Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of 2 Chronicles 28:23
For he sacrificed unto the gods of Damascus, which smote him: and he said, Because the gods of the kings of Syria help them, [therefore] will I sacrifice to them, that they may help me. But they were the ruin of him, and of all Israel.
23. the gods of Damascus ] In 2 Kin. the statement is that Ahaz made a copy of an altar which he saw at Damascus and sacrificed upon it. The altar at Damascus was probably the one used by Tiglath-pileser and therefore an Assyrian rather than a Damascene altar. The use of such an altar was an act of apostasy from Jehovah for a foreign altar implied a foreign god; cp. 2Ki 5:17.
the gods of the kings of Syria help them ] At this time the Syrians of Damascus had been conquered by the Assyrians under Tiglath-pileser (2Ki 16:9), so that the statement needs to be corrected by reading “kings of Assyria (Asshur)” for “kings of Syria (Aram).’ The confusion is due to some writer or scribe, who lived at a time when one Empire extended from Babylon to the Mediterranean and included both Syria and Assyria. Such was the case under the Persians and under the successors of Alexander down to the time of the Maccabees. The Romans similarly failed at first to distinguish the ancient empire east of the Euphrates, i.e. Assyria (= Asshur) from the peoples west of the Euphrates, the Aramaeans, whom they mistakenly called “Syrians” (a shortened form of “Assyrians”), whose chief cities were Antioch, Hamath, and Damascus. This use of “Syrian” has passed over into English, but the more accurate designation is “Aramaean”; cp. Gen 28:5 (R.V.).
help them ] The R.V. “helped them” is wrong.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
His adoption of the Syrian gods, Hadad, Rimmon, and others, as objects of worship, no doubt preceded the destruction of Damascus by the Assyrians 2Ki 16:9.
Israel – i. e. Judah; so in 2Ch 28:27. Compare 2Ch 28:19.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
2Ch 28:23
Because the gods of the kings of Syria help them, therefore will I sacrifice to them.
Destructive substitutes
We may not try to substitute one god for another, or to patch out our tattered theology by borrowing and misappropriating the ideas of the enemy. There is one fountain at which we may draw and draw evermore, and that is the Bible. We never knew any man oppose the Bible who had really comprehended its inner meaning. No man can doubt the inspiration of the Bible who has read it, not galloped through it. But once lose the feeling, Surely God is in this book: this is none other than the book of God, and we take the course of Ahaz; we go down and see what is being done in the world. One man has been delivered by wealth, and we begin to worship the golden idol; another has been delivered by various factitious circumstances, and we instantly become artificers in life, and try to mechanise life and set into motion forces that can co-operate with one another and modify one another, and issue in a plentiful harvest of good fortune for ourselves. And after all this toil we come home wasted, weakened in every joint, the subjects of a complete and disastrous collapse. (J. Parker, D. D.)
But they were the ruin of him.—
Seeking false inspirations
How many men have been mistaken in seeking false inspiration or in coveting false benedictions? The young man says he has a difficult task to-morrow, he has to meet persons with whom he has no sympathy and from whom he expects no quarter; constitutionally he is nervous, self-distrustful, somewhat afraid of a certain aspect of controversy; he therefore says, I will fortify myself, I will take wine, the wine will quicken the flow of my blood, will pleasantly and usefully excite the nervous centres, and I shall go forward boldly and confidently and make the best of myself;–but it was the ruin of him. There are others who will sacrifice at the altar of appearances. Over their poverty they will put some borrowed rag in the hope that observers will look at the rag and not at the poverty, and treat them as occupying a certain social position. False pride will be the ruin of them. (J. Parker, D. D.)
Costly and fatal help
Ahaz came to the throne when a youth of twenty. From the beginning he reversed the policy of his father, and threw himself into the arms of the heathen party. He did not plunge into idolatry for want of good advice. The greatest of the prophets stood beside him. Isaiah addressed to him remonstrances which might have made the most reckless pause, and promises which might have kindled hope and courage in the bosom of despair. Hosea in the northern kingdom, Micah in Judah, and other less brilliant names were amongst the stars which shone even in that dark night. But their light was all in vain. He was ready to worship anything that called itself a god, always excepting Jehovah. He welcomed Baal, Moloch, Bitumen, and many more with an indiscriminate eagerness that would have been ludicrous if it had not been tragical. From all sides the invaders came. From north, north-east, east, south-east, south, they swarmed in upon him. They tore away the fringes of his kingdom; and hostile armies flaunted their banners beneath the very walls of Jerusalem. And then, in his despair, like a scorpion in a circle of fire, he inflicted a deadly wound on himself by calling in the fatal help of Assyria. Nothing loth, that warlike power responded, scattered his less formidable foes, and then swallowed the prey which it had dragged from between the teeth of the Israelites and Syrians. That was what came of forsaking the God of his fathers.
