III. THAT CHILDREN WHO HAVE BEEN RELIGIOUSLY BROUGHT UP, IF THEY TURN TO EVIL COURSES, INCUR A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. "It had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them" (2 Peter 2:21). If children, notwithstanding a godly training, take to an evil life, what must we suppose that they would have done had they been born, as so many are, amidst adverse influences, and from infancy exposed to contact with indecency, drunkenness, blasphemy? Alas! every blessing abused becomes a curse; and to have a pattern of goodness before our eyes, to have virtue instilled into us, and then to reject it—to choose the evil and refuse the good—is to provoke God's heavy displeasure, and bring down his severe judgments upon us. What excuse can such persons offer for their misconduct? They know that by sin they displease God, grieve their parents, injure themselves, ruin their worldly prospects, imperil their salvation; yet for a little present pleasure they shut their eyes to all future consequences, and rush to their destruction. Their conduct is folly, madness, idiocy; but not the sort of madness which shuts out responsibility. They are answerable for it, and will have to answer at God's judgment-seat. Oh! that they would pause ere it is too late, recognize the folly of their evil courses, and "put away their iniquity!" God is still willing to pardon all whom he suffers to live. Let them "arise, and go to their Father," and say unto him, "We have sinned;" and he will go out to meet them, and receive them, and "there will be joy in the presence of the angels of God over each such sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance" (Luke 15:7, Luke 15:10).
2 Kings 16:5-7
God's punishments of a nation's sins are often long delayed, but, when they come, it is not by degrees, but suddenly, violently, and at once.
This subject may best be treated, as the last, under three heads, viz.
I. THE SINS OF JUDAH. Though, on the whole, less guilty than her sister, Ephraim, still Judah had, from the division of the kingdom of Solomon, been more or less unfaithful to Jehovah in several respects.
1. An unauthorized and illegitimate high-place worship, tinged with superstition and perhaps even idolatry, had maintained its place by the side of the authorized Jehovah-cult, throughout the whole period of the divided monarchy, from the accession of Rehoboam to the death of Ahaz (1 Kings 14:23; 1 Kings 15:14; 1 Kings 22:43; 2 Kings 12:3; 2 Kings 14:4; 2 Kings 15:4, 2 Kings 15:35; 2 Kings 16:4).
2. The worship of Baal had been introduced from the sister kingdom by the influence of Athaliah, and had prevailed during the reigns of her husband, Jehoram, her son, Ahaziah, and her own (2 Kings 8:18, 2 Kings 8:27; 2 Kings 11:18).
3. Luxury and effeminacy had crept in, especially during the prosperous reigns of Uzziah and Jotham, and had led on to debauchery and licentiousness (Isaiah 1:4; Isaiah 2:6-8; Isaiah 3:16-24; Isaiah 5:11, Isaiah 5:12; Joel 1:5; Amos 6:1-6, etc.).
4. Injustice and oppression had become rife. The rich men sought to "join house to house, and field to field' (Isaiah 5:8); they stripped the poor of their small properties by legal chicanery (Isaiah 3:14), oppressed them, and "ground their faces" (Isaiah 3:15). The judges in the courts accepted bribes (Isaiah 1:23) and gave wrong judgments (Isaiah 5:23). Widows and orphans were the special objects of attack, on account of their weakness and defenselessness (Isaiah 1:17, Isaiah 1:23; Isaiah 10:2).
5. The forms of religion were kept up, but the spirit had evaporated. Men thronged God's courts, brought abundant offerings, made many prayers, kept the new moons and the sabbaths and the appointed feasts, but without any real care for the honor of God or any thought of seeking to serve and obey him. Hence their worship was "an offence;" their ceremonies were mockeries, their oblations "vain," their solemn meetings "iniquity" God was "weary to bear them" (Isaiah 1:11-15).
