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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)

Week 21  2 Chronicles 24

Joash started pretty well. I’ll give him that much.
He was only a little boy when he became king and he was shepherded along under the influence of his friend & protector & mentor – the priest Jehoiada.
During that time Joash did a lot of beneficial things to swing Judah back to worshipping the Lord.
But then…a kind of shocking turn-around: after Jehoiada’s death, the leaders of Judah came…and persuaded the king to listen to their advice. They decided to abandon the Temple of the Lord…and worship Asherah poles instead.
The prophet Zechariah told Joash you have abandoned the Lord, and now he has abandoned you. Joash was angry enough that he had the prophet executed.
The version of the story told in Kings says: all his life Joash did what was pleasing in the Lord’s sight because Jehoiada the priest instructed him. But Kings bafflingly redacted Joash’s whole post-Jehoiada dark-time.
I’m penciling in Joash on the lower-side of the Kings Scale. Sure…early-on he did some very good reformative work. But killing Zechariah looks like a decisive departure from the Lord.
Joash looks like his father Ahaziah – a guy heavily influenced by the people around him. A good advisor had influenced Joash toward the good. But in the end it looks like Joash was content with rejecting the Lord.

Note: quotes from 2 Chronicles 24:17-18 20 & 2 Kings 12:2-3 (NLT). Added note: Zechariah – the son of Joash’s old friend Jehoiada – was executed in 2 Chronicles 24:20-22. Joash was assassinated in 2 Chronicles 24:25-26.

Week 21  2 Chronicles 23

After Ahaziah was assassinated Athaliah – his scheming & opportunistic mom – decided to become queen.
Athaliah was Jehoram’s wife and she was also the daughter of King Ahab of Israel (so Judah & Israel were awkwardly and temporarily reconnected-by-marriage).
The line of kings I’ve looked at so far – Rehoboam Abijah Asa Jehoshaphat Jehoram & Ahaziah – were all part of David’s family-tree…father-son-father-son and like that.
But Athaliah set out to destroy the rest of Judah’s royal family and extinguish the David bloodline right then-and-there.
So anyway the bible doesn’t give any details about how Athaliah organized the plan to kill Ahaziah’s kids. But in a critical & decisive bureaucratic gaff by Athaliah’s organizing team one of Ahaziah’s sons slipped through the net. That baby boy – Joash – was rescued when one of his aunts kidnapped him and kept him safe for six years: in this way, Jehosheba, the wife of Jehoiada the priest, hid the child so that Athaliah could not murder him. Joash remained hidden in the Temple of God for six years while Athaliah ruled over the land.
When Joash was seven years old Jehoiada the priest organized a palace coup. Athaliah – after keeping the throne warm for six years – was executed. Seven year-old Joash became king.

Note: quotes from 2 Chronicles 22:10 11-12 (NLT)

Week 21  2 Chronicles 22

Chronicles gives me some useful info about what was behind Ahaziah’s decision-making: he followed the evil example of King Ahab’s family, for his mother encouraged him in doing wrong. He did what was evil in the Lord’s sight. Kings agrees that the reason Ahaziah was attracted to evil was because he was related by marriage to the family of Ahab. (I just saw that Ahaziah’s dad (Jehoram) was married to Ahab’s daughter and so Jehoram followed the example of the kings of Israel and was as wicked as King Ahab…He did what was evil in the Lord’s sight.) Anyway getting back to Ahaziah: after the death of Jehoram, members of Ahab’s family became Ahaziah’s advisors, and they led him to ruin.
Chronicles & Kings don’t give a detailed list of Ahaziah’s actions. What stands out is that he was joined-at-the-hip with Ahab and that turned out to be a fatal mistake.
In my mind Ahaziah is going to be ranked on the low-side of my Kings Scale. He was definitely bad. Just exactly how bad is hard to say because he was a weak & indecisive guy who was influenced – heavily and negatively – by his family. But I think it’s safe to say that eventually Ahaziah developed his own personal preference and tastes for evil.