I. First then, let me ask you to notice how this narrative illustrates for us the crowd of vain helpers which a man has to take to when he turns his back upon God. If we compare the narrative in our chapter with the parallel in the Second Book of Kings, we get a very vivid picture of the strange medley of idolatries which they introduced. This story illustrates for us what, alas! is only too true, both on the broad scale, as to the generation in which we live, and on the narrower field of our own individual lives. Look at the so-called cultured classes of Europe to-day; turning away, as so many of them are, from the Lord God of their fathers; what sort of things are they worshipping instead? Scraps from Buddhism, the Vedas, any sacred books but the Bible; quackeries, and Charlatanism, and dreams, and fragmentary philosophies all pieced together to try and make up a whole, instead of the old-fashioned whole that they have left behind them. But look, further, how the same thing is true as to the individual lives of godless men. Many of us are trying to make up for not having the One by seeking to stay our hearts on the many. But no accumulation of insufficiencies will ever make a sufficiency. You cannot make up for God by any extended series of creatures, any more than a row of figures that stretched from here to Sirius and back again would approximate to infinitude. The very fact of the multitude of helpers is a sign that none of them are sufficient. There are no end of cures for toothache, that is to say, there is none. Consult your own experience. What is the meaning of the unrest and distraction that marks the lives of most of the men in this generation? Why is it that you hurry from business to pleasure, from pleasure to business, until it is scarcely possible to get a quiet breathing time for thought at all? Why is it but because one after another of your gods have proved insufficient, and so fresh altars must be built for fresh idolatries, and new experiments made, of which we can safely prophesy the result will be the old one. You are seeking what you will never find. The many pearls that you seek will never be enough for you. The true wealth is One, One pearl of great price.
II. So, notice again, how this story teaches the heavy cost of these helpers help. Ahaz had, as he thought, two strings to his bow. He had the gods of Damascus, and of other lands up there, he had the King of Assyria down here. They both of them exacted onerous terms before they would stir a foot to his aid. As for the northern conqueror, all the wealth of the king and of the princes and of the temple was sent to Assyria as the price of his hurtful help. Do you buy this worlds help any cheaper, my brother? You get nothing for nothing in that market. It is a big price that you have to pay before these mercenaries will come to fight on your side. Here is a man that succeeds in life, as we call it. What does it cost him? Well! It has cost him the suppression, the atrophy by disuse of many capacities in his soul which were far higher and nobler than those that have been exercised in his success. It has cost him all his days; it has possibly cost him the dying out of generous sympathies and the stimulating of unwholesome selfishness. All! he has bought his prosperity very dear. There are some o! you who know how much what you call enjoyment has cost you. Some of us have bought pleasure at the price of innocence, of moral dignity, of stained memories, of polluted imaginations. The world has a way of getting more out of you than it gives to you. At the best, if you are not Christian men and women, whether you are men of business, votaries of pleasure, seekers after culture and refinement or anything else, you have given heaven to get earth. Is that a good bargain? Is it much wiser than that of a horde of naked savages that sell a great tract of fair country, with gold-bearing reefs in it, for a bottle of rum and a yard or two of calico?
