Week 18 2 Chronicles 28
Chapter 28 is Ahaz’ story. It’s another one of those bleak accounts about what the kings of Judah were doing. When I finished the story this year I decided: Ahaz wasn’t much of a king – at least judged by the Good King Standards in the bible history books.
I looked back at an exercise from 2023 where I ranked the kings of Judah. Out of 15 kings I had rated Ahaz 14th. Second from the bottom. Second-worst king.
I took a couple of minutes to look back at the Kings’ version of Ahaz’ reign (I remembered that I shouldn’t pull-the-trigger too quickly on Ahaz (or any of the kings) since the other version of the story will sometimes add a qualifying point of detail). But there’s no wiggle room for Ahaz there. The Kings version gives me no reason to boost my opinion of Ahaz.
I also checked a cross-reference to Isaiah. Isaiah had prophesied during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah and he’d told a short story about Ahaz. It’s a bit of a tricky anecdote – looking at it in one way I could possibly think there’s a little glimmer of potential hope-in-the-distance for Ahaz. But I think it’s really just a mirage.
Ahaz seems like a uniformly bad king – which verifies my opinion from two years ago. But it’s an unfortunate confirmation.
Note: quote from Isaiah 1:1 (NASB). The other stories of Ahaz are in 2 Kings 16 & Isaiah 7.