Join us for day 23 of our journey through the books of 1 and 2 Kings as we weave through complex narratives of Ahaz’s rule and the eventual demise of Israel, highlighting the persistent theme of divine patience met with human action. With detailed exploration of biblical texts, we review the consequences that followed and the ensuing exile as a reflection of breaking a divine covenant. This episode challenges modern-day listeners to assess contemporary parallels, urging a faithful adherence to divine statutes and recognizing the enduring mercy of God interwoven with His just nature.
Welcome to Add Bible, an audio daily devotion from the Ezra Project. Allen J. Huth shares a Bible passage with comments from over 35 years of his personal Bible reading journals and applies the Word of God to our daily lives.
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Today we are in day 23 of our 28-day journey through 1 and 2 Kings. Today we are in chapters 16 and 17 of 2 Kings. We’ll listen to Faith Comes By Hearing’s reading of those two chapters. The first about Ahaz, a very bad king in Judah. And then finally the fall of Israel. Let’s listen in. 2 Kings 16
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In the seventeenth year of Pekah the son of Remaliah, Ahaz the son of Jotham king of Judah began to reign. Ahaz was twenty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem. And he did not do what was right in the eyes of the Lord his God, as his father David had done, but he walked in the way of the kings of Israel. He even burned his son as an offering according to the despicable practices of the nations whom the Lord drove out before the people of Israel. and he sacrificed and made offerings on the high places and on the hills and under every green tree. Then Rezan king of Syria and Pekah the son of Remaliah king of Israel came up to wage war on Jerusalem, and they besieged Ahaz but could not conquer him. At that time Rezan the king of Syria recovered Elath for Syria and drove the men of Judah from Elath, and the Edomites came to Elath, where they dwell to this day. So Ahaz sent messengers to Tiglath-Pileser, king of Assyria, saying, I am your servant and your son.
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Come up and rescue me from the hand of the king of Syria and from the hand of the king of Israel, who are attacking me.
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Ahaz also 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 a present to the king of Assyria. And the king of Assyria listened to him. The king of Assyria marched up against Damascus and took it, carrying its people captive to Kir, and he killed Rezan. When King Ahaz went to Damascus to meet Tiglath-Pileser, king of Assyria, he saw the altar that was at Damascus. And King Ahaz sent to Uriah the priest a model of the altar and its pattern, exact in all its details. And Uriah the priest built the altar in accordance with all that King Ahaz had sent from Damascus. So Uriah the priest made it before King Ahaz arrived from Damascus. And when the king came from Damascus, the king viewed the altar. Then the king drew near to the altar and went up on it and burned his burnt offering and his grain offering and poured his drink offering and threw the blood of his peace offerings on the altar. and the bronze altar that was before the Lord he removed from the front of the house, from the place between his altar and the house of the Lord, and put it on the north side of his altar. And King Ahaz commanded Uriah the priest, saying,
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On the great altar burn the morning burnt offering, and the evening grain offering, and the king’s burnt offering, and his grain offering, with the burnt offering of all the people of the land, and their grain offering, and their drink offering, and throw on it all the blood of the burnt offering, and all the blood of the sacrifice. But the bronze altar shall be for me to inquire by.
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Uriah the priest did all this as King Ahaz commanded. And King Ahaz cut off the frames of the stands and removed the basin from them. And he took down the sea from off the bronze oxen that were under it and put it on a stone pedestal. And the covered way for the Sabbath that had been built inside the house and the outer entrance for the king, he caused to go around the house of the Lord because of the king of Assyria. Now the rest of the acts of Ahaz that he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah? 2 Kings 17 In the twelfth year of Ahaz king of Judah, Hoshea the son of Elah began to reign in Samaria over Israel, and he reigned nine years. And he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, yet not as the kings of Israel who were before him. Against him came up Shalmaneser king of Assyria, and Hoshea became his vassal and paid him tribute. But the king of Assyria found treachery in Hoshea, for he had sent messengers to So, king of Egypt, and offered no tribute to the king of Assyria as he had done year by year. Therefore, the king of Assyria shut him up and bound him in prison. Then the king of Assyria invaded all the land and came to Samaria, and for three years he besieged it. In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria, and he carried the Israelites away to Assyria, and placed them in Hala, and on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes. And this occurred because the people of Israel had sinned against the Lord their God, who had brought them up out of the land of Egypt from under the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and had feared other gods, and walked in the customs of the nations whom the Lord drove out before the people of Israel, and in the customs that the kings of Israel had practiced.” And the people of Israel did secretly against the Lord their God things that were not right. They built for themselves high places in all their towns, from watchtower to fortified city. They set up for themselves pillars and a shirim on every high hill and under every green tree. And there they made offerings on all the high places as the nations did, whom the Lord carried away before them. And they did wicked things, provoking the Lord to anger. And they served idols of which the Lord had said to them, You shall not do this.