II. THE LONG DELAY IN THEIR PUNISHMENT. More than two centuries had elapsed since Judah began to "do evil in the sight of the Lord, and to provoke him to jealousy with their sins which they had committed, above all that their fathers had done" (1 Kings 14:22). Above a century had passed since the apostasy of Jehoram and Ahaziah. During all this time Judah had maintained her independence, had received no severe blow, fallen under no crushing affliction. Latterly, she had even prospered. Under Uzziah she had recovered Elath (2 Kings 14:22), conquered a part of Philistia (2 Chronicles 26:6), defeated the Arabians and Mehunim (2 Chronicles 26:7), and made the Ammonites her tributaries (2 Chronicles 26:8); under Jotham she had maintained these conquests, and when Ammon revolted bad reduced her to subjection (2 Chronicles 27:5) without any difficulty. God, in his long-suffering mercy, bore with his people. He would win them by kindness, draw them to him by cords of love, at any rate give them ample time for repentance. But it was in vain. The longer he left them unpunished, the further they wandered from the right way, and the more they hardened their hearts. The time came when the prophet could only say of them, "Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evil-doers, children that are corrupters: they have forsaken the Lord, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger, they are gone away backward. The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrefying sores" (Isaiah 1:4-6).
III. THE SUDDENNESS AND OVERWHELMING FORCE WITH WHICH THE PUNISHMENT DESCENDED WHEN IT CAME. Bishop Butler remarks how, in the punishment which God brings upon vicious individuals in this world, there is often a long respite. "After the chief bad consequences, temporal consequences, of their follies have been delayed for a great while; at length they break in irresistibly, like an armed force; repentance is too late to relieve, and can only serve to aggravate their distress; the case is become desperate, and poverty and sickness, remorse and anguish, infamy and death, the effects of their own doings, overwhelm them, beyond possibility of remedy or escape". And so it is often with nations; so it was now with the nation of the Jews. As soon as the punishment began, blow was dealt upon blow. First, Rezin "smote them, and carried away a great multitude of them captives, and brought them to Damascus" (2 Chronicles 28:5). Then they were delivered into the hand of Pekah, who "smote them with a great slaughter, slaying a hundred and twenty thousand in one day, which were all valiant men" (2 Chronicles 28:5, 2 Chronicles 28:6). Next, Edom had her fling at the sick lion, and "came and smote Judah, and carried away captives" (2 Chronicles 28:17). Then Philistia attacked the cities of the low country, and of the south of Judah, and took a number of them, "and dwelt there" (2 Chronicles 28:18). Presently, Pekah and Rezin, joining their forces, advanced together to the siege of Jerusalem. All was lost, except only honor; and then honor was thrown into the gulf; Judah went down on her knees to Assyria, and implored aid, gave tribute, accepted a suzerain, made the inglorious confession, "I am thy servant and thy son" (2 Kings 16:7). Having incurred defeat, disgrace, the loss of military honor, the loss of the flower of her troops, she crowns all by giving up her national independence, inviting a master, and herself placing a foreign yoke upon her own shoulders. But for the wonderful efforts made by Hezekiah when he ascended the throne (2 Kings 18:3-8), Judaea's ruin would have been completed under Ahaz; and the punishment so long delayed, when it came, would have been final, "without escape or remedy."
2 Kings 16:10-17
A wicked king allowed to have his way by a weak priest.
The double regime, civil and ecclesiastical, which it pleased God to establish in his first Church, the Jewish, and to continue, with certain modifications, in his second Church, the Christian, seems to have been designed for the mutual advantage of both parties. Authority, in whatever hands it is placed, is always liable to be abused, to over-assert itself, to grow arbitrary, autocratic, tyrannical. Hence the necessity of checks, of a balance of forces, of counterpoise, of an arrangement by which the undue preponderance of any single authority shall be prevented. It is sometimes needful that the civil authority shall interpose to keep the spiritual within due bounds, and disallow the establishment of sacerdotal tyranny. It is quite as often requisite for the spirituality to assert itself, and check the endeavors of kings and nobles to establish an unlimited autocracy. From time to time the two independent authorities, the civil and ecclesiastical, the regale and the pontificale, are sure to come into collision. Our own history presents instances in the struggles of Anselm against Rufus, of Becket against Henry II; and of the seven bishops against the last of the Stuart kings. Under such circumstances weakness on either side constitutes a serious peril to the community. A weak king, priest-ridden, makes dangerous concessions to the ecclesiastical order, and imperils the peace and prosperity of his kingdom by so doing. A weak priest, timid and timeserving, allows the rights of his order to be trampled on, and lays up no less an amount of trouble in the future for the nation to which he belongs. If Ahaz had been succeeded by another worldly minded and ambitious king, instead of the pious Hezekiah, there is no saying how low the ecclesiastical authority might not have sunk, or how soon the kingly office might not have freed itself from all checks, arid have become absolute, and in a short time tyrannical. Urijah did his best to destroy the constitution of his country, and to turn the Judaean limited monarchy into a pure despotism. He was weak rather than wicked; but his weakness might have had the worst results. It was only the accident of Ahaz being succeeded by a truly religious prince that prevented the precedent, which he had set, from entailing ruinous consequences.