III. Lastly, we may gather from this story an illustration of the fatal falsehood of the worlds help. Ahaz pauperised himself to buy the hireling swords of Assyria, and he got them; but, as it says in the narrative, The king came unto him and distressed him, but strengthened him not. He helped Ahaz at first. He scattered the armies that the King of Judah was afraid of like chaff, with his fierce and disciplined onset. And then, having driven them off the bleeding prey, he put his own paw upon it, and growled Mine! And where he struck his claws there was little more hope of life for the prostrate creature below him. Ah! and that is what this world always does. A godless life has at the best only partial satisfaction, and that partial satisfaction soon diminishes. The awful power of habit, if there were no other reason, takes the edge off all gratification except in so far as God is in it. Nothing fully retains its power to satisfy. Nothing has that power absolutely, at any moment: but even what measure of it any of our possessions or pursuits may have for a time, soon, or at all events by degrees, passes away. And do not forget that, partial and transient as these satisfactions are, they derive what power of helping and satisfying is in them only from the silence of our consciences, and our success in being able to shut out realities. One word from conscience, one touch of an awakened reflectiveness, one glance at the end–the coffin and the shroud and what comes after these, slay your worldly satisfactions as surely as that falling snow would crush some light-winged gauzy butterfly that had been dancing at the cliffs foot. Your jewellery is all imitation. These fatal helpers come as friends and allies, and they stop as masters. Ahaz and a hundred other weak princes have tried the policy of sending for a strong foreign power to scatter their enemies, and it has always turned out one way. The foreigner has come and he has stopped. The auxiliary has become the lord, and he that called him to his aid becomes his tributary. Ah! and so it is with all the things of this world. Here is some pleasant indulgence that I call to my help lightly and thoughtlessly. It is very agreeable and does what I wanted, and I try it again. Still it answers to my call. And then after a while I say, I am going to give that up, and I cannot. I have brought in a master when I thought I was only bringing in an ally that I could dismiss when I liked. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
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Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 23. He sacrificed unto the gods of Damascus, which smote him] “This passage,” says Mr. Hallet, “greatly surprised me; for the sacred historian himself is here represented as saying, The gods of Damascus had smitten Ahaz. But it is impossible to suppose that an inspired author could say this; for the Scripture everywhere represents the heathen idols as nothing and vanity, and as incapable of doing either good or hurt. All difficulty is avoided if we follow the old Hebrew copies, from which the Greek translation was made, , , And King Ahaz SAID, I WILL SEEK TO THE GODS OF DAMASCUS WHICH HAVE SMITTEN ME; and then it follows, both in Hebrew and Greek, He said moreover, Because the gods of the king of Syria help them; therefore will I sacrifice to them, that they may help me. Both the Syriac and Arabic give it a similar turn; and say that Ahaz sacrificed to the gods of Damascus, and said, Ye are my gods and my lords; you will I worship, and to you will I sacrifice.”
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Which smote him; or, which had smitten him formerly, i.e. had enabled their worshippers, the Syrians, to smite him, as he fondly imagined; which yet he saw confuted, having now found by experience that they could not save them from the Assyrian power.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
For he sacrificed unto the gods of Damascus, which smote him,…. As he foolishly imagined, that they might do him no more hurt; as it is said of the Indians, that they worship the devil, that he may not hurt them; but that a king of Judah should do this is monstrous stupidity; rather therefore the meaning may be, that he worshipped the gods of those that smote him, those of the men or soldiers of Damascus m see 2Ch 28:5 for the Spirit of God would never ascribe the smiting of him to idols, though he himself might;
and he said, because the gods of the kings of Syria help them; which looks as if this was before Damascus was taken by the king of Assyria, and when Rezin king of Syria prevailed over Ahaz:
therefore will I sacrifice to them, that they may help me; against the Edomites and Philistines; wherefore rather to this, his idolatry, respect is had in 2Ch 28:22,
but they were the ruin of him, and of all Israel; the worship of them was the cause of all the calamities that came upon that part of Israel of which he was king.
m So Junius & Tremellius, Piscator.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
(23) For (and) he sacrificed unto the gods of Damascus.The statement of this verse is peculiar to the Chronicle; and the same may be said of the next also. Both here and in the preceding account of the relations of Ahaz to Tiglath-pileser, the writer appears to have drawn upon another source than the book of Kings.
Damascus may, perhaps, be put for the Damascenes, though in that case Aram would have been more natural. (Not at Damascus, as Thenius renders.)
Which smote him.Did the chronicler himself believe that the gods of Aram had any power or real existence? That such was the common belief of the Israelites in the days of Ahaz appears certain. (See Exo. 15:11; Jdg. 11:24; 1Sa. 26:19.) In the latter half of Isaiah we find the nothingness of the false gods strongly asserted; but there was also another current opinion, which St. Paul repeats, and which Milton has adopted in Paradise Lost, viz., that the things which the heathen sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons (1Co. 8:4; 1Co. 10:20; Deu. 32:17).
Because the gods.Omit because (the Hebrew particle simply introduces what the speaker said). The gods of the kings of Aram, they help them; to them will I sacrifice, that they may help me. Such is the word ascribed to Ahaz, implying a doubt of Jehovah’s power or willingness to help. (Ma’zrm, help, an Aramaised form.)
But they were the ruin of him, and of all Israel.Literally, and they (i.e., those very gods) were to him to make him stumble, and all Israel. The mode of expression, as well as the thought expressed, is highly characteristic.