Note: quotes from 2 Chronicles 22:3-4 2 Kings 8:27 2 Chronicles 21:6 22:4 & 7 (NLT). Ahaziah was assassinated and only got a decent burial because his grandpa – Jehoshaphat – was a man who sought the Lord with all his heart (2 Chronicles 22:9 NLT)

Week 21  2 Chronicles 21

Jehoram was Jehoshaphat’s oldest son and even though he was officially declared king he still assassinated his six brothers – who he figured were potential rivals.
The chronicler says a couple of pretty unqualified things about him:
First: Jehoram followed the example of the kings of Israel and was as wicked as King Ahab…Jehoram did what was evil in the Lord’s sight. So he was a proactive evil-doer.
Then secondly: Jehoram had abandoned the Lord…He had built pagan shrines in the hill country…and had led the people…to give themselves to pagan gods. So he initiated what looks like a state-sanctioned religious re-conversion program to turn Judah against the Lord.
Elijah criticized Jehoram:
a) you haven’t followed the good example of your father, Jehoshaphat, or of your grandfather King Asa
b) you’ve actively promoted idol worship and
c) you killed your brothers – men who were better than you.
Jehoram did no positive good and did take positive action to do evil (I double-checked the Kings account and it didn’t have anything good to say about him).
As I go along I’m thinking about my King Rankings. Nothing’s definitely locked-up yet but I’m dropping Jehoram way down the list. If a king is described as doing no good and also described as doing only evil then the gravitational drag of irreligion is really pulling him down. It’d be like walking on Jupiter.

Note: quotes from 2 Chronicles 21:4 6 10-11 12 13 (NLT)

Week 21  2 Chronicles 17-21

A couple of passages (mostly positive) summarize Jehoshaphat:
the Lord was with Jehoshaphat because he followed the example of his father
Jehoshaphat did not worship the images of Baal
He sought his father’s God and obeyed his commands
Jehoshaphat was a good king, following the ways of his father, Asa
He did what was pleasing in the Lord’s sight
But on the flipside Jehoshaphat failed to remove all the pagan shrines, and the people never fully committed themselves to following God.
He also cozied-up to King Ahab to the point where the prophet Jehu chastised him (although Jehu also admitted there is some good in you…and you have committed yourself to seeking the Lord). But later when Jehoshaphat formed another alliance with Israel the prophet Eliezer told him that because you have allied yourself with King Ahaziah, the Lord will destroy your work.
It looks like Jehoshaphat did have genuine faith and he acted on that faith by obeying the Lord in a majority of cases. Plus he didn’t actively promote evil actions. So the fact that he a) followed the Lord and b) did good things without c) doing evil boosts Jehoshaphat into the upper rank of good kings.
But he did make those couple of questionable and criticize-able choices.
Jehoshaphat is comparable to his father Asa in that way – it looks like two pretty good kings who each made a couple of missteps.

Note: quotes from 2 Chronicles 17:3-4 20:32-33 19:3 20:37 (NLT)

Week 21  2 Chronicles 14-16

It looks to me like Asa was a good king in many ways.
He did what was pleasing and good in the sight of the Lord his God. For example:
He got rid of pagan altars & shrines & idols
He repaired the altar in the temple
He led the nation back to the worship of the Lord
He prayed for help when Ethiopia attacked Judah – O Lord, you are our God: do not let mere men prevail – and he got his help!
Asa remained fully committed to the Lord throughout his life.
But that said Asa doesn’t end up with an absolutely pristine record:
Example #1: he paid a mercenary army to protect Judah. But a prophet named Hanani chastised Asa for his lack of faith: the eyes of the Lord search the whole earth in order to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him. What a fool you have been! Asa’s reaction? He threw Hanani in jail.
Example #2: Asa developed a foot disease at the end of his life and even when the disease became life-threatening, he did not seek the Lord’s help but sought help only from his physicians.
It looks like Asa did not make any deliberate choices to do wrong. But he did make a couple of choices not to do the best thing. So I’ll keep those asterisks in mind when I read that Asa remained fully committed to the Lord throughout his life.

Note: quotes from 2 Chronicles 14:2 11 15:17 16:9 12 (NLT)