Friday, September 13
Second Kings 14: The cozy arrangement between Israel and Judah at the time of Ahab is now very much in the past, and the present chapter tells of new strife between them as we move into the eighth century before Christ. The relevant kings are Jehoash of Israel (802-786) and Amaziah of Judah (800-783).
Amaziah, taking a firm grip on Judah, promptly avenges the murder of his father, but without seeking retaliation against the descendants of the murderers (cf. Deuteronomy 24:16; Jeremiah 31:29-30; Ezekiel 18 passim). Thus, he secured his throne with a humane gesture that proved to be popular. Then, he goes against the Edomites in order to regain for Judah a southern port at Aqaba, or Elath (verse 22).
Next, Amaziah challenges his fraternal neighbor to the north. This effort was not successful; Jehoash captures Amaziah, takes copious spoils, and then goes home, leaving the kingdom of Judah in shambles (verses 8-14). Later reflection on this tragedy concluded that Amaziah was punished for worshipping Edomite gods, a deed evidently related to his recent defeat of the Edomites (cf. Second Chronicles 25). The summary here in Kings (verses 14-22) is relatively non-committal, though the author does admit that Amaziah, as a king, fell short of David (verse 3).
Amaziah, assassinated in a conspiracy in 783, was succeeded by Uzziah (also called Azariah), who would have a long and—from a political perspective—successful reign all the way to 742, the year that Isaiah received his calling (cf. Isaiah 6:1).
In 786, however, three years before Uzziah came to the throne in Judah, there emerged in the north the longest reigning monarch of Israel, Jeroboam II (786-746). Although Jeroboam’s rule was a great political success, the biblical writers take an invariably negative view of it; here in Kings it receives a mere seven verses, nor is it so much as mentioned by the Chronicler.
The reason for this negative assessment of Jeroboam II is not difficult to discover. The pages of two contemporary prophets, Amos and Hosea, are filled with complaints of the apostasy and the social and economic injustices that received political support from Jeroboam II.
That is to say, we now move into the period of the literary prophets, the four great voices of the eighth century: Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, and Micah. In some respects we learn more about the period from the prophetic oracles of these books than we do from Kings and Chronicles, books which were composed later. Indeed, beginning in the eighth century, we now have more immediate literary sources for information on the period. This will continue to be the case for the rest of Hebrew history, until well after the Babylonian Captivity.
Saturday, September 14
Second Kings 15: In this chapter rather little attention is paid to the reign of Jotham (verses 32-38). We know that his father, Uzziah, being struck with leprosy as a punishment for his sins, was obliged to take Jotham as a coregent in the latter part of his life (2 Chronicles 26:16-21). This period seems to have lasted from about 750 to Uzziah’s death in 742 (Isaiah 6:1). Jotham then reigned in his own name from 742 to 735. His sixteen years on the throne (2 Kings 15:33; 2 Chronicles 27:1), then, must include both of these periods. This chronological complexity would explain why Josephus (Antiquities 9.11.2 and 9.12.1) leaves out all time references for Jotham.
Both Kings and Chronicles attest of Jotham that “he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord,” each also admitting the king’s inability to exercise much influence over an unfaithful nation. From Isaiah and Micah, both books partly composed during his reign (Isaiah 1:1; Micah 1:1), we gain some sense of the national infidelity that Jotham was obliged to face.
While Second Kings (15:35) mentions Jotham’s construction of the “upper gate of the house of the Lord,” the Chronicler (27:4-6) goes into much more extensive detail about the king’s building projects and especially his conquest and treatment of the Ammonites.
Jotham is praised for not pursuing his father’s example of usurping rights over the Temple (27:2). Also unlike his father Uzziah, who acted exactly as he pleased, Jotham “ordered his ways before the Lord his God” (27:6). This is an expression of praise we do not often find in the description of biblical kings!
This expression also hints at a potential problem. It is possible that both Kings and Chronicles were puzzled by the reign of Jotham, particularly his inability to get the citizens of Judah to follow his lead. He is faulted in neither source, though they do not tell much about him. Jotham did not enjoy the longevity and success that the Book of Proverbs promises to a wise and virtuous man.