Israel = Judah, as usual.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
23. He sacrificed unto the gods of Damascus This occurred during the progress of the Syrian wars, and before the fall of Damascus. Compare note on 2Ki 16:10. Among the gods of Damascus which Ahaz worshipped were Rimmon (2Ki 5:18) and Hadad.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
2Ch 28:23. Because the gods of the kings of Syria, &c. “O blind superstition!” exclaims Bishop Hall upon this folly of Ahaz. “How did the gods of Syria help their kings, when both those kings and their gods were vanquished and taken by the king of Assyria? Even this Damascus, and this altar, were the spoil of a foreign enemy. How then did the gods of Syria help their kings, otherwise than to their ruin? What dotage is this, to make choice of a foiled protection! But had the Syrians prospered, must their gods have the thanks? Are there no authors of good, but blocks or devils? or is an outward prosperity the only argument of truth, the only motive of devotion? O foolish Ahaz! it is the God thou hast forsaken that punishes thee, under whose only arm thou mightest have prevailed. His power beats those pagan stocks one against another; so that now this, now that seems victorious, and the other vanquished; and at last he confounds both, together with their proudest votaries. Thyself art certainly the most striking instance.”
REFLECTIONS.1st, Ahaz, the degenerate son of a pious father, no sooner came to the crown, than he sunk into every abomination, following the ways of wicked Israel, and serving Baalim as did the heathens around him. Swift vengeance overtook him. The hosts of Syria defeated his army, plundered his country, and made captive his people; and Israel seconded the blow with a very great slaughter. Note; They who sell themselves to work wickedness shall surely receive the wages of their sin in condign suffering.
2nd, Wicked instruments are often made the scourges of righteous vengeance.
1. Triumphant Israel tramples down the strength of treacherous Judah. One hundred and twenty thousand men fall by the sword, and double that number of women and children are led away captive. The king’s son and his principal officers fall in the battle, and the country is ravaged and plundered. When God is departed, all our defence is gone.
2. The Lord sends a prophet to the people of Israel, to rebuke them for the severity with which they had stained their victory. He met them on their return to Samaria, and warned them from God. The victory which they had obtained was not the effect of their valour or goodness, but of God’s wrath against Judah. Cruel was the slaughter they had made, which cried to God for vengeance against them; and hard the bondage which, as an iron yoke, they would lay on their brethren: but let them consider their own sins, be confounded, and justly fear a return of greater severity on themselves: to avert which, he enjoins them instantly to release their captives, or the fierce wrath of God would quickly overtake them. Note; (1.) Cruelty to an enemy is a great crime: even in a just war, much blood-guiltiness may lie at our door. (2.) They who are sensible of their own sins will be most compassionate to the sufferings of others. (3.) Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.
3. The princes, struck with this divine admonition, immediately interposed with the men of war; insisted that the captives should be brought no farther; warned them of the anger of God against their cruelty; and, confessing how much sin already lay upon them, resolved not to add to the measure of it the enslaving of their brethren. Overcome by the remonstrance, the men of war nobly yielded up both prisoners and spoil; and, with tender care and liberal provision, the princes took care safely to carry them to Jericho, that they might thence return to their own homes. Note; (1.) It is better to take warning late than never. (2.) The victory of self-denial is greater than the honour of treading on the necks of vanquished foes. (3.) They who are mighty should be merciful; it is their greatest honour.
3rdly, When a state is weakened and sinking, the meanest foe spurns at it. Sin had left the land naked, exposed to every invader, and unable to resist. Edom and Philistia joined Syria and Israel in their ravages; the cities are taken, the inhabitants led captive, and Ahaz reduced to deep distress. We have here,
1. The unsuccessful attempt that he made to extricate himself from his difficulties. By impoverishing himself, and emptying his treasures, as well as robbing the house of God and fleecing the princes, he engaged the king of Assyria to make a diversion in his favour; but he received no benefit from him, for his auxiliaries distressed him as well as his enemies. Note; They who forsake God must needs be disappointed in every other confidence.
2. The aggravated wickedness of this infatuated king. Unmoved by all God’s judgments, he hardened his heart in idolatry; grew worse under these reproofs; and, instead of repenting of his sins, added to his strange gods, shut up the temple, defaced and destroyed the vessels; and, in place of one, set up multitudes of altars in every corner of Jerusalem, to sacrifice to the idols of Syria; as if the success of the Syrians had been owing to their influence, and that he hoped to be helped by them: but, alas! he found to his cost, that he only hastened his own and his peoples ruin. This is that Ahaz, a monster of iniquity, and branded in the book of God with everlasting infamy. Note; When judgments harden, instead of humbling, the case seems very desperate.
