Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of 2 Chronicles 28:22
And in the time of his distress did he trespass yet more against the LORD: this [is that] king Ahaz.
22 25 (cp. 2Ki 16:10-18). Apostasy of Ahaz
22. did he trespass against the LORD: this is that king Ahaz ] R.V. did he trespass against the LORD, this same king Ahaz. For the phrase “this same” cp. 2Ch 32:30; 2Ch 33:23 (R.V.).
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
2Ch 28:22-23
And in the time of his distress did he trespass yet more against the Lord.
When affliction may be said to have failed of its object
I. I suppose that you have set your heart upon some cherished design–that you have dwelt upon it to such a degree as to neglect for it many social duties and all your thoughts of God. You have missed attaining it, and are deeply disappointed. If you have not learned thenceforward to strive more soberly, to plant and sow, and build and labour, and not look for success without uttering, Father, if it seem good to Thee, nevertheless, not as I will, but as Thou wilt; if you are still engaged in the same projects with the same temper, or one even more infatuated–then distress has been sent to you in vain: you are sacrificing to the gods that smote you; trespassing yet more against the Lord.
II. Suppose that you have been smitten with some disease, mental or bodily–the not unnatural, consequence of dissipation or thoughtlessness, or perverseness, or the like. If you have not learned from Gods displeasure; if you have not resolved that with renewed health you would walk in newness of life; if you have returned to your old sins with new zest from being for a time debarred from them–then the distress which God sent you has hardened and not softened you. You are worshipping the idols of your own hearts with a devotion which it will be more difficult than ever to displace.
III. Or, in conclusion, suppose that you have given way to ill-temper, and that God has punished you by alienation of friends, by retaliation on the part of ill-wishers, by distrust on the part of all. Has this set you upon governing the impetuousness of passion, or checking the reproachful word? Or have you merely turned your spirit into some more unkindly channel–moroseness, peevishness, misanthropy? If so, distress and chastisement have not done their proper work upon you. Like Ahaz you are going on to trespass yet more against the Lord. (D. Hessey.)
Ahazs persistent wickedness
I. A conspicuous example of persistent wickedness. He pushed on in face of many and powerful barriers placed in his way.
1. He had a godly ancestry. Oh, sir, said an aged sinner who came to his minister in great distress, to think of my fathers and mothers prayers, and then of the vile wretch that I have been!
2. It would seem that other like influences continued to surround Ahaz in his own palace. The mother of his son Hezekiah was the daughter of the wise and good Zechariah.
3. God often makes use of goodness to bring men to repentance. He tried this upon Ahaz. In a time of peril and alarm Isaiah was commissioned to say unto him, Take heed and be quiet; fear not, neither be faint-hearted.
4. When goodness fails, it is Gods way to try severity.
II. What came of all this?
1. The kings life was one of ill, not of good.
2. Ahaz brought ill upon others: He made Judah naked. If, says Dr. South, a man could be wicked and a villain to himself alone, the mischief would be so much the more tolerable. But the case is much otherwise. The guilt of the crime lights upon one, but the example of it sways a multitude. Especially is this true if the criminal be one of note or eminence. For the fall of such an one by any temptation is like that of a principal stone or stately pillar tumbling from a lofty eminence into the deep mire of the street. It does not only plunge and sink into the black dirt itself: it also dashes or bespatters all that are about it, or near it, when it falls.
3. In character and influence Ahaz went from bad to worse.
4. He went to an unhonoured and hopeless grave. (Monday Club Sermons.)
Sinning under the rod
I. Ahaz was the son of a pious king of judah.
II. For his wickedness God visited him with a series of sad calamities.
III. We see here the guilt and danger of hardening ourselves under Gods afflicting hand.
IV. Those who receive afflictions may grow more rebellious under them.
V. The guilt of any approach to such a condition may be easily seen.
VI. It becomes us to inquire, what have been the effects of Gods chastenings upon ourselves? (W. H. Lewis, D.D.)
The use and danger of despising afflictions
.
I.
1. To humble ourselves beneath His mighty hand.
2. To ascribe righteousness to Him by confessing our sins and acknowledging the justice of His dealings with us.
3. To return to Him by Jesus Christ.
4. To cleave to Him with full purpose of heart.
5. To submit to His will.
6. To depend upon His grace and power.
7. To walk in His ways.
II. The dreadful case or those who despise and abuse them (Pro 29:1). Ahaz trespassed more and more. Too many are like him (Rev 16:10-11). (W. Richardson.)
