim was left, about one-tenth perhaps of the entire dominion. So the kingdom is going, falling, being stripped of its possessions gradually.

In 2 Kings 15:30-31, we have an account of the death of Pekah, which was the result of a conspiracy of Hoshea, the son of Remaliah. But between Pekah and Hoshea we find, according to good authority," another interregnum of nine years which is determined by comparing 2 Kings 15:27; 2 Kings 15:30 and 2 Kings 17:1.

QUESTIONS

1. Who succeeded Jeroboam II, and what was his character?

2. How long did he reign, what was the manner of his death, and what promise of Jehovah was fulfilled in him?

3. Who succeeded Zechariah and what was the story of his reign and death?

4. Who succeeded Shallum and what was his character?

5. What was Uzziah’s sin, what was its punishment and what is meant by "several house"?

6. Who became king regent and what was his special work as such?

7. What invasion of Israel just here and what results?

8. Who succeeded Menahem, what was his character and what the manner of his death?

9. Who succeeded Pekahiah and what was his character?

10. What is notable in the death and burial of Uzziah, what great prophet had his vision in the year of Uzziah’s death, and what other prophets came in this period?

11. Who succeeded Uzziah, who his mother and what his character?

12. What was the spiritual condition of his people, what of his building enterprises and what of his conquest and result?

13. What deportation of Israel here, who took them and where, and what the market condition of Judah at this time?

14. Who succeeded Jotham, what was his character, and what horrible thing did he practice?

15. Recite the account of the war between Ahaz and Rezin and Pekah including the account of Isaiah and the work of Oded the prophet.

16. What invasion here of Judah, what was the result and what reason assigned?

17. What distressed condition of Ahaz at this time, to what source did he turn for relief and what result?

18. What second deportation of Israel, who took them and where?

19. Recite the story of Ahaz’s sacrilege and its lessons.

20. What of the interregnum between Pekah and Hoshea and how determined by the author?