Circling the Drain
After
Josiah, things go downhill very quickly for Judah. Josiah’s son, Jehoahaz, is made king. However, he only reigns three months before
Pharaoh Neco comes back to Jerusalem and takes him captive back to Egypt. We don’t have an epitaph for Jehoahaz left to
us by the chronicler, but if we look into the record of the Kings we can see
that he did evil in the sight of the Lord.
Of course, he didn’t have much time to do evil. He only ruled for three months before Pharaoh
Neco came and asserted his will over the nation.
When
Pharaoh Neco came, he appointed Eliakim to rule. Eliakim was another of Josiah’s sons. Pharaoh Neco changed Eliakim’s name to
Jehoiakim. The chronicler does tell us
that Jehoiakim did what was evil in the sight of the Lord. It is likely that a portion of this epitaph
is left because Judah had become a vassal state under Egypt due to Pharaoh Neco’s
involvement. As Egypt comes into play,
things usually go worse for the Hebrew people.
Unfortunately,
we begin to see the land of Judah caught in between the two superpowers of the
day. Babylon and Egypt begin to fight
over Judah. Nebuchadnezzar brings his
armies to Judah and takes Jehoiakim captive.
Babylon makes Judah a vassal state and Nebuchadnezzar appoints Jehoiachin,
Jehoiakim’s son, in his place.
This
reign doesn’t last very long at all, either.
Nebuchadnezzar comes back when Jehoiachin rebels. Nebuchadnezzar puts him in chains and drags
him back to Babylon. We know that
Jehoiachin did evil in the sight of the Lord, although it was only three months
worth of evil.
Nebuchadnezzar
appoints Zedekiah, Jehoiakim’s brother and Josiah’s third son, as a new vassal
king. Zedekiah also does what is
evil. He refuses to listen to Jeremiah
the prophet. Instead, we know that he
listens to the prophets who tell him what he wants to hear. After eleven years, Nebuchadnezzar returns to
Judah and finishes the task. He drags
Judah into captivity, leaving the poorest of the poor in an empty land waiting
to be repopulated by people from other places in Babylon.
What a
sad state of affairs. I think what I
find the saddest about this story is the pathetic spiritual nature of the sons
of Josiah. We know Josiah was a
spiritual man – perhaps the second most spiritual king ever among the Hebrew
people. He had three sons come to power –
and one grandson. None of them had what
it took to follow the ways of the Lord.
How significant
it is that we see in the final days the truth that we’ve been circling for a
while now. Just because a king is
righteous doesn’t mean that his sons will follow God. Or, for that matter, just because a king is
evil doesn’t mean that his son won’t follow God. Genealogy is no guarantee of faithfulness or
unfaithfulness. It is indeed the parent’s
job to bring up their children in the ways of the Lord, but the parent cannot
force obedience within the child. Josiah
had three children and all of them were caught up in the ways of the world
rather than the ways of the Lord.
What
makes matters worse is that as the light is fading on the Hebrew kings we have
a note that God had also sent prophets to the kings. It wasn’t just Josiah and the other righteous
kings who were ignored by their sons.
The kings had also ignored the very people that God sent to speak truth
into their life. God sent the prophets
because He loved them and wanted to be merciful to them. But they ignored the prophets.
I always
find the downfall of Judah so sad – especially the ending here in the
Chronicles. It always evokes a feeling
of helplessness within me. These kings
had it all. They had one of the most
righteous fathers to live. They had some
of the best prophets to guide them. They
still stumbled, refused to be humbled, and struck out on their own
self-centered agenda. What an end to the
story.
Moving Forward
Unlike
the ending of the book of Kings, which was written well before Cyrus comes on
the scene, the chronicler sees fit to add a hopeful addendum to the story. Rebellion is not the end. Cyrus, the king of Persia, declares that the
Hebrew people can go forth from captivity and go home to rebuild their lands.
The
chronicler completes the story. He
desires us to see the pattern. Faith,
unfaith, faith, unfaith. Gradual slide
into decline. But there is hope at the
end. True repentance leads to genuine
hope in the Lord. With genuine hope in
the Lord comes a reason to try again. We
can always learn from the past to restore the present and work towards a better
future. That is the great overarching
point of the chronicler’s work.
<><
No comments:
Post a Comment