Lessons from the life of Ahaz
I. That a course or sin is continually downward. Sin propagates itself, but is not reformatory.
II. That God is faithful in checking men in this downward course. God ever seeks by His providence and Spirit to turn men from an evil course which will end in ruin.
III. That if men will not be checked in an evil course, they may become notable examples of punishment. (James Wolfendale.)
Evil habits
1. Evil habits strengthen by indulgence.
2. The world increases its power over its votaries as they advance in life.
3. Sinners in mature years lose the perception of religious truth.
4. There is a limit to Divine endurance. (Biblical Museum.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
That monster and reproach of mankind, that unteachable and incorrigible prince, whom even grievous afflictions made worse, which commonly make men better. This is he whose name deserves to be remembered and detested for ever. Or, king Ahaz was the same, no changeling, not a whit better by all the methods which God used with him.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
22. in the time of his distress didhe trespass yet more against the LordThis infatuated kingsurrendered himself to the influence of idolatry and exerted hisroyal authority to extend it, with the intensity of a passionwiththe ignorance and servile fear of a heathen (2Ch28:23) and a ruthless defiance of God (see on 2Ki16:10-20).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
And in the time of his distress did he trespass yet more against the Lord,…. By increasing his idolatries, as appears by what he did, in imitation of what he saw at Damascus, where he had an interview with the king of Assyria, 2Ki 16:10
this is that King Ahaz; that monster of iniquity, than whom there was none worse, nor any so bad, of all the kings of Judah.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Increase of Ahaz’ transgressions against the Lord. – 2Ch 28:22. After this proof that Ahaz only brought greater oppression upon himself by seeking help from the king of Assyria (2Ch 28:16-21), there follows (2Ch 28:22.) an account of how he, in his trouble, continued to sin more and more against God the Lord, and hardened himself more and more in idolatry. corresponds to the 2Ch 28:16. “At the time when they oppressed him, he trespassed yet more against the Lord, he King Ahaz.” In the last words the rhetorical emphasizing of the subject comes clearly out. The sentence contains a general estimation of the attitude of the godless king under the divine chastisement, which is then illustrated by facts (2Ch 28:23-25).
2Ch 28:23 He sacrificed to the gods of Damascus, which smote him, saying, i.e., thinking, The gods of the kings of Aram which helped them, to them will I sacrifice, and they will help me. serves to introduce the saying, and both and are rhetorical. Berth. incorrectly translates the participle by the pluperfect: who had smitten him. It was not after the Syrians had smitten him that Ahaz sought to gain by sacrifice the help of their gods, but while the Syrians were inflicting defeats upon him; not after the conclusion of the Syrian war, but during its course. The ungrammatical translation of the participle by the pluperfect arises from the view that the contents of our verse, the statement that Ahaz sacrificed to the Syrian gods, is an unhistorical misinterpretation of the statement in 2Ki 16:10., about the altar which Ahaz saw when he went to meet the Assyrian king in Damascus, and a copy of which he caused to be made in Jerusalem, and set up in the temple court, in the place of the copper altar of burnt-offering. But we have already rejected that view as unfounded, in the exposition of 2Ki 16:10. Since Ahaz had cast and erected statues to the Baals, and even sacrificed his son to Moloch, he naturally would not scruple to sacrifice to the Assyrian gods to secure their help. But they (these gods) brought ruin to him and to all Israel. is in the accusative, and co-ordinate with the suffix in .