HOMILIES BY C.H IRWIN
2 Kings 16:1-20
Steps in a downward path: the reign of Ahaz.
In the opening chapters of Isaiah we have an account of the condition of the kingdom of Judah at the time that Ahaz succeeded to the throne. The prosperity which the country had enjoyed under Uzziah had been continued and increased under the righteous reign of his son Jotham. And now the grandson, Ahaz, a young man of twenty, finds the country abounding in wealth, full of silver and gold. Isaiah says there was no end of their treasure; their land also was full of horses, neither was there any end of their chariots. Their commerce, too, was in a thriving condition. "The ships of Tarshish, sailing from Elath, could boast their gilded prows and stems, and purple sails, and brought home rich cargoes from the distant East". But before Ahaz died, all this was changed. Enemy after enemy invaded his country. The land became desolate. The king was reduced to great extremities to obtain money. Instead of the sunshine of prosperity, there was on every side the dark shadow of desolation and decay. We have the explanation of it all in the third and fourth verses. Ahaz began badly, and every fresh movement in his life was a step from bad to worse. His history is a further illustration of how one sin leads to another. It was a continuously downward path.
I. THE FIRST STEP IN THE DOWNWARD CAREER OF AHAZ WAS HIS IDOLATRY. (Verses 3, 4.) He forsook the worship of the true and living God, and worshipped the gods of the heathen. Even that step he would seem to have taken gradually. At first he began with the high places, which bad never been taken away. Then graven images and other heathen customs were used in the worship of God; and finally the idols of the false gods themselves were set up. The policy of compromise had now reached its fitting conclusion. When the right makes compromise with the wrong, the wrong is sure to gain the victory. So it was in this case. The people had got accustomed to the high places. They saw no harm in them. And now they see no harm in the idols. Isaiah describes the universal corruption when he says, "Their land also is full of idols; they worship the work of their own hands, that which their own fingers have made." And what a worship it was to substitute for the worship of the only true and living and almighty God! A useless worship, as Isaiah indicates, to worship the work of their own hands. It brought them no help in their hour of distress. But it was worse than useless. It was a foul and degrading worship. It is best described in the words of the third verse, "the abominations of the heathen." We can have but a faint conception of the loathsome practices associated with the worship of the pagan deities. The passage before us speaks of one act of worship—by no means the worst, though sufficiently cruel and revolting. This was the worship of Moloch Kings In the valley of Hinnom, afterwards called Gehenna or Tophet, an image of Moloch was erected. Dr. Thomson, in 'The Land and the Book,' refers to the passage in Jeremiah (19) where the valley of Hinnom is spoken of, and thinks, because it is said there that the image of Baal was there, that Moloch and Baal were one and the same. At any rate, part of the worship of Moloch consisted in making children pass through the fire before his image, or in actually burning them in it. The cries of the children were drowned by the sound of musical instruments and the shouts of the frenzied worshippers. It is to this that Milton refers when he says—
"First, Moloch, horrid king, besmear'd with blood
Of human sacrifice, and parents' tears;
Though for the noise of drums and timbrels loud
Their children's cries unheard, that passed through fire
To his grim idol."