3. God was graciously pleased to rid the kingdom of this heavy plague, and in the midst of his days cut down this wicked king. Nor would the men of Judah suffer him to lie among his godly progenitors, but cast him into a common grave, an intimation of that awful and eternal separation which, after death, shall be made between the righteous and the wicked.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
2Ch 28:23 For he sacrificed unto the gods of Damascus, which smote him: and he said, Because the gods of the kings of Syria help them, [therefore] will I sacrifice to them, that they may help me. But they were the ruin of him, and of all Israel.
Ver. 23. Unto the gods of Damascus, which smote him. ] So he thought, at least – for they could not smite him Jer 10:5 1Co 8:4 – in the same sense as Christ is said to have bought reprobates, 2Pe 2:1 putative scilicet.
And he said, Because the gods of the kings of Syria.
Therefore I will sacrifice.
But they were the ruin of him.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
2 Chronicles
COSTLY AND FATAL HELP
2Ch 28:23
Ahaz came to the throne when a youth of twenty. From the beginning he reversed the policy of his father, and threw himself into the arms of the heathen party. In a comparatively short reign of sixteen years he stamped out the worship of God, and nearly ruined the kingdom.
He did not plunge into idolatry for want of good advice. The greatest of the prophets stood beside him. Isaiah addressed to him remonstrances which might have made the most reckless pause, and promises which might have kindled hope and courage in the bosom of despair. Hosea in the northern kingdom, Micah in Judah, and other less brilliant names were amongst the stars which shone even in that dark night. But their light was all in vain. The foolish lad had got the bit between his teeth, and, like many another young man, thought to show his ‘breadth’ and his ‘spirit’ by neglecting his father’s counsellors, and abandoning his father’s faith. He was ready to worship anything that called itself a god, always excepting Jehovah. He welcomed Baal, Moloch, Rimmon, and many more with an indiscriminate eagerness that would have been ludicrous if it had not been tragical. The more he multiplied his gods the more he multiplied his sorrows, and the more he multiplied his sorrows the more he multiplied his gods.
From all sides the invaders came. From north, northeast, east, south-east, south, they swarmed in upon him. They tore away the fringes of his kingdom; and hostile armies flaunted their banners beneath the very walls of Jerusalem.
And then, in his despair, like a scorpion in a circle of fire, he inflicted a deadly wound on himself by calling in the fatal help of Assyria. Nothing loth, that warlike power responded, scattered his less formidable foes, and then swallowed the prey which it had dragged from between the teeth of the Israelites and Syrians. The result of Ahaz’s frantic appeals to false gods and faithless men may still be read on the cuneiform inscriptions, where, amidst a long list of unknown tributary kings, stands, with a Philistine on one side of him and an Ammonite on the other, the shameful record, ‘Ahaz of Judah.’
That was what came of forsaking the God of his fathers. It is a type of what always has come, and always must come, of a godless life. That is the point of view from which I wish to look at the story, and at these words of my text which gather the whole spirit of it into one sentence.
I. First, then, let me ask you to notice how this narrative illustrates for us the crowd of vain helpers to which a man has to take when he turns his back upon God.
If we compare the narrative in our chapter with the parallel in the Second Book of Kings, we get a very vivid picture of the strange medley of idolatries which they introduced. Amongst Ahaz’s new gods are, for instance, the golden calves of Israel and the ferocious Moloch of Ammon, to whom he sacrificed, passing through the fire at least one of his own children. The ancient sacred places of the Canaanites, on every high hill and beneath every conspicuous tree, again smoked with incense to half-forgotten local deities. In every open space in Jerusalem he planted a brand-new altar with a brand-new worship attendant upon it. In the Temple, he brushed aside the altar that Solomon had made and put up a new one, copied from one which he had seen at Damascus. The importation of the Damascene altar, I suppose, meant, as our text tells us, the importation of the Damascene gods along with it.
Side by side with that multiplication of false deities went the almost entire neglect of the worship of Jehovah, until at last, as his reign advanced and he floundered deeper into his troubles, the Temple was spoiled, everything in it that could be laid hands upon was sent to the melting-pot, to pay the Assyrian tribute; and then the doors were shut, the lamps extinguished, the fire quenched on the cold altars, and the silent Temple left to the bats and- the Shekinah ; for God still abode in the deserted house.
Further, side by side with this appealing all round the horizon to whatsoever obscene and foul shape seemed to promise some help, there went the foolish appeal to the northern invaders to come and aid him, which they did, to his destruction. His whole career is that of a godless and desperate man who will grasp at anything that offers deliverance, and will worship any god or devil who will extricate him from his troubles.
Is the breed extinct, think you? Is there any one among us who, if he cannot get what he wants by fair ways, will try to get it by foul? Do none of you ever bow down to Satan for a slice of the kingdoms of this world? Ahaz has still plenty of brothers and sisters in all our churches and chapels.
