Month: May 2023

Week 22  2 Chronicles 10-36

A week ago I decided to rank the fifteen kings of Judah – I wanted a better & clearer idea of how they each graded-out.
This is what I found – Best-to-Worst:
1. Josiah
2. Hezekiah
3. Jotham
4. Jehoshaphat
5. Asa
6. Joash
7. Amaziah
8. Uzziah
9. Abijah
10. Rehoboam
11. Manasseh
12. Ahaziah
13. Jehoram
14. Ahaz
15. Amon
I feel pretty solid about my top three (and actually pretty good with my bottom four as well). But I guess every single one could be debated (for instance I heard a guy describe Joash as an outstanding king…but he was very lucky to land as high as #6 on my list).
One thing that impressed me was the poor overall quality of the kings. If I could assign an exact numerical percentage rating to each king (so let’s say Josiah is 90%) then the average of the fifteen kings would be low. The good grades of Josiah & Hezekiah & Jotham wouldn’t boost the rest very much. I’d be surprised if the Average King Rating was any more than 50%.

Note: end-of-month reading report: there’s the 403 chapters of Genesis – 2 Chronicles plus the 150 psalms. Those 553 chapters are 46.5% of the bible. And since 2023 is only 41.6% finished I’m ahead. So that’s good. It’s a relief too since May was a pretty ragged month for me. I credit my good outcome to the Rating-the-Kings exercise – it helped focus my attention after three pretty fuzzy weeks. It helped salvage my month.

Week 22  2 Chronicles 10-36

Last week I decided to make a ranked-list of the kings of Judah – from #1-to-#15. This week I’ve pretty much concluded (unfortunately) that the exercise can’t be done (at least not with much accuracy).
I think the biggest road-block is that when I needed to make subtle points of distinction I didn’t think Chronicles gave me enough data. Chronicles is a kind of Encyclopedia of the Kings – good for brief & to-the-point & general information – but not so good for drawing razor-thin differences (which is what I needed). I knew that if King A followed the Lord with his whole-heart and King B followed the Lord too but not with his whole-heart then I’d rank King A higher than King B. But I knew I couldn’t numerically quantify the difference between whole-hearted & part-hearted allegiance
Anyway I got a big piece of black construction paper. Then I cut out 15 small yellow slips with the name of a king on each. I rough-sorted them using questions like:
Did the king only do what was right?
Did he lead the nation in doing good?
Did he fail at some point?
Did he stayed ‘failed’ or turn back around?
Did the king only do wrong?
Did he publicly advocate for wrong-doing?
Did he lead the nation away from the Lord?
How did he end-up?
I’ll leave the 15-slips there overnight. Look them over tomorrow. Then take-my-best-shot at a ‘definitive’ list (but I already know it’ll be less definitive than I’d planned).

Week 22  2 Chronicles 34-35

Here’s what I found about Josiah:
He did what was pleasing in the Lord’s sight and followed the example of his ancestor David. He did not turn aside from doing what was right.
He followed the pattern of Hezekiah and made a clean sweep in getting rid of the religious practices that his dad loved.
He repaired and renovated the Temple (he restored what earlier kings of Judah had allowed to fall into ruin).
The Passover had been cancelled so he got it restarted.
The “Book of the Law of the Lord” had been lost somewhere along the line and when it was recovered Josiah was stunned to see that Judah was pretty much totally non-compliant. So he had the book publicly read and he vowed to obey the Lord by keeping all his commands…and he promised to obey all the terms of the covenant that were written in the scroll.
He personally – and publicly – pledged to obey the covenant and he required everyone to worship the Lord their God. And the changes lasted: throughout the rest of his lifetime, Judah did not turn away from the Lord.
The Chronicles Evaluation: never before had there been a king like Josiah, who turned to the Lord with all his heart and soul and strength, obeying all the laws of Moses. And there has never been a king like him since.
It’s pretty hard to beat that.

