Topical Studies
What the Bible says about
Joash, Amaziah, and Uzziah
(From Forerunner Commentary)
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2 Kings 14:3-4
Jehoash's son, Amaziah, became king at age 25 and reigned until age 54. Like his father, he declined to do anything about the high places in his realm. In many respects, Amaziah's reign mirrored his father's; it began well and ended poorly. Immediately after his coronation, he showed his commitment to God's law: Although he had the servants who had participated in his father's murder executed, he did not punish their children (II Kings 14:6; see II Chronicles 25:3-4). Yet, after this noble beginning, Amaziah began to falter. He gathered the men of Judah and soundly defeated the Edomites, but in this victory were planted the seeds of his own defeat: Now it was so, after Amaziah came from the slaughter of the Edomites, that he brought the gods of the people of Seir, set them up to be his gods, and bowed down before them and burned incense to them. Therefore the anger of the LORD was aroused against Amaziah, and He sent him a prophet who said to him, "Why have you sought the gods of the people, which could not rescue their own people from your hand?" So it was, as he talked with him, that the king said to him, "Have we made you the king's counselor? Cease! Why should you be killed?" Then the prophet ceased, and said, "I know that God has determined to destroy you, because you have done this and have not heeded my advice." (II Chronicles 25:14-16) Like Jehoash, Amaziah was not only lax in destroying the centers of idolatry within his realm, but he also later practiced idolatry himself. He trusted in God enough for the victory over Edom—and by extension, over the gods of the Edomites—but he then put his trust in those neutered gods and turned away from the God who had defeated them! To compound his folly, Amaziah rejected the Word of God through His prophet, culminating in God turning against him. Unchecked by the prophet's words, Amaziah let the God-given overthrow of Edom go to his head, and he challenged the king of Israel to battle. The king of Israel—wiser in this instance—tried to warn him off (II Chronicles 25:19-20). Predictably, Amaziah suffered defeat, and a large portion of Jerusalem's wall was destroyed. Further, the Israelites ransacked both the house of the Lord and the king's house, portraying what Amaziah himself had symbolically done to the Temple and his own house. Finally, like his apostate father, Amaziah died a dishonorable death at the hands of assassins. II Chronicles 25:2 gives a slightly different assessment of Amaziah: "And he did what was right in the sight of the LORD, but not with a loyal heart." The word "loyal" can also be translated as "full," "whole," "perfect," "peaceable," "made ready," or "blameless." It has the connotation of "friendly," as in being friendly to a cause. For example, when Solomon inaugurated the Temple, he commanded Israel to "Let your heart therefore be loyal to the LORD our God, to walk in His statutes and keep His commandments, as at this day" (I Kings 8:61; emphasis ours throughout). In other words, in Amaziah existed an element of resignation or perfunctory compliance, but he was not wholly committed to doing the right thing. He did what was right, but it was under internal duress. Because of the guidance Jehoiada the priest gave to his father and his own familiarity with the law of God, Amaziah could not claim ignorance. He knew the right thing to do, and for a time, he did it—but his heart was not in it. As soon as he had a taste of success and a boost of confidence, what was in his heart—pride, idolatry, and insolence before God, among other things—could no longer be contained. As Jesus taught, the things of the heart eventually come out and cause defilement (Mark 7:20). How much are we like Amaziah? We can certainly stumble as he did. He knew of the true God and the right way, but he was also well aware of the pagan world around him. For a time, he constrained himself to do what was right, but once things began going his way, the world turned his head, and his heart was lifted up. Because he did not have a loyal heart—because he was not wholeheartedly devoted to God—it was only a matter of time before what was inside revealed itself. While doing what is "right in the sight of the LORD" is always better than doing wrong, perfunctory compliance eventually ends. Amaziah's tolerance of the high places in the kingdom God had entrusted to him exposed what lived in his heart, and eventually, his life came to match it, much to his detriment and those under him. Where do our loyalties truly lie? Doing what is right in God's sight does not count for much if the heart strains to go another way. Though Solomon failed to follow his own advice, he gives tremendous counsel in Proverbs 4:23 (NIV): "Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life."
