The Pulpit Commentary — 2 Kings — Section 280

t~nsported with _tb~ honour of seei!lg the royal presence, hearing the royal voioe, and d~llng the royal bidding. A t':'1e pnest should, by inflexible loyalty to Heaven, mould kmgs to be lords paramount m all mundane affairs, and in none other; and should !~ad them to be very kings of men, governing, not by craft and force, fraud and nolence, but by royal thoughts, actions, and aims.-D. T. Vers._ 1-4.-The wi,ckedness of Ahaz. The history has passed rapidly over the late~ kings of Israel. That kingdom was lost beyond recovery. "The victim havmg once got his stroke-of-graco, the catastrophe can be considered as almost come. There is smiul interest now in watching his long low moans; notable only are his s~arper agonies, what convulsive struggles he may make to cast the torture off from him; and then, finally, the last departure of life itself" (Carlyle). In Judah the crisis too is approaching, but it is not yet reached. Prophets and good kings are yet to do their utmost for the nation. But a reigu like that of Ahaz is a sensible step in the advance to the catastrophe. I. THE CHARACTER OF TlI1!: KING. Though the son of the vigorous Jotham, and already twenty or twenty-five years old when be ascended the throne, Ahaz proved one of the weakest and most incapable of rulers. One sees in him the reflection of the luxurious and effeminate age described by Isaiah (iii. 12-26). Feeble, petulant, ~rbitrary, in his ways of acting; without strength of mind or strength of will; busying mterests of his kingdom were at stake; craven in war; above all, full of religiosity and himself in dilettante fashion with novelties, with altars and sun-dials, while the greatest superstition without the faintest spark of true religion-" this is that King Ahaz" (2 Chron. x:xviii. 22). Possibly his father Jotham was too much occupied with state and public affairs to give the necessary attention to his son's education-a. fatal mistake not unfrequently committed by pa.rents. IL HIS ABOtTh"'DING IDOLATRIES. Ahaz displays great zeal of his own kind in religion, but it is zeal of the most perverse and suicidal description. We observe: 1. His imitation if the kings of Israel,. He took for his pattern, not his ancestor Da~id, the type of the true theocratic king, but the wicked kings of the northern kingdom, whose idolatries were bringing their own realm to ruin. He ma.de, like them, molten images to Baa.I, and sacrificed to them (2 Chron. xxviii. 2). Wicked men seem absolutely impervious to warning. The northern kingdom was an object• lesson, to those who had eyes to see, of the folly and fatal effects of this very course on which Ahaz was now entering. Yet he would not be deterred. 2. His reversion to Oanaanitish practices. Not content with importing the licentious Ba.al-worship patronized in Israel, .Aha.z revived the worst abominations of the old Cana.anitish religions. He even went so far as to sacrifice his own son. to Moloch in the valley of Hinnom-a deed indicating a degree of fanaticism, a blunting of the moral s~nse, and a depth of superstition which could hardly have been believed possible in. a King of Judah. It was, moreover, a daring defiance of the direct letter of God's Law (Deut. xii. 31). Well might such a deed bring down wrath on Judah I 3. His extravagance in worsl,ip. It is further narrated that Ahaz sacrificed and burnt incense in the high places, and on the hills, and UDder every green tree. Worship in this reign seemed to have run riot; yet there was no true religion in it. All this depraved religiosity waa but a manifestation of self-will, of subjective caprice; it had its oriidn in superstition and an impure craving for excitement, not in. the fear of God. Yet Ahaz, in his dilettante way of looking at things, may have thought that he was introducing improve- ments into Jewish reli).:ion. He may have flattered himself that he was robbing it of its narrowness, and giving it the philosophic breadth suitable to persons of taste and culture. He might argue that there was something good in all religions; that all were but diverse expressions, equally acceptable to God, of the fundamental instinct of worship • and that none, therefore, ought to be despised, We hear such arguments nowadays, ~nd they may very well have been used then. Ahaz was but going in for a ~pedes of Jewish Broad-Churchism. But the Bible brands this so-called breadth of view as treason against the God who has definitely revealed his will to men, and taught them how they are, and how they are not, to worship him. The true lessons to be learned from this conduct of Ahaz is that religiosity-delight in sensuous and im:p•ire religious services-is far diJJerent from religion; that altars may be multiplied, on. xn. 1-20.J 'l'IIE SECOND BOOK OF THE KINGS. 327