Such was the worship which Ahaz, in his infatuation and desire to be like the nations round about him, substituted for the spiritual, elevating worship of the great Father of us all. After all, was he much worse than many in modern times who profess to be so enlightened that they regard the Christian religion as a superstition? And what do they give us in place of it? A worship of dead matter, of blind force; of a mere supposition of their own minds. If Christianity be a superstition, what are some of the fancies of our philosophers? Before we give up our Christian religion, let us know, what we are to have in place of it. Let us compare the results of Christianity with the results of any rival system, and how immeasurably superior to them all it stands, in the purity of its teaching, in the power it exercises to elevate and ennoble human life, and in the blessings it has brought to the nations! How it alone lights up the darkness of the grave, and breathes into the bereaved heart the inspiration and comfort of the heavenly hope! This was the first downward step in the career of Ahaz—forsaking the worship of God. So many a man has begun the downward path. The empty seat in the house of God indicates often the beginning of a useless and wasted life. Or if he comes to the house of God, he worships God in form only. His thoughts are far away. Self and the world, money and pleasure,—how often are these the idols men worship with the thoughts of their hearts and with all the efforts of their lives!
II. THE NEXT STEP IN THE DOWNWARD PATH OF AHAZ WAS THE ALLIANCE HE ENTERED INTO. (Verses 5-7.) The Syrians made war on him along with the King of Israel. Ahaz, in his difficulty, sought the help of the King of Assyria. How humiliating is his entreaty! "I am thy servant and thy son," was the message he sent: "come up and save me out of the hand of the King of Syria, and out of the hand of the King of Israel, which rise up against me." There was nothing wrong in itself in seeking the help of friendly kings. On this occasion, however, God absolutely warned Ahaz against seeking their help. But, to begin with, there was something wanting. Ahaz did not seek God's guidance in the matter. He did not seek God's help. He who had rejected the service of the living God, makes himself the cringing slave of the King of Assyria, and humbles himself to a heathen for help. What a mistake when a nation trusts to its resources or its strong alliances, and forgets to look to that Divine power from whom all blessings flow! There may be nothing wrong in all our efforts to improve our worldly position, but there may be something wanting. There may be nothing wrong in your life, but there may be something wanting. You may be anxious to be useful in the world; but are you setting about it in the light way? One thing is needful, one thing is essential to all true happiness, to all true usefulness. That is the presence and help of God. Is the Lord Jesus dwelling in your heart? Whatever else may disappoint you, he will never fail.
"When other helpers fail, and comforts flee,
Help of the helpless, oh, abide with me:"
III. THE NEXT DOWNWARD STEP WHICH AHAZ TOOK WAS HIS PLUNDERING- THE HOUSE OF GOD. (Verses 8, 9, 17, 18.) Ahaz paid dear for his alliance with the King of Assyria. He had already disobeyed and dishonored God by his idolatry. He had already dishonored God by refusing to heed the warnings which Isaiah gave him. But now he commits a still more flagrant act of defiance and desecration. In order to reward the Assyrian king for his help, and to retain his friendship, he actually takes the silver and gold that was found in the house of the Lord, and sends it for a present to the King of Assyria. The world's friendships are often dearly bought. We pay for them, in peace of mind, in peace of conscience, in loss of money, in loss of time, a greater price than they are worth. Sooner or later the crisis must come in every man's life when he must choose between the friendship of God and the friendship of the world. What choice are you making? What choice would you make if you were put to the test now? Perhaps you are being put to the test in your daily life. Perhaps you are being tempted, for the sake of worldly friendship, for the sake of your business, for the sake of popularity, to sacrifice some principle, to trample on some command of God, to neglect some plain duty which conscience and the Word of God alike point out. Business! The great business of your life, of every man's life, is to fear God and keep his commandments. "Man's chief end is to glorify God, and enjoy him forever." Oh what a fearful thing it is to take from God that which rightfully belongs to him! It is a crime against law, against morality, to take from our fellow-creatures, without their permission, that which belongs to them. But how much more guilty is he who would take from God that which is his! We condemn Ahaz for his impiety and sacrilege in taking from the temple those things which had been consecrated to God. But let us look into our own hearts and lives. Are we giving God that which is his due? Are we keeping back nothing from him? Has he no greater claim on our daily thoughts than a hurried prayer at morning or evening, or none at all? Has he no greater claim on our money than the few shillings, or, it may be, few pounds we give to him every year? Let us measure our service of God much less by what others do and give, and much more by our own responsibilities, by our own overflowing cup of mercies, by the relation of our own soul to God.