2Ch 28:24-25 Not content with thus worshipping strange gods, Ahaz laid violent hands upon the temple vessels and suppressed the temple worship. He collected all the vessels of the house of God together, and broke them in pieces. These words also are rhetorical, so that neither the , which depicts the matter vividly, nor the , is to be pressed. The of the vessels consisted, according to 2Ki 16:17, in this, that he mutilated the artistically wrought vessels of the court, and cut out the panels from the bases, and took away the lavers from them, and took down the brazen sea from the oxen on which it stood, and set it upon a pavement of stones. “And he closed the doors of the house of Jahve,” in order to put an end to the Jahve-worship in the temple, which he regarded as superfluous, since he had erected altars at the corners of all the streets in Jerusalem, and in all the cities of Judah. The statement as to the closing of the temple doors, to which reference is made in 2Ch 29:3, 2Ch 29:7, is said by Berth. not to reset upon good historical recollection, because the book of Kings not only does not say anything of it, but also clearly gives us to understand that Ahaz allowed the Jahve-worship to continue, 2Ki 16:15. That the book of Kings (2Ch 2:16) makes no mention of this circumstance does not prove much, it being an argumentum e silentio; for the book of Kings is not a complete history, it contains only a short excerpt from the history of the kings; while the intimation given us in 2Ki 16:15. as to the continuation of the worship of Jahve, may without difficulty be reconciled with the closing of the temple doors. The are not the gates of the court of the temple, but, according to the clear explanation of the Chronicle, 2Ch 29:7, the doors of the porch, which in 2Ch 29:3 are also called doors of the house of Jahve; the “house of Jahve” signifying here not the whole group of temple buildings, but, in the narrower sense of the words, denoting only the main body of the temple (the Holy Place and the Most Holy, wherein Jahve was enthroned). By the closing of the doors of the porch the worship of Jahve in the Holy Place and the Most Holy was indeed suspended, but the worship at the altar in the court was not thereby necessarily interfered with: it might still continue. Now it is the worship at the altar of burnt-offering alone of which it is said in 2Ki 16:15 that Ahaz allowed it to continue to this extent, that he ordered the priest Urijah to offer all the burnt-offerings and sacrifices, meat-offerings and drink-offerings, which were offered morning and evening by both king and people, not upon the copper sacrificial altar (Solomon’s), but on the altar built after the pattern of that which he had seen at Damascus. The cessation of worship at this altar is also left unmentioned by the Chronicle, and in 2Ch 29:7. Hezekiah, when he again opened the doors of the house of Jahve, only says to the priests and Levites, “Our fathers have forsaken Jahve, and turned their backs on His sanctuary; yea, have shut the doors of the porch, put out the lamps, and have not burnt incense nor offered burnt-offerings in the Holy Place unto the God of Israel.” Sacrificing upon an altar built after a heathen model was not sacrificing to the God of Israel. There is therefore no ground to doubt the historical truth of the statement in our verse. The description of the idolatrous conduct of Ahaz concludes with the remark, 2Ch 28:25, that Ahaz thereby provoked Jahve, the God of his fathers, to anger.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
AHAZ ADOPTS THE SYRIAN IDOLATRY, AND CLOSES THE TEMPLE (2Ch. 28:22-25; comp. 2Ki. 16:10-18).
(22) In the time of his distress.At the time when he (Tiglath) oppressed him, i.e., at the time when Ahaz went to Damascus to do homage to the Assyrian monarch (2Ki. 16:10), probably in reluctant obedience to a peremptory mandate.
Did he trespass . . . Ahaz.He dealt yet more unfaithfully towards Jehovah, he, king Ahaz. The subject is emphatically repeated: he, king Ahaz, who had already been sorely chastised, sinned yet more. Or he, king Ahaz, the notorious apostate.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
DISCOURSE: 420
THE CONDUCT OF AHAZ IN HIS DISTRESS
2Ch 28:22. In the time of his distress did he trespass yet more against the Lord: this is that king Ahaz.
IT is a common sentiment with men in health, that they will repent and turn to God in a time of sickness: they imagine that trouble will of course dispose their minds for the exercises of religion, and that they may therefore safely postpone all serious attention to their eternal interests, till that hour shall arrive. But there is no necessary connexion between affliction and true piety: the sorrow of the world worketh death; and consequently must rather be adverse to, than productive of, godly sorrow, which alone worketh repentance to salvation, not to be repented of [Note: 2Co 7:10.]. If indeed trouble be accompanied with the grace of God, it then operates like the ploughing up of fallow ground for the reception of the seed: but of itself it only hardens the heart against God, and calls forth into activity the most malignant passions of the soul. This cannot be more strikingly illustrated than in the conduct of Ahaz; in speaking of which we shall notice,
I.
The evil imputed to him
This was doubtless exceeding great. Ahaz having provoked God by his great and multiplied iniquities, was given up by God into the hands of the Edomites first, and then of the Philistines, as the just punishment of his sins. The Assyrians too, whom he had hired as his allies, eventually, instead of strengthening him, helped forward his distress [Note: ver. 1620.].
