I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on 2 Chronicles 34-36.

    Josiah was Hezekiah’s great gandson. Unlike Hezekiah, Josiah’s father and grandfather were not godly men. They encouraged the people to worship idols. Josiah was placed on the throne when he was eight years old. Something led him to begin seeking the Lord when he was a young man of sixteen. The passage does not spell it out, but, if you read closely and do the math, you realize that Josiah began to act to turn his people to God as soon as he reached his majority and was no longer subject to regents. He did not limit himself to the traditional lands of Judah. Josiah extended his efforts to stamp out idolatry into lands which had been controlled by all of the tribes.

As an aside, if we combine what we read here with the account of King Hezekiah’s Passover celebration we discover that the Kings of Judah extended their control, to at least some degree, to all of the lands of Israel after the Assyrians destroyed the Northern Kingdom.

    I find it the differences between King Hezekiah’s religious reforms and those of King Josiah interesting. King Hezekiah restored the Temple and called people to worship God, then, in response to their worship experience, the people turned from idolatry and destroyed the idols in the land. On the other hand, Josiah acted to eradicate idolatry, then he restored the Temple and called the people to worship God. As we read today’s passage we discover that by King Josiah’s time the people of Israel had lost their knowledge of what God required of them. They clearly still had an understanding that God required that they worship only Him, but had lost direct knowledge of God’s Law. It seems to me that King Josiah thought he was doing pretty well at acting according to God’s will when he sent the priests to clean out and restore the Temple. However, when the priests found a copy of the Book of the Law and read it to him, Josiah realized how far he, and the entire people of Israel, were falling short of keeping their end of their covenant with God. Josiah acted at once to do his best to put things right with God, even after being told that such would only delay the coming disaster, not forestall it.

    We see in the timeline of Chronicles the importance of thoroughly spreading knowledge and understanding of God’s Word. When Jehoshaphat was king, he sent teachers throughout the land to teach the people God’s word. I am convinced that as part of that effort they taught many of the people to read and write, so that they could make copies of God’s word. But over time, those copies would have been lost or destroyed and no one provided the leadership to replace them. In Hezekiah’s time, the people, at least the most educated members of society, still know the contents of God’s Law. However, by Josiah’s time that detailed knowledge had been lost, apparently even among the priests and Levites. This passage also shows us that God provides, because when Josiah sought the Lord a copy of God’s Law was found.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on 2 Chronicles 31-33.

    After the Passover celebration which King Hezekiah had organized, those who attended it left with religious fervor. They went out into all of Israel, not just the Southern Kingdom, they went throughout both the Northern and Southern Kingdoms, and destroyed the idolatrous shrines. Many of the people had arrived in Jerusalem for the Passover celebration with an incomplete understanding of what God asked of His people. They all left with an enthusiasm which was contagious. And that enthusiasm did not end when they got home. Hezekiah harnessed that enthusiasm by making personal contributions to the priests and Levites in order for them to carry out worship services. Hezekiah’s words and actions inspired the people to make such generous contributions to the work of the Lord that the priests and Levites had to seek out recipients for the largesse. We should strive for similar things in our worship services today. We should seek leaders who inspire us and others as Hezekiah inspired people. We should seek to be leaders who inspire others as Hezekiah inspired others. We should act and give as if we have been inspired as Hezekiah inspired his people.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on 2 Chronicles 29-30.

    When Hezekiah became king his first act was to begin the process of reversing his father’s closing and defiling of the Temple. He called on the priests and Levites to clean, restore, and purify the Temple and its furnishings. In doing so, he challenged them for having failed to resist his father’s closing of the Temple, but he did not single them out. His method of handling this is a great example for us. He did not assign them any more blame in this than anyone else, but he also did not excuse them for their failure to remain faithful. As a result, they dedicated themselves wholeheartedly to the task and completed it in sixteen days. King Hezekiah had the priests offer a sin offering for the nation and held a ceremony for the people to consecrate themselves to God.