IV. THE NEXT DOWNWARD STEP OF AHAZ WAS TO SET UP A HEATHEN ALTAR IN THE HOUSE OF THE LORD. (Verses 10-17.) Ahaz had gone to Damascus to meet the King of Assyria. While there he saw an altar used in the worship of the heathen gods. Its workmanship may perhaps have pleased him. He sent to Urijah the priest a description, perhaps a drawing of it, and Urijah, influenced more by the fear of the king than by the fear of God, caused a similar altar to be erected in the temple at Jerusalem. When Ahaz returned, he substituted this altar for the altar of the Lord, although God himself had given the pattern of that altar to Moses and to David. But all the idols and sacrifices of Ahaz did not benefit him much. He thought the gods of the heathen would help him; but, says the writer in 2 Chronicles, "They were the ruin of him and of Israel" So in everyday experience many a man finds, when he forsakes the gospel of Christ, and turns his back upon the Law of God, to follow worldly gain or pleasure, or society, or dissipation, that these things are the ruin of him. "There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death."—C.H.I.
HOMILIES BY D. THOMAS
2 Kings 16:1-20
A people's king and priest; or, kinghood and priesthood.
"In the seventeenth year of Pekah," etc. Throughout all lands, almost throughout all times, two functionaries have been at the head of the peoples, too often treading them down by oppression, and fattening on them by their greed. One of these functionaries was not, among the Jews, of Divine ordinations; for the Almighty is represented as saying, "They have set up kings, but not by me: they have made princes, and I knew it not." Let us notice each functionary as presented in this chapter—the king and the priest—the one named Ahaz, the other Urijah.
I. THE KINGHOOD. It is said, "In the seventeenth year of Pekah the son of Remaliah Ahaz the son of Jotham King of Judah began to reign. Twenty years old was Ahaz when he began to reign, and reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem, and did not that which was right in the sight of the Lord his God, like David his father." Here we learn that Ahaz, who was the son of Jotham, began to reign over Judah in his twentieth year, and that his reign continued for sixteen years. Elsewhere we are told that Hezekiah, his son, succeeded him at the age of twenty-five (see 2 Kings 18:17). According to this he became a father when he was only eleven years of age. This is not, necessarily, a mistake of the historian, since among the Jews in Tiberias there are mothers of eleven years of age and fathers of thirteen. And in Abyssinia boys of ten years and twelve years enter into the marriage relationship (see Keil). The account given of Ahaz in this chapter furnishes us with an illustration of several enormous evils.
1. The dehumanizing force of false religion. Ahaz was an idolater. "He walked in the way of the kings of Israel," we are told. Instead of worshipping the one true and living God, he bowed down before the idols of the heathen. This false religion of his made him so inhuman that he "made his son to pass through the fire, according to the abominations of the heathen, whom the Lord cast out from before the children of Israel; and he sacrificed and burnt incense in the high places, and on the hills, and under every green tree." Moloch was this idol-god of fire, and the rabbins tell us "that it was made of brass, and placed on a brazen throne, and that the head was that of a calf, with a crown upon it. The throne and image were made hollow, and a furious fife was kindled within it. The flames penetrated into the body and limbs of the idol, and, when the arms were red hot, the victim was thrown into them, and was almost immediately burnt to death." The revolting cruelty of Moloch-worship is thus described by Milton—
"In Argob and in Basan, to the stream
Of utmost Arnon. Nor content with such
Audacious neighborhood, the wisest heart
Of Solomon he led by fraud to build
His temple right against the temple of God
On that opprobrious hill; and made his grove
The pleasant valley of Hinnom, Tophet thence
And black Gehenna call'd, the type of hell."
