evaluation time

And he did what was right in the eyes of the LORD, according to all that his father Uzziah had done.
2 Kings 15:34

There is this ceaseless litany summarizing the long list of kings here in 2 Kings 15. The actions of each king are set off either with "he did what was evil in the eyes of the LORD" or "He did what was right in the eyes of the LORD". Each king is held to a greater, higher standard by which his activity is evaluated.

A pattern emerges. None of the northern kings in Samaria do what is right. And they are characterized by short reigns (several less than a year, one for only one month) and lots of trouble unsettles their kingdom. There is a string of conspiracies. The kings fall by murder and overthrow by usurpers. There are inside pressures placed upon the throne from with Israel's borders. And there are great outside pressures. By the time Pekah reigns in Israel, Assyria has carved out lots of territory and taken the northernmost portions of Israel captive to Assyria. What is left is barely more than a vassal state.

Meanwhile, back in Judah, an opposite pattern is in play. A series of righteous kings leads the nation in worship of God. And they enjoy relatively long rules. God is honoring the Jerusalem throne even as Samaria declines in power and prestige. But by the time of Jotham's reign, outside pressures are threatening David's throne as well. Northern kingdom weakness has created a highway for invasion straight to Jerusalem. And southern threats from Edom and Moab continue. Syria and Assyria made incursions into Judah's territory. Even though Judah has a string of righteous rulers, the damage has already been done and the stage is now set for all of God's people to be led into God's judgment. It is just a matter of timing.

Seeing these patterns so dramatically makes me appreciate Paul's New Testament perspective on Old Testament history: "these things were written for our instruction." By observing this history and seeing God act in it, I get perspective on how God interacts with humanity. And that serves as a gauge for checking out my own habits and willingness to live as God says. I want to do what is "right in the eyes of the LORD".

The cost of self-driven agendas

But Amaziah would not listen. So Jehoash king of Israel went up, and he and Amaziah king of Judah faced one another in battle at Beth-shemesh, which belongs to Judah. And Judah was defeated by Israel, and every man fled to his home.
2 Kings 14:11-12

This is a brutal civil war. Generations after Israel has split into two kingdoms, at a time when no outside threat was around to intimidate either Israel or Judah, this gruesome fight breaks out. God's people go at one another. Both Amaziah king of Judah and Jehoash king of Israel have experienced military victories that allowed them to recapture territories from historic enemies. Those enemies are now preoccupied with the new threat from Assyria.

Cocky and over confident, both Jewish kings are feeling the tensions of the split kingdom. The civil war starts with a "diplomatic" suggestion by Judah to Israel. The offer is rejected and Amaziah storms down to Jerusalem for all out war. The city wall is torn down for a substantial section. The temple is ransacked and Amaziah is humiliated. It is really sad to see God's chosen people reduced to hatred and infighting.

After this battle, the northern kingdom of Israel emerges as the military power. Judah limps along as a religious and cultural vanguard. It is clear that lines have been drawn and everybody now knows their place. The sad thing was that all of this was a direct result of the abandonment of the covenant by the Jewish people. The Law was meant to bring peace and civil prosperity, But death and offense was what came when God's Law was ignored.

There are always great costs to be paid when we choose to direct our own lives. Idolatry is costly and painful. And the horror of this civil war pictures the painful tragedy that comes in the wake of our sinful choices.

God is under no obligation to be merciful.

Then Jehoahaz sought the favor of the LORD, and the LORD listened to him, for he saw the oppression of Israel, how the king of Syria oppressed them.
2 Kings 13:4

God intervened when by terms of the covenant, He did not have to do so. The king of Israel, Jehoahaz, was not a righteous man. The text says that he did evil in the sight of the Lord (2 Kings 13:2). Yet when the Syrian army constantly harassed and attacked Israel, God saw the foreign oppression. When Jehoahaz turned to God in prayer, God answered his requests and turned back the Syrian aggression. The text is not specific as to who Israel's "savior" was (many scholars believe the growing Assyrian threat to the north diverted Syria's resources from Israel), but God did answer a prayer that He was not obligated to respond to in any way.

The reality is that God is gracious and merciful. And He will show His love in ways we do not understand. In the case of Jehoahaz, God brought deliverance from a military power, not because the king was righteous, but because God Himself was gracious. He did it out of His own nature. God always acts out of His own nature. No one tells God what to do or makes Him act any certain way. So when grace comes forward, we are seeing God as He truly is.

I am thankful that God is gracious to sinners. I would not be here if He wasn't that way. And I am so very moved by His mercies shown to me. If not for the redemptive work of Christ for me, I would be no better than a wicked king myself.

Changing the world by worshiping God

And Jehoash did what was right in the eyes of the LORD all his days, because Jehoiada the priest instructed him.
2 Kings 12:2

Jehoash had a long reign (40 years) of relative prosperity. The text credits his obedience to God as being instrumental to his great rulership in Judah. He had a close relationship with the priests and the worship of Yahweh in the temple. His chief accomplishment centered around repairs being made to what was a broken and run down temple.

When the priests did not seem to be making significant timely progress on the repairs, Jehoash expedited the process by royal edict and intervention. He devoted the largest administrative efforts of his regime to the task and created a mechanism so that the royal treasurer had oversight of the gifts received at the temple. The royal treasury then paid for supplies and skilled labor to repair the temple. It was a long and expensive process, but the king invested himself in it as an act of lifelong worship. Yahweh's worship could only be restored in a temple restored to His honor!