David C. Grabbe
The High Places (Part Three)
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2 Kings 15:2-5
Uzziah is the third successive king of Judah who failed to remove the high places from the land. Like his father, Amaziah, and his grandfather, Jehoash, Uzziah "did what was right in the sight of the LORD," but also like them, his ending was worse than his beginning. From II Kings 15:2-5, one receives the impression that the leprosy directly resulted from Uzziah's failure to rid the realm of idolatry. However, the record in II Chronicles reveals more of the story. Uzziah "sought God in the days of Zechariah, who had understanding in the visions of God; and as long as he sought the LORD, God made him prosper" (II Chronicles 26:5). His downfall, like his father's, had its roots in worldly greatness and success. He vanquished the Philistines, Arabians, and Meunites in battle, and due to his reputation, the Ammonites paid tribute to avoid a similar fate (II Chronicles 26:6-8). Out of his small kingdom, he mustered and equipped an army of over 300,000 men that "made war with mighty power" (verse 13). As II Chronicles 26:15 summarizes, "So his fame spread far and wide, for he was marvelously helped till he became strong." Yet, like most men, Uzziah was unable to handle such strength: "But when he was strong his heart was lifted up, to his destruction, for he transgressed against the LORD his God by entering the temple of the LORD to burn incense on the altar of incense" (II Chronicles 26:16). During his reign, God began sending the recorded prophets. Uzziah's death is noted in Isaiah 6:1, and thus the first five chapters specifically deal with Judah during his reign. In Isaiah and Hosea appear a strong indication of the state of the people and the leadership. Isaiah writes that "from the sole of the foot [of the sinful nation] even to the head, there is no soundness in it, but wounds and bruises and putrefying sores; they have not been closed or bound up, or soothed with ointment" (Isaiah 1:6). Hosea similarly writes about the nation burning incense to the Baals (Hosea 2:13), offering sacrifices and burning incense on high places (Hosea 4:13), sacrificing to the Baals (Hosea 11:2), and "the high places of Aven, the sin of Israel" (Hosea 10:8). While Uzziah did not directly participate in the idolatry, by "entering the temple of the LORD to burn incense on the altar of incense," we can see pagan influences creeping into a previously righteous reign. In God's law, only the priests were authorized to offer incense to God (see Numbers 16:35, 40). However, in the pagan religions, essentially anyone—and especially the king—could burn incense to his god (see Jeremiah 32:29; 44:15-25). Thus, in his pride, Uzziah borrowed a page from the pagans' playbook, even while ostensibly worshipping God. Uzziah was raised in an environment that included his father burning incense to the gods of Edom. The high-place paganism that he allowed to continue would likewise have shaped the way he approached the worship of the true God. Thus, when his heart was lifted up by worldly greatness, he apparently felt free to overlook God's clear instructions regarding sacrifice and incense. That way of worship was the norm all around him—what harm could it do? Not only did he try to worship God on his own terms, but he became enraged when the priests—God's representatives—challenged him. His string of successes seems to have given him delusions of infallibility: Then Uzziah became furious; and he had a censer in his hand to burn incense. And while he was angry with the priests, leprosy broke out on his forehead, before the priests in the house of the LORD, beside the incense altar. And Azariah the chief priest and all the priests looked at him, and there, on his forehead, he was leprous; so they thrust him out of that place. Indeed he also hurried to get out, because the LORD had struck him. King Uzziah was a leper until the day of his death. He dwelt in an isolated house, because he was a leper; for he was cut off from the house of the LORD. (II Chronicles 26:19-21) Uzziah's upbringing in a multicultural environment, combined with a strong taste of untempered power and a lack of defeat, contributed to his ambivalence toward the high places in the land and his presumptuous imitation of their practices. Though he did not participate in it, the paganism he tolerated later influenced his worship of God, who would in no way accept this mixture of the holy and the profane.
