Hope in Troubled Times. 2 Kings 16 – 20

 

Jotham in the southern kingdom was a good king, a king who had honored the Lord and led the people well, but the people had rejected truth. It is not enough to have good leaders. If there are not the people who are following spiritual truth and who have established doctrines in their souls, the Word of God in their souls, then it doesn’t matter how good the leaders are or what kind of political solutions are put in place it isn’t going to last and it isn’t going to bring prosperity and stability to the country. This is seen in the shift that takes place between Jotham who had reigned for sixteen years and his successor Ahaz, his successor, who was arguably one of the most evil kings in the southern kingdom of Judah. We read about his reign in two different chapters: 2 Kings 16 and 2 Chronicles 28. Chronicles focuses only on the southern kings of Judah and was written after the exile in order to fill in the gaps and show how God has worked in the life of Israel in light of the Mosaic covenant: how they were disciplined for the evil of idolatry prior to the exile, and now that that they are back in the land to encourage them to walk with the Lord. What is described in 2 Chronicles 28 is actually focuses on some different areas than 2 Kings 16 and gives just as bad a picture of Ahaz.  

 

One thing we should notice when we are reading through a book like Kings and come to a section like chapters 14-17 where there are a lot of kings and then all of a sudden in chapter eighteen we show down with Hezekiah in the next few chapters because that is where the Lord is putting the emphasis in the text. There are some significant things that happen with Hezekiah. He is one of the best kings in the southern kingdom and there is a time of genuine spiritual renewal in the southern kingdom. So when things look very dark, very negative and chaotic under Ahaz we need to keep in mind that after Ahaz Hezekiah will come and there is a future time of grace and recovery. But it was necessary for the nation to go through the horrors and the period of Ahaz in order to get their focus back on the Lord. Unfortunately it is just temporary because of the nature of the people’s volition and their rejection of God.

2 Kings 16:1 NASB “In the seventeenth year of Pekah the son of Remaliah, Ahaz the son of Jotham, king of Judah, became king. [2] Ahaz {was} twenty years old when he became king, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem; and he did not do what was right in the sight of the LORD his God, as his father David {had done.}” That is interesting. God is described as the Lord his God, which indicates that Ahaz was a believer. But he completely gave himself over to the false worship systems of his day, he was a rebellious believer who led the southern kingdom into tremendous perversity. It describes that perversity in his own spiritual condition, which is the spiritual condition of those in the nation as well—we often get the leaders we deserve, the leaders simply are reflections of the belief systems of the people that they rule. [3] “But he walked in the way of the kings of Israel, and even made his son pass through the fire, according to the abominations of the nations whom the LORD had driven out from before the sons of Israel.” So he is following in the idolatry of the northern kingdom, especially the fertility religions, the prosperity religions and the materialistic focus of the northern kingdom. Just as in the period of the Judges Ahaz thinks no differently than the Canaanites before him. What this is saying is that things are now just as bad in Judah as they were under the Canaanites. The people of God who chose to be a priest nation have so completely rejected God and everything that he had given them that they were now living no differently than the pagans before them and there was no difference between them.  

2 Kings 16:4 NASB “He sacrificed and burned incense on the high places and on the hills and under every green tree.” We are told in 2 Chronicles 28 that he also built worship sites and idols for the Baals. Then there is the discipline that comes. For this reason …[5] “Then Rezin king of Aram and Pekah son of Remaliah, king of Israel, came up to Jerusalem to {wage} war; and they besieged Ahaz, but could not overcome him. [6] At that time Rezin king of Aram recovered Elath for Aram, and cleared the Judeans out of Elath entirely; and the Arameans came to Elath and have lived there to this day.” This again shows the divine discipline that God was bringing on Israel as they are losing territory to the opposition. That is the background to a crucial passage, Isaiah chapter seven, a time of tremendous chaos in Israel. They are living under a ruler who has a number of failures. He is a failure spiritually because he is not leading the people toward God but he is as much a part of the spiritual failure of the nation as the people are. The people have rejected God and the Scripture and have substituted a false system of thinking. When we get embedded in a false system of thinking and we become more and more divorced from reality then we can’t properly understand or interpret the things that are going on around us. So we ascribe to certain negative and chaotic events false causes, and once we have false causes and think that certain things are caused by one thing or another then we make more bad decisions because we wrongly identify the situation and the causes. Then as we continue to weaken spiritually, as we continue to live in greater and greater degrees of fantasy because we are suppressing the truth in unrighteousness (Romans chapter one), the result of that is we continue to make even worse decisions from this position of weakness and fantasy. One thing piles upon another and there may be a series of decades where things don’t get too bad, but eventually we reach a time of critical mass where all of these bad decisions begin to bear their poisonous fruit and things just begin to fall apart left and right. This is what was happening at this time in history in the northern kingdom, and that is the result of about two centuries of bad decisions and idolatry.