Jotham thus becomes a sort of tragic figure, even though the Bible does not stop to reflect on the nature and dynamics of the tragedy, as it does in the case of Job. One is especially struck by Jotham’s resemblance to Job in one particular—namely, the almost “individual” nature of his righteousness, in the sense that nobody would pay his example much attention. In the case of Job this moral insouciance is found in his wife and children. In the case of Jotham we see it in the citizens of Judah, but especially in his unfaithful son, Ahaz.
Jotham is treated, rather, in the way the Bible treats Abner—as a decent man who did not, in fact, receive all that we would expect a decent man to receive. In these two historical books, Second Kings and Second Chronicles, the Bible does not pause to reflect on this anomaly, even to reflect that it was an anomaly, any more than it does in the case of Abner or, even earlier, righteous Abel.
The Chronicler’s chapter on Jotham is, in fact, the shortest chapter written by that author, and he limits himself to his precise task—to chronicle, to record the story of Jotham. Without drawing our attention to it, he describes a reign much shorter and less rewarding than the reigns of some of Judah’s other righteous kings, such as Asa, Jehoshaphat, Hezekiah, and Josiah. Even as he was dying, Jotham’s enemies prepared to invade his kingdom (2 Kings 15:37-38).
The Chronicler advances no thesis with respect to Jotham’s story. He does not indicate, in even the faintest way, how we should view the problem of theodicy implicitly posed by this story. He not only does not answer the implied question. He does not even mention that the story has a question. On all this he remains silent.
We readers, however, are not limited by the interest and intent of the Chronicler or the author of Kings. Taking into consideration the whole of the inspired literature, we acknowledge and even reverence the quiet dilemma presented by Jotham’s career. We do this, not only because we read the Bible, but also because we read our own hearts. Inasmuch as the Creator has placed in the human conscience the metaphysical sense of justice, we expect God to treat righteous Jotham as a righteous man should be treated, and we are set back on our heels, as it were, at the sight of this righteous man whose righteousness is not acknowledged nor rewarded.
Jotham’s reign, then, becomes for us a sort of foreshadowing of the Cross, where the supremely righteous Man is not treated as we instinctively feel a righteous man should be treated. We know, after all, that “God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labor of love” (Hebrews 6:10). The question quietly posed in Jotham is loudly answered in Jesus.
Sunday, September 15
Second Kings 16: We come to the reign of Ahaz of Judah (735-715), a period documented, not only in Kings, but also in the Book of Isaiah. During this time, Assyria begins to flex new muscles, with the intent to take charge of the entire Fertile Crescent.
In 752, ten years before Isaiah’s prophetic call, the Assyrian Empire adopts Aramaic, the common language of the Fertile Crescent, as its official language, in addition to the traditional Akkadian. Assyria is about to enlarge its field of influence, and the careers of the kings of Judah and Israel—as well as the prophetic ministry of Isaiah—are set within that geopolitical context.
This was the whole point of the notice at the beginning of the Book of Isaiah: “The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.” These were the years from 742 to 687 before Christ, the absolute high point of Assyrian power. Tiglath Pileser III, who became emperor in 745, just three years before Isaiah’s call, ruled until 727. Other notable emperors of this period were Shalmaneser V (727-722), Sargon II (722-705) and Sennacherib (704-681).
With respect to Assyrian warfare during this second half of the eighth century, the extant art of the period confirms what is described in the Bible; it depicts charioteers breaking through enemy lines that have been decimated by Assyrian archery. Following the chariots comes the infantry, to make certain no one escapes.
An inscription of Sennacherib illustrates this process:
At the command of the god Ashur, the great Lord, I rushed upon the enemy like the approach of a hurricane…I put them to rout and turned them back. I transfixed the troops of the enemy with javelins and arrows. Humban-undasha, the commander in chief of the king of Elam, together with his nobles…I cut their throats like sheep…My prancing steeds, trained to harness, plunged into their welling blood as into a river; the wheels of my battle chariot were bespattered with blood and filth. I filled the plain with corpses of their warriors like herbage.
The terrain of Mesopotamia largely determined this style of warfare. On the open plain, defensive posturing was not possible. Assyria’s two major cities, Asshur and Nineveh, stood between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, which afforded only minimum protection. It was the Assyrian style to “take it to the enemy.” Survival depended on the total destruction of an enemy. We gain some sense of this in Isaiah 5, which gives us a very graphic presentation of the invincible Assyrian might, using a staccato style evocative of a Blitzkrieg:
No one will be weary or stumble among them,
No one will slumber or sleep;
Nor will the belt on their loins be loosed,
Nor the strap of their sandals be broken;
Whose arrows are sharp,
And all their bows bent;
Their horses’ hooves will seem like flint,
And their wheels like a whirlwind.