David C. Grabbe
The High Places (Part Four)
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2 Chronicles 24:2
In the life of Joash, Jehoiada proved a powerful influence for good. Joash reigned for forty years, but unfortunately, Jehoiada did not live through its entirety, as II Chronicles 24:15-16 relates: But Jehoiada grew old and full of days, and he died; he was one hundred and thirty years old when he died. And they buried him in the city of David among the kings. The Bible does not record that many high priests were buried with the kings of Judah. This honor is quite distinctive. It is a recognition of his being a great, righteous man and a tremendous, positive influence on Joash, as well as an acknowledgment that Jehoiada had actually ruled the kingdom. Despite being the front man as the heir of David, Joash did not really have it in him to be king—but Jehoiada did. We see this to be true in the next verses: Now after the death of Jehoiada the leaders of Judah came and bowed down to the king. And the king listened to them. Therefore they left the house of the LORD God of their fathers, and served wooden images and idols . . .. (II Chronicles 24:17-18) The wording in the first part of the last sentence implies that these Judahite leaders abandoned the way of life represented by the Temple. We would say that they “left the church.” In other words, the nation's entire political leadership apostatized, using weak Joash to return to the paganism they had enjoyed under Joash's grandfather, father, and grandmother. God was not pleased: . . . and wrath came upon Judah and Jerusalem because of their trespass. Yet He sent prophets to them, to bring them back to the LORD; and they testified against them, but they would not listen. Then the Spirit of God came upon Zechariah, son of Jehoiada the priest, who stood above the people, and said to them, “Thus says God: 'Why do you transgress the commandments of the LORD so you cannot prosper? Because you have forsaken the LORD, He also has forsaken you.' So they conspired against him, and at the command of the king they stoned him with stones in the court of the house of the LORD. Thus Joash did not remember the kindness which Jehoiada his father had done to him . . .. (II Chronicles 24:18-22) Jehoiada was not his biological father, but he had acted as his father. He had reared this king of Judah from his infancy, but Joash appears not to have appreciated all that Jehoiada had done for him. Thus Joash the king did not remember the kindness which Jehoiada his father had done to him, but killed his son; and as he died, [Zechariah] said, “The LORD look on it, and repay!” (II Chronicles 24:22) This heinous act shows what ingratitude can do to a person's thinking. Jesus refers to this murder in Matthew 23:35-36 when He says that the Jewish authorities had slain His prophets “from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar.” Interestingly, Jesus seems to answer Zechariah's plea to bring them to justice for his death, saying in verse 36, “Assuredly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.” God made him and his counselors account for Zechariah's death not long thereafter, sending the Syrians against Judah and Jerusalem (II Chronicles 24:23-24). The Syrian army not only plundered the wealth of the leaders of Judah, but they also killed them. So God punished them for their part in Zechariah's death. Joash did not escape the divine judgment. His fate was assassination and the disgrace of not being buried with the kings (II Chronicles 24:25). It makes for a fascinating contrast to compare him, a scion of David who suffered death at the hands of his servants, with his “father” Jehoiada, a descendant of Aaron whom the people held in such high regard that they buried him among the kings. The one's path led to shame while the other's led to honor.
