The Pulpit Commentary — 2 Kings — Section 283

le notorious. Ecclesiastics cannot plead exemption, though in them the sin is greatest. When even ministers of the Lord cease to testify against evil, and willingly yield themselves as tools to the working out of a wicked k,ng's purposes, religion is in bad case. But here most probably the proverb held true, "Like people, like priest" (Hos, iv. 9)-the general decay of religion reacted on the sacerdotal orders. II. REVISED ORDINANOES, Like a child with a new toy, Ahaz, on his return home, pleased himself to the top of his bent with his new altar. 1. He offered his own sacrifices upon it. The event was made the occasion of a great display. Ahaz is thought by some to have mounted the altar, and himself performed the sacrifices; none of the priests, apparently, daring to remonstrate with him. He offered his burnt offering and his meat offering, and poured out his drink offering, and sprinkled the blood of his peace offerings upon the altar. An artistic altar, however, does not make acceptable sacrifices. '!'his pompous ritual was but an empty form, ministering, not to God's glory, but to a king's vanity. The motive was wrong; the method was unauthorized; the multitude of sacrifices but added to the magnitude of the hypocrisy. It is such ritual observances the prophet denounces : "To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the Lord; I am full of the burnt offerings of rams," etc. (Isa. i. 11). The sacrifices of the wicked are an abomination to the Lord. The only acceptable worship is that which comes from the heart. 2. He changed the position of the altar. The altar which Solomon made for burnt offering-the brazen altar-was not good enou~h for King Ahaz. It must be shifted aside, and his brand-new altar take its place. This was to arrogate a right of altering the arrangements of the temple which no king had yet assumed. Ahaz was governed by a love of novelty, and perhaps by a desire to introduce the artistic into worship. Art has its legitimate place in the worship of God, but it is not to be the governing consideration. When a service degenerates into a mere artistic performance, intended to gratify the tastes of those who have no relish for spiritual worship, it is hateful in God's sight. The perfection of the art may conceal the ntter absence of life, Most of all when central doctrines are removed-such doctrines as the atonement--to give place to rites and ceremonies which appeal to the carnal sense, is God mocked by the pretence of worship. 3. He improvised new sacrificial arrangements. The interference of Ahaz with th11 temple order did not yet cease. He altered the whole sacrificial usage, transferring the regular and occasional sacrifices to his new altar-now termed by him "the great altar "-and relegating the brazen altar, which still stood in the court, to a secondary condition. This usurpation by the king of the right to dictate the order of the temple services was tamely submitted to by Urijah, who did faithfully all that he was told. One is reminded of Wolsey's words," Had I but served my God with half the zeal I served my king," etc. Happy for the nation had Urijah been as faithful in serving God as he was in carrying out the behests of Ahaz. III. MINOR CHANGES. The history tells of other alterations effected by Ahaz in the temple. He cut off the borders of the bases of the Javers, and took down the sea from off the bronze oxen on which it had rested, substituting for the latter a pedestal of stone; he changed also the position of some other erections in the sacred courts. These chano-es are said to have been wrought "before," or for fear of, "the King of Assyria "-perb~ps to hide any evidences of wealth. Other novelties introduced by Ahaz, such as "the altars which were on the top of the upper chamber of Ahaz" (eh. xxiii. 12), had for their motive imitation of Assyrian or Damascene idolatries. What a contemptible picture of the king is thus presented I On the one hand, crino-ino- be Core the Kino- of Assyria, and dismantling the temple to avoid exciting his c~piJity; on the other, slavishly imitating the religion of the foreigners-if indeed this also was not an attempt ~ court Assyrian favour. How total the kiss of self-respect and of the spirit of mdep~ndence I_ Other instances of the folly and sin of Ahaz are given in Chronicles; e.g., his worship of the gods of Damascus for the reason, "Because the gods of the kings of Syria help them, therefore will I sacrifice to them, that they may help me" (2 Chron. xxviii. 23). One does 11ot wonder after this to hear that Ahaz "shut up the doors of tho house of the Lord," while he" ma.do him altars in every corner of Jern~nlem" (2 Chron. xxviii. 24). At length his sixteen years' reign ended, and the people, by this time sick of his doings, marked their sense of his unwonhiness by refusing him a sepulchre in the tombs of the kings (2 Chron. xxviii. 27).-J. 0. 330 THE SECOND BOOK OF THE KINGS. [on. XVII. 1-41.