Their roaring will be like a lion.
In response to this Assyrian threat, Syria and Israel form a military league. Feeling threatened by this coalition, Ahaz of Judah appeals directly to Assyria for help. As the present chapter shows, this appeal simply makes the Kingdom of Judah a mere vassal of Assyria, thus introducing new forms of apostasy and idolatry.
Monday, September 16
Second Kings 17: We come now to the fall of the Northern Kingdom, the deportation of the Ten Tribes, and the enforced “importation” of foreigners into the Holy Land by the forces of Assyria.
An individual named Hosea (not to be confused with the prophet of that name) assassinated King Pekah and seized the throne in 732 (15:30). In fact, it was Shalmaneser V of Assyria who placed on the throne, making him a vassal of the empire. The record of this development was inscribed in a contemporary document, the Nimrud Tablet, in which Shalmaneser testified, “They deposed Pekah, and I set Hosea over them.”
When Hosea proved treacherous to the Assyrian alliance, however, he was removed from the throne, and the new emperor, Sargon II (722-705), deported great masses of the population to the east; they were never again to return.
Sargon recorded this event in another contemporary (and fragmentary) inscription, the Nimrud Prism: “At the beginning [of my rule . . . the city of the Sa]maritans I . . . who let me achieve victory . . . carried off prisoner.” This partial testimony supports what is said here in Kings: “In the ninth year of Hosea, the king of Assyria took Samaria and carried Israel away to Assyria” (verse 6). The year was 722, the first year of Sargon’s reign.
Our biblical historian reflects on the theological significance of these sad events, ascribing their cause to the idolatry that had prevailed in Israel since that fateful day in 922 when Jeroboam had revolted against the house of David (verses 7-23). Throughout that whole period, when the Lord “spoke by all his servants the prophets”—Elijah, Elisha, Amos, Hosea—the divine word was treated with insouciance and contempt by the kings and their people.
The Assyrians, following their practice of deporting rebellious populations, not only removed the masses of the Israelites to the east; they also imported eastern peoples into Israel. These intermarried with what was left of the local population, thus creating a hybrid race known in Holy Scripture as the Samaritans. This new race, which followed a different form of the biblical faith (verses 24-28), also continued the infidelities of the earlier Israelites in the land (verses 29-41). In due course they were evangelized, however, by Jesus and the Christian missionaries (cf. John 4 passim; Acts 1:8; 8:4-8).
Tuesday, September 17
Second Kings 18: Because of the relatively short life of his hapless father Ahaz, Hezekiah (715–687) was a young man—only twenty-five—when he assumed the throne of Judah.
The new king, moreover, inherited a mess. His kingdom was impoverished by his father’s irresponsibility, and much of the Holy Land lay in ruins from local wars and a recent invasion from afar. Seven years earlier, in 722, the Assyrians had destroyed the kingdom of Israel, to Judah’s north, and then deported the great masses of its people to regions over in the far end of the Fertile Crescent.
Furthermore, Hezekiah well knew that his own father had been the culprit responsible for earlier inviting the Assyrians to interfere in the politics of the Holy Land (2 Chronicles 28:16–21). The problem was part of his father’s own legacy, then, and the new king himself was obliged to pay annual tribute to Assyria, further impoverishing his realm.
Over the next two decades, however, Hezekiah undertook measures toward resisting that ever-looming menace from the east: First, he endeavored to reunite the remnant of Israelites in the north with his own throne in Jerusalem, thus enlarging his realm by restoring the borders of David’s ancient kingdom. In this effort he was somewhat successful (30:1–11).
Second, Hezekiah strengthened Jerusalem’s defenses by cutting an underground conduit through solid rock, so that water could be brought secretly into the city from the Gihon Spring. This remarkable feat of technology, unearthed by modern archeology, is recorded not only twice in the Bible (Second Kings 20:20; 2 Chronicles 32:30) but also in the contemporary Siloam Inscription. In this effort Hezekiah was very successful.
Prior to either of these efforts, however, Hezekiah initiated a religious reform, convinced that the nation’s recent apostasy under his father Ahaz was the root of Judah’s unfortunate plight. Thus, he began his reign by purifying the temple, lately defiled by pagan worship (2 Chronicles 29:3–19), in order to restore the edifice to the proper service of God (29:20–36).