John W. Ritenbaugh
Three Missing Kings (Part Two)
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2 Chronicles 24:2
Joash, Amaziah, and Uzziah all started out well but later hardened their hearts. They all rejected God's Word and refused to repent. God wanted them to return to Him, but their intransigence forced His hand. Is God hard? Is He austere and unmerciful? Does God owe us salvation and eternal life? Is He bound to give us blessings regardless of our conduct, despite the direction of our lives? No, our choices decide our fate (see Ezekiel 18:23-28). God demands individual responsibility. He never condones sin nor grants license for anyone to disobey His commands. The subject here is not about transgressions done out of weakness or ignorance but those committed as a way of life with knowledge of wrongdoing. He judges such sins seriously. Yet, even for such sins, God always desires and allows the sinner to repent. As we see in the examples of these kings, He will always chase after the sinner with His Word and allow him time to repent. He always leaves the door open for a sinner who will return to Him. But eventually, the mind becomes set (Ecclesiastes 8:11), the conscience becomes seared (I Timothy 4:2), and repentance becomes impossible. At some point, a sinner will no longer change, and God says that He then makes a final judgment. He tells Moses after he had offered his own life for the sins of Israel, “Whoever has sinned against Me, I will blot him out of My book” (Exodus 32:33). God enters names into the Book of Life, and He has the prerogative to erase names from it as well—a sobering thought indeed. Essentially, Joash, Amaziah, and Uzziah all quoted Deuteronomy 29:19: “I shall have peace, even though I walk in the imagination [dictates] of my heart.” At a certain point, confronted with their sins, they said, “I will not repent, I will not listen to God's prophets. I will continue in the direction I am going, and despite that, I will live in peace and prosperity.” God says that is the kind of thinking He expects from a drunk: “I can continue to drink and not get become impaired.” In verse 20, Moses reaches a scary conclusion about how God would deal with such a person at that point: The LORD would not spare him; for then the anger of the LORD and His jealousy would burn against that man, and every curse that is written in this book would settle on him, and the LORD would blot out his name from under heaven. Through Moses, God is saying, “Do not kid yourself. You cannot live in violation of My ways and expect Me not to respond.” Most of us have come out of a Protestant society that teaches that God is essentially obligated to give us salvation because of the depth of His grace. Protestant theology proclaims that His mercy is so great that, as long as we have accepted the blood of Jesus Christ, salvation is assured. This claim is not true. While this teaching tickles people's ears, they forget that God's justice perfectly balances His mercy, and His love tempers both. He knows that anybody who desires to live in a way opposed to His way of life would be miserable for all eternity should he inherit the Kingdom of God. God's sense of justice will not allow Him to give eternal life to such a person. He will not commit a person to that depth of misery, nor will He allow him to cause suffering for others. Like Satan, he would be a thorn in the side of the godly. If God determines that it would not be good for someone to live in His Kingdom, because he refuses to live as God requires, he will not be there.
John W. Ritenbaugh
Three Missing Kings (Part Two)
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2 Chronicles 24:2
Jehoash (Joash), Amaziah, and Uzziah (Azariah) all "did what was right in the sight of the LORD" (II Chronicles 24:2; 25:2; 26:4), yet during their reigns "the high places were not removed" (II Kings 12:3; 14:4; 15:4). All three are also in the lineage of Jesus Christ, but they are conspicuously absent in His genealogy given in Matthew 1. To compound this peculiarity, some of the very worst kings of Judah—such as Ahaz and Manasseh—are included. One possible reason for this has already been alluded to, and it may relate to the negligence of these three kings to remove the high places from the kingdom entrusted to them by God. That is, they all had strong and righteous beginnings, but over the course of their reigns, they regressed spiritually. Rather than becoming better over time, these three monarchs squandered the position and opportunities given to them. In contrast, Judah's particularly bad rulers had a semblance of repentance later in their lives. In his youth, Jehoash had a strong and moral priest to guide him, but once the priest died, it became apparent that Jehoash lacked the character to stand on his own. He gave in to idolatry and died without honor. Amaziah began his reign with righteous mercy, but upon tasting military victory, he became proud and started worshipping the gods of the people he had conquered. Like his father, he was assassinated. Uzziah also became militarily strong, and in his hubris, he rashly entered the Temple and burned incense to God—something reserved for the sons of Aaron alone. He ended his days in isolation as a leper. The lives of these kings are records of neglect that culminated in their downfalls—to the detriment of those under them and after them.
David C. Grabbe
The High Places (Part Five)
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2 Chronicles 24:25
Most translators believe “sons” should be singular “son,” as the Septuagint reads. But it is not without precedence that monarchs have taken vengeance on family members of their opponents. Joash's grandfather and grandmother, Jehoram and Athaliah, both purged their families of potential rivals (II Chronicles 21:4; 22:10). Perhaps their examples inspired Joash to kill some of Jehoiada's family to somehow avert Zechariah's plea for divine repayment. If such were the case, plural “sons” would be correct.