The same thing is going to happen in the southern kingdom but it is going to take them longer because they do have a few kings and a larger remnant in the nation of believers. At this time under Ahaz they are living for themselves in a totally false fantasy world. They had government sponsored idolatry—which we could apply as government sponsored secularism. There are some significant parallels between the time of Ahaz and our own time.

The second aspect of this is that God caused them to be defeated by the Israel-Aram alliance. This is going to bring some real horror into the southern kingdom. It is just briefly touched on in 2 Kings 16 but in order to reach Jerusalem they had to go through the countryside where 2 Chronicles 28 tells us that during this time 120,000 in Judah were killed in one day. At that same time another 200,000 in Judah were captured and taken back up into the northern kingdom of Israel and some would go to Damascus as slaves. It was at that time that a prophet by the name of Oded warned them to release the captives, which they did. There was still enough of a sense of God’s reign and authority in the northern kingdom that when they heard the threat of punishment from Oded they released the captives. However Ahaz, despite the circumstances, continued to trust in man rather than God and goes to Assyria for help.           

Isaiah chapter seven is set in the same time period. Isaiah 1:1 NASB “The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz concerning Judah and Jerusalem, which he saw during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz {and} Hezekiah, kings of Judah.” Isaiah’s ministry covered forty plus years and he saw a lot of different things going on in the nation. In the opening chapter he brings a rebuke to the nation, and it is in that opening chapter that we see him describe what has been going on in the nation and he condemns them because of their shallow, superficial spirituality. [2] “Listen, O heavens, and hear, O earth; For the LORD speaks, ‘Sons I have reared and brought up, But they have revolted against Me.’” He is talking about the inhabitants of the heavens which are the angels and the inhabitants of the earth which are human beings. These are the two witness groups. Anything done according to the Law has to have two witnesses, and so this is done in the same way as in Deuteronomy where the covenant was restated before the witnesses of the angels and mankind. [3] “An ox knows its owner, And a donkey its master’s manger, {But} Israel does not know, My people do not understand.” Isaiah goes on to indict the people because of their rejection of God and because they have just a very superficial observance of the law. See Isaiah 1:12ff. The challenge is in verse 16—spiritual change, turning, confession of sin and turning back to God. This is the basic message that Isaiah brought to the southern kingdom because of their rebelliousness and apostasy.

Isaiah chapter seven deals with a specific situation at the time of Ahaz. This comes right after the description of Isaiah’s call to be a prophet which is given in chapter six. Ahaz did not have a right relationship with God. He might have been a believer but he didn’t act like it.  

Isaiah 7:1 NASB “Now it came about in the days of Ahaz, the son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah, king of Judah, that Rezin the king of Aram and Pekah the son of Remaliah, king of Israel, went up to Jerusalem to {wage} war against it, but could not conquer it.” That is almost an identical statement to what we read in 2 Kings 16:5. Here he identifies the two enemies as Rezin the king of Aram and Pekah the son of Remialiah, but from this point on Isaiah and God actually do not refer to Pekah as Pekah, they just call him the son of Remaliah, emphasizing that he doesn’t have a background, a family worthy of note, he comes from an impoverished illegitimate house in terms of aristocracy, and he has no right to the throne. God is no respecter of persons and by referring to him as the son of Remaliah God just continues to insult him; He constantly ridicules him in the way that He addresses him.

As this evil alliance comes against Ahaz we are told in verse 2 what the real issues are: “When it was reported to the house of David, saying, “The Arameans have camped in Ephraim,” his heart and the hearts of his people shook as the trees of the forest shake with the wind.” It was told to the house of David. That is a term that refers to the aristocracy, specifically to the kingship as men who are descendants from David and it puts our focus back on the Davidic covenant and God’s promise to David that he would always have a descendant on the throne, and eventually this would culminate in a descendant of David who would rule on the throne of Israel forever and ever and bring in a perfect kingdom. Instead of writing it was told to Ahaz, and the address here is to a broader group—not just to Ahaz but to the house of David. Now they are afraid. The northern kingdom, Israel, has identified herself with Syria (Aram). The words, “shook as the trees of the forest shake with the wind” is a depiction o0f the thinking of those in the southern kingdom. The combined threat of Israel and Syria scared them to death.