Note: quotes from 2 Chronicles 34:2 11 31 33 & 2 Kings 23:25 (NLT)

Week 22  2 Chronicles 33

I just read the story of Manasseh – the Terrible King Who Ended Up Being Sorry About His Terribleness.
Now I’m reading about Manasseh’s son Amon. Amon was similar to his dad. But also different.
Similarity: Amon did what was evil in the Lord’s sight, just as his father Manasseh had done. He worshipped and sacrificed to all the idols his father had made.
Difference: unlike his father, he did not humble himself before the Lord. Instead, Amon sinned even more (the Kings account adds: he abandoned the Lord…and refused to follow the Lord’s ways).
So Amon had two examples to look at:
A) the early Bad Manasseh years where his dad was about as bad as bad could be.
B) the later Turned-Back-Around Manasseh years where his dad made amends and tried reversing direction.
Amon could choose A) or B) but he went all-in with A). No reasons are given (the Amon story is one of the shortest of the fifteen and all of it is about Amon’s evil-doing).
I have a rough & ready check list for the kings and I look to see how Amon does:
Did he do anything identifiably good? No.
Did he love & obey the Lord? No.
Did he deliberately operate against the Lord? Yes.
Did he promote evil? Yes.
Did he ever mend-the-error-of-his-ways? No.
So this puts Amon right down near the very bottom of the King’s Ranking List.

Note: quotes from 2 Chronicles 33:22 23 2 Kings 21:22 (NLT)

Week 21  2 Chronicles 33

I know I have to get-a-grip when I come to Manasseh and the reason’s simple: I don’t like him.
Anyway I review his reign:
He did what was evil in the Lord’s sight
Manasseh murdered many innocent people
He imitated traditional pagan religious practice. Rebuilt pagan shrines that Hezekiah had demolished. Rebuilt images of Baal. Set up Asherah poles. Practiced astrology. Set up pagan altars in the temple. Sacrificed his son. Practiced sorcery divination witchcraft and consulted mediums & psychics. He did much that was evil in the Lord’s sight
Manasseh led the people of Judah and Jerusalem to do even more evil than the pagan nations whom God had destroyed.
He pretty much undid everything good that his dad had done.
But there’s a fly-in-the-ointment of Evil Manasseh’s story. The Assyrians defeated Judah and took the king into captivity. But while he was in deep distress, Manasseh sought the Lord his God and cried out humbly to the Lord…and when he prayed the Lord listened to him and was moved by his request for help. Unbelievable!
When Manasseh was released he returned to Jerusalem and tried to undo what he had done. And he encouraged the people of Judah to worship the Lord.
I don’t like Manasseh. But I guess credit has to be given where credit is due.

Note: quotes from 2 Chronicles 33:2 2 Kings 21:16 2 Chronicles 33:6 9 12-13 16 (NLT)

Week 21  2 Chronicles 29-32

The story begins: Hezekiah did what was pleasing in the Lord’s sight.
It goes on to say that in all that he did in the service of the Temple of God and in his efforts to follow the law and the commandments, Hezekiah sought his God wholeheartedly .
On the personal side Hezekiah was healed of a deadly illness when he prayed and the Lord intervened.
Hezekiah trusted in the Lord…There was never another king like him in the land of Judah, either before or after his time. He remained faithful to the Lord in everything, and he carefully obeyed all the commands the Lord had given Moses. So the Lord was with Hezekiah. This is a pretty significant comment!
However (and it’s a big & a disturbing ‘however’) Hezekiah did not respond appropriately to the kindness shown him (by the Lord), and he became proud. So the Lord’s anger came against him’. This is a huge and demoralizing reversal and I feel bad about Hezekiah. But I keep reading and see that then Hezekiah repented of his pride, and the people of Jerusalem humbled themselves.
In the four chapters devoted to Hezekiah there’s a long list of the other good things he did. There’s no question he’ll be ranked close to the top. But I’ll have to assess how much his failure of pride will influence the vote. Pride is a serious collapse for sure.

Note: quotes from 2 Chronicles 29:2 31:21 2 Kings 18:5-7 2 Chronicles 32:25-26 (NLT)

Week 21  2 Chronicles 28

Ahaz did not do what was pleasing in the sight of the Lord…Instead he followed the example of the kings of Israel and cast images for the worship of Baal. He offered sacrifices in the valley of the son of Hinnom, even sacrificing his own sons in the fire. He imitated the detestable practices of the pagan nations…He offered sacrifices and burned incense at the pagan shrines.
Ahaz actively encouraged his people to sin and had been utterly unfaithful to the Lord.
He shut the doors of the Lord’s Temple so that no one could worship there and then set up altars to pagan gods in every corner of Jerusalem.
Ahaz sacrificed to the gods of Damascus (his logic was that if they helped Damascus they might help him. The book of Kings version of the story tells about how Ahaz had a replica model of the Damascus altar built for his own use in Jerusalem).
Ahaz proactively deliberately & self-consciously turned away from the Lord. He didn’t do anything that was positively good. And he took action that was positively contrary to the Lord.
As of now I’m dropping Ahaz down into the Bottom Four. There’s still Hezekiah Manasseh Amon & Josiah yet to go so I’ll wait-and-see. But Ahaz is looking to me like he’s competing hard for Last Place.