John W. Ritenbaugh
Three Missing Kings (Part Two)
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2 Chronicles 25:2
This evaluation of Amaziah's character provides a key to understanding his character. In II Chronicles 25:11-12, a battle between Judah and Edom occurs, and Amaziah wins a great victory. Then he does something that defies logic: Now it was so, after Amaziah came from the slaughter of the Edomites, that he brought the gods of the people of Seir, set them up to be his gods, and bowed down before them, and burned incense to them. (II Chronicles 25:14) This reaction is hard to comprehend! God gave him a great victory over the Edomites and their gods, and instead of praising and worshipping the God of Israel, he decides to adopt the idols of Edom as his gods. What was he thinking? God responds as we might expect: Therefore the anger of the LORD was aroused against Amaziah, and He sent him a prophet who said to him, “Why have you sought the gods of the people, which could not rescue their own people from your hand?” So it was, as he talked with him, that the king said to him, “Have we made you the king's counselor? Cease! Why should you be killed?” Then the prophet ceased and said, “I know that God has determined to destroy you because you have done this and have not heeded my advice.” (II Chronicles 25:15-16) Amaziah would not take correction and threatened to kill God's prophet if he continued to criticize him for his actions. Though he had followed the prophet's advice earlier, the king is now beginning to expose his disloyal heart. Feeling strong, Amaziah decides to challenge Israel, whose angry mercenaries had killed three thousand Judahites after being dismissed from Judah's service—not a very smart move. For one thing, it pitted Judah with two tribes against Israel with its ten tribes. Joash, king of Israel, was justifiably contemptuous of Amaziah's challenge, warning him of defeat in the form of a parable (II Chronicles 25:18). Amaziah, in his pride, refuses to listen. The chronicler interjects that God inspired his refusal because He needed to punish the king for taking Edomite gods as his own (verse 20). Amaziah takes his forces into battle against Israel at Beth Shemesh, and he and his army are smashed just as the king of Israel had predicted. Like his father Joash, Amaziah comes to a violent end years later: After the time that Amaziah turned away from following the LORD, they [likely a group of nobles] made a conspiracy against him in Jerusalem, and he fled to Lachish; but they sent after him to Lachish and killed him there. Then they brought him on horses and buried him with his fathers in the City of Judah. (II Chronicles 25:27-28) So, for the second time in as many generations, the king of Judah is assassinated. The conspirators held Amaziah in such contempt that they killed him, tied him over the back of a horse, and sent his body back to Jerusalem for burial. Another king suffers an ignominious end, although he at least had the honor of burial among the former kings of Judah. In terms of character, Amaziah was unstable, reversing his early loyalty to God on a dime. He wanted victory and glory, and when God gave it to him, he failed to see that God was its source and absurdly chose to worship Edomite gods. Instead of listening to God's prophet, he threatened him with death. He foolishly challenged a far stronger Israelite army, expecting the same results he had had against the Edomites, not realizing the Source of his power had become his adversary. And apparently, he never learned his lesson, disenchanting his nobles until they decided to rid themselves of him. We could compare him to the man in Jesus' parable (Luke 14:28-30), who began to build, seemingly well. However, his early success went to his head, and like a piece of overripe fruit, he began to turn rotten. He dropped the true God for idols. Like the man in the parable, he did not have what it took to finish what he had started. Unsteady in character and conduct, he was a semi-religious man who only wanted what faithfulness could get him. He was sufficiently pious early in life, but that early piety did not justify his later pride and self-indulgence.
