2
ND
KINGS
Week 24, chapter 16 cont.

We’re in 2
nd
Kings Chapter 16, and we only got a little way into it last week. Keep in mind that
we are witnessing the last days of the existence of the northern kingdom of Israel. As of this
chapter, some of the people of Israel are already being deported and the land is in the process
of being emptied of Hebrews.
When we left off we found that the Kingdom of Israel had sunk so low that it had essentially
thrown off its identity as a nation of Hebrews and so it now allied with the nation of Syria in a
military coalition meant to overthrow the government of Judah. That’s right: for the first time
since the separation of the brother-nations of Judah and Israel as a result of a civil war
following King Solomon’s death, the northern tribal government (as led by Pekach) formally
joined with a heathen nation to go to war against the southern kingdom of Judah. And their
purpose was not only to conquer but to put an end to the Davidic dynasty. Even more the allies
intended to put a gentile ruler over Israel into place.
And while Israel’s reasons for doing this were meant for self-gain by King Pekach, and also
represented a pragmatic regional geo-political strategy, the Evil One was at work behind the
scenes orchestrating all this so that the advent of a divinely promised Redeemer that would
come from the House of David would be aborted. After all: no House of David, no Messiah. Of
course the Israeli and Syrian Kings had no knowledge or concept of this spiritual reality, or that
they were little more than willing dupes in Satan’s hand.
And yet, in a way that is regularly too much for even Messiah’s ekklesia to accept as possible,
Yehoveh was actually advancing redemption history towards its goal by allowing Israel’s
falling away. Soon Judah would follow. And then in a similar pattern, a little more than 5
centuries after the Babylonian exile, the Hebrews would again go astray and this time reject
the Messiah who finally came: Yeshua of Nazareth. The result? Yet another exile, the one we
refer to as the Roman exile. But there was another result as well, and it essentially fulfilled one
of the key terms of the Abrahamic Covenant.
CJB
Genesis 12:1 Now ADONAI said to Avram, "Get yourself out of your country, away
from your kinsmen and away from your father's house, and go to the land that I will
show you.
2
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I will make of you a great nation, I will bless you, and I will make your name great; and
you are to be a blessing.
3
I will bless those who bless you, but I will curse anyone who curses you; and by you
all the families of the earth will be blessed."
Suddenly the redemption horizon expanded from Israel alone, to the entire globe; the gentile
world would now be given the conditional privilege of being grafted into the covenants that God
had made with Israel. The condition? That a gentile had to accept, by faith, the Jewish
Messiah, Yeshua, and give up his or her identification with the gods and the ways of the pagan
world.
But again, how did this come about? It was in a way that any reasonable person living in those
times, Hebrews included, would have viewed not as a victory but rather as an abject defeat;
the people of the Promised Land would be removed from their land inheritance by a foreign
enemy and scattered to the 4 winds.
CJB
Romans 11:9-15
9
And David says, "Let their dining table become for them a snare and a trap, a pitfall
and a punishment.
10
Let their eyes be darkened, so that they can't see, with their backs bent continually."
11
"In that case, I say, isn't it that they have stumbled with the result that they have
permanently fallen away?" Heaven forbid! Quite the contrary, it is by means of their
stumbling that the deliverance has come to the Gentiles, in order to provoke them to
jealousy.
12
Moreover, if their stumbling is bringing riches to the world- that is, if Isra'el's being
placed temporarily in a condition less favored than that of the Gentiles is bringing
riches to the latter- how much greater riches will Isra'el in its fullness bring them!
13
However, to those of you who are Gentiles I say this: since I myself am an emissary
sent to the Gentiles, I make known the importance of my work
14
in the hope that somehow I may provoke some of my own people to jealousy and save
some of them!
15
For if their casting Yeshua aside means reconciliation for the world, what will their
accepting him mean? It will be life from the dead!
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Israel and Syria did attack Judah, and did have a large measure of success; but they were not
able to fully conquer the southern kingdom. King Achaz (by the skin of his teeth) remained on
Judah’s throne, but his kingdom was greatly weakened. As a further proof of Israel’s apparent
loss of memory of their heritage, we find in 2Chronicles 28 that in addition to killing 120,000
Judean males (soldiers) Israel took 200,000 Judean women and children as captives and led
them off to Samaria, capital of the northern kingdom. Israel’s ally the Arameans (Syrians) did
the same and took some uncounted number of Judeans back to Syria with them as slaves;
most of them never returned as far as any Biblical or Syrian records indicate.