And what was the effect of these troubles on his mind? Did he humble himself before his God, and implore mercy at his hands? No; but renounced his God altogether, setting up the gods of Syria in opposition to him, and shutting up the doors of his temple, and destroying the vessels that had been consecrated to his service, and building altars in every corner of Jerusalem, and, in every city of Judah, making high places, to burn incense unto other gods [Note: ver. 2325.].
We must confess that such impiety far exceeds what is commonly found in the world at this day; but in lower degrees it is found to obtain amongst us also. All of us have a measure of trouble inflicted on us by God on account of sin; and in a variety of ways have we misimproved the divine chastisements. The very evil imputed to Ahaz of trespassing yet more in his distress, may be committed by us in our troubles,
1.
By indifference
[Nothing is more common than to overlook the hand of God in our trials, ascribing them either to chance, or to second causes only, and regarding them as merely the usual events of life. In such a state of mind we meet them with a kind of stoical apathy, making the best of existing circumstances, and trying, by the expedients of pleasure, business, company, or occupation of some kind, to divert our thoughts, and alleviate our pains [Note: Isa 22:12-13.]. This is, as the Scripture expresses it, to despise the chastening of the Lord [Note: Pro 3:11.]. And how offensive must such conduct be! When he speaks, and we will not hear [Note: Job 33:14.]; when HIS hand is lifted up, and we will not see it [Note: Isa 26:11.]; what is this but, in effect, to say, The Lord doth neither good nor evil [Note: Zep 1:12.]! This indifference is well described by the prophet, in relation to Israel of old: It (Gods anger) hath set him on fire round about, yet he knew it not; and it burned him, yet he kid it not to heart [Note: Isa 42:25.]. But, however such conduct may be countenanced by an ungodly world, it will surely be visited with Gods heavy displeasure [Note: Psa 28:5.].]
2.
By obstinacy
[Some, whilst they are not altogether unconscious from whence their afflictions proceed, are yet determined to go on in their own way: they refuse to receive correction, and make their faces harder than a rock, and refuse to return to God [Note: Jer 5:3. Isa 57:17.]. Thus it was with the Jews of old; The people turneth not unto him that smiteth him; neither do they seek the Lord of Hosts [Note: Isa 9:13.]. And on this ground it was that the prophet uttered that heavy complaint against them; Ah, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evil-doers! Why should ye be stricken any more? ye will revolt more and more [Note: Isa 1:4-5.]. Happy would it be if this rebellious spirit had been confined to them: but it is no less prevalent amongst us: there are many for whose reformation successive strokes have proved ineffectual; and who are yet as far from God as if no such means had ever been used to bring them to repentance: yea, like Pharaoh, they seem only to have been hardened by the plagues inflicted on them. The Lord grant that they may see their error, ere they be given over to judicial blindness and final impenitence!]
3.
By murmuring
[How often do we hear people complaining of their lot, as if their sufferings were intolerable and undeserved! However clearly God marks their sin in their punishment, they reflect not on themselves as the sinful causes of their misery, but on him as the severe and unprovoked author of them [Note: Exod. 16:35, 41. Eze 18:25; Eze 18:29.]. Thus Isaiah, foretelling the effect of Gods chastisements on the Jews, says, They shall pass through the land hardly bestead and hungry: and it shall come to pass, that, when they shall be hungry, they shall fret themselves, and curse their God and their king [Note: Isa 8:21.]. And what shall we say of such a disposition? what shall we say of him who by his own foolishness perverteth his way, and then in heart fretteth against the Lord [Note: Pro 19:3.]? This we must say, that he manifests the very dispositions of hell itself: for of the unhappy spirits that are there confined, we are told, that they gnaw their tongues for pain, and blaspheme the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, and they repent not of their deeds [Note: Rev 16:9-11.].]
4.
By despondency
[As on the one hand we are apt to despise the chastening of the Lord, so, on the other hand, we are ready to faint when we are rebuked of him [Note: Heb 12:5.]. We have no idea of chastisements proceeding from love; and, beholding nothing but wrath in them, we conclude, that it is in vain to call upon God, and that he will never be entreated of us. Thus even from despondency we derive arguments for continuance in sin: There is no hope: no; for I have loved strangers, and after them will I go [Note: Jer 2:25.]. Of this God himself complains [Note: Jer 18:12-13.]; and well he may, since it is a limiting of his power, as though he were not able to deliver [Note: Isa 1:2.]; or a denial of his mercy, as though he had forgotten to be gracious, and his mercy were clean gone for ever [Note: Psa 77:7-9.]. True it is, that despondency is often indulged under an idea that it is an expression of humility: but it is as offensive to God as any of the dispositions before specified, and tends, even more strongly than any of them, to bind our sins upon us.]
