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changing things

2 Kings 16:1-20 (JDV).

2 Kings 16:1 In the seventeenth year of Pekah son of Remaliah, Ahaz son of Jotham became king of Judah.
2 Kings 16:2 Ahaz was twenty years old when he became king, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem. He did not do what was right in the sight of Yahveh his God like his ancestor David
2 Kings 16:3 but walked in the ways of the kings of Israel. He even sacrificed his son in the fire, imitating the detestable practices of the nations Yahveh had dispossessed before the Israelites.
2 Kings 16:4 He sacrificed and burned incense on the high places, on the hills, and under every green tree.
2 Kings 16:5 Then Aram’s King Rezin and Israel’s King Pekah son of Remaliah came to wage war against Jerusalem. They besieged Ahaz but could not conquer him.
2 Kings 16:6 At that time Aram’s King Rezin recovered Elath for Aram and expelled the Judahites from Elath. Then the Arameans came to Elath, and they still live there today.
2 Kings 16:7 So Ahaz sent messengers to King Tiglath-pileser of Assyria, saying, “I am your servant and your son. March up and save me from the grasp of the king of Aram and of the king of Israel, who are rising up against me.”
2 Kings 16:8 Ahaz also took the silver and gold found in Yahveh’s temple and in the treasuries of the king’s palace and sent them to the king of Assyria as a bribe.
2 Kings 16:9 So the king of Assyria listened to him and marched up to Damascus and captured it. He deported its people to Kir but put Rezin to death.
2 Kings 16:10 King Ahaz visited Damascus to meet King Tiglath-pileser of Assyria. When he saw the altar that was in Damascus, King Ahaz sent a model of the altar and complete plans for its construction to the priest Uriah.
2 Kings 16:11 Uriah built the altar according to all the instructions King Ahaz sent from Damascus. Therefore, by the time King Ahaz came back from Damascus, the priest Uriah had completed it.
2 Kings 16:12 When the king came back from Damascus, he saw the altar. Then he approached the altar and ascended it.
2 Kings 16:13 He offered his burnt offering and his grain offering, poured out his drink offering, and splattered the blood of his fellowship offerings on the altar.
2 Kings 16:14 He took the bronze altar that was before Yahveh in front of the temple between his altar and Yahveh’s temple and put it on the north side of his altar.
2 Kings 16:15 Then King Ahaz commanded the priest, Uriah, “Offer on the great altar the morning burnt offering, the evening grain offering, and the king’s burnt offering and his grain offering. Also offer the burnt offering of all the people of the land, their grain offering, and their drink offerings. Splatter on the altar all the blood of the burnt offering and all the blood of sacrifice. The bronze altar will be for me to seek guidance.”
2 Kings 16:16 The priest Uriah did everything King Ahaz commanded.
2 Kings 16:17 Then King Ahaz cut off the frames of the water carts and removed the bronze basin from each of them. He took the basin from the bronze oxen that were under it and put it on a stone pavement.
2 Kings 16:18 To satisfy the king of Assyria, he removed from Yahveh’s temple the Sabbath canopy they had built in the palace, and he closed the outer entrance for the king.
2 Kings 16:19 The rest of the events of Ahaz’s reign, along with his accomplishments, are written in the Historical Record of Judah’s Kings.
2 Kings 16:20 Ahaz lied down with his fathers and was buried with his fathers in the city of David, and his son Hezekiah became king in his place.

changing things

Ahaz found a new way to sin against the God of his ancestors. He admired an altar that he had seen in a pagan land, and had one built for the temple in Jerusalem. He made a few more renovations. The reader is not surprised to read this. After all, Ahaz had so succumbed to syncretism that he had sacrificed his own son on the fiery altar of Molech. While Israel is beginning to decline in physical power, Judah is leaping into spiritual sacrilege. Ahaz wanted to change things just because he had the power to – not because it was right. Change is not a good thing when the change leads people away from God, life and truth.

LORD, give us wisdom to keep going in the right direction, not to change just because we can.