Judah’s evil King Ahaz
16
📚In the seventeenth year of Pekah, the son of Remaliah, Ahaz the son of Jotham, king of Judah, began to reign. 2 📚Ahaz was twenty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem. And he did not do what was right in the sight of the LORD his God, like his forefather David, 3 📚but he walked in the way of the kings of Israel. He even made his son pass through the fire 📖, in accordance with the abominations of the nations whom the LORD drove out from before the children of Israel. 4 📚And he sacrificed and burned incense in the high places 📖 and on the hills, and under every green tree 📖.5 📚Then Rezin, king of Syria, and Pekah, son of Remaliah, king of Israel, came up to Jerusalem to fight, and they besieged Ahaz, but could not overcome him. 6 📚At that time Rezin king of Syrians recovered Elath for Syria, and drove the Jews from Elath; and the Syrians came to Elath, and have lived there to this day.
7 📚So Ahaz sent messengers to Tiglath Pileser, king of Assyria 📖, saying, “I am your servant and your son. Come up and save me 📖 out of the hand of the king of Syria, and out of the hand of the king of Israel, who have risen up against me”. 8 📚And Ahaz took the silver and gold that was found in the house of the LORD, and in the treasuries of the king’s house, and sent it as a present to the king of Assyria.
16:8 2 Kings 12:17-18. Because there was no faith and obedience in the leader of God’s people, once again God’s money was spent to bribe a heathen power.⚜
9 📚And the king of Assyria listened to him; for the king of Assyria went up against Damascus and took it, and carried its people captive to Kir, and killed Rezin.
10 📚And King Ahaz went to Damascus to meet Tiglath Pileser, king of Assyria, and saw an altar that was at Damascus, and King Ahaz sent to Urijah the priest the design of the altar and its pattern, in accordance with all its workmanship. 11 📚And Urijah the priest built an altar in accordance with all that King Ahaz had sent from Damascus. So Urijah the priest made it before King Ahaz returned from Damascus. 12 📚And when the king returned from Damascus, the king saw the altar, and the king approached the altar and made an offering on it. 13 📚And on the altar he burned his burnt offering 📖 and his grain offering, and poured out his drink offering, and sprinkled the blood of his peace offerings. 14 📚And also he took the bronze altar, which was before the LORD, from the front of the house, from between the altar and the house of the LORD, and put it on the north side of the altar.
16:10-14 By this action Ahaz openly departs even further from the true God and His worship. The altar built according to God’s instructions (Ex 27:1-8) was put in a secondary position, an altar designed for idolatrous worship in a foreign country is given the first place, and Ahaz made his offerings on the new altar. So little did he have room in his religion for the true God.⚜
15 📚And King Ahaz commanded Urijah the priest, saying, “On the great altar burn the morning burnt offering and the evening grain offering, and the king’s burnt sacrifice and his grain offering, with the burnt offering of all the people of the land and their grain offering, and their drink offerings; and sprinkle on it all the blood of the burnt offering, and all the blood of the sacrifice. And the bronze altar will be for me to make inquiry”
16:15 Ahaz tried to shove God aside and worship as he pleased. But in time of need he wanted to get guidance from God’s altar (but not by seeking God Himself). Actually nothing is said anywhere in the Bible about the altar being able to give guidance. Ahaz was showing superstition, not faith. And should anyone expect to get guidance from God in time of need when they ignore God at all other times?⚜
16 📚Urijah the priest did so, in accordance with all that King Ahaz commanded 📖.
17 📚And King Ahaz cut off the panels from the stands, and removed the lavers from them, and took the sea down from the bronze oxen that were under it, and put it on a pavement of stones.
18 📚And he removed the pavilion for the Sabbath that they had built in the house, and the king’s outer entrance from the house of the LORD, on account of the king of Assyria.
19 📚Now the rest of the acts of Ahaz which he did, are they not written in the book of The Annals 📖 of the Kings of Judah? 20 📚And Ahaz slept 📖 with his ancestors, and was buried with his ancestors in the city of David 📖, and Hezekiah his son reigned in his place.