Thus the idolatrous religion of this Ahaz dehumanized him, by destroying within him all parental affection and transforming him into a fiend. This is true, more or less, of all false religions. Idolatry is not the only religion that makes men cruel. A corrupt Judaism and a corrupt Christianity generate in their votaries the same dehumanizing results. False religion kindled in Paul the savage ferocity of a wild beast. "He breathed out slaughter." Ecclesiastical history abounds with illustrations.
2. The national curse of a corrupt kinghood. Then "Rezin King of Syria and Pekah son of Remaliah King of Israel came up to Jerusalem to war: and they besieged Ahaz, but could not overcome him. At that time Rezin King of Syria recovered Elath to Syria, and drave the Jews from Elath: and the Syrians came to Elath, and dwelt there unto this day." These two kings, Rezin of Syria and Pekah of Israel, had their eyes upon this Ahaz, saw, perhaps, how his wickedness had injured his people, had taken away their heart and exhausted their resources, until they felt that this was the time for striking at Jerusalem, taking possession of the metropolis, and subjugating the country. And they made the attempt. Although they could not "overcome" Ahaz, and failed to strike him down personally, yet they "recovered Elath to Syria [or, 'Edom'], and drave the Jews from Elath." So it has ever been; corrupt kings expose their country to danger, they invite the invader and make way for him.
"Proudly up the regal heights they sit in pampered power,
While fires smoulder underground that strengthen every hour."
3. The mischievous issues of a temporary expediency. Ahaz, in order to extricate himself from the difficulties and trials which Rezin and Pekah had brought on his country, applies to the King of Assyria. "So Ahaz sent messengers to Tiglath-pileser King of Assyria, saying, I am thy servant and thy son: come up, and save me out of the hand of the King of Syria, and out of the hand of the King of Israel, which rise up against me. And Ahaz took the silver and gold that was found in the house of the Lord, and in the treasures of the king's house, and sent it for a present to the King of Assyria. And the King of Assyria hearkened unto him: for the King of Assyria went up against Damascus, and took it, and carried the people of it captive to Kir, and slew Rezin." What else could he do? To whom could he have looked for help in his emergency? The right thing to have done would have been the utter renunciation of his idolatry, submission to the Divine will, and invocation of the Almighty's help; but he followed what appeared to him the expedient, not the right, and hence two evils ensued.
II. HIS PRIESTHOOD. Urijah is the priest. There seems to have been more priests than one of this name, and little is known of this Urijah more than what is recorded in the present chapter. He was the priest, who at this time presided in the temple of Jerusalem. He seems to have been influential in the state, and, although a professed monotheist, was in far too close connection with Ahaz the idolatrous king. Two things are worthy of note concerning him, which too frequently characterize wicked priests in all times.
1. An obsequious obedience to the royal will. The Assyrian king, having taken Damascus, is visited by Ahaz in the city, the object of his visit being, no doubt, to congratulate him on his triumphs. While at Damascus, Ahaz is struck with the beauty of an altar. He seems to have been so charmed with it that he commands Urijah, the priest, to make one exactly like it. "And King Ahaz sent to Urijah the priest the fashion of the altar, and the pattern of it, according to all the workmanship thereof." Knowing the king's wishes, with shameful obsequiousness he sets to the work. "And Urijah the priest built an altar according to all that King Ahaz had sent from Damascus: so Urijah the priest made it against King Ahaz came from Damascus. And when the king was come from Damascus, the king saw the altar: and the king approached to the altar, and offered thereon." This obsequious priest not only did this, but, without one word of protest or reproof, he witnessed the sacrifices of the king at the altar, and allowed the position of the brazen altar in the temple to be altered; further, he actually engaged, according to the king's command, in the services. "And King Ahaz commanded Urijah the priest, saying, Upon the great altar burn the morning burnt offering, and the evening meat offering, and the king's burnt sacrifice, and his meat offering, with the burnt offerings of all the people of the land, and their meat offering, and their drink offerings; and sprinkle upon it all the blood of the burnt offering, and all the blood of the sacrifice; and the brazen altar shall be for me to inquire by. Thus did Urijah the priest, according to all that King Ahaz commanded." Thus wicked priests have too often acted.