For Jehoash, commitment to God was literally shown in his life's investment. He devoted the administration of his kingdom to the rebuilding of the house of worship for God. All the funds that could be were devoted to this project. It defined his life. We can learn a lot from a man who devoted his life to the worship of God by administering a government in such a way that God was the defining mark and focus of his administration. Worship is what we were made for. It is what we do, no matter our vocation.

When we devote all our resources and energies to the glory of God, we are blessed and God is worshiped. And great things can come from that. Lives can be restored. The world can be changed.

Prophecy ain't always pretty.

Joram said, "Make ready." And they made ready his chariot. Then Joram king of Israel and Ahaziah king of Judah set out, each in his chariot, and went to meet Jehu, and met him at the property of Naboth the Jezreelite.
2 Kings 9:21

The spectacular end of Ahab's dynasty begins with God sending a prophet to anoint a new king in Israel. God's choice is a ruthless, high energy general named Jehu. As soon as he is anointed, he launches a conspiracy to removed Joram and the queen mother, Jezebel. And he is familiar enough with the prophecies of their demise to keep them in mind as he boldly rides out to take over the throne.

He meets both Joram, the Israeli king, and Ahaziah, the Judean king, at the prophetic juncture of the vineyard of Naboth. Here was the place that figured in the prophecies. Joram's father, Ahab, had stolen this land and Jezebel had Nabath murdered through treachery so that it could be ceded to the king. The irony was that this is where it all ended for them. Joram's bloody body was tossed there in fulfillment of the Word of the Lord.

After fatally wounding the king of Judah, Jehu drives his fast chariot on to the Samaritan palace where a painted Jezebel tries to entice him. He has no such desire and instead appeals to the palace eunuchs to toss her out the palace tower window. They do so, and her bloodied, broken corpse is consumed by wild dogs, just as had been prophetically announced.

Prophecy is not always pretty, but it does always point to the sovereign control and power of God. He is in control. He will be heeded. His Word will not fail. We can always trust that fact.

benefits of heeding God's Word

And when the king asked the woman, she told him. So the king appointed an official for her, saying, "Restore all that was hers, together with all the produce of the fields from the day that she left the land until now."
2 Kings 8:6

When you read the interplay between the kings and the prophets, you are struck by the way the kings had an adversarial relationship with the men God was using to speak His Word. Most of the kings only listened to the prophets when it was convenient. And this is particularly true of Elisha's ministry. Yet God went out of His way to show that those who honored the prophets would be honored by Him.

The outstanding example is the unnamed Shunammite woman. We know some facts about her. She and her husband were wealthy (2 Kings 4:8). They owned fields and were substantial farmers in their home town. At one point she was childless and God blessed her with a son out of gratitude for her family's care of Elisha. God even restored her dead son to her after she sought out Elisha's help.

Elisha warned this Shunammite woman of a severe famine. She left her livelihood and land holdings in Israel for Philistia while the seven year famine ravaged the land. By precedent, her home and fields ceded to royal control. She must have been a widow at this point. Her husband does not come to the king, and Gehazi's story centers exclusively on her.

So moved was the king of Israel by her story that he did the unthinkable. He deeded all her land holdings back to her (woman did not get to own property in that culture) AND he generously gave her a portion of stored food from the royal storehouses equal to seven years of crop production on the land. God's grace came upon her again by her obedience to the Word of the Lord through the prophet. It was as if she had never left her home.

The simple truth is that God rewards obedience to His Word. And the benefits are often more than we can imagine. That is a principle worth emulating from the woman who listened when kings would not!

famine relief

Then the people went out and plundered the camp of the Syrians. So a seah of fine flour was sold for a shekel, and two seahs of barley for a shekel, according to the word of the LORD.
2 Kings 7:16

God saved Samaria from total collapse at the hands of Syria. The king of Israel was impotent to save his people against the siege that was starving his capital city. But God was still the God of Israel, and even though no one called out to Him, He easily turned the Syrian army away from the attack. And He did it in such a way that dramatic results were coming, just as Elisha the prophet had foretold.

The siege of Samaria had been going on a long time... long enough that the food supplies within the city gates were dwindling. The results were highly inflated prices on basic necessities. And it had gotten so bad that some of the residents of Samaria had resorted to cannibalism to stay alive (2 Kings 6:24-31). But a dramatic moment would change all of that overnight. God was going to intervene for all to clearly see.

In the middle of the night the Syrian army flees in panic as they hear the sound of chariots, horses, and an approaching army. They assume that the king of Israel has hired mercenaries and they abandon their camp in panic, leaving behind all food and valuables. It was enough stuff to completely resupply the starved city, just as Elisha had said. God miraculously saved His people, just with a mere delusion to an army.

God's gracious deliverance is always worth considering. I see this and realize that the Old Testament is full of examples of God's gracious, unmerited favor to people. He brings glory to Himself by being gracious to us. He fed Samaria again after wartime siege and His method was to just introduce the sound of war. He showed Himself a powerful savior to a disobedient people. That is the grace that God shows sinners. And He does so even more powerfully in the grace shown us in Christ Jesus today!