2 Chronicles 28:16 Kommentar

This chapter is the history of the reign of Ahaz the son of Jotham; a bad reign it was, and which helped to augment the fierce anger of the Lord. We have here, I. His great wickedness (Ch2 28:1-4). II. The trouble he brought himself into by it (Ch2 28:5-8). III. The reproof which God sent by a prophet to the army of Israel for trampling upon their brethren of Judah, and the obedient ear they gave to that reproof (Ch2 28:9-15). IV. The many calamities that followed to Ahaz and his people (Ch2 28:16-21). V. The continuance of his idolatry notwithstanding (Ch2 28:22-25), and so his story ends (Ch2 28:26, Ch2 28:27).

Here is, I. The great distress which the kingdom of Ahaz was reduced to for his sin. In general, 1. The Lord brought Judah low, Ch2 28:19. They had lately been very high in wealth and power; but God found means to bring them down, and make them as despicable as they had been formidable. Those that will not humble themselves under the word of God will justly be humbled by his judgments. Iniquity brings men low, Psa 106:43. 2. Ahaz made Judah naked. As his sin debased them, so it exposed them. It made them naked to their shame; for it exposed them to contempt, as a man unclothed. It made them naked to their danger; for it exposed them to assaults, as a man unarmed, Exo 32:25. Sin strips men. In particular, the Edomites, to be revenged for Amaziah's cruel treatment of them (Ch2 25:12), smote Judah, and carried off many captives, Ch2 28:17. The Philistines also insulted them, took and kept possession of several cities and villages that lay near them (Ch2 28:18), and so they were revenged for the incursions which Uzziah had made upon them, Ch2 26:6. And, to show that it was purely the sin of Ahaz that brought the Philistines upon his country, in the very year that he died the prophet Isaiah foretold the destruction of the Philistines by his son, Isa 14:28, Isa 14:29. II. The addition which Ahaz made both to the national distress and the national guilt. 1. He added to the distress, by making court to strange kings, in hopes they would relieve him. When the Edomites and Philistines were vexatious to him, he sent to the kings of Assyria to help him (Ch2 28:16); for he found his own kingdom weakened and made naked, and he could not put any confidence in God, and therefore was at a vast expense to get an interest in the king of Assyria. He pillaged the house of God, and the king's house, and squeezed the princes for money to hire these foreign forces into his service, Ch2 28:21. Though he had conformed to the idolatry of the heathen nations, his neighbours, they did not value him for that, nor love him the better, nor did his compliance, by which he lost God, gain them, nor could he make any interest in them, but with his money. It is often found that wicked men themselves have no real affection for those that revolt to them, nor do they care to do them a kindness. A degenerate branch is looked upon, on all sides, as an abominable branch, Isa 14:19. But what did Ahaz get by the king of Assyria? Why, he came to him, but he distressed him, and strengthened him not (Ch2 28:20), helped him not, Ch2 28:21. The forces of the Assyrian quartered upon his country, and so impoverished and weakened it; they grew insolent and imperious, and created him a great deal of vexation, like a broken reed, which not only fails, but pierces the hand. 2. He added to the guilt, by making court to strange gods, in hopes they would relieve him. In his distress, instead of repenting of his idolatry, which he had reason enough to see the folly of, he trespassed yet more (Ch2 28:22), was more mad than ever upon his idols. A brand of infamy is here set upon him for it: This is that king Ahaz, that wretched man, who was the scandal of the house of David and the curse and plague of his generation. Note, Those are wicked and vile indeed that are made worse by their afflictions, instead of being made better by them, who in their distress trespass yet more, have their corruptions exasperated by that which should mollify them, and their hearts more fully set in them to do evil. Let us see what his trespass was. (1.) He abused the house of God; for he cut in pieces the vessels of it, that the priests might not perform the service of the temple, or not as it should be performed, for want of vessels; and, at length, he shut up the doors, that the people might not attend it, Ch2 28:24. This was worse than the worst of the kings before him had done. (2.) He confronted the altar of God, for he made himself altars in every corner of Jerusalem; so that, as the prophet speaks, they were like heaps in the furrows of the fields, Hos 12:11. And in the cities of Judah, either by his power or by his purse, perhaps by both, he erected high places for the people to burn incense to what idols they pleased, as if on purpose to provoke the God of his fathers, Ch2 28:25. (3.) He cast off God himself; for he sacrificed to the gods of Damascus (Ch2 28:23), not because he loved them, for he thought they smote him; but because he feared them, thinking that they helped his enemies, and that, if he could bring them into his interest, they would help him. Foolish man! It was his own God that smote him and strengthened the Syrians against him, not the gods of Damascus; had he sacrificed to him, and to him only, he would have helped him. But no marvel that men's affections and devotions are misplaced when they mistake the author of their trouble and their help. And what comes of it? The gods of Syria befriend Ahaz no more than the kings of Assyria did; they were the ruin of him and of all Israel. This sin provoked God to bring judgments upon them, to cut him off in the midst of his days, when he was but thirty-six years old; and it debauched 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 plucked it up. The chapter concludes with the conclusion of the reign of Ahaz, Ch2 28:26, Ch2 28:27. For aught that appears, he died impenitent, and therefore died inglorious; for he was not buried in the sepulchres of the kings. Justly was he thought unworthy to be laid among them who was so unlike them - to be buried with kings who had used his kingly power for the destruction of the church and not for its protection or edification.

Ahaz was twenty years old when he began to reign,.... These verses are much the same with Kg2 16:2, only in Ch2 28:2 it is said, he made also molten images for Baalim; the several Baals or idols of the nations round about, as well as served Jeroboam's calves; see Jdg 2:11, and he is said in Ch2 28:3, to burn incense in the valley of the son of Hinnom; to Molech, the god of the Ammonites, who was worshipped there. See Gill on Kg2 16:2, Kg2 16:3, Kg2 16:4.