Unlike the unbelieving Ahaz, who treated a spiritual dilemma as merely a political problem, to be addressed by political means, Hezekiah was determined to regard the spiritual dilemma as exactly what it was.
Indeed, Hezekiah’s programmatic reform maintained the proper priority indicated by our Lord’s mandate that we “seek first the Kingdom of Heaven.” Nothing else in Judah’s national life, Hezekiah believed, would be correctly ordered if anything but the interests of God were put in first place. What was first must emphatically be put first, not second or somewhere else down the line.
Wednesday, September 18
Job 27: Through the past several chapters, Job has been gaining a grip on his soul. His deep critique of the moral philosophies of his opponents has led him to neither skepticism nor despair. On the contrary, in this chapter we find him resolved to maintain the moral integrity that he displayed at the beginning of the book. Indeed, in his vow to do so, Job invokes the very God who has tried him so severely (verses 2–3).
As long as he lives, therefore, as long as “my breath [nishmati] is in me, And the breath of God in my nostrils [b’aphi],” Job will not use that breath, given by God, to “speak wickedness” (verse 4). Custody over his speech represents man’s most elementary stewardship, because breath itself is the first gift that man receives from God. Job’s reference to Adam’s reception of this initial gift seems pretty clear in the wording of the text: “And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils [b’aphyo] the breath [nishmat,] of life; and man became a living being” (Genesis 2:7). (Elihu the Buzite will also cite this text from Genesis in Job 33:4.)
Whatever the cost, then, Job is determined to maintain this elementary stewardship of his moral life, no matter how painful, humiliating, and short that life may be (verses 5–6). All Job has left is his integrity, and he will wager everything on it. Job does not pretend to understand the moral structure of the world, as he has so often confessed. He does perceive, however, the difference between right and wrong, and he intends to live on the basis of that elementary perception.
If Job is right, though, then his critics are wrong (verse 7), so the judgment of God is inevitable in their case as well (verses 8–10). Like Socrates at his trial, Job is persuaded that God, too, knows the difference between a just man and an unjust man, so his unjust critics must beware. Job prepares, then, to lecture his three friends (verse 11) on the theme of the divine wisdom. (This lecture will be found chapter 28.)
Often men do not seek wisdom, being distracted by the love of wealth (verses 16–17). The initial steps toward wisdom lie in the consideration of the divine judgment that hangs over human life (verses 18–23).
Psalm 49 (48) may profitably be read with the second half of the present chapter of Job (verses 13–23). Both texts deal with the same theme and the same metaphysical problem, and in both of them the wisdom tradition of the Bible appeals to a universal theme of philosophy: mankind’s perennial quest for understanding. Neither text refers to God’s special revelation to the chosen people. No appeal is made to the divine words spoken on Sinai or to the prophets.
What we find in these two texts, rather, is the God-inspired thought of biblical man addressing the human mind on its own terms. Both passages treat of the universal mortality of men, “all the inhabitants of the world, both low and high, rich and poor together.” Psalm 49, based on a strictly philosophical motif, mentions God only twice, and the second of these instances sounds the very note that Job has pursued: “God will deliver my soul from the power of the grave.”
Thursday, September 19
Second Kings 20: This chapter includes three parts: Hezekiah’s sickness and recovery (verses 1-11), the delegation from Babylon (verses 12-19), and the final assessment of his reign (verses 20-21). It is difficult to date the first two of these components, notwithstanding the specific reference to “fifteen years” in verse 6. Since that same verse seems to presuppose an Assyrian threat, the reader wonders how Hezekiah’s sickness is chronologically related to the events of the previous chapter. None of this is clear.
Isaiah, consulted about the king’s sickness, apodictically foretells his death (verse 1). Isaiah’s prophecy to Hezekiah, like Jonah’s to Nineveh, is unconditional: “you shall die, you shall not recover.” Yet, as the event shows, this prophecy of Isaiah, like that of Jonah, is reversed. Apparently bothered by this paradox, Josephus (Antiquities 10.2.1) omits Isaiah’s first prophecy and narrates only the second, that in verses 5-7).