John W. Ritenbaugh
Three Missing Kings (Part Two)
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2 Chronicles 25:27-28
Most of us have probably seen a Western in which a man gets shot out the wilderness somewhere, and someone ties his body onto the horse, draped over the top, stomach to the saddle, with his hands tied to his feet underneath. That is what they did to Amaziah, just tied him to a horse and sent him back to Jerusalem. What an ignominious ending for the royal seed! Let us evaluate his character. What we see in him is vacillating instability. He was a great deal like Joash, but Amaziah wanted the best of both worlds. We could compare his life to the parable Jesus gave of a man who began to build yet was not able to finish. Amaziah started off well. He listened to the prophet of God and repented. When he changed his ways, God gave him a great victory, but then he began to turn. He was a man who was semi-religious and unsteady in character and conduct. He had the right kind of piety and godliness early in his life, but early piety and godliness is no excuse for self-indulgence later on. The flaw we see beginning to develop is that these three kings (Joash, Amaziah, and Uzziah) all began well, but they did not finish well.
John W. Ritenbaugh
Why Three Kings Are Missing From Matthew 1
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2 Chronicles 26:4
The chronicler does not even compare Uzziah to David but to his father, Amaziah, whose life did not end well, though he started fine. Uzziah seems to have followed in Joash's footsteps: “He sought God in the days of Zechariah, who had understanding in the visions of God; and as long as he sought the LORD, God made him prosper” (II Chronicles 26:5). Joash sought God while Jehoiada the priest lived. Now another strong priest, who, as the margin says, understood the fear of God, steered Uzziah in the right direction. As long as Uzziah had this righteous guidance, God helped him with victories over surrounding nations, bringing him fame and prosperity (II Chronicles 26:9-11). The record of his early reign concludes, “So his fame spread far and wide, for he was marvelously helped till he became strong” (verse 15). However, upon reaching the zenith of power and fame, he plunges toward his nadir; the butterfly turns into a worm: “But when he was strong his heart was lifted up, to his destruction, for he transgressed against the LORD his God by entering the temple of the LORD to burn incense on the altar of incense” (II Chronicles 26:16). Uzziah presumptuously disregarded God's Word, for it says that only the priests could perform this responsibility. Success after success spoiled his character. He became arrogant, filled with inordinate self-esteem. In his pride, he tried to emulate the despotic Oriental kings around him, who were their nations' high priests as well. But God had purposely separated the two offices within Israel. What was the result of his flagrant presumption? First, the priests tried to stop him from his foolish act (II Chronicles 26:17-18). In his overweening pride, Uzziah's reaction was rage. The priests had challenged his authority! Was he not the mighty king of Judah? It appears he felt that he had become infallible and invincible. The chronicler relates the disastrous ending of the tale: Then Uzziah became furious; and he had a censer in his hand to burn incense. And while he was angry with the priests, leprosy broke out on his forehead, before the priests in the house of the LORD, beside the incense altar. And Azariah the chief priest and all the priests looked at him, and there, on his forehead, he was leprous; so they thrust him out of that place. Indeed he also hurried to get out, because the LORD had struck him. King Uzziah was a leper until the day of his death. He dwelt in an isolated house, because he was a leper; for he was cut off from the house of the LORD. Then Jotham his son was over the king's house, judging the people of the land. (II Chronicles 26:19-21) Josephus adds an interesting postscript to the story, though it is not clear if he is correct or not. He writes that the earthquake the prophet Amos mentions in Amos 1:1 occurred when Uzziah invaded the Holy Place. Moreover, he says that the shaking tore the sanctuary's roof, and a ray of sunlight pierced the Temple, striking Uzziah in his forehead. When the sunbeam disappeared, leprosy remained. Tradition says this was the hand of God, showing His displeasure with Uzziah's presumptuous pride. We see a king who started marvelously but faltered and failed along the way. Like Amaziah, when confronted with the truth of his sin, he refused to repent, doubling down with anger and threats. God humbled him for the rest of his life. He had sought glory and fame, and he had to live with shame and loneliness for about another decade before he died. II Chronicles 26:23 records that he was buried with his fathers but separated from them in the field because “they said, 'He is a leper.'”
John W. Ritenbaugh
Three Missing Kings (Part Two)
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