Day 187 (2 Kings 14, 2 Chronicles 25) - Year 4
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Hey, Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble, and I'm your host for The Bible Recap. Today we open in the southern kingdom of Judah with the new king Amaziah on the throne. You may recall from yesterday that his dad, Joash, who had become king at age seven, was killed by some of his servants. And that's when Amaziah ascended the throne. And one of his first acts was to avenge his father's death by killing the men who killed him.

One thing that was really popular back then, even though it wasn't sanctioned by God, was to kill the families of those who threatened the king's reign. But Amaziah doesn't. He obeys God's commands and refuses to punish the children for the sins of the father. God commanded his people not to carry out justice generationally, even though he sometimes does. He's the decider of what's just. He can be trusted with that kind of thing.

In general, Amaziah was a pretty good king, especially at first. But 25.2 tells us that even his good actions weren't done with a fully yielded heart. And this shows up in how he handles a few of the things God commands. Initially, that he left the high places of idol worship intact. It's starting to seem like the high places are like the last five pounds. If you've ever been on a diet, you know what I mean.

Amaziah decides to go to war against their long-standing enemy, the Edomites. And he hires 100,000 soldiers from Israel to join his army in Judah. He pays more than 1.5 million in today's US dollars for these soldiers. But then, a man of God calls him on his lack of faith for hiring the enemy army. So he sends the Israeli soldiers home. They get angry about it and raid the cities of Judah in retaliation, killing 3,000 people.

It also cost Amaziah the $1.5 million in silver because he didn't get that money back. We can look at this in one of two ways. We can either say obedience is costly, and it is, or we can say disobedience is costly because it was his mistrust of God that got him into that spot to begin with. And on top of that, he would have lost far more if he hadn't heeded the prophet's words.

Even without the help of the Israeli soldiers, Amaziah and his army have a significant military victory over Edom. But this God-given victory leads him down a path of pride because he forgets who granted him that success. First, he begins to worship the gods of one of the people they'd defeated. That doesn't even make sense. God sends a prophet to tell him how wicked and irrational this is. But Amaziah is too proud to listen and even threatens to kill the prophet.

The teachability he displayed earlier is gone. Maybe he's still bitter about the money he lost when he listened to the prophet the first time. Regardless, this is foolish idolatry if there ever were. His second prideful move is when he requests a meeting with the king of Israel, a much larger kingdom at this point. It's possible this wasn't just a request for a coffee date, but was actually an invitation to war, which is exactly how King Jehoash receives it.

He sends Amaziah a snarky email about it, laughing it off. He's basically like, so you scored a touchdown once in high school and now you want to play against the Patriots. But Amaziah and his pride are not having it and he picks a fight with Israel anyway. Israel wins, they raid Jerusalem and they take Amaziah captive. He's imprisoned, then he flees, then he's captured and killed and his son Azariah becomes king.

Meanwhile, in the northern kingdom of Israel, we've got a new king, Jeroboam II. You may recall that the first king of Israel, right after the kingdom split into Israel and Judah, was a guy named Jeroboam. We called him King Jerry for short. And now, many kings later, we've arrived at King Jerry II. Jerry II. He's a king in the north, so we know he's an evil king as far as God and his ways are concerned. And things get really rough for the people during his time.

This is a fulfillment of the prophecy of Abijah in 1 Kings 14.10. It says, Behold, I will bring harm upon the house of Jeroboam, and I will cut off from Jeroboam every male, both bond and free in Israel, and will burn up the house of Jeroboam as a man burns up dung until it is all gone.

But God was only committed to wiping out Jeroboam's line, not all of Israel at large. So he uses Jerry 2 to accomplish some good things for the people of Israel. They've lost a lot of land in prior battles, and he manages to get it all back and restore the kingdom of Israel to its original size. Even as an evil king, Jerry 2 is still accomplishing what God ordained.

14.25 tells us that this restoration had been prophesied by Jonah. Yes, that Jonah. He was alive during King Jerry 2's reign, and tomorrow we'll read his story. Jerry 2 is an important king as far as God's plans are concerned.

And in fact, at Megiddo, one of the sites we visit on our Israel trip, archaeologists who have dug through 25 levels of civilization have discovered an ancient ring with the seal of one of Jerry 2's servants, dated to this exact time period, 700-ish years before Christ. Today, my Godshot was woven into the story of Amaziah's wars.

When the man of God shows up to rebuke him for hiring soldiers outside of Judah, he says, God has power to help or to cast down. We're reminded that both victory and loss are in God's hands. He can't give one without the other. His plans for Judah to win was also his plan for Edom to lose. And God turns the tables not long after that when Amaziah worships false gods then picks a fight with Israel.

Two people try to warn Amaziah, but 2520 says, God closed Amaziah's ears as punishment so that he might start and lose the war. We like to think of God as neutral, not picking sides in anything, but Scripture paints a different picture.

To be fair, it's probably less that he's on one side and more that one side is on his side. I want to be on his side always. I'm glad he picked me for his team. He's where the joy is. Tomorrow, we'll be reading the book of Jonah, the prophet who lived during this time. His story is only four chapters long. We're linking to a short video overview in the show notes that will really help set you up for success with this new book. So check it out if you've got nine minutes to spare.

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