With respect to Hezekiah’s prayer (verse 3), we observe four things about the king: First, he has walked in God’s presence, like such men as Enoch (Genesis 5:21), Noah (6:9), Abraham and Isaac (48:15), and, of course, David (First Kings 3:6). Second, Hezekiah has walked in “fidelity”—’emeth; that is to say, he has imitated the Lord’s own fidelity. Third, he has walked with his “whole heart”—leb shalem; his internal thought and resolve has had both integrity and proper direction. Fourth, he has done that which is “good”; he has endeavored to follow what God Himself considers to be “good.”
With respect to the medical remedy prescribed by Isaiah, the application of a fig poultice to drain ulcers is mentioned by Pliny (Natural History 22.7) and by two much earlier (second millennium before Christ) Ugaritic texts about veterinary practice.
Since Isaiah has now contradicted his earlier prophecy about Hezekiah’s death, we should probably not be too hard on the king for asking for an ’oth, a confirmatory sign (verses 8-11). We recall identical requests from Gideon and Joshua.
The movement of the sun’s shadow has to do with its progression on a set of stairs adjacent to the royal palace; a person could tell the time by the position of the sun’s shadow moving up the stairs. In the execution of the “sign,” the shadow moves backwards. The king, understandably, finds the phenomenon convincing.
In the eastern half of the Fertile Crescent, during this period, the kingdom of Babylon, still a vassal state of the Assyrian Empire, is beginning to test the latter’s strength—finding it increasingly less impressive! Within a century, Babylon will make its move, finally vanquishing Nineveh in 609. In the present text, Hezekiah receives a “friendly” delegation from Babylon, not suspecting its full political significance. Unwisely, he displays signs of his kingdom’s prosperity to the delegation. The Prophet Isaiah, who sees reality far into the future, mentions—“Hear the Word of the Lord!”—the danger incurred by the king’s imprudence (verses 16-18). When sixth century editors put the finishing touches on the Book of Isaiah, they were much impressed with his ability to discern events so far in the future, convinced that they were witnessing, in their own times, the historical developments foretold by him.
Friday, September 20
Second Kings 21: Manasseh (687-642) and Amon (642-640), the two kings of Judah separating Hezekiah and Josiah, make no positive contribution to the spiritual health of the realm. Their careers are contained in this single and uninspiring chapter.
The infidelities of Manasseh stand in vivid contrast with the religious reforms of his father. In addition to reintroducing Phoenician Baalism—including child sacrifice (verse 6)—Manasseh brings in Assyrian astral worship (verse 5). In addition, fortune telling becomes prevalent.
There was a great deal of violence; Manasseh “shed very much innocent blood, till he had filled Jerusalem from one end to another” (verse 16). Josephus must have had this text in mind when he wrote that Manasseh “barbarously slew all the righteous men that were among the Hebrews; nor would he spare the prophets, for he every day slew some of them, till Jerusalem overflowed with blood” (Antiquities. 10.3.1).
The most notable of the prophets murdered by Manasseh was the great Isaiah. According to an account recorded in the apocryphal story, The Martyrdom of Isaiah, Manasseh caused the prophet to be sawn in two. A passage in the Epistle to the Hebrews, because it mentions this detail, is often thought to refer to the era of Manasseh: “Still others had trial of mockings and scourgings, yes, and of chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, were tempted, were slain with the sword” (11:36–37).
The Bible-reader is stunned by this massive apostasy within a single generation. What can account for so thorough and swift a fall from grace? It is likely that it should be ascribed to several causes, but I suggest that among those causes should be counted a certain erroneous and unwarranted sense of security, nearly tantamount to superstition and magic. When Manasseh was but a child, Jerusalem had been miraculously delivered from Sennacherib’s siege. That deliverance, which had arrived as though out of nowhere, gave rise in many minds to the persuasion that Jerusalem was invincible and would never fall to the enemy. Once saved, Jerusalem would always be saved.
The Chronicler gives more qualified account of Manasseh. According to this source, the king had a conversion in his later years, after the Assyrians took him captive and imprisoned him for a while (Second Chronicles 33:11-17). This account is strengthened by an Assyrian source called The Prism of Esarhaddon. According to this archival document, the new emperor, Esarhaddon (680–669), compelled the kings in the western part of the Assyrian Empire to come to the capital of Assyria to render their obeisance. The Prism names all these kings, among whom was Me-na-si-i Ia-ú-di, Manasseh of Judah.
In 640 Manasseh’s son, Amon, is slain in revolt after a very brief reign.