Year 5, Day 19: 2 Kings 21

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Imitation

• Imitation: This is the second over-arching step of the discipleship process.  First we gain information, then we imitate our spiritual mentor.  Imitation leads to innovation of spirituality in our own life.

I find the list of kings from Hezekiah (yesterday’s reading) to Josiah (tomorrow’s reading) to be one of the most significant group of kings in this whole book.  In fact, other than David and Solomon, I think we can learn more from the study of this set of kings than from any other set in the book.

Let’s pick up where we left off yesterday.  Hezekiah was living his life largely for himself.  Then he got sick and Isaiah told him that he wasn’t going to recover.  Hezekiah repented and began the process of changing his life around.  It was during that time that he made sure that copies of the Law were to be found in Jerusalem.  It was at that time that an heir was produced to him.  While Hezekiah has a rough start, he ends well.

Then we get to Manasseh.  2 Kings has nothing good to say about Manasseh, but read 2 Chronicles 33 before putting any major conclusion upon Manasseh.  Here again we see a king who in his younger years follows his own heart and his own desires.  I can’t help but wonder if Manasseh learned to follow his own heart while he was young and Hezekiah was still undergoing the process of reform.  Could Manasseh have learned his evil ways from Hezekiah before he really got into the life changing of God?  Certainly!  But even here, it would appear that Manasseh eventually did imitate his father as repentance seems to find Manasseh – at least according to 2 Chronicles 33.

Then we hit Amon.  Amon abandons God and does not repent.  Here it appears that Amon imitates his father Manasseh during his rebellious years.  But Amon never imitates the repentance of Manasseh his father or Hezekiah his grandfather.  Amon pursues the world, imitating the mistakes of his father that he probably learned while he was growing up.

Tomorrow we’ll get to read about Josiah, who is an incredibly godly king.  Clearly Josiah does not imitate his father.  But I can’t help but wonder if Josiah doesn’t learn from Manasseh his grandfather, as Josiah would have been born after Amon his father was an adult.  I can’t help but wonder if Josiah learned from Manasseh’s repentance, heard the stories of Hezekiah’s repentance, and then saw all of the mistakes of Amon his father’s rule.

In the end, I think so much of this chapter is all about imitation.  What traits and habits are we passing on to our children?  What are we encouraging them to imitate in the places of our life where we do not follow God’s calling?  What are we teaching to our children when we think nobody is looking?

<><