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2 Chronicles 26:4  (King James Version)
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<< 2 Chronicles 26:3   2 Chronicles 26:5 >>


2 Chronicles 26:4

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)



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)



2 Chronicles 26:3-4

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)




Other Forerunner Commentary entries containing 2 Chronicles 26:4:

2 Chronicles 24:2

 

<< 2 Chronicles 26:3   2 Chronicles 26:5 >>



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