    One interesting thing we learn hear is that the Levites were more diligent in purifying themselves than the priests were. Perhaps this happened because the priests only had a limited role in the services, admittedly the most important role, and they did not believe that many people would respond to Hezekiah’s call and therefore only a few of them would be needed. On the other hand, the duties of the Levites were many and varied such that there would always be a task which one more Levite could be assigned. In any case, the response of the people was overwhelming and the Levites who had purified themselves were called on to assist with the sacrifices until more priests could be purified.

    The part of this process which I most want to take note of is how Hezekiah dealt with the Northern Tribes. When he had the priests make the burnt offering and sin offering for the people, Hezekiah specified that it should be for ALL of the people of Israel, not just those over whom he ruled. He took it upon himself to try to make it right between God and all of the descendants of Jacob, even those who had rejected his ancestors and himself. Then when he scheduled a Passover celebration, he invited the people of the Northern Kingdom to join in the celebration. Most of the people of the Northern Kingdom laughed at Hezekiah’s messengers and made fun of them, but some joined in this celebration. In many ways, this Passover celebration offers us a model for reaching out to call sinners to the Lord.
    The messengers went out and invited the people of the Northern Kingdom to come to the Lord. They did this knowing that they would be ridiculed, if not when they went out, certainly after their first stop. Yet they did not stop spreading the word. Then when the people, who had not had the opportunity to worship the Lord for over a generation, came to the service, special accommodations were made for them. These accommodations were made with the expectation that these people would follow through and make themselves fully right with God, but they were not excluded because they had not known what to do in advance.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on 2 Chronicles 26-28.

    As I wrote earlier this year, until I started writing this blog I was under the impression that the kings of Judah after Solomon were mostly evil, with the occasional godly king thrown in. However, since I have been reading through the books of Kings and Chronicles every year I have come to realize that most of the kings of Judah were men who strove imperfectly to serve God. In today’s passage we have two kings, father and son, who were mostly godly. Really, the only failing between them was that Uzziah. the father, became arrogant and tried to claim priestly duties for himself. It is not clear to me how what Uzziah did was different from when Solomon burned incense to the Lord. The only clue the passage gives us is that it tells us that Uzziah’s pride led to his downfall. The best I can come up with is that Solomon offered sacrifices and burned incense to the Lord on his own behalf while Uzziah was attempting to act as an intermediary between the people and God. Certainly the latter is a temptation to which many leaders fall prey.

    Unfortunately, after four more or less godly kings in a row (in yesterday’s passage we saw that Uzziah’s father and grandfather had done what was pleasing to God for most of their reigns), the Southern Kingdom had a truly evil king. King Ahaz sought out false gods to worship and encouraged the people to worship them as well. But what made him truly evil was that he actively prevented those who wished to do so from worshiping God.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on 2 Chronicles 23-25.

    The priest Jehoiada engineered a coup to place Joash, the great grandson of Jehoshaphat, on the throne in place of his (Joash’s) grandmother, the daughter of Ahab. Jehoiada had raised Joash from infancy and served as his regent until he reached majority. Jehoiada used his influence over Joash to bring about spiritual renewal in the land. As long as Jehoiada lived, Joash worshiped and served the Lord. Joash was even more enthusiastic about worshiping God than Jehoiada, chiding Jehoiada for failing to restore the Temple. Joash instituted a system to collect money for the restoration of the Temple and saw to it being used for that purpose. However, after Jehoiada’s death, Joash fell under the influence of less godly men and turned away from God to worship idols. He even went so far as to kill Jehoiada’s son, who would have been raised as his brother. The account here of Joash, and his son Amaziah, serve as a warning that youthful enthusiasm for the Lord does not necessarily last.

    In many ways the account of King Amaziah is sadder than the story of Joash. When King Amaziah had established himself as king, he went to war against Edom. As part of his preparations he hired 100,000 warriors from the Northern Kingdom. These men made up one quarter of his army. When he receive instructions from God to dismiss these warriors Amaziah did so on the basis of God’s promise of victory without them. However, despite gaining the victory which God had promised him, Amaziah promptly set up the idols he had plundered from Edom and began worshiping them. We get a hint of what was going on here with Amaziah’s next act, which was to declare war on the Northern Kingdom. Rather than give God credit for his victory over Edom, Amaziah chose to believe it resulted from his own skill as a war leader.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on 2 Chronicles 19-22.