We all face times of fear in our lives. Sometimes the causes of fear are personal, and we have personal insecurities. We may have personal fears related to a job that we think we might lose, we may have fears related to health or others issues, problems, circumstances that we face in life, but we all face certain international and national fears that are quite scary if we want to think about them. So many people just want to bury their head in the sand and not think about them. They don’t want to watch anything on the news, it just depresses them, theirs nothing they can do about it, and basically what that is saying is, “I don’t want to understand reality, I want to live in a fantasy world just like unbelievers do, because if I hear how bad things are it might scare me too much.” Is that a good attitude for a believer? We shouldn’t get afraid or scared because of the uncertainties and the instabilities of the world around us. We ought to know in our souls that it is necessarily unstable and insecure, and we are the only ones with a message of hope. We are the only ones who can properly understand what is going on in the world around us and we are the only ones, if we understand it, who can provide a true answer and can go to people who are indeed frightened and scared and panicking over the circumstances and give them that solid message of real hope that only comes when we change and turn to the Lord Jesus Christ as our savior.

The southern kingdom was scared to death. They weren’t focusing on the Lord at all and the Lord is going to inject Himself very clearly into this whole circumstance. He tells the house of David basically not to worry. Isaiah 7:3 NASB “Then the LORD said to Isaiah, ‘Go out now to meet Ahaz, you and your son Shear-jashub, at the end of the conduit of the upper pool, on the highway to the fuller’s field.” This upper pool was a pool where the women would go and often would wash clothes, and it was a place where those who were involved in the making of garments, etc. and it was a place where numerous people would gather. The king would go up there and Isaiah is instructed to take his son and to go and confront the king. [4] “and say to him, ‘Take care and be calm, have no fear and do not be fainthearted…” Four commands. The first command basically means to be alert, to wake up, to be quiet. That is the same word used in other places to rest before the Lord. Don’t give in to panic. Ahaz is being told here to get a grip, to control his emotion and to focus on something that is going to give him some stability—the solution instead of the problem—and not give in to his fears. “… because of these two stubs of smoldering firebrands, on account of the fierce anger of Rezin and Aram and the son of Remaliah.

When He refers to stubs and firebrands, a firebrand is like a torch that was used to light a fire. But as that torch burns down to where there is nothing left except a stub it is not good for anything anymore. It looks like it might cause a little pain, and it could, but it is just producing a lot of smoke, no fire; it has lost its real effectiveness. That is what God is saying here by calling them two stubs and firebrands. They are basically out of any ability to do any real long-term damage to Judah, they will cause a little bit of pain and suffering but nothing of any real significance. The word that is sued here for “stub” is a word that simply means the tail, and means the end of the firebrand when it is just about gone. There are these four commands to take heed, be quiet, do not fear or be fainthearted. Those commands are all given as a masculine singular imperative. In other words, they are addressed specifically and only to Ahaz; they are not a plural and that is very important in following through what happens in this chapter—paying attention to what happens with the singular and plural commands. As long as it is singular God is just addressing Ahaz; when it is plural He is addressing a broader group, the house of David or the nation of Judah.    

Isaiah 7:5 NASB “Because Aram, {with} Ephraim and the son of Remaliah, has planned evil against you, saying, [6] Let us go up against Judah and terrorize it, and make for ourselves a breach in its walls and set up the son of Tabeel as king in the midst of it.” What they want to do is wipe out and destroy the house of David. This is a manifestation of Satan’s plot and conspiracy to block God and His ability to bring about the fulfillment of His covenant with David and to have a Davidic King, the Messiah, sit on the throne of Jerusalem. There is a real spiritual component to their agenda and that is to destroy God’s plan, and so God gives Ahaz a personal promise. [7] “thus says the Lord GOD: ‘It shall not stand nor shall it come to pass.’” In other words, no matter how bad it looks let’s rely on the promises of God and His plan, He is in control. Even when He is in control He may allow certain catastrophes and crises to occur but it is still under His control, so we as believers can relax  and we need to trust in Him where there is real hope and real stability. [8] “For the head of Aram is Damascus and the head of Damascus is Rezin (now within another 65 years Ephraim will be shattered, {so that it is} no longer a people), [9] and the head of Ephraim is Samaria and the head of Samaria is the son of Remaliah. If you will not believe, you surely shall not last.” In actuality in thirteen years the northern kingdom will be destroyed by Assyria but it is going to take the next 65 years for the Assyrians to complete their removal of the population and resettling them throughout the Assyrian empire. It is not 65 years to the defeat of the northern kingdom but 65 years will see them being totally wiped out and removed from their homeland. The “son of Remaliah”—He doesn’t call him by name [Pekah]. God just has no respect for him at all.

“If you will not believe, you surely shall not last.” What happens there is that the pronoun changes in the Hebrew. It is no longer second person singular. He is not addressing Ahaz, He is addressing Judah and the house of David and saying, If you don’t believe as a southern kingdom, if you don’t get right with God and turn back in terms of obedience, the same thing that is happening in the north is going to happen to you. So He shifts from talking personally to Ahaz to talking to the house of David as the rulers of the southern kingdom.

