Week 18 2 Kings 16
Some things a reader has to figure out for himself.
King Ahaz went from Jerusalem to Damascus to see Tiglathpileser.
Tiglathpileser was Ahaz’ political master so Ahaz likely had to go. But once he got there he did a couple of things he didn’t have to.
He saw the big shiny altar in Damascus. He liked it and got a scaled-down model sent to Jerusalem to be duplicated (which he didn’t really need to do).
He told Urijah the priest to build it (technically-speaking he was likely stepping way beyond his own political jurisdiction).
When he got home he went and offered sacrifices on his new altar (Israel’s sacrifices were supposed to be offered on the authorized altar).
Moses’ original bronze altar in front of the door was shifted to give centre-stage to the new one (which Ahaz decided was an improvement).
Ahaz then made his Damascus-altar the one for public sacrifice and re-purposed the old bronze altar for personal use (a functional change that he made on his own say-so).
Personally I knew that Ahaz was going against the exacting specifications and precise instructions that Exodus-Leviticus-Numbers said had to be undeviatingly followed.
But the author of Kings didn’t say a word about the novelties. He could have spelled things out for me. But I guess he expected me to remember that religious mixes-and-matches weren’t allowed and that I could draw reasonable conclusions about Ahaz based on what I already knew.
Note: the story is in 2 Kings 16:10-18