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Yet the Lord warned Israel and Judah by every prophet and every seer, saying, Turn from your evil ways and keep my commandments and my statutes in accordance with all the law that I commanded your fathers and that I sent to you by my servants the prophets.
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But they would not listen, but were stubborn as their fathers had been, who did not believe in the Lord their God. They despised his statutes and his covenant that he made with their fathers and the warnings that he gave them. They went after false idols and became false, and they followed the nations that were around them, concerning whom the Lord had commanded them that they should not do like them. And they abandoned all the commandments of the Lord their God, and made for themselves metal images of two calves. And they made an Asherah, and worshipped all the hosts of heaven, and served Baal. And they burned their sons and their daughters as offerings, and used divination and omens, and sold themselves to do evil in the sight of the Lord, provoking him to anger.” Therefore the Lord was very angry with Israel and removed them out of His sight. None was left but the tribe of Judah only. Judah also did not keep the commandments of the Lord their God, but walked in the customs that Israel had introduced. And the Lord rejected all the descendants of Israel, and afflicted them, and gave them into the hand of plunderers, until he had cast them out of his sight. When he had torn Israel from the house of David, they made Jeroboam the son of Nebat king. And Jeroboam drove Israel from following the Lord, and made them commit great sin. The people of Israel walked in all the sins that Jeroboam did. They did not depart from them, until the Lord removed Israel out of his sight, as he had spoken by all his servants the prophets.” So Israel was exiled from their own land to Assyria until this day. And the king of Assyria brought people from Babylon, Kuthah, Avah, Hamath, and Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of the people of Israel. And they took possession of Samaria and lived in its cities. And at the beginning of their dwelling there, they did not fear the Lord. Therefore the Lord sent lions among them, which killed some of them. So the king of Assyria was told,
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The nations that you have carried away and placed in the cities of Samaria do not know the law of the God of the land. Therefore he has sent lions among them, and behold, they are killing them, because they do not know the law of the God of the land.
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Then the king of Assyria commanded, Send there one of the priests whom you carried away from there, and let him go and dwell there, and teach them the law of the God of the land.
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So one of the priests whom they had carried away from Samaria came and lived in Bethel, and taught them how they should fear the Lord. But every nation still made gods of its own, and put them in the shrines of the high places that the Samaritans had made, every nation in the cities in which they lived. The men of Babylon made Succoth-Benoth, the men of Kuth made Nergal, the men of Hamath made Ashima, and the Avites made Nibhaz and Tartak, and the Sepharvites burned their children in the fire to Adremelech and Anamelech, the gods of Sepharvaim. They also feared the Lord and appointed from among themselves all sorts of people as priests of the high places, who sacrificed for them in the shrines of the high places. So they feared the Lord, but also served their own gods, after the manner of the nations from among whom they had been carried away. To this day they do according to the former manner. They do not fear the Lord, and they do not follow the statutes or the rules or the law or the commandment that the Lord commanded the children of Jacob, whom he named Israel.”