The Philistines also had invaded the cities of the low country,.... Which lay nearest to them, as Sharon, Lydda, Joppa, &c. in revenge of what Uzziah had done to them, Ch2 26:6, and of the south of Judah; they penetrated as far as that, from the west to the south of the land: and had taken Bethshemesh, and Ajalon, and Gederoth, and Shocho, with the villages thereof and Timnah with the villages thereof; of which see Jos 15:10. and Gimzo also, and the villages thereof; which though nowhere else mentioned in Scripture, yet we frequently read in Jewish writings (l) of Nahum, a man of Ganizu, which perhaps is the same place with this: and they dwelt there; kept them in their hands, and inhabited them. (l) T. Bab. Taanith, fol. 21. 1. Sanhedrin, fol. 108. 2, &c.

Ahaz succeeds his father Jotham, and reigns wickedly for sixteen years, Ch2 28:1. He restores idolatry in its grossest forms, Ch2 28:2-4; and is delivered Into the hands of the kings of Israel and Syria, Ch2 28:5. Pekah slays one hundred and twenty thousand Jews in one day, and carries away captive two hundred thousand of the people, whom, at the instance of Oded the prophet, they restore to liberty, and send home, clothed and fed, Ch2 28:6-15. Ahaz sends to the king of Assyria for help against the Edomites, Philistines, etc., from whom he receives no effectual succor, Ch2 28:16-21. He sins yet more, spoils and shuts up the temple of God, and propagates idolatry throughout the land, Ch2 28:22-25. A reference to has acts, his death, and burial, Ch2 28:26, Ch2 28:27.

The kings of Assyria to help him - Instead of מלכי malchey; Kings; the Vulgate, Syriac, Arabic, and Chaldee, one MS., and the parallel place, Kg2 16:7, have מלך melek, King, in the singular number. This king was Tiglath-pileser, as we learn from the second book of Kings.

AHAZ, REIGNING WICKEDLY, IS AFFLICTED BY THE SYRIANS. (2Ch. 28:1-21) Ahaz was twenty years old--(See on Kg2 16:1-4). This prince, discarding the principles and example of his excellent father, early betrayed a strong bias to idolatry. He ruled with an arbitrary and absolute authority, and not as a theocratic sovereign: he not only forsook the temple of God, but embraced first the symbolic worship established in the sister kingdom, and afterwards the gross idolatry practised by the Canaanites.

At that time did king Ahaz send unto the kings of Assyria--"kings," the plural for the singular, which is found in many ancient versions. "At that time," refers to the period of Ahaz' great distress, when, after a succession of defeats, he retreated within the walls of Jerusalem. Either in the same or a subsequent campaign, the Syrian and Israelitish allies marched there to besiege him (see on Kg2 16:7). Though delivered from this danger, other enemies infested his dominions both on the south and the west.

The liberation of the prisoners. - In Samaria there was a prophet of the Lord (i.e., not of the Jahve there worshipped in the calf images, but of the true God, like Hosea, who also at that time laboured in the kingdom of the ten tribes), Oded by name. He went forth to meet the army returning with the prisoners and the booty, as Azariha-ben-Oded (Ch2 15:2) once went to meet Asa; pointed out to the warriors the cruelty of their treatment of their brethren, and the guilt, calling to Heaven for vengeance, which they thereby incurred; and exhorted them to turn away the anger of God which was upon them, by sending back the prisoners. To soften the hearts of the rude warriors, and to gain them for his purpose, he tells them (Ch2 28:9), "Because the Lord God of your fathers was wroth, He gave them (the men of Judah) into your hand:" your victory over them is consequently not the fruit of your power and valour, but the work of the God of your fathers, whose wrath Judah has drawn upon itself by its defection from Him. This you should have considered, and so have had pity upon those smitten by the wrath of God; "but he have slaughtered among them with a rage which reacheth up to heaven," i.e., not merely with a rage beyond all measure, but a rage which calls to God for vengeance; cf. Ezr 9:6. Ch2 28:10 "And now the sons of Judah and Jerusalem ye purpose to subject to yourselves for bondmen and bondwomen!" יהוּדה בּני is accus., and precedes as being emphatic; i.e., your brethren, whom the wrath of God has smitten, you purpose to keep in subjection. אתּם also is emphatically placed, and then is again emphasized at the end of the sentence by the suffix in לכם: "Are there not, only concerning you, with you, sins with Jahve your God?" i.e., Have you, to regard only you, not also burdened yourselves with many sins against the Lord? The question הלא, is a lively way of expressing assurance as to a matter which is not at all doubtful. Ch2 28:11 After thus quickening the conscience, he calls upon them to send back the prisoners which they had carried away from among their brethren, because the anger of Jahve was upon them. Already in their pitiless butchery of their brethren they had committed a sin which cried to heaven, which challenged God's anger and His punishments; but by the carrying away of the women and children from their brethren they had filled up the measure of their sin, so that God's anger and rage must fall upon them. Ch2 28:12-13 This speech made a deep impression. Four of the heads of the Ephraimites, here mentioned by name, - according to Ch2 28:12, four princes at the head of the assembled people, - came before those coming from the army (על קוּם, to come forward before one, to meet one), and said, Ch2 28:13, "Bring not the captives hither; for in order that a sin of Jahve come upon us, do you purpose (do you intend) to add to our sins and to our guilt?" i.e., to increase our sins and our guilt by making these prisoners slaves; "for great is our guilt, and fierce wrath upon Israel." Ch2 28:14 Then the armed men (החלוּץ, cf. Ch1 12:23) who had escorted the prisoners to Samaria left the prisoners and the booty before the princes and the whole assembly. Ch2 28:15