2. An obsequious silence to the royal profanation. See what the king did, no doubt in the presence of the priest. "And King Ahaz cut off the borders of the bases, and removed the laver from off them; and took down the sea from off the brazen oxen that were under it, and put it upon a pavement of stones. And the covert for the sabbath that they had built in the house, and the king's entry without, turned he from the house of the Lord for the King of Assyria." This fawning, sacerdotal traitor not only "did according to all King Ahaz commanded," but he stood by silently and witnessed without a word of protest this spoliation of the holy temple. Had he acted according to his profession as a minister of the most high God, he would have risen up in all the sternness of honesty and manhood against the first intimation of Ahaz concerning the construction of an unauthorized altar. He would have said, "We have a divinely sanctioned altar already; we do not need another." And when the command came to him to make such an altar, he would have felt it an insult to his conscience, an outrage on his loyalty to Heaven, and have broken into thunders of reproof. When he saw the king's hand employed in disturbing and altering the furniture of the temple, he would have resisted him, as Azariah resisted Uzziah when he wished to offer incense. But instead of this, he, like some of his class in almost every age, seems to have been transported with the honor of seeing the royal presence, hearing the royal voice, and doing the royal bidding. A true priest should, by inflexible loyalty to Heaven, mould kings to be lords paramount in all mundane affairs, and in none other; and should lead them to be very kings of men, governing, not by craft and force, fraud and violence, but by royal thoughts, actions, and aims.—D.T.
HOMILIES BY J. ORR
2 Kings 16:1-4
The wickedness of Ahaz.
The history has passed rapidly over the later kings of Israel. That kingdom was lost beyond recovery. "The victim having once got his stroke-of-grace, the catastrophe can be considered as almost come. There is small interest now in watching his long low moans; notable only are his sharper agonies, what convulsive struggles he may make to cast the torture off from him; and then, finally, the last departure of life itself" (Carlyle). In Judah the crisis too is approaching, but it is not yet reached. Prophets and good kings are yet to do their utmost for the nation. But a reign like that of Ahaz is a sensible step in the advance to the catastrophe.
I. THE CHARACTER OF THE KING. Though the son of the vigorous Jotham, and already twenty or twenty-five years old when he ascended the throne, Ahaz proved one of the weakest and most incapable of rulers. One sees in him the reflection of the luxurious and effeminate age described by Isaiah 3:12-26. Feeble, petulant, arbitrary, in his ways of acting; without strength of mind or strength of will; busying interests of his kingdom were at stake; craven in war; above all, full of religiosity and himself in dilettante fashion with novelties, with altars and sun-dials, while the greatest superstition without the faintest spark of true religion—"this is that King Ahaz" (2 Chronicles 28:22). Possibly his father Jotham was too much occupied with state and public affairs to give the necessary attention to his softs education—a fatal mistake not unfrequently committed by parents.
II. HIS ABOUNDING IDOLATRIES. Ahaz displays great zeal of his own kind in religion, but it is zeal of the most perverse and suicidal description. We observe:
1. His imitation of the kings of Israel. He took for his pattern, not his ancestor David, the type of the true theocratic king, but the wicked kings of the northern kingdom, whose idolatries were bringing their own realm to ruin. He made, like them, molten images to Baal, and sacrificed to them (2 Chronicles 28:2). Wicked men seem absolutely impervious to warning. The northern kingdom was an object-lesson, to those who had eyes to see, of the folly and fatal effects of this very course on which Ahaz was now entering. Yet he would not be deterred.
2. His reversion to Canaanitish practices. Not content with importing the licentious Baal-worship patronized in Israel, Ahaz revived the worst abominations of the old Canaanitish religions. He even went so far as to sacrifice his own son to Moloch in the valley of Hinnom—a deed indicating a degree of fanaticism, a blunting of the moral sense, and a depth of superstition which could hardly have been believed possible in a King of Judah. It was, moreover, a daring defiance of the direct letter of God's Law (Deuteronomy 12:31). Well might such a deed bring down wrath on Judah!