Theological Commentary: Click Here
2 Kings 12
is a very vanilla chapter after the last 3 or 4 chapters! Joash takes over the throne and starts a
campaign of reform. I find it absolutely
telling that the first comment that is made about the success of Joash’s reign
is because he was mentored by a very faithful priest, Jehoiada. This goes to show us the importance for all
people – especially those in positions of power – to be mentored into
faithfulness.
What’s
interesting about this routine chapter is that although Joash seems to have a
very faithful regime, the temple is not repaired as he would like. In my blog for several years back, to which I
link above, I detail some reasons for this.
It could be that the voluntary donations weren’t enough to feed the
priests, much less pay for the temple repairs.
It could be that there has been so much Ba’al worship under the prior
kings that there either aren’t many worshippers of God or the people are so
angry at the removal of Ba’al that they aren’t willing to give. One way or another, the repairs just don’t
get done.
There is a
lesson in practicality here. We can have
faithful leadership. We can have God’s
blessing. But that doesn’t mean we will
live a life where everything goes perfectly and we never experience
setbacks. We shouldn’t think that our
life won’t have its little hiccoughs.
Here is Joash, who seems to be an upright king. He is Jehoiada, who seems to be a legitimate
priest. Yet the people don’t respond all
that quickly. The repairs don’t get done
as fast as they should.
It isn’t that
God’s blessing failed, or the leadership was bad, or that it was time for the
Hebrew people to be punished. The
reality is that life conspired against the plans of Joash. It took more time and more effort than Joash
expected. That’s not anyone’s fault! It’s just life. Life has a way of conspiring against even the
best of plans.
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