This story illustrates for us what, alas! is only too true, both on the broad scale, as to the generation in which we live, and on the narrower field of our own individual lives. Look at the so-called cultured classes of Europe to-day; turning away, as so many of them are, from the Lord God of their fathers; what sort of gods are they worshipping instead? Scraps from Buddhism, the Vedas, any sacred books but the Bible; quackeries, and charlatanism, arid dreams, and fragmentary philosophies all pieced together, to try and make up a whole, instead of the old-fashioned whole that they have left behind them. There are men and women in many congregations who, in modern fashion, are doing precisely the thing that Ahaz did-having abandoned Christianity, they are trying to make up for it by hastily stitching together shreds and patches that they have found in other systems. ‘The garment is narrower than that a man can wrap himself in it,’ and a creed patched together so will never make a seamless whole which can be trusted not to rend.
But look, further, how the same thing is true as to the individual lives of godless men.
Many of us are trying to make up for not having the One by seeking to stay our hearts on the many. But no accumulation of insufficiencies will ever make a sufficiency. You may fill the heaven all over with stars, bright and thickly set as those in the whitest spot in the galaxy, and it will be night still. Day needs the sun, and the sun is one, and when it comes the twinkling lights are forgotten. You cannot make up for God by any extended series of creatures, any more than a row of figures that stretched from here to Sirius and back again would approximate to infinitude.
The very fact of the multitude of helpers is a sign that none of them is sufficient. There is no end of ‘cures’ for toothache, that is to say there is none. There is no end of helps for men that have abandoned God, that is to say, every one in turn when it is tried, and the stress of the soul rests upon it, gives, and is found to be a broken staff that pierces the hand that leans upon it.
Consult your own experience. What is the meaning of the unrest and distraction that mark the lives of most of the men in this generation? Why is it that you hurry from business to pleasure, from pleasure to business, until it is scarcely possible to get a quiet breathing time for thought at all? Why is it but because one after another of your gods have proved insufficient, and so fresh altars must be built for fresh idolatries, and new experiments made, of which we can safely prophesy the result will be the old one. We have not got beyond St. Augustine’s saying:-’Oh, God! my heart was made for Thee, and in Thee only doth it find repose.’ The many idols, though you multiply them beyond count, all put together will never make the One God. You are seeking what you will never find. The many pearls that you seek will never be enough for you. The true wealth is One, ‘One pearl of great price.’
II. So notice again how this story teaches the heavy cost of these helpers’ help.
Ahaz had, as he thought, two strings to his bow. He had the gods of Damascus and of other lands on one hand, he had the king of Assyria on another. They both of them exacted onerous terms before they would stir a foot to his aid. As for the northern conqueror, all the wealth of the king and of the princes and of the Temple was sent to Assyria as the price of his hurtful help. As for the gods, his helpers, one of his sons at least went into the furnace to secure their favour; and what other sacrifices he may have made besides the sacrifice of his conscience and his soul, history does not tell us. These were considerable subsidies to have to be paid down before any aid was granted.
Do you buy this world’s help any cheaper, my brother? You get nothing for nothing in that market. It is a big price that you have to pay before these mercenaries will come to fight on your side. Here is a man that ‘succeeds in life,’ as we call it. What does it cost him? Well! it has cost him the suppression, the atrophy by disuse, of many capacities in his soul which were far higher and nobler than those that have been exercised in his success. It has cost him all his days; it has possibly cost him the dying out of generous sympathies and the stimulating of unwholesome selfishness. Ah! he has bought his prosperity very dear. Political economists have much to say about the ‘appreciation of gold.’ I think if people would estimate what they pay for it, in an immense majority of cases, in treasure that cannot be weighed and stamped, they would find it to be about the dearest thing in God’s universe; and that there are few men who make worse bargains than the men who give themselves for worldly success, even when they receive what they give themselves for.
There are some of you who know how much what you call enjoyment has cost you. Some of us have bought pleasure at the price of innocence, of moral dignity, of stained memories, of polluted imaginations, of an incapacity to rise above the flesh: and some of us have bought it at the price of health. The world has a way of getting more out of you than it gives to you.
At the best, if you are not Christian men and women, whether you are men of business, votaries of pleasure, seekers after culture and refinement or anything else, you have given Heaven to get earth. Is that a good bargain? Is it much wiser than that of a horde of naked savages that sell a great tract of fair country, with gold-bearing reefs in it, for a bottle of rum, and a yard or two of calico? What is the difference? You have been fooled out of the inheritance which God meant for you; and you have got for it transient satisfaction, and partial as it is transient. If you are not Christian people, you have to buy this world’s wealth and goods at the price of God and of your own souls. And I ask you if that is an investment which recommends itself to your common sense. Oh! my brother; ‘what shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world, and lose himself?’ Answer the question.
