2 Chronicles 28:2

Ahaz was twenty years old when he began to reign,.... These verses are much the same with 2 Kings 16:2 , only in 2 Chronicles 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 Judges 2:11, and he is said in 2 Chronicles 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 2 Kings 16:2, 2 Kings 16:3, 2 Kings 16:4.

28:1-27 The wicked reign of Ahaz in Judah. - Israel gained this victory because God was wroth with Judah, and made them the rod of his indignation. He reminds them of their own sins. It ill becomes sinners to be cruel. Could they hope for the mercy of God, if they neither showed mercy nor justice to their brethren? Let it be remembered, that every man is our neighbour, our brother, our fellow man, if not our fellow Christian. And no man who is acquainted with the word of God, need fear to maintain that slavery is against the law of love and the gospel of grace. Who can hold his brother in bondage, without breaking the rule of doing to others as he would they should do unto him? But when sinners are left to their own heart's lusts, they grow more desperate in wickedness. God commands them to release the prisoners, and they obeyed. The Lord brought Judah low. Those who will not humble themselves under the word of God, will justly be humbled by his judgments. 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. This is that king Ahaz! that wretched man! 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, and have their hearts more fully set in them to do evil. But no marvel that men's affections and devotions are misplaced, when they mistake the author of their trouble and of their help.

For {a} he walked in the ways of the kings of Israel, and made also molten images for {b} Baalim. (a) He was an idolater like them. (b) As the idolaters have certain chief idols, who are as patrons (as were these Baalim) so have they others who are inferior and represent the great idols.

(2) And made also molten images for Baalim. — For the Baals, i.e., the different aspects or avatars of the Canaanite god. This clause is added by the chronicler, in explanation of the former one; “the way of the kings of Israel” was the state recognition of Baal worship, side by side with that of Jehovah ( 2Chronicles 21:6 ; 2Chronicles 22:3-4 ; comp. 2Chronicles 23:17 ). But possibly both this and the first clause of 2Chronicles 28:3 have fallen out of the text of Kings. (So Thenius on that passage.)

CHAPTER 28 2Ch 28:1-21. Ahaz, Reigning Wickedly, Is Afflicted by the Syrians. 1-4. Ahaz was twenty years old—(See on [459]2Ki 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.

In the general statements as to the king's age, and the duration and the spirit of his reign, both accounts ( 2 Chronicles 28:1-4 ; 2 Kings 16:1-4 ), agree entirely, with the exception of some unessential divergences; see the commentary on 2 Kings 16:1-4 . From 2 Chronicles 28:5 onwards both historians go their own ways, so that they coincide only in mentioning the most important events of the reign of this quite untheocratic king. The author of the book of Kings, in accordance with his plan, records only very briefly the advance of the allied kings Rezin and Pekah against Jerusalem, the capture of the seaport Elath by the Syrians, the recourse which the hard-pressed Ahaz had to the help of Tiglath-pileser the king of Assyria, whom he induced, by sending him the temple and palace treasures of gold and silver, to advance upon Damascus, to capture that city, to destroy the Syrian kingdom, to lead the inhabitants away captive to Kir, and to slay King Rezin ( 2 Chronicles 28:5-9 ). Then he records how Ahaz, on a visit which he paid the Assyrian king in Damascus, saw an altar which so delighted him, that he sent a pattern of it to the priest Urijah, with the command to build a similar altar for the temple of the Lord, on which Ahaz on his return not only sacrificed himself, but also commanded that all the sacrifices of the congregation should be offered.

And finally, he recounts how he laid violent hands on the brazen vessels of the court, and caused the outer covered sabbath way to be removed into the temple because of the king of Assyria ( 2 Chronicles 28:10-18 ); and then the history of Ahaz is concluded by the standing formulae ( 2 Chronicles 28:19 , 2 Chronicles 28:20 ). The author of the Chronicle, on the contrary, depicts in holy indignation against the crimes of the godless Ahaz, how God punished him for his sins. 1. He tells us how God gave Ahaz into the hand of the king of Syria, who smote him and led away many prisoners to Damascus, and into the hand of King Pekah of Israel, who inflicted on him a dreadful defeat, slew 120,000 men, together with a royal prince and two of the highest officials of the court, and carried away 200,000 prisoners-women and children-with a great booty ( 2 Chronicles 28:5-8 ); and how the Israelites yet, at the exhortation of the prophet Oded, and of some of the heads of the people who supported the prophet, again freed the prisoners, provided them with food and clothing, and conducted them back to Jericho ( 2 Chronicles 28:9-15 ). 2.