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The Lord made a covenant with them and commanded them, You shall not fear other gods, or bow yourselves to them, or serve them, or sacrifice to them. But you shall fear the Lord, who brought you out of the land of Egypt with great power and with an outstretched arm. You shall bow yourselves to him, and to him you shall sacrifice. And the statutes and the rules and the law and the commandment that he wrote for you, you shall always be careful to do. You shall not fear other gods, and you shall not forget the covenant that I have made with you. You shall not fear other gods, but you shall fear the Lord your God, and he will deliver you out of the hand of all your enemies.”
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However, they would not listen, but they did according to their former manner. So these nations feared the Lord and also served their carved images. Their children did likewise, and their children’s children. As their fathers did, so they do to this day.
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In 1997, at 42 years old, I read 2 Kings chapters 15 through 17 on one day. And I wrote, 17 is a summary of the fall of Israel. They would not hear but stiffen their necks like the necks of their fathers who did not believe in the Lord their God. They feared the Lord yet served their own gods. Sounds like the USA today. And at 56 years old in 2011, I read 2 Kings 15-17 on the same day. And I wrote, Ahaz replaces the altar designed by God with an Assyrian altar to a false god. Tragic, but we have done the same. replaced God-ordained worship and practices with man-made ceremonies. Finally, Assyria destroys Israel and takes them into captivity. Judah alone is left, not because they were any better, but because of God’s promise to David. So is it true. that God will never leave us or forsake us? Chapter 16 is about Ahaz, the king of Judah. His reign is summarized in verse 2. Ahaz was 20 years old when he began to reign, and he reigned 16 years in Jerusalem. And he did not do what was right in the eyes of the Lord his God, as his father David had done. But he walked in the way of the kings of Israel. He even burned his son as an offering, according to the despicable practices of the nations whom the Lord drove out before the people of Israel.” As I mentioned in one of my journals, he even took down the altar built for the sacrifices to God and put a pagan altar up and sacrificed accordingly. And this was in Judah, not Israel. Chapter 17 describes the fall of Israel. Verse 7 says, And the people of Israel did secretly against the Lord their God things that were not right. They built for themselves high places in all their towns. from watch-tower to fortified city they set up for themselves pillars and ashram on every high hill and under every green tree and there they made offerings on all the high places as the nations did whom the lord carried away before them and they did wicked things provoking the lord to anger and they served idols of which the Lord had said to them, You shall not do this. Down to verses 14 and 15. But they would not listen, but were stubborn as their fathers had been, who did not believe in the Lord their God. They despised his statutes and his covenants that he made with their fathers, and the warnings that he gave them. Verse 16. And they abandoned all the commandments of the Lord their God, and made for themselves metal images of two calves, and they made an Asherah, and worshipped all the hosts of heaven, and served Baal. all that sin causes the judgment in verse eighteen therefore the lord was very angry with israel and removed them out of his sight none was left but the tribe of judah only but judah was not much better verse nineteen judah also did not keep the commandments of the lord their god but walked in the customs that israel had introduced The only reason God spared Judah was because of the promise he made to David. What a sad situation for the tribes of Israel. They are carted off into captivity because of their sin, because of their idol worship, because of their rejection of the very God who brought them out of the land of Egypt and gave them the very land they lived in. All this has been removed. They are now in exile in Assyria. 2 Kings chapter 17 is a sobering chapter. Israel had taken its relationship with God Almighty for granted. God finally had enough. How about you? Are you taking your relationship with God Almighty for granted? I sometimes hear things like this from well-meaning people. Well, God has to forgive me. Or… Doesn’t matter what I do, God will never leave me nor forsake me. Or, in the New Testament, God is a God of love. He will not really hold me accountable to my sinful behavior, will he? If those are your thoughts, re-read 2 Kings 17. Father, throughout these two books, we’ve seen you withhold your judgment. You’ve been patient. You’ve been merciful. You’ve been the God of the second chance. But finally, your patience wears out. And because you are a just God, you must judge. Holy Spirit, teach us the truth of these chapters in our own lives today. May we never take you for granted. May we not be led astray into false worship. May we stay true to your statutes, your laws, and your commandments. Holy Spirit, guide us into all truth. Blessed be the name of the Lord. You are the same yesterday, today, and forever. Amen.