III. Lastly, we may gather from this story an illustration of the fatal falsehood of the world’s help.
Ahaz pauperised himself to buy the hireling swords of Assyria, and he got them; but, as it says in the narrative, ‘the king came unto him, and distressed him, but strengthened him not.’ He helped Ahaz at first. He scattered the armies of which the king of Judah was afraid like chaff, with his fierce and disciplined onset. And then, having driven them off the bleeding prey, he put his own paw upon it, and growled ‘Mine!’ And where he struck his claws there was little more hope of life for the prostrate creature below him.
Ay! and that is what this world always does. In the case before us there was providential guidance of the politics of the Eastern nations in order to bring about these results; and we do not look for anything of that sort. No! But there are natural laws at work today which are God’s laws, and which ensure the worthlessness of the help bought so dear.
A godless life has at the best only partial satisfaction, and that partial satisfaction soon diminishes. ‘Even in laughter the heart is sorrowful, and the end of that mirth is heaviness.’
That is the experience of all men, and I need not dwell upon the threadbare commonplaces which have survived from generation to generation, because each generation in turn has found them so piteously true, about the incompleteness and the fleetingness of all the joys and treasures of this life. The awful power of habit, if there were no other reason, takes the edge off all gratification except in so far as God is in it. Nothing fully retains its power to satisfy. Nothing has that power absolutely at any moment; but even what measure of it any of our possessions or pursuits may have for a time, soon, or at all events by degrees, passes away. The greater part of life is but like drinking out of empty cups, and the cups drop from our hands. What one of our purest and peacefullest poets said in his haste about all his kind is true in spirit of all godless lives:-
‘We poets, in our youth, begin in gladness,
But thereof cometh, in the end, despondency and madness.’
And do not forget that, partial and transient as these satisfactions of which I have been speaking are, they derive what power of helping and satisfying is in them only from the silence of our consciences, and our success in being able to shut out realities. One word, they say, spoken too loud, brings down the avalanche, and beneath its white, cold death, the active form is motionless and the beating heart lies still. One word from conscience, one touch of an awakened reflectiveness, one glance at the end-the coffin and the shroud and what comes after these-slay your worldly satisfactions as surely as that falling snow would crush some light-winged, gauzy butterfly that had been dancing at the cliff’s foot. Your jewellery is all imitation. It is well enough for candle-light. Would you like to try the testing acid upon it? Here is a drop of it. ‘Know thou that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment.’ Does it smoke? or does it stand the test? Here is another drop. ‘This night thy soul shall be required of thee.’ Does it stand that test? My brother! do not be afraid to take in all the facts of your earthly life, and do not pretend to satisfy yourselves with satisfactions which dare not face realities, and shrivel up at their presence.
These fatal helpers come as friends and allies, and they remain as masters. Ahaz and a hundred other weak princes have tried the policy of sending for a strong foreign power to scatter their enemies, and it has always turned out one way. The foreigner has come and he has stopped. The auxiliary has become the lord, and he that called him to his aid becomes his tributary. Ay! and so it is with all the things of this world. Here is some pleasant indulgence that I call to my help lightly and thoughtlessly. It is very agreeable and does what I wanted with it, and I try it again. Still it answers to my call. And then after a while I say, ‘I am going to give that up,’ and I cannot, I have brought in a master when I thought I was only bringing in an ally that I could dismiss when I liked. The sides of the pit are very slippery; it is gay travelling down them, but when the animal is trapped at the bottom there is no possibility of getting up again. So some of you, dear friends! have got masters in your delights, masters in your pursuits, masters in your habits. These are your gods, these are your tyrants, and you will find out that they are so, if ever, in your own strength, you try to break away from them.