Note: quotes from 2 Chronicles 28:1-4 19 24 23 (NLT). The Damascus Altar story is in 2 Kings 16:10-16

Week 21  2 Chronicles 27

Jotham’s story is a short one but it gives me enough info to form a decent opinion.
For one thing Jotham: did what was pleasing in the Lord’s sight, just as his father, Uzziah, had done. So far so good. And since the chronicler figured that I’d know about Uzziah he goes on to add that: unlike Uzziah Jotham did not enter the Temple of the Lord (which means Jotham didn’t try taking over a priest’s job & so he avoided getting leprosy & wasn’t ostracized for the rest of his life – like Uzziah). Still so far so good.
However…the people continued in their corrupt ways (and Kings adds a couple of details about this: Jotham did not destroy the pagan shrines, where the people offered sacrifices and burned incense.)
But overall: King Jotham became powerful because he was careful to live in obedience to the Lord his God.
On balance the report on Jotham is pretty good! He acted positively and well. And the only complaint is that he didn’t take counter-measures to deal with corrupt public religious practices.
In 2021 I classed Jotham as a middler – but I think he’d have to be a top-drawer middler. I’m still in a quandary about what weight to assign a good king who reigned over a state that was apathetic & disloyal to the Lord. How much of that is on them? How much on the king?

Note: quotes from 2 Chronicles 27:2 2 Kings 15:35 2 Chronicles 27:6 (NLT)

Week 21  2 Chronicles 26

Chronicles & Kings agree that Uzziah: did what was pleasing in the Lord’s sight, just as his father, Amaziah, had done (but hold on a second! I just saw that Amaziah wasn’t really all that good! So comparing Uzziah to his dad is pretty faint-praise). Kings also adds that: Uzziah did not destroy the pagan shrines, where the people offered sacrifices and burned incense.
In spite of the red flags Chronicles says that: Uzziah sought God during the days of Zechariah, who instructed him in the fear of the Lord. And as long as the king sought the Lord, God gave him success. That’s a definite vote of approval for Uzziah and he must have sought-the-Lord for quite awhile because he became a very powerful & successful head of state. Which is good.
What’s not so good is that: when Uzziah became powerful, he also became proud, which led to his downfall. (Uzziah’s Downfall Story is that in an idiotic act of arrogance he went to the temple and burned incense to the Lord – a gigantic act of irreligion – so in an instantaneous miraculous judgment the Lord struck him with leprosy. Permanently.)
On the plus-side Uzziah didn’t actively promote pagan practices (even though he allowed them). And initially he was loyal to the Lord. But Uzziah’s life ended unsuccessfully. And if he ever did make some kind of rebound no one is saying so.

Note: quotes from 2 Chronicles 26:5 2 Kings 15:3 4 2 Chronicles 26:5 16 (NLT). Uzziah was also called Azariah.

Week 21  2 Chronicles 25

Amaziah did what was pleasing in the Lord’s sight, but not wholeheartedly. Hmmm. Kings adds: he followed the example of his father, Joash. Amaziah did not destroy the pagan shrines.
Amaziah did take the (good) advice of a prophet who warned him not to hire mercenaries to protect Judah. It was an exercise of faith for him to accept that the Lord has the power to help.
On the downside Amaziah imported foreign idols – he set them up as his own gods, bowed down in front of them, and presented sacrifices to them. It seems like such a crazy act of infidelity and the Lord sent a prophet to warn him about it. But Amaziah disregarded him: since when have I asked your advice? Be quiet now before I have you killed!
I have to give Amaziah (limited) credit for doing what was pleasing in the Lord’s sight (but I’m left wondering how to rate his half-hearted loyalty to the Lord).
Amaziah also gets credit for that time he trusted the Lord in the face of military aggression.
But otherwise he has a very thin resume of actively following the Lord. Plus his worship of other gods seemed like a tipping-point. After that the chronicler said (ominously): God was arranging to destroy Amaziah for worshipping the gods of Edom. And sure enough Jerusalem was ransacked by Israel.

Note: quotes from 2 Chronicles 25:2 2 Kings 14:3-4 2 Chronicles 25:8 14 16 & 20 (NLT)