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2 Chronicles
21 is another great study in human rebellion.
Jehoshaphat, who was largely a decent king, dies. He sets up his eldest son, Jehoram, as
king. This seems like the natural thing
to do. After all, it is what the world
does. The oldest gets the lion’s share,
right?
Except for
something. Wasn’t David actually the
youngest? Or what about Joseph in
Genesis. Wasn’t he second youngest? Wasn’t Judah himself the fourth in line? The great Jacob was second to Esau. The reality is that God doesn’t care about
temporal things like birth order. God cares
about the heart. God cares about things
like righteousness and faithfulness.
Unfortunately,
Jehoshaphat makes a decision based on the world’s ways instead of the ways of
God. What is the result? Jehoram kills his siblings when he becomes king. That is also often the way the world works,
too. That’s one of the major points of
this chapter. Jehoram walks in the ways
of the kings of Israel. His wife was the
daughter of the king of Israel! He built
up the places of false worship. He was
established as king for worldly reasons and he lived up to every inch of that
initial impetus.
What is the
result? God sends rebellion among his vassals. Nation after nation rebels against
Judah. Jehoram starts losing
control. That also means he started
losing trade and its effect on the Hebrew economy. The kingdom gets away from him.
Jehoram also
is personally cursed by God. His bowels
are literally cursed. Every day was
agony. After several years, his bowels
literally came out and he died a horrible death. He lived a worldly lived, ruled a worldly
kingdom, and died a worldly death.
The people
made no celebration for him. The economy
took a hit. The nation was sacked. Once vassalized people ceased being
vassals. Jehoram’s worldly kingdom was a
bad thing for the Hebrew people and they weren’t sorry at all to see it fade
into history.
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