That we may be the more afraid of following the steps of Ahaz, let us consider,
II.
The stigma fixed upon him
There is an extraordinary force and emphasis in the expression, This is that king Ahaz
[It is as though God intended to point him out to the whole world as a prodigy of folly and wickedness: this is that infatuated man, who presumes to strive with his Maker, like the clay quarrelling with the potter [Note: Isa 45:9.], or briers and thorns setting themselves in battle array against the devouring fire [Note: Isa 27:4.]. This is that ungrateful man, who, when I have been chastening him with parental tenderness in order to prevent the necessity of executing my everlasting judgments upon him, has only multiplied his transgressions against me; breaking through every hedge which I made to restrain him, and throwing down every wall which I erected to impede his course [Note: Hos 2:6.]. This is that impious man, who, in the madness of his heart, has determined to banish me from the world, and to blot out the remembrance of me from the earth.]
As the expression is emphatical with respect to him, so it is most instructive with respect to us
[It clearly shews us that sin is a reproach to any people [Note: Pro 14:34.]. We may vindicate it, and applaud it; but we only glory in our shame [Note: Php 3:19.]; for it makes a man as loathsome as a sepulchre that is full of all uncleanness [Note: Mat 23:27.]. Sin is fitly characterized as filthiness of the flesh and spirit [Note: 2Co 7:1.]: and in that light it is viewed, not by God only, but by all who are taught of God. Examine the fore-mentioned sins, of indifference, of obstinacy, of murmuring, and despondency, and they will all be found odious in the extreme; so that a man under the dominion of them may well be pointed out as an object of universal abhorrence: This is that king Ahaz [Note: Psa 52:7.]. It is possible indeed that an ungodly man may pass through life without any such stigma fixed upon him: but he will not escape it in the last day, when all the most secret sins shall be revealed: then will that declaration of Solomon be fully verified, The wicked man is loathsome, and cometh to shame [Note: Pro 13:5.]: however cautiously he may have veiled his wickedness from the eyes of men, or even obtained the applause of man for his pretended virtues, he will awake to shame and everlasting contempt [Note: Dan 12:2.].]
From this subject we may learn,
1.
The great design of God in our troubles
[God does not willingly afflict the children of men. He is a tender Parent, who seeks the welfare of his children, and chastens them for their profit, to humble them, and to prove them, and to make them partakers of his holiness [Note: Isa 27:9. Heb 12:10.]. Hence it is said, Blessed is the man whom thou chastenest, O Lord [Note: Psa 94:10.]. Let us then contemplate our trials in this view. From whatever quarter they may come, let us acknowledge the hand of God in them; and bless his name, as well when he takes away, as when he gives [Note: Job 1:21.].]
2.
Our duty under them
[Every rod has a voice to us, which we should endeavour to understand [Note: Mic 6:9.]: and, if we cannot immediately discern its true import, we should go to God, and say, Shew me wherefore thou contendest with me [Note: Job 10:2.]. And, when we have found out the accursed thing that troubleth our camp [Note: Jos 7:11.], then we should humble ourselves under the mighty hand of our God [Note: Jam 4:10.], and with meek submission say, I will bear the indignation of the Lord, because I have sinned against him [Note: Mic 7:9.]. We should even be thankful for the fire that purgeth away our dross, and not so much as wish to be delivered from it till we can come out of it purified as gold.]
Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)
2Ch 28:22 And in the time of his distress did he trespass yet more against the LORD: this [is that] king Ahaz.
Ver. 22. And yet in the time of his distress. ] So stubborn was he and stiff necked, he would sooner break than bend. Such refractories also were Pharaoh, Saul, the Scribes and Pharisees, the railing thief that suffered with our Saviour: “reprobate silver” the Scripture calleth them; Jer 6:30 they add rebellion to their sin, Job 34:37 and to their sinews of iron, brows of brass. Isa 48:4
This is that king Ahaz.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
trespass. Hebrew. ma’al App-44. See note on “transgressed”, 2Ch 28:19.
this is that king Ahaz. Compare three specially branded transgressors: Cain (Gen 4:15); Dathan (Num 26:9); and Ahaz, here. Contrast Hezekiah (2Ch 32:12, 2Ch 32:30).