    When King Jehoshaphat returned from his ill-fated war aiding King Ahab, he proved himself different from his father. Upon his return, a prophet chided Jehoshaphat for his friendship with King Ahab. Rather than respond by imprisoning the prophet, as his father had done when similarly chided, King Jehoshaphat renewed his efforts to encourage his people to worship the Lord. Earlier, Jehoshaphat had sent his officials out among the people. Now, he himself went among them to encourage them to worship the Lord faithfully. As a result of this exposure to the needs of his people, King Jehoshaphat appointed judges, whom he strictly instructed to judge with integrity. He gave them a mandate to pass judgments which pleased God, not which pleased wither the crowds or the powerful.

    One result of Jehoshaphat’s going to war to aid King Ahab was that some of the surrounding nations lost their fear of him. Three of the neighboring kingdoms formed an alliance against Jehoshaphat and launched an invasion. Again, King Jehoshaphat demonstrates that he was different from his father. Rather than seeking the aid of other kings, Jehoshaphat turned to God. He called on all of the people to fast and pray for God’s aid. Then, as he marched the army out to fight the invaders, he turned the march into a procession of worship. I want to note that Jehoshaphat did not impose this idea of a worship procession by the army on the people. He did so in consultation with the people. King Jehoshaphat and his people were in accord to trust the Lord in the face of this threat of foreign invaders. While Jehoshaphat’s army marched to meet the enemy armies, praising the Lord the entire time, the enemy alliance fell apart. The three enemy armies turned on each other, leaving behind the plunder they had taken from the raids they had already conducted (the passage does not tell us where this plunder came from in the first place). I want to point out a difference in results between Jehoshaphat and Asa. When Asa chose to rely on another king, it cost him much treasure. When Jehoshaphat chose to rely on God, it gained him much treasure. It may not always work out that way, but one thing is sure: when we rely on God the results are always better than when we rely on men.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on 2 Chronicles 15-18.

    In the early years of his reign, King Asa was receptive to the words of God delivered to him through prophets. Later, he imprisoned a prophet who gave him a message from God. Of course, there was a major difference between the messages those prophets gave him. The first praised him for his trust in God, the second berated him for not doing so. The key here was that when the Southern Kingdom was attacked by the Ethiopian (Cushite) army, King Asa could see no choices but to rely on God. When he was later attacked by the Northern Kingdom, he thought he could deal with it without God. Rather than trusting in God, King Asa took treasures dedicated to God and used them to bribe a foreign king to attack the Northern Kingdom.

    I am not sure what happened to King Asa. Early in his reign he trusted in the Lord and his enthusiasm led the people of his kingdom to do the same. He caused the people to enter into a renewed covenant with God. One of the consequences of his enthusiastic faith was that people migrated from the Northern Kingdom to his kingdom to join in the worship of the Lord. It was this migration which probably led to King Baasha of the Northern Kingdom attacking him (we are told that King Baasha attacked in order to close the border). In other words, King Asa did not trust God to protect him when he was attacked for worshiping the Lord.

    Despite the fact that King Asa failed to put his trust in God in his later years, Jehoshaphat, his son, was faithful when he succeeded him. The one thing which can be held against King Jehoshaphat was his friendship with King Ahab of the Northern Kingdom. Even there, he really only made one mistake. King Jehoshaphat tried to be a good influence on King Ahab. He pointed out that prophets of Baal were not prophets of God. Then, He chided him for being petty and un-kingly because he did not want to listen to the one prophet of God because that prophet did not tell King Ahab what he wanted to hear. However, despite being aware of King Ahab’s flaws and idolatry, King Jehoshaphat arranged for his son, and heir, to marry King Ahab’s daughter. The end result being that King Jehoshaphat’s son was not faithful to God as his father had been.

