2 Chronicles 26

Political history is far too criminal and pathological to be a fit subject of study for the young,” wrote poet W. H. Auden. Edward Gibbon, author of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, defined history as “little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.”

The history recorded in these five chapters seems to agree with Auden and Gibbon, for it reeks of selfish intrigue, bloodshed, moral decay, and repeated rebellion against the law of the Lord. Ancient Israel wasn’t much different from society today. Not one king of Israel encouraged his people to repent and seek the Lord, and in Judah, Amaziah and Uzziah both committed acts of arrogant ambition that brought judgment from God. When Jeroboam II became king of Israel in 782 BC, little did the people realize that in sixty years, the kingdom would be no more. As we look at these nine rulers, we can gain some practical insights into the will and ways of God as well as the terrible wages of sin.

Amaziah, a presumptuous king (14:1–20; 2 Chron 25) Amaziah was the ninth king of Judah and the son of Joash (Jehoash), the “boy king,” who in his later years turned away from the Lord, killed God’s prophet, and was himself assassinated (2 Chron. 24:15–26). Amaziah made an excellent beginning, but he later abandoned the Lord and was also assassinated (14:17–20). He saw to it that the men were executed who had killed his father, and he obeyed Deuteronomy 24: by judging only the offenders and not their families. Had he continued to obey God’s Word, his life and reign would have been much different. Consider some of his sins.

Unbelief (14:7; 25:5–13). Amaziah decided to attack Edom and regain territory that had been lost (8:20–22). The venture was a good one, but the way he went about it was definitely wrong. He took a census and found he had 300,000 men, but instead of trusting the Lord to use these men, he hired 100,000 mercenaries from Israel to increase his forces. His faith was in numbers and not in the Lord (Ps. 20:7), but even worse, the soldiers he hired came from apostate Israel where the people worshipped the golden calves. God sent a prophet to rebuke the king and warn him that the Lord was not with the kingdom of Israel, so the hired soldiers would only bring defeat. “But if you go, be gone! Be strong in battle! Even so, God shall make you fall before the enemy; for God has power to help and to overthrow” (25: nkjv). The prophet was a bit sarcastic, but he made his point.

One of the recurring themes in Israel’s history is their sin of forming alliances with the ungodly because they didn’t have faith in the Lord. Solomon married heathen wives and by this entered into treaties with his