2 Chronicles 28:24

And gathered together the vessels of the house of God, and cut in pieces the vessels of the house of God,.... And converted them to his own use, sold them, or melted the gold and silver, of which they were, and made money of them, his treasures being exhausted: and shut up the doors of the house of the Lord: that the people might not come and worship there, but on the high places he made: and he made him altars in every corner of Jerusalem; that the priests might sacrifice there, and not in the temple.

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.

24 . cut in pieces the vessels ] Presumably in order to smelt them and put the metal to other uses; cp. 2 Kings 24:13 . According to 2 Kings 16:17 Ahaz merely “cut off the borders (‘panels’ R.V. mg.) of the bases and removed the laver from off them, and took down the sea from off the brasen oxen that were under it, and put it upon a pavement of stone.” In Chron. something more than this is suggested, for “the vessels” would naturally mean such vessels as are mentioned in 2 Kings 24:13 . shut up the doors ] The Chronicler perhaps misunderstands the difficult passage 2 Kings 16:18 ( vide A.V. and R.V.). That passage speaks of an alteration carried out by Ahaz on one of the entrances to the Temple, but says nothing of a complete closing of the Temple; indeed it may be gathered from 2 Kings 16:14-16 that the daily service went on with one great change , viz. that the king’s new altar was used instead of the brazen altar.

Verse 24. - This verse (completed, indeed, by the verse following) heightens to its climax the description of the guilt of Ahaz, which grew to madness. Vers. 17, 18 of the parallel enlarge our view of what Ahaz did in the way of destruction, relating his mutilation of the bases and laver and sea, after also the displacement of the brazen altar in favour of that the pattern of which he had sent from Damascus to Urijah the priest, who must have been a consenting party to the iniquity. Our 2 Chronicles 30:14 speaks of the time that came when these wicked steps of king and priest began to be retraced, and, with the previous verses of same chapter, are the sad but interesting reverse of the present passage. The modern Jews commemorate, by the observance of a fast, this mournful crisis of Judah's history. 2 Chronicles 28:24

Compare 2 Kings 16:17 note. The temple-worship was suspended, the lamps put out, and the doors shut, to prevent the priests from entering. The Jews still celebrate a yearly fast in commemoration of this time of affliction. Altars - As the one altar for sacrifice, which alone the Law allowed, symbolized the doctrine of one God, so these many altars spoke unmistakeably of the all-embracing polytheism affected by Ahaz.

(24) Gathered together the vessels. —According to some MSS. the Syriac, Arabic, Vulg., and Targum, all the vessels. And cut in pieces the vessels.—Literally, trimmed (qiççaç), i.e., cut off their metal ornaments. The same word is used in 2Kings 16:17, where it is said, “And king Ahaz cut off the plates of the bases, and removed the laver from upon them, and the sea he took down from off the brazen oxen that were under it, and put it on a pavement of stones.” And shut up the doors of the house of the Lord.—Not in Kings. (Comp. 2Chronicles 29:3-7.) The doors of the sanctuary itself, not those of the great court, must be understood. (Comp. 2Kings 16:15-16, from which it appears that the new Syrian altar was erected in the inner court near the brazen altar.) By closing the doors Ahaz suspended all rites that could only be duly performed within the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies. (Thenius thinks the verse involves a misunderstanding of 2Kings 16:18.) In every corner of (in) Jerusalem.—Wanting in Kings.

2Ch 28:22-27. His Idolatry in His Distress. 22. in the time of his distress did he trespass yet more against the Lord—This infatuated king surrendered himself to the influence of idolatry and exerted his royal authority to extend it, with the intensity of a passion—with the ignorance and servile fear of a heathen (2Ch 28:23) and a ruthless defiance of God (see on [463]2Ki 16:10-20).

Not content with thus worshipping strange gods, Ahaz laid violent hands upon the temple vessels and suppressed the temple worship. He collected all the vessels of the house of God together, and broke them in pieces. These words also are rhetorical, so that neither the יאסף, which depicts the matter vividly, nor the כּל, is to be pressed. The קצּץ of the vessels consisted, according to 2 Kings 16:17 , in this, that he mutilated the artistically wrought vessels of the court, and cut out the panels from the bases, and took away the lavers from them, and took down the brazen sea from the oxen on which it stood, and set it upon a pavement of stones. "And he closed the doors of the house of Jahve," in order to put an end to the Jahve-worship in the temple, which he regarded as superfluous, since he had erected altars at the corners of all the streets in Jerusalem, and in all the cities of Judah. The statement as to the closing of the temple doors, to which reference is made in 2 Chronicles 29:3 , 2 Chronicles 29:7 , is said by Berth. not to reset upon good historical recollection, because the book of Kings not only does not say anything of it, but also clearly gives us to understand that Ahaz allowed the Jahve-worship to continue, 2 Kings 16:15 .

That the book of Kings ( 2 Chronicles 2:16 ) makes no mention of this circumstance does not prove much, it being an argumentum e silentio; for the book of Kings is not a complete history, it contains only a short excerpt from the history of the kings; while the intimation given us in 2 Kings 16:15 . as to the continuation of the worship of Jahve, may without difficulty be reconciled with the closing of the temple doors. The יהוה בּית דּלתות are not the gates of the court of the temple, but, according to the clear explanation of the Chronicle, 2 Chronicles 29:7 , the doors of the porch, which in 2 Chronicles 29:3 are also called doors of the house of Jahve; the "house of Jahve" signifying here not the whole group of temple buildings, but, in the narrower sense of the words, denoting only the main body of the temple (the Holy Place and the Most Holy, wherein Jahve was enthroned). By the closing of the doors of the porch the worship of Jahve in the Holy Place and the Most Holy was indeed suspended, but the worship at the altar in the court was not thereby necessarily interfered with: it might still continue.