    I really did not intend to spend that much time on that. What I really want to bring attention to is the fact that Jehoshaphat sent his officials throughout the kingdom to teach the people. While they took the Book of the Law with them, I do not believe that they limited themselves to teaching God’s commands. I believe that King Jehoshaphat’s officials taught the people to, at the very least, read and write so that they could read, and make copies of, the Book of the Law for themselves. The fact that his people were educated and faithful to God led the rulers of the surrounding lands to be afraid of King Jehoshaphat.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on 2 Chronicles 11-14.

    There are several things in today’s passage which strike me as noteworthy. However, I am unsure how many of them I will touch on. It will depend on how much I have to say about each of them and whether or not I can find a way to transition between them.

    When Jeroboam took control of the Northern Tribes the first thing he did was replace the Levitical priesthood with priests loyal to himself. It is not quite clear what the Levites, aside from the descendants of Aaron, did outside of Jerusalem (and Gibeon before that), but they clearly provided religious leadership. Jeroboam removed that role from the Levites and gave it to others of his own choosing. As a result all of the Levites, both priests and non-priests, moved to the area under the control of Rehoboam. This had further results, all of those from the Northern Tribes who wished to follow the Law of Moses migrated from the territory controlled by Jeroboam to the territory controlled by Rehoboam. From this we discover that not all of the members of the “Ten Lost Tribes” lived in the Northern Kingdom when it later fell to the Assyrians and its people were taken into exile. (This, by the way, is why I usually refer to the “Northern Kingdom” and the “Southern Kingdom” rather than the “Kingdom of Israel” and the “Kingdom of Judah” when referring to the divided kingdoms).

    We know from both the account of his reign in Kings and from the description of his son’s reign here that Abijah was not a godly king. Abijah allowed pagan shrines and Asherah poles, even supported worship at them, during his reign. Yet, when he found himself at war with Jeroboam and the Northern Kingdom, he pointed out the continued worship of God among the people of the Southern Kingdom as a reason why the Northern Kingdom would not be victorious. Jeroboam outmaneuvered Abijah by outflanking Abijah’s army. However, Abijah’s troops, outflanked and outnumbered, put their trust in God and were victorious. Later, when Abijah’s son, Asa, was king, we have a similar story. The Southern Kingdom was attacked by an army for Ethiopia (Cush) which greatly out numbered the army which Asa was able to muster. Asa, who unlike his father was faithful to God, called on the Lord for aid and was overwhelmingly victorious. Ordinarily, one would have expected a war between two such armies to take more than one battle. However, Asa found himself on the borders of the land he controlled and the army which he had come to fight completely defeated. So, he took the opportunity to extend his control beyond its previous borders. By putting their trust in God, the people of the Southern Kingdom were able to thrive.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on 2 Chronicles 8-10.

    In addition to building the Temple and his own palace Solomon conducted other building projects throughout the kingdom. This was done with a conscripted labor force of non-Israelites living in the kingdom. He did however apparently maintain a large army of Israelites conscripted for that purpose. This passage tells us that Solomon spent his reign consolidating control over the territory which his father, King David, had conquered In addition, Solomon built a trading empire rather than extending his military and political control over the surrounding areas. For several years now I have believed that David’s conquests were mostly about protecting the merchants who used the trade routes which ran through Israel focusing on overthrowing rulers who supported banditry and ensuring that their replacements did not resume such support. Solomon took the next step of sending out his own merchant caravans. The visit from the Queen of Sheba shows that Solomon developed quite a widespread reputation. I would suggest that that reputation was likely as a sharp negotiator who entered into mutually beneficial agreements.

    However, it seems that the wealth which Solomon’s trade generated did not spread to those outside of the area around Jerusalem. It seems that while the entire kingdom bore the burden of maintaining Solomon’s trade empire, the benefits accrued only to those who lived in the area controlled by the tribes of Judah and Benjamin. So that when Solomon died, the rest of the kingdom demanded that Rehoboam reduce the burden on them. As I had noted when reading the description of how David became king, David became king over Israel as the various groups which composed the nation of Israel chose him as their king. Rehoboam thought that he had the ability to impose himself as king over them against their wishes. He discovered that while it is possible to rule by force, you need to have people willing to impose that force in order to do so. The army of Judah, as shown in Kings, was unwilling to impose that force on their fellow Israelites.