Judah #8 Joash 2 Chronicles 24 Reigned 40 years. Good

A little review: 22:¹⁰ Now when Athaliah the mother of Ahaziah saw that her son (Ahaziah) was dead, she rose and destroyed all the royal offspring of the house of Judah. ¹¹ But Jehoshabeath the king’s daughter took Joash the son of Ahaziah, and stole him from among the king’s sons who were being put to death, and placed him and his nurse in the bedroom. So Jehoshabeath, the daughter of King Jehoram, the wife of Jehoiada the priest (for she was the sister of Ahaziah), hid him from Athaliah so that she would not put him to death. ¹² He was hidden with them in the house of God six years while Athaliah reigned over the land.” Then Jehoiada the priest had Athaliah killed and anointed Joash, the surviving son of Ahaziah, as king. He began to regin at age 7. 1) 24:² Joash did what was right in the sight of the Lord all the days of Jehoiada the priest. He began a systematic collection of money to repair the temple. 24:⁷ For the sons of the wicked Athaliah had broken into the house of God and even used the holy things of the house of the Lord for the Baals.” After the repairs were done, they offered burnt offerings in the house of the Lord continually all the days of Jehoiada. 2) Jehoiada died at age 130. The officials persuaded Joash to worship idols and he would not listen to the prophets. Joah had Zechariah, the son of Jehoiada the priest, killed. Many belived that this is the same Zechariah that Jesus in Matthew 23:35 referred to when he said that the Jews had killed the prophets from Abel to Zechariah. AI: “In the traditional Hebrew ordering of the Bible, Genesis (with the murder of Abel) is the first book, and Chronicles (with the murder of Zechariah son of Jehoiada) is the last book. By saying “from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah,” Jesus was using a literary inclusio to encompass all the martyrs recorded from the beginning to the end of the Hebrew Scriptures. There is a discrepancy in the names of the fathers in the two accounts.” The Lord sent the Arameans to punish Joash for his evil and for murdering Zechariah. Joash’s own servants assassinated him.

Judah #9 Amaziah. 2 Chronicles 25. Reigned 29 years. Good

Amaziah killed the servants who had murdered his father Joash. He had an army of 300,000 men from Judah and hired 100,000 men from the northern kingdom of Israel. But a prophet told him not to use the men from Israel. Amaziah replied, “But what shall we do for the hundred talents which I have given to the troops of Israel?” And the man of God answered, “The Lord has much more to give you than this.” Amaziah dismissed the men from Israel and defeated the Edomites with just men from Judah. Life Lesson: I learned a lot from my son-in-law. We helped a couple of men after they got out of prison, set them up in a nice furnished house, gave them a car, helped them find jobs. We thought things were going well. One day, they were gone. Took the car, the furniture, money, and left us owing rent. I was angry at that but my son-in-law was not upset about the “wasted money”. He said that those 2 men at least knew what the undeserved grace of God was like even if they abused it. They at least had that opportunity and the money was not wasted at all. Sometimes we feel that money is wasted on helping the poor or ex-prisoners, but even if they don’t take advantage of our compassion, it is not wasted. “The Lord has much more to give you than this.” The Lord will replace that “wasted money” with more money that we can use on some other needy person.

Unfortunately 25:¹⁴ Now after Amaziah came from slaughtering the Edomites, he brought the gods of the sons of Seir, set them up as his gods, bowed down before them and burned incense to them.” This angered the Lord greatly. Amaziah was lifted up with pride over defeating the Edomites and challenged King Joash of Israel to a battle. Joash tried to talk him out of fighting but failed. They fought and Amaziah was defeated. This was by the doing of God who was punishing Amaziah for his idolatry. Joash captured Amaziah and took gold from the temple. It does not say how long Amaziah stayed captive. It just says that he lived 15 years after the death of Joash and was assassinated by men from Jerusalem.

Judah #10 Uzziah (Azariah). 2 Chronicles 26. Reigned 52 years. Good

He was 16 when he became king. He obeyed God and God blessed him with great military strength. He had an “elite” army of 307,500 men, well equipped for fighting. 26:¹⁵ In Jerusalem he made engines of war invented by skillful men to be on the towers and on the corners for the purpose of shooting arrows and great stones (siege towers or catapults). 26:¹⁶ But when he became strong, his heart was so proud that he acted corruptly, and he was unfaithful to the Lord his God, for he entered the temple of the Lord to burn incense on the altar of incense.” Azariah the priest and 80 priests opposed him. Azariah was enraged with Azariah, but God then immediately struck Azariah with leprosy. This was probably about the 42nd year of his 52 year reign so he was a leper living alone for bout 10 years. He died a leper. Like King Asa, he was a good king for most of his reign but had a terrible ending due to his pride. As with Asa, a warning to those of us who have served the Lord most of our lives. But now we have financial strength and begin to be proud of what we have accomplished without giving God the glory. Don’t forget who really made you well off financially.

Judah #11 Jotham. 2 Chronicles 27. Reigned 16 years. Good

Jotham was a good king and God made him strong militarily but he did not commit the same sin as his father Uzziah did.

Judah #12 Ahaz. 2 Chronicles 28. Reigned 16 years. Bad

Ahaz worshipped the Baals and even burned his sons in the fire to the god Molech of the Moabites. B/c of his sins God sent King Rezin of Aram (Syria) and Pekah king of Israel against Ahaz. Pekah killed 120,000 men of Judah in one day! He took 200,000 women and children of Judah captive. God intervened and told Israel to quit taking captives from Judah and they stopped. The Philistines and the Edomites also attacked Ahaz and Judah. Ahaz gave the king of Assyria gold from the temple but it didn’t help. The Assyians afflicted him also. Ahaz then offered sacrifices to the gods of the Arameans (Syria and Damascus) to get them to help him. This is the same historical event as in Isaiah 7. Isaiah 7 captures the dramatic encounter where the prophet Isaiah approaches Ahaz with a divine message not to fear, offering him a sign from God, which leads to the famous “Immanuel” prophecy in Isaiah 7:14 (the virgin birth prophecy). In Isaiah 7 he was promised by God that a child would be born to a young “maiden” and that by the time the child was weaned that Pekah and Rezin would retreat from attacking Judah. God sent the Assyrians to attack Rezin and Pekah which caused them to withdraw. Isaiah 7 adds a lot of information not in 2 Chronicles 28.

So far there have been 6 bad kings in Judah and 6 good kings (although several of the good kings ended up filled with pride and bad endings their reigns). We have covered from 930 BC (when the kingdom split) to about 716 BC, so a little more than 200 years of the kingdom of Judah. Judah will only have a little over 100 years before God sends them into Babylonian captivity and destroys the temple in 586 BC. Stay tuned and keep reading to see how this all ends.