Isaiah 7:10, 11 NASB “Then the LORD spoke again to Ahaz, saying,Ask a sign for yourself from the LORD your God; make {it} deep as Sheol or high as heaven.’” But Ahaz is so arrogant he refuses to do that and acts like he’s so sanctimonious. [12] “But Ahaz said, ‘I will not ask, nor will I test the LORD!’” He is just disobeying God. But then God gives a promise. [13] “Then Isaiah said, addressing the house of David, ‘Listen now, O house of David! Is it too slight a thing for you to try the patience of men, that you will try the patience of my God as well?” Then the promise, [14] “Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call His name Immanuel.” This is a promise we all talk about, we hear at Christmas and we recite many times as this relates to the Lord Jesus Christ who was called Immanuel, the title by Gabriel when he announced to Mary that she would have a son. It is the fulfillment of Isaiah 7:14, but the context of Isaiah 7:14 comes in the midst of all of this instability and chaos as the southern kingdom is being defeated, and what God is pointing out is that the real solution to the problem isn’t a political solution, it is a spiritual solution. A political solution without a spiritual solution isn’t going to last long. They had a political solution under Jotham before Ahaz and it didn’t last. When Ahaz became king the negative volition and idolatry in the hearts of the people just took them right into the perversity pf all of the false religions that came under Ahaz. Ahaz is followed by his son, and how Hezekiah got to be such a God-focused king with such a horrible, idolatrous parent, we’ll never know. 

“Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call His name Immanuel.” We have this kind of grammatical construction here, especially in Isaiah, with the announcement of “Behold,” and when this is followed by a participle as it is here it always refers to a future action. He is not talking of something that is already present, he is not talking about his wife being pregnant; he is not talking about a present fulfillment at all, he is addressing a future issue related to the survival of the house of David. The word “virgin” here has the article with it, and in the use of the plural he is giving the house of David the sign for their survival. He is not talking directly to Ahaz. The “virgin” here with the definite article indicates that the people had an understanding that this wasn’t a virgin, it was the virgin. It was specifically related to Old Testament prophecy going back to Genesis 3:15 and the term the seed of the woman who is the one who would bring deliverance from sin and defeat the serpent.

There is a lot of debate that we will read about regarding the Hebrew word almah, virgin. It always refers to a young unmarried woman who is of marriageable age. It doesn’t necessarily mean one who is a virgin, but it doesn’t take a whole lot of thinking about the passage to realize that God is talking about a miraculous sign, and it is not a miraculous sign for an unmarried non-virgin to have a child. There is nothing unique about that. So it is clear that this is talking about a virgin which is clearly how the word is used in a number of contexts, and the rabbis understood this when they translated in to the Greek in the Septuagint. They used the Greek word parthenos [parqenoj]. So this is one of the greatest prophesies about the coming Messiah. This is God’s message of hope to the house of David: that His promises will be true. There may be a lot of chaos, a lot of bad things that happen in life. We may go through a lot of adversity in life both individually as well as a nation, but God is still in control and we can relax and trust in Him, getting our eyes off the details of life and putting them on God’s plan and purpose for our life as a believer. So God gives this message to Ahaz and to the people: that there will be stability and God’s promises will come to pas, and there will indeed be a future for Israel.

If we read through the first part of Isaiah, again and again Isaiah moves from his condemnation of the people and what they are doing at that time to the future kingdom, and the focus is that even though they might go through a lot of chaos, a lot of wars and destruction and be taken out of the land God is going to bring them back, fulfill His promise and establish the kingdom. That same message is true for us today as believers. We may not be living in a covenant nation with the promise of it being an eternal state like Israel has but that doesn’t matter. As believers in the body of Christ we know that God has a future for us and He has a plan for us that is specifically related to our being in the body of Christ. That purpose has to do with our witness and our testimony to the world around us, and so we are going to be able to handle life in the coming chaos. The only thing that is going to give us stability is going to be the doctrine in our soul and that we have been trained in the small adversities to trust in God and to focus on Him so that when the really tough time comes it is going to be second nature to us to focus on Him. Rather than running around in panic and shaking like trees in a windy storm we are going to have stability, and that will give us an opportunity to be a real witness and fulfill the ministry that God has given us as believers. That always focuses on the hope of the savior. That is the message of Isaiah chapters seven and nine. Only Jesus Christ provides stability and meaning in life. Only the savior who ultimately will come back and establish His kingdom on the earth because that is the only political kingdom that will have a solid, sound political solution. Nothing else in this life prior to that, no political solution, is going to be a sound solution that will last, especially if the people don’t turn first. A political solution without a spiritual solution is just a temporary band aid. People have to have integrity and values and that can only come from the Word of God. And where do they get that? They only get that from other believers who know the truth and can communicate that.         

Illustrations