2 Chronicles 21-22

READ: 2 Chronicles 21-22

Source: Christine Miller's Scriptures Pictures in www.alittleperspective.com 

REFLECT:

According to the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia:

“[There was] a war of rebellion in the days of Jehoram when Edom, after a fierce struggle, threw off the yoke of Judah (2Ki 8:20-22; 2Ch 21:8-10). Shortly after the revolt of Edom, according to 2Ch 21:16 f, the Philistines and Arabians broke into Judah, “and carried away all the substance that was found in the king’s house, and his sons also, and his wives; so that there was never a son left him, save Jehoahaz, the youngest of his sons.” Evidently the capital city fell into the hands of the invaders. It was a calamity of no mean proportions.”

The enemy’s attack against the house of Judah, and the house of David, from whom would come the Messiah who was to crush his head, unfolds in this chapter. For several generations Israel had departed from the Lord and not returned. The idolatry sunk to a new low when Omri, king of Israel, married his son and heir Ahab to Jezebel, the princess of the house of Tyre. The Sidonians and Tyreans were Canaanites (but the Greeks called them Phoenicians) who worshiped Baal and Ashtoreth, and practiced the extreme depravities of paganism then existing in the world.

Jehoshaphat had made an alliance with Ahab, the king of Israel, for which the LORD reproved him (2 Chron.19:2). In it, he betrothed his son and heir, Jehoram, to Ahab’s daughter Athaliah. It was likely Jehoshaphat was thinking that by it, he could unite the two kingdoms together under the house of David again. But God had a plan for reuniting the two kingdoms together under the house of David — a much greater, grander plan! And this was not it.

So Jehoram reigned in the place of his father, however, the righteous did not turn the heart of the wicked to righteousness, but the wicked turned the heart of the righteous to wickedness. Athaliah corrupted Jehoram (just as Solomon’s foreign wives had corrupted him) and he introduced all the evil of the house of Ahab into Judah. When he died, his son Ahaziah walked in his footsteps. Ahaziah was killed by Jehu according to the word of the LORD. Then his mother, the wicked Athaliah, proceeded to seize the throne of Judah also, and killed all Ahaziah’s young sons — her own grandchildren — in order to prevent any seed of the house of David from coming later to wrest the throne from her.

RELATE:

We never accomplish the will of the LORD by violating the word of the LORD! Jehoshaphat could not accomplish the reunification of the two kingdoms, as noble a cause as that is, by joining together the godly seed of his house with the ungodly seed of Ahab’s house. The result was a complete and utter failure: the seed of his house was completely destroyed, all but one little child, and a door opened for the enemy to work destruction and apostasy in Judah as he had been in Israel!

But as we will see soon see in the successive chapters of 2 Chronicles that although things did indeed look bleak for Judah, with the house of David destroyed, and the worship of idols exalted, and the Law of the Lord forsaken, things were not so dark that God could not redeem. The enemy’s triumph would soon to be turned to defeat with the evil queen slain and Joash reigned for 40 years in the house of David. 

REST:

We bask today in the light of that hope—a hope preserved for us by the story of what God did for Joash (2 Chronicles 23). God kept His promise to David in that his royal lineage was not wiped out. The devil did not succeed. David’s glorious Son Jesus was born into this world. He has died on the cross as our Savior; and God has raised Him from the dead to prove that He is completely satisfied with His sacrifice for us. 

TAN TEE KHOON