But this action of Pekach’s troops, of capturing and intending to enslave brother Hebrews,
brought a harsh response from God. For Israel to do such a thing was not only well beyond the
scope of what the Lord had intended in allowing Israel to essentially be God’s hand of
punishment upon Judah, but they broke a cardinal commandment in the Law of Moses that
prohibits a Hebrew from taking another Hebrew as his unwilling slave. Yehoveh sent a prophet
named Oded to confront Israel’s leadership with a divine warning, and 4 of Israel’s influential
leaders grasped the gravity of the situation and did the right thing. They obeyed what God’s
prophet told them; they immediately released the captives, fed them and cared for them, even
putting the weak and elderly on donkeys, and took them all back home to Judah.
Naturally, this series of devastating events caused a paranoid reaction from Judah’s
King Achaz. And this is what we’ll start with today.
RE-READ 2
ND
KINGS CHAPTER 16:5 – end
Vs. 6 says that the Syrians took Edom back from Judah and kicked all the Jews out of that
nation. Edom (whose founder was Esau, Jacob’s twin brother) had a long history of
subjugation generally by either Judah or Syria. King David was the first of the Israelites to
conquer Edom, and Judah held on to Edom as a vassal for a long time until it was lost under
King Yoram to Aram; then under Judah’s King Azaryah it was re-conquered. What made
Edom valuable was the port city of Elath that lay on a finger of the Red Sea called today the
Gulf of Aqaba. This seaport gave the people of that region excellent access to a shipping
supply route where trade could be accomplished with Northern African nations. That and Edom
had a good supply of copper that was needed especially in the making of bronze. So Edom
had been a ping-pong ball, bouncing back and forth between 2 nations who each wanted
access to the Red Sea, Syria and Judah. Now it was Syria’s turn again.
Verse 7 about King Achaz going to the king of Assyria for help is far more ominous than it
might seem just reading it in 2
nd
Kings, and the reason is that there is another side to the story
that doesn’t appear here. It wasn’t all that unusual for a weakened nation to seek the shelter
of alliance with a much stronger nation; but it was something that God warned Israel to be wary
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of and in general to not do it. But even more, it is only when we understand what immediately
preceded King Achaz approaching Tiglath-Pileser of Assyria for his friendship and rescue that
we can grasp the serious rebellion against Yehoveh that is inherent in his decision. Let’s
revisit Isaiah 7.
READ ISAIAH 7:3 – 12
So here we find that before Judah was invaded, God sent a prophet (Isaiah) to King Achaz to
tell him that the Lord was not going to allow Israel and Syria to conquer Judah. Notice how the
term “Ephraim” is used as a synonym for the northern kingdom of Israel. This is because
Ephraim had become a super dominant tribe that essentially engulfed all the northern tribes
and their dominance is being recognized by using their name interchangeably with Israel. This
is primarily important for us to know because of the liberal use of the term Ephraim in End-
Times prophecies, denoting especially their connection with the legendary 10 lost tribes of
Israel. To be clear: since immediately after Solomon’s death the terms Israel, northern
kingdom, Ephraim, and The 10 Tribes (and in time the 10 lost tribes) are all essentially
synonymous (and End-Times Bible prophecy will have you running in circles if you don’t
understand that).
God told King Achaz that he would deliver him from the coming invasion. It’s not that God
promised that there would not BE an invasion, but rather that Judah would not be conquered
and divided between Syria and Israel and thus King Achaz would remain Judah’s king. And
notice in Isaiah 7:10 and 11 that God through Isaiah told King Achaz to ask Him for a sign, but
in verse 12 King Achaz refused. Normally a sign from God is a visible proof of guarantee that
what God said would occur will occur. It is designed to reassure the nervous recipient.
However in this case, God telling Achaz to ask for a sign is a test for Achaz. And by Achaz
refusing, he failed the test. By refusing to ask God for a sign Achaz is demonstrating that he is
not interested in the Lord’s leading, His protection or in His deliverance. In other words, the
sign was never intended as a proof of God’s faithfulness to deliver, but rather it was a test
of Achaz’s faithfulness to trust God.
Thus what we see is that Achaz had reached the spiritual point of no return. He committed the
sin of blasphemy by staring down God and saying a firm “no” to His deliverance. It’s not
that Achaz didn’t believe in the God of Israel. The oriental mind had no trouble with believing
in all the gods. The issue was NOT which god you believed in, it was which god you chose to
give your allegiance to. And how would one choose? Simple. Which one did you trust the most
to give you the most?