So let me plead with you. With some of you, perhaps, my voice, as a familiar voice, that in some measure, however undeservedly, you trust, may have influence. Let me plead with you-do not run after these will-o’-the-wisps that will only lure you into destruction, but follow the light of life which is Jesus Christ Himself. Do not take these tyrants for your helpers, who will master you under pretence of aiding you; and work their will of you instead of lightening your burden. The same unwise and hopeless mode of life, which we have been describing this evening by one symbolic illustration, as calling vain helpers to our aid, was presented by Ahaz’s great contemporary Isaiah, in words which Ahaz himself may have heard, as ‘striking a covenant with death, and making lies our refuge.’ Some of us, alas! have been doing that all our lives. Let such hearken to the solemn words which may have rung in the ears of this unworthy king. ‘Judgment also will I lay to the line, and righteousness to the plummet, and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies.’ I come to you, dear friends! to press on your acceptance the true Guide and Helper-even Jesus Christ your Brother, in whose single Self you will find all that you have vainly sought dispersed ‘at sundry times and in divers manners’-among creatures. Take Him for your Saviour by trusting your whole selves to Him. He is the Sacrifice by whose blood all our sins are washed away, and the Indweller, by whose Spirit all our spirits are ennobled and gladdened. I ask you to take Him for your Helper, who will never deceive you; to call whom to our aid is to be secure and victorious for ever. ‘Behold! I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation: he that believeth shall not make haste.’
Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren
which smote him: i.e. which [as he believed] smote him.
help them. So he falsely reasoned.
the ruin of him. As the idolatry of the Edomites ruined Amaziah (2Ch 25:14, 2Ch 25:15).
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
For he sacrificed: This passage, says Mr. Hallet, greatly surprised me; for the sacred historian is here represented as saying, “The gods of Damascus had smitten Ahaz.” But it is impossible to suppose that an inspired author should say this; for the Scripture every where represents the heathen idols as nothing and vanity, and as incapable of doing either good or hurt. All difficulty is avoided if we follow the old Hebrew copies, from which the Greek translation was made: “And king Ahaz said, I will seek to the gods of Damascus which have smitten me.” 2Ch 25:14, 2Ki 16:12, 2Ki 16:13
Damascus: Heb. Darmesek
Because the gods: Hab 1:11
sacrifice to them: Jer 10:5, Jer 44:15-18
But they were: Isa 1:28, Jer 44:20-28, Hos 13:9
Reciprocal: Jdg 10:6 – Baalim 2Ki 16:10 – saw an altar 2Ch 21:2 – Israel 2Ch 29:6 – For our fathers Job 35:10 – none Pro 13:6 – wickedness Pro 27:22 – General Isa 2:8 – is full Isa 17:1 – Damascus Isa 57:10 – There is Eze 16:28 – General Mic 1:5 – they
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
2Ch 28:23. He sacrificed unto the gods of Damascus that smote him Or, which had smitten him formerly; that is, had enabled their worshippers, the Syrians, as he foolishly imagined, to smite him. He sacrificed to them, therefore, not because he loved them, but because he feared them, thinking they had helped his enemies, and hoping, if he could bring them over to his interest, they would help him. O blind superstition! exclaims Bishop Hall, how did the gods of Syria help their kings, when both those kings, and their gods, were vanquished and taken by the king of Assyria? Even this Damascus, and this altar, were the spoil of a foreign enemy: how then did the gods of Syria help their kings, any otherwise than to their ruin? What dotage is this, to make choice of a foiled protection! But, had the Syrians prospered, must their gods have the thanks? Are there no authors of good but blocks or devils? or is an outward prosperity the only argument of truth, the only motive of devotion? O foolish Ahaz! It is the God thou hast forsaken that punishes thee, under whose only arm thou mightest have prevailed. His power beats those pagan stocks one against another, so as one while one seems victorious, another vanquished; and at last he confounds both together, with their proudest clients, of which thyself art certainly the most striking instance. Alas! Ahaz did not see that it was Jehovah that smote him, and strengthened the Syrians against him, and not the gods of Damascus. Had he sacrificed to him, and him only, and worshipped and served him aright, he would have been helped effectually. No marvel that mens affections and devotions are misplaced, when they mistake the author of their trouble and their help. And what was the consequence? The gods of Syria befriended Ahaz no more than the kings of Assyria did: but were the ruin of him and of all Israel. This sin, among others, provoked God to bring judgments upon them; to cut him off in the midst of his days, when he was but thirty-six years of age; and it corrupted the people so that the reformation of the next reign could not prevail to cure them of their inclination to idolatry, but they retained that root of bitterness till the captivity in Babylon eradicated it.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
28:23 For he sacrificed unto the gods of Damascus, which {o} smote him: and he said, Because the gods of the kings of Syria help them, [therefore] will I sacrifice to them, that they may {p} help me. But they were the ruin of him, and of all Israel.
(o) As he falsely supposed.
(p) Thus the wicked measure God’s favour by prosperity and adversity: for if idolaters prosper, they make their idols gods, not considering that God often punishes them whom he loves and gives his enemies good success for a time whom afterward he will destroy.