2 Kings 16 Study Notes

16:1-2a The opening formula for Ahaz of Judah is not remarkable. However, its interpretation offers some challenges. The seventeenth year of Pekah (735 BC) would have been the beginning of Ahaz’s co-regency with Jotham. Ahaz’s sixteen-year official reign began with his sole regency in 731 BC with Jotham’s death. The data does not indicate the year in which Ahaz was twenty years old.

16:2b-4 Ahaz was the first bad king of Judah in about 100 years. The phrase ways of the kings of Israel could refer to paganism in general, particularly the worship of the Baals, since hostility with Israel would have hindered enthusiasm for the golden calves. Sacrificing his son in the fire showed the depths of Ahaz’s paganism, although some suggest this was a different offense than sacrificing the son in Baal’s fiery arms. The king’s high places included those for pagan deities. In pagan cults a green tree symbolized a goddess’s fertility and sometimes represented the goddess consort of the fertility deity at a high place.

16:5-6 These verses understate the military pressure from Israel and Aram during Ahaz’s reign. Likely, during the co-regency of Jotham and Ahaz (ca 735-732 BC), both Aram and Israel invaded and devastated Judah in turn (2Ch 28:5-6) and then put Jerusalem under siege. The goal was to force Ahaz into an anti-Assyrian alliance or to replace him with a king who would oppose Assyria. Although they seized valuable territory, including the port of Elath, they could not conquer Ahaz.

16:7-9 Ahaz then voluntarily submitted to Assyria, who would rule Judah as a vassal for the next century. The text seems to indicate that the Assyrians intervened only because Judah hired them. However, history shows that Isaiah’s prophesied deliverance (Is 7:7-9) might have come without Ahaz’s meddling. Tiglath-pileser III had already planned to reconquer the region. The Assyrians would have been helped if Ahaz had just withheld support from the anti-Assyrian coalition. Shortly after Jerusalem was put under siege, Tiglath-pileser launched campaigns that conquered the Philistine coast, lifted the siege of Jerusalem, destroyed Damascus (732 BC), and reduced the size of Israel (2Kg 15:29).

16:10-11 Ahaz’s subjection to Assyria renewed the struggle between political prudence and loyalty to the Lord. Though not always enforced, the general principle was that a vassal accepted the ruler’s cultic symbols as signs of obedience to the ruling country and to its god. In this pagan worldview, the Lord was treated as a local god, who, along with his country, also had submitted to Asshur—the chief Assyrian god—and was privileged to become a part of Asshur’s divine council. The Lord could even give oracles to the Assyrians, particularly when they suited Assyrian purposes (18:25). Unlike Amaziah’s voluntary idolatry with the gods of Edom (2Ch 25:14), Ahaz’s idolatry was forced on him by his submission to Assyria. Ahaz’s imported altar was the cultic symbol of his submission to Assyria’s main god. The priest Uriah represented the complicity of some priests and Levites in this religious corruption.

16:12-13 Ahaz entered into his religious responsibilities to Assyria’s chief pagan god with diligence, though he also had time for other pagan deities as well (vv. 3-4). Ahaz, representing the Hebrew people, participated in the religious rituals at Asshur’s altar. This contrasted with his failure to represent the people correctly before the Lord, and it also contrasted with Solomon’s early representation of the people (see note at 1Kg 8:22).

16:14-15a Perhaps at the suggestion of some visiting Assyrian official (cp. v. 18), Ahaz moved the original bronze altar of the Lord to a less central place in the temple to give prominence to the altar of the Assyrian god.

16:15b-16 Ahaz, however, remained true to the Lord in one activity. He designated the bronze altar of the Lord as the king’s private altar where he would seek guidance, presumably from the Lord. The traditional means of guidance was through the sacred lots, the Urim and Thummim, though some suggest that Ahaz used pagan divinations.

16:17 Bronze was a valuable commodity. So, as an accommodating subject, Ahaz stripped bronze off the sacred fittings of the Lord’s house and even sent the bronze from the twelve oxen of the bronze basin to Assyria as tribute. However, the valuable metal of Moses’s bronze serpent was not sent to Assyria since it was still there years later (18:4).

16:18 The significance of removing the Sabbath canopy and closing the special entrance for the king is not clear. The only thing certain is that something in them offended the king of Assyria.

16:19-20 Ahaz’s record closes with the typical formula statement.