While I could probably preach a couple of sermons only from this, I’ll resist the temptation.
However this is another good opportunity for us to see the difference between believing and
trusting. The majority of people in the West would say that they believe in God; but very few
would say they put their trust in Him. That is, believing that there probably IS a “God” (of some
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sort or another) isn’t anything of merit. However trusting in Him is another issue. Trusting
means that you have committed to the principle that whatever that God tells you to do or don’t
do is right and so it determines your decisions and behavior. Trusting means that you have
decided that this particular God is also the most likely of whatever other choices are available
to come through for you.
CJB
James 2:19
19
You believe that "God is one"? Good for you! The demons believe it too- the thought
makes them shudder with fear!
King Achaz had no doubts that Yehoveh was real and that He existed. But Achaz did NOT
trust God to deliver him. Achaz figured that he had options A and B for deliverance. And I can
tell you that this pattern of knowing that God exists but not trusting Him for deliverance is the
single largest reason for people refusing to acknowledge Christ. I can’t begin to express the
number of people who have bluntly told me that they are a “good person” and that will get
them to heaven. Or that they don’t sin; or that they give a lot to charity and do good deeds, so
that surely puts them in good stead with the Lord. In fact, there have been relatively few people
who ever told tell me that they did NOT think that Jesus saves. The bigger issue for the
majority of them is that they think they have options A and B; option A is that they put
themselves in Christ’s hands for salvation, and option B is that they save themselves. And the
majority prefer option B. Like Achaz, it’s not that they don’t believe in God; it’s that they trust
another means than God to deliver them.
King Achaz’s option B was Tiglath-Pileser, King of Assyria (or of Ashur as it is often called in
the Scriptures). So in verse 7 Achaz sends an emissary to Tiglath-Pileser with words that he
should have responded to God’s offer with: “I am your servant and your son……just save me”.
In Middle Eastern terms to offer to be someone’s son has many deep meanings. For one, it
indicates a very close relationship. Another is that the son is under the authority of the father.
Yet another is that the son inherits from the father. So it is quite right that a Christian ought to
commit to the Lord by saying, “I am your servant and your son, just save me.” But notice how
different the result is when one commits in that way to God the king versus a human king.
When one commits to God, one becomes a receiver of God’s blessings and an inheritor of His
kingdom. But in order for Achaz to be taken under his “father” Tiglath-Pileser’s protection, a
great payment of silver and gold had to be made to the Assyrian king as a bribe, and then
continuing payments in addition. The human king became the receiver of the blessings, and in
no way did Achaz get to inherit any part in his “father’s” kingdom. From the moment Achaz
submitted to the king of Assyria, he became little more than a hireling.
And where did Achaz get the necessary massive amount of funds to pay off Tiglath-Pileser?
He plundered God’s Temple (which he had no respect for anyway) and sent it off to Assyria.
God’s Holy Property was stolen and given to a pagan. And yet, because he was David’s
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descendant, the Lord held off His judgment of him in order to maintain His divine promise of a
“forever” Davidic Dynasty. The bribe worked; Tiglath-Pileser accepted King Achaz’s offer of
submission in exchange for the Assyrian army attacking Syria and Israel so that they had no
resources left with which to further harass Judah. Verse 9 explains that Assyria attacked
Damascus, deported its people to other places in the Assyrian Empire, and then killed Syria’s
King Retzin who had troubled Judah so much. This deportation of the population of a
conquered nation to some other nation in Assyria’s growing empire became a hallmark
strategy of Assyrian conquest and empire building. This is exactly what would happen to the 10
northern tribes of Israel.
As many bible scholars have noted it truly is astounding that after such breath taking apostasy
Achaz would still be allowed by the Lord to complete his 16 year reign and then die more or
less peacefully. But what we have seen thus far is but the beginning of Achaz’s defiance of
God. Judah’s king now traveled north to Damascus on a diplomatic mission to this conquered
city; there he would meet with the victor, Tiglath-Pileser, and pay homage. While he was there
he observed an altar to their god that so impressed him that he had a small model of it built
and sent it along with the specifications and instructions to the High Priest of the Jerusalem
Temple to build it.
The writer of 2
nd
Chronicles adds that it was during Syria and Israel’s invasion of Judah a few
months earlier that King Achaz took the spiritually depraved tactic of worshipping the Syrian
gods beseeching them for their help. Why would he do that?