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
2Ch 28:22-27
2Ch 28:22-27
FURTHER WICKEDNESS OF AHAZ; HIS DEATH; AND THE SUCCESSION OF HEZEKIAH
“And in the time of his distress did he transgress yet more against Jehovah, this same Ahaz. For he sacrificed unto the gods of Damascus, which smote him; and he said, Because the gods of the kings of Assyria helped them, therefore will I sacrifice to them, that they may help me. But they were the ruin of him, and of all Israel. And Ahaz gathered together the vessels of the house of God, and cut in pieces the vessels of the house of God, and shut up the doors of the house of Jehovah; and he made him altars in every corner of Jerusalem. And in every city of Judah he made high places to burn incense to other gods, and provoked to anger Jehovah, the God of his fathers. Now the rest of his acts, and all his ways, first and last, behold, they are written in the book of the kings of Judah and Israel. And Ahaz slept with his fathers, and they buried him in the city, even in Jerusalem, for they brought him not into the sepulchres of the kings of Israel: and Hezekiah his son reigned in his stead.”
We have commented extensively upon the wickedness of Ahaz in Second Kings; and there is no need to elaborate the discussion here.
His great failure was his adoption of the theological ideas that prevailed throughout the ancient world, namely, that each country had its gods, and that their victories or defeats were due to the will of such pagan deities. In God’s deliverance of Israel from Egypt, he had established most conclusively the principle that there is only one true and Almighty God, that the pagan deities are not merely powerless, but that they are actually nonentities, and finally that God’s People would prosper or suffer in direct proportion to their fidelity, or lack of it, to the One True and Only God.
The long time sins and apostasies of the Chosen People had all but completely erased from their hearts those basic truths; and the final result of that shameful development would be rapidly revealed in the defeat and deportation, first, of Northern Israel to Assyria (722 B.C.), and later, in the defeat and captivity of Judah in Babylon (586 B.C.).
E.M. Zerr:
2Ch 28:22. Distress is supposed to make a man sober minded and cause him to look to the Lord of Heaven for help. Ahaz was not so affected by his afflictions.
2Ch 28:23. It is difficult to explain the density of some men’s minds. The people of Damascus, capital of Syria, had defeated Ahaz, but he had much reason to understand that they could not have done so had not God used them for that purpose. Instead of ascribing their success against him to his own true God, he gave it to their false gods. He was so foolish as to offer sacrifice to them, thinking they might help him. Instead of being any advantage to him, they were his ruin or cause of his downfall.
2Ch 28:24. Ahaz “went the limit” in his sins against the Lord. The vessels of the house of God were the various implements used in the different services. The word is from KELIY and Strong defines it, “Something prepared, i, e. any apparatus (as an implement, utensil, dress, vessel or weapon) .” These articles were made of precious metal. They could be melted and recast into altars or other things for some use designed by the one having charge of it. Ahaz wanted to use this material for his corrupt service of idolatry, so he plundered the temple of its sacred instruments, closed the doors, and thus abandoned the lawful worship. He then used the metal for making altars for the service of idolatry, placing them in every corner or prominent angle in Jerusalem. We may find a parallel in principle in some of the practices of professed Christians. They will deny the lawful use of the Bible and the Church, then try to use them for their own plans. The holy creations were for the exclusive purpose of benefiting mankind morally and religiously. God made them to prepare man for usefulness in this life and for happiness in the next. But they are often plundered and made to serve the social and financial interests of professed worshipers of God. All such will be condemned by the Lord, even as Ahaz was condemned.
2Ch 28:25. The wicked king of Judah was not content with corrupting the capital city with his idolatry. He made high places (see comments at 1Ki 3:2) in the different cities of his realm, and used them as places for sacrifices to false gods. Provoked has no word in the original at this place, but it is used in the same sense in other places as applying to God. It is from NAATS and defined in the lexicon, “a primitive root; to scorn; or (Ecc 12:5) by interchanging for NUUTS, to bloom.” In the A. V. it is sometimes used in the sense of “give occasion to.” We should not think of God as being like men, and giving way to evil passions at the instigation of human creatures. Yet the misdeeds of man will cause the occasion for the Lord to express his anger in some form of punishment for the offender.
