Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of 2 Chronicles 28:2

For he walked in the ways of the kings of Israel, and made also molten images for Baalim.

2. for Baalim ] R.V. for the Baalim.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

Images for Baalim – Or, to serve as Baalim, i. e as representatives of the different forms or characters of the chief Phoenician deity.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

2Ch 28:2

For he walked in the ways of the kings of Israel.

The ways of the kings of Israel

Israel was for the most part more powerful, wealthy, and cultured than Judah. When Ahaz came to the throne as a mere youth, Pekah was apparently in the prime of life and the zenith of power. He is no inapt symbol of what the modern tempter at any rate desires to appear: the showy, pretentious man of the world, who parades his knowledge of life, and impresses the inexperienced youth with his shrewdness and success, and makes his victim eager to imitate him, to walk in the ways of the kings of Israel. (W. H. Bennett, M.A)

Molten images for Baalim.—

Molten images for the Baals

The prospect of making images for the Baals is an insidious temptation. Ahaz perhaps had found the decorous worship of the one God dull and monotonous. Baals meant new gods and new rites, with all the excitement of novelty and variety. Jotham may not have realised that this youth of twenty was a man; he may have been treated as a child and left too much to the women of the harem. Responsible activity might have saved him. The Church needs to recognise that healthy, vigorous youth craves interesting occupation, and even excitement. If a father wishes to send his son to the devil, he cannot do better than make that sons life, both secular and religious, a routine of monotonous drudgery. Then any pinchbeck king of Israel will seem a marvel of wit and good fellowship, and the making of molten images a most pleasing diversion. A molten image is something solid, permanent, and conspicuous, a standing advertisement of the enterprise and artistic taste of the maker; he engraves his name on the pedestal, and is proud of the honourable distinction. Many of our modern molten images are duly set forth in popular works; for instance, the reputation for impure life, or hard drinking, or reckless gambling, to achieve which some men have spent their time and money and toil. Other molten images are dedicated to another class of Baals: Mammon the respectable and Belial the polite. (W. H. Bennett, M.A.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

To worship his Baalim, or false gods, in and by them.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

[See comments on 2Ch 28:1]

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

(2) And made also molten images for Baalim.For the Baals, i.e., the different aspects or avatars of the Canaanite god. This clause is added by the chronicler, in explanation of the former one; the way of the kings of Israel was the state recognition of Baal worship, side by side with that of Jehovah (2Ch. 21:6; 2Ch. 22:3-4; comp. 2Ch. 23:17). But possibly both this and the first clause of 2Ch. 28:3 have fallen out of the text of Kings. (So Thenius on that passage.)

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

2Ch 28:2 For he walked in the ways of the kings of Israel, and made also molten images for Baalim.

Ver. 2. For hs walked in the ways of the kings of Israel. ] Yea, he outdid them in wickedness. See on 2Ki 16:3-4 . Sundry holy prophets, as Isaiah, Micah, Nahum, &c., declaimed earnestly against his abominable practices, and proclaimed hell-fire in case he repented not; but he either turned the deaf ear to them, or, if he gave them the hearing, yet he heeded them not; luporum instar, ingenium non mutavit.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)