CJB
2Chron. 28:22-23
22
During his time of distress this same King Achaz added to his treachery against
ADONAI
23
by sacrificing to the gods of Dammesek, who had attacked him, reasoning, "The gods
of the kings of Aram helped them, so I will sacrifice to them, and then they'll help me."
But they became the ruin of him and of all Isra'el.
Even though we have the editorial comment that sacrificing to these foreign gods eventually
became the ruin of him, the reality is that when Isaiah’s prophecy came true (that Aram and
Israel would NOT conquer Judah, and they would NOT be able to depose Achaz from the
throne and replace him with a foreigner), and this because the Lord God of Israel would
prevent it, King Achaz responded by giving the glory for his deliverance to the gods of
Damascus because during the attack he sacrificed to them in hopes they would find favor with
him. Since Judah and he survived the invasion, he reasoned that it must have been those gods
that had rescued him.
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So now we see why he was so keen on the altar to those gods that he saw when he visited
Damascus, and wanted one built just like it back in Jerusalem. It wasn’t that it was so grand;
it’s that to his way of thinking it was so effective. In fact the altar must have been significantly
smaller than the authorized Altar of Burnt Offering that had faced Solomon’s Temple for 250
years because in verse 17 we see that after Uriyah the High Priest built this new altar for King
Achaz and placed it at the Temple, it was necessary to remove the trolleys that the several
water lavers sat upon, and the Sea was taken off of it’s ornate stand as well (the Sea was a
nickname for the enormous water laver used to wash the meat before it was put onto the altar).
The Altar of Burnt Offering was so big and tall that it was necessary that the various water
lavers have stands under them to raise them up high enough so that the priests standing on
the Altar platform could reach the water without having to go up and down the Altar stairs.
However with the introduction of the new (and much shorter) Damascus-style alter, the water
lavers were now too high to reach and so they removed the trolleys and the stands from under
the water lavers and set the vessels directly on the courtyard floor.
Backing up a bit to verse 11 we find that Uriyah the High Priest didn’t seem to express any
reservations about building this new altar for the king. Thus the infection of apostasy and
syncretism with pagan religions had even reached the highest levels of the Priesthood. In fact,
Uriyah hurried to get it done before the king returned from his trip to Syria. The first thing
Achaz did upon his return was to go to the new altar and sacrifice upon it. But even worse, he
ordered that the original Altar of Burnt Offering be moved aside so that the new altar could take
its place directly in front of the door into the Holy Place. The original altar was moved to the
north side of the Temple. And if you think back to some of the lessons on the Book of Exodus,
there we learned that the 4 compass directions held various degrees of symbolic status. East
carried the most status and north the least. So the new altar was placed to the east of the
Temple sanctuary, while the God-authorized Altar of Burnt Offering was moved to the north.
And the decision by the king to put it on the north side was not arbitrary and would not have
gone unnoticed by many of the priests and laypeople.
King Achaz had gone completely spiritually insane. Any doubt as to which god he gave his
trust and allegiance to was now clear. Any doubt as to what people he considered his friends
was now clear. Who he regarded as his savior and deliverer left no doubt. He had thoroughly
rejected Yehoveh, God of Israel, and equally thoroughly cast his lot with God’s enemies.
Verse 18 speaks of a Sabbath colonnade that was also removed under the King’s orders.
There has been some disagreement over just what this was, with many Christian scholars
supposing that this was a special place for the king to come and stand for the Sabbath Day
sacrifices. However Jewish scholars have a different view. They say that Tradition says that
this was not a colonnade but rather an awning. It was built for use by the outgoing shift of
priests. The Levite priests were broken up into 24 courses, each having a set time (set week)
to serve at the Temple as a group. The shift change came on Shabbat. However, due to the
commandment to do no work and not to begin a journey on the Sabbath, the outgoing shift
could not start their journeys back to their villages until the day ended. Therefore an awning
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was built for them to rest and wait under, protected from the elements, until the sun set. It was
this awning that was removed and one can only surmise that its removal was aimed at some
kind of public display of the king’s diminishing regard of Shabbat and growing contempt for the
Levite Priesthood.
But verse 18 gives us another fascinating fact that the ancient writers of Hebrew Tradition help
us to understand. If you’ll recall, the palace of the king of Judah was built very close to the
Temple grounds, so that the Temple and the royal palace together more or less occupied the
highest and most prestigious ground in Jerusalem. There was a public walkway between the
palace and the Temple courtyard where the king would walk in procession on the occasions he
would go to the Temple area.