2Ch 28:26. See 1Ki 14:19 and comments, in connection with this paragraph.
2Ch 28:27. Slept with his fathers is treated at 1Ki 2:10. The people of ancient times were particular about their burying grounds, and classified them according to the merits of the ones buried. Ahaz was a king of Judah and was entitled to burial in the capital of his kingdom. But he had been a wicked man and was not placed in the sepulchres that were set apart exclusively for the kings.
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
in the: 2Ch 33:12, Psa 50:15, Isa 1:5, Eze 21:13, Hos 5:15, Rev 16:9-11
this is: Est 7:6, Psa 52:7
Reciprocal: Gen 10:9 – Even Exo 9:34 – and hardened 1Ki 21:1 – after 2Ki 23:37 – all that 2Ch 16:12 – in his disease 2Ch 24:7 – that wicked 2Ch 33:23 – trespassed more and more Job 15:26 – runneth Job 35:10 – none Job 36:13 – heap Pro 27:22 – General Isa 7:12 – I will not ask Isa 9:13 – the people Isa 57:10 – There is Jer 2:25 – after Jer 2:30 – In vain Jer 5:3 – thou hast stricken Jer 11:12 – go Jer 32:3 – Zedekiah Eze 22:24 – General Eze 31:18 – This is Dan 4:17 – the basest Amo 4:6 – yet Hag 2:17 – yet Luk 15:15 – he went Luk 23:40 – seeing Joh 5:14 – lest Act 7:37 – that Rev 9:20 – yet
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
KING AHAZ
This is that king Ahaz.
2Ch 28:22
I. This is good King Hezekiahs fathera man who grieves the heart of God and who sets His commandments at defiance.Strange that such a parent should have such a child! It is a lesson to me that nothing is too hard for my Lord. What a terrible chapter! The good of the previous reign was scattered to the winds. The worst atrocities of heathenism were imported into Israel. Babes flung into the brazen caldrons, amid the noise of the horrid drums that drowned their cries, while all kinds of abominations were perpetrated in the groves. People and king alike forsook the God of their fathers. A graphic picture of the sins and miseries of the time is given by Isaiah, whose righteous soul was sorely vexed by what was transpiring around him. Then, disaster and chastisement befell. First, at the hand of the king of Syria, then of the king of Israel, then of the Edomites. The Lord brought Judah low because of Ahaz king of Israel; for he had dealt wantonly in Judah, and trespassed sore against the Lord. How infatuated and precipitate his course! Bribing the king of Assyria, but it helped him not. Sacrificing to the gods of his conquerors, though they were the ruin of him. Shutting up the house of God, and so cutting off the gracious help that would have accrued from his Almighty Helper. Drowning men catch at straws, but if they would only lie back and trust, they would float.
II. If God he against us, who can be for us?When we are right with God, we are strong against a world in arms; when we are wrong with Him, vain is the help of man. What a sweet contrast is presented by Israels treatment of the captives!
Illustration
Out of Dr. Browns Life of Bunyan I cull a little paragraph: Looking at all his unpromising surroundings, he says, there comes into our minds a rustic story told about the father of this child by quaint old Thomas Archer, the rector of Houghton Conquest, parish next neighbour to Elstow itself. The delightful old man kept a sort of chronicon mirabile of the little rural world in which his tranquil days were spent, and in his record, as a curiosity of natural history, he sets down this: Memorandum.That in Anno 1625 one Bonion of Elsto, clyminage of Rookes neasts in the Bery wood ffound 3 Rookes in a nest, all white as milke and not a blacke fether on them. And Dr. Brown adds that the surprise on Thomas Bunyans face, out in the Ellensbury Wood, was symbol and presage of a wider worlds wonder than his, the wonder with which men find in the rude nest of his own tinkers cottage a child all lustrous with the gifts of genius and with the beauties of grace. So, with such a God as mine, I will not despair, either of myself or of anybody else.
Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary
2Ch 28:22. This is that King Ahaz That monster and reproach of mankind, that unteachable and incorrigible prince, whom even grievous afflictions made worse, which commonly make men better. This is he whose name deserves to be remembered and detested for ever.