In the 23rd
year of Joash, just over half-way through his reign, when he was still a young
30 year-old king with a lifetime behind him, Jehu bowed out.
His death is not recorded, so we must assume he died in ignominy after living an unmemorable life.
His death is not recorded, so we must assume he died in ignominy after living an unmemorable life.
His son, Jehoahaz
succeeded him. He was as bad as the rest. When judgment came to
Israel I can only concede what God saw, that they deserved it.
Sooner or later
contemporary cultures will also pass their sell-by date. God will not always
strive with men. If hearts do not bow, lives will. God help us to find him
while we can.
So a prelude to
the dogs of hell was released. Hazael of Syria came against them again and again. The crack
in their dyke had grown to a point where a flood of evil threatened the
north.
I look at this at a
time when great nations mock global crises by clinging to inept, corrupt and
generally immoral leaders, and ask, “how long before the dam bursts for you?”
Oh there was a brief
respite when Jehoahaz cried to God, but by then there wasn’t much left to
defend. Israel had become a serial offender and was in freefall.
So Jehoahaz died 17
years later – with almost as much ignominy as his father.
In the 37th
year of Joash of Judah, another Joash ascended the throne of Israel. They
seemed to be an impressionable people for they kept copying the names of the
Judean kings.
That too is a powerful
lesson. We cannot look the part and expect to fool God. I cannot believe they
were born with coincidental names. Like the regents of England and the Popes of
Rome, Israel’s kings were named assumptively (or if by their mothers, then presumptively).
It was like wearing fashion
to look cool in the hopes of finding favor or blending in. Never. God looks to
hearts and no matter how cool we look he will see through us.
He told Joash to shoot
an arrow out of his window, as he prophesied that Joash would smite the Syrians
in Aphek. Then he told him to smite a quiver of arrows on the ground, which he
did six times only. He should have sensed the prophetic symbolism.
It left Elisha angry, but he then used it to set the marker for Israel’s demise, predicting only 6 more triumphs
over Syria before it would all end in misery and a tide of evil.
Joash of Israel barely got a
mention, but he did reign for 16 years, surviving Joash of Judah by 13. He only
got to beat Hazael 3 times before dying, after which Hazael also died. His
successor Benhadad II then ascended the throne of Syria.
Although God was still
gracious to Israel, time was running out. They only had three lives left. You
really wonder how thick-skinned people can be in the face of certain doom, but
the world is in a similar phase of crisis now and no one gives a damn.
As expected of a
Cain-like son, he resented his brother, Amaziah, the other Joash’s son.
That brought another
Jeroboam to the throne. They were feeling desperate enough to revert to where it all went wrong, but righting it in name only will never work.
Meanwhile Elisha was
also fading. Having served long as a great prophet and a mighty influence
against the inevitable decline of Israel, he finally died, but such was
his anointing that when a dead man rolled into his grave, the man revived.
Amaziah succeeded Joash in Judah (2 Kings 14
and 2 Chronicles 25)
In the second year of
Joash king of Israel, Amaziah assumed the throne of Judah and, as had become a
glaring contrast to Israel, he did right in God’s eyes.
The parallel’s to Cain and Abel are so clear. God was
quite willing, even at that late stage, to save Israel and warn them of the "evil that lay at their door" (Gen 4:7), but all they could do
was resent their virtuous brother instead of following his example.
No nation will be able
to find a scapegoat for its own sins in coming years. They will blame the Arabs
and Israel, the economy or the church, but the finger of doom will still point
to them and that will not escape them until God runs out of favors.
He prosecuted those
who had killed his father, but let their children be, because Moses had said
that no child should bear the sins of his father. Ezekiel 18:20 confirms the
point.
He did, however, fail
to remove the high places of Baal.
Then Amaziah did the
amazing. He took on Joash of Israel and demanded a battlefield meeting. Joash
warned him against it, but Amaziah persisted.
He then faced the full
weight of Cain, as the dark brother attacked the noble brother, followed by
Jerusalem and the treasures inside her walls.
Even so he outlived
Joash of Israel by 13 years, to walk alongside Jeroboam II. Then sadly, he too
was assassinated, at Lacish. Azariah claimed the throne, but all we know about
him is some of his rebuilding programs.
As for Jeroboam of
Israel, well he enjoyed a surprisingly long reign of 41 years, which stayed the
hand of God even though he too was an evil king.
Nonetheless, as a
token of his great restraint, God saw the bitter anguish of Israel and gave
them respite. The time of judgment was not yet
fulfilled.
Then Jeroboam died and
Zechariah reigned in his stead. He
assumed the name of the priest that died under Joash. Did they then presume to
feign some semblance of spirituality.
Heaven knows, before
the end days, this world will also feign a spirituality that will not be of God
at all. At best it will be a consciousness, but without acknowledgment of sin
or repentance therefrom. It will never last. Judgment will eventually fall to
those who do evil in God’s eyes.
The great moral slide (2 Kings 15 & 2 Chronicles 26-27)
Azariah of Judah (also known as Uzziah) ascended David's throne in the 27th year of Jeroboam of Israel. He was 16 when coronated and reigned as a good king for 52 years.
He was a highly creative king. He built towers and fortresses, battlements for Jerusalem, equipped his army of over 300,000 men with modern weapons and built siege engines for war.
He was mighty on battle (vs 13) and did much to subdue the enemies of Judah, but at the peak of his power pride consumed him.
He was a highly creative king. He built towers and fortresses, battlements for Jerusalem, equipped his army of over 300,000 men with modern weapons and built siege engines for war.
He was mighty on battle (vs 13) and did much to subdue the enemies of Judah, but at the peak of his power pride consumed him.
The resulting regression caused him to rebel against the priests and before the altar of incense, which caused a plague of leprosy to afflict him. He remained a leper all his days and ruled through Jotham.
Then he too died and Jotham at age 25, continued to reign in his stead for 16 years. He too was a good king and did right in God's eyes and continued the building programs of Azariah. He was also mighty in battle and, although he never entered the temple, he honored God all his days.
Then he too died and Jotham at age 25, continued to reign in his stead for 16 years. He too was a good king and did right in God's eyes and continued the building programs of Azariah. He was also mighty in battle and, although he never entered the temple, he honored God all his days.
However, after Zechariah's underwhelming rule, a string of losers dragged the black sheep of Jacob's family into the gutter. The end game was at hand for the Northern kingdom.
It was then that Syria succumbed to a new world order, the Assyrians and King TiglathPileser.
(c) Peter Missing @ bethelstone.com