But now that King Achaz had brazenly abandoned God, and had willingly put Judah under
Tiglath-Pileser as a vassal state to Assyria so that he could keep his throne, many wanted him
dead. So he had a private underground passageway built from his palace to the Temple so
that he was protected. But this passageway didn’t terminate at the Temple courtyard where it
should have. Instead it desecrated the Holy Temple by exiting inside of it. King Achaz would
have walked directly from his palace into the holy inner chambers of the Temple; this was
forbidden to all but the priests.
What an alien place the Temple in Jerusalem had become. This was no longer the Temple of
God Almighty; it was now the Temple of Achaz. He officiated at it, He had his own altar built to
sacrifice to other gods, and even the High Priest Uriyah mixed his allegiance to Yehoveh with
King Achaz. What was even more strange was the odd mixture of pagan and Torah-based
rituals and ceremonies that happened there. It was the Syrian gods who were worshipped now;
Ba’al, Ashtoreth, Molech, and the heavenly hosts of the moon, sun and stars. As Edersheim
points out it was a weird combination of Syrian, Phoenician, and Assyrian idolatry that had
replaced proper Levitical sacrifice and observances.
When one backs away and catches his breath long enough to grasp the horror of all that
Achaz has wrought, we realize that to substitute a pagan pattern for the Biblical God-pattern
not only destroyed the divine order established by God at Mt. Sinai, but it destroyed all the
symbolism that the Temple, along with its rituals and furnishings, was meant to convey to the
present and future generations. Even to do as Achaz did in mixing the holy with the profane, in
which no doubt he thought he was appeasing all the gods (including Yehoveh), is folly of the
worst sort. But a chicken-and-egg kind of question must be asked: was Achaz the cause of the
spiritual darkness of his time in Judah, or was he the outcome of it? Was Achaz a
manifestation of a new and evil brand of Jewish leadership, or was he merely representative of
his people who readily accepted such apostasy because their hearts were already deeply
compromised?
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It has been a long time in the Book of Kings since we’ve read anything that even suggests that
the Priesthood taught the people of Judah about the Torah, or even followed it themselves. It’s
pretty clear that their cultural progress, their desire for peace with their enemies, preference for
manmade religious doctrines, and a want of the good things of life like their foreign neighbors
possessed, all conspired with their ever increasing distance from God’s Word such that they
no longer knew right from wrong, good from evil. Their moral compasses were no longer
pointing towards the Torah of God but instead towards the desires of their hearts. And this puts
a great fear in me along with a depressing sadness. Because these ungodly attributes are the
exact ones predicted by Christ, when he spoke to John and had him write it down in the first 3
chapters of the Book of Revelation, that now inhabit so much of Christ’s Church. And just like
the people of Judah, as Christians we are in denial of it as we practice a religion that contains
so much pagan ceremony, human philosophical thought, and expresses primarily modern
cultural desires. Then we look around and lament the hollowness of leadership that surrounds
us, blind to the fact that they are essentially representative of us as a whole.
How has this happened? The same way as it did for Judah and Israel. Too many Believers
have abandoned the Word of God for manmade doctrines about God that pleases us better.
Too many Believers no longer read the Bible; we read books about what other people say is in
the Bible. Too many of our teachers and religious leaders are satisfied to teach us what we
want to hear rather than what we need to know, because the new call is to popularity rather
than to service and obedience to God, and to the defense of His Kingdom.
King Achaz died and was given far more honor than he deserved. He deserved to be thrown
into the same valley where he sacrificed his own son as a burnt offering to Molech, rather than
to be respectfully interred beside the bodies of his Davidic ancestors. Yet, his infamy denied
him burial near King David. 2
nd
Chronicles 28 tells us:
CJB
2Chron. 28:27
27
Achaz slept with his ancestors, and they buried him in the city, in Yerushalayim;
because they did not bring him to the tombs of the kings of Isra'el. Then Hizkiyahu his
son took his place as king.
King Achaz was not buried in the rocky tombs next to the great kings of Israel and Judah;
rather he was buried in the ground, in the family graveyard, along with the more common
ancestors of David that weren’t eligible for royalty.
Then his son Hezekiah took the throne. However next week, in chapter 17, the Scriptures will
move us back to the quickly disappearing northern kingdom and introduce us to Israel’s final
king before their exile. Only afterward do we learn about Hezekiah’s reign.
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