Sunday 23rd February
Read Psalm 97
If you don’t have a bible at home you can find the readings on a website such as www.biblegateway.com or an app such as YouVersion
Like the previous one, this Psalm is what is called an enthronement Psalm where, as an earthly king is lauded and his power celebrated, it looks to the time of the Lord’s return in power and glory. Such a time is pictured in the physical shaking of the Earth and all peoples seeing the heavens proclaiming his righteousness and showing his glory.
Those who haven’t worshiped him but whose lives were focussed on other things are put to shame whilst those who have loved him rejoice and find their lives bathing in his light.
Are we ready for that day? This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.
READINGS FOR THE WEEK AHEAD
As you read the Bible Stop; Read; Ponder; and Pray.
Monday 2 Kings 20:1-11
We come to a chapter and future that will strike us with mixed feelings as the story works its way out. First of all, we hear of Hezekiah’s illness and the message from Isaiah about his impending death. Hezekiah receives the message with tears and prays to God for healing, citing his faithfulness to God over the time of his reign.
The question we would have to ask is, should we pray for things from God on the basis of our faithfulness to him in the past? Should our prayers not spring from sheer thankfulness for his grace towards us? Anyway, God sends Isaiah back with a message that his prayers and his tears have been heard and he will be given an extra fifteen years of life and, whatsmore, they will be years free from the threats of the Assyrians. His affliction is given as some kind of boil though the word could also mean tumour and a preparation is prepared for its cure. Hezekiah however wants a sign that everything was going to be alright. The strange sign has lots of different implications and meanings but we would be wise to remember Jesus warnings about sinful and adulterous generations requiring signs; when the Pharisees wouldn’t believe he could forgive the crippled man’s sins he raised him from his bed bringing life to his dead legs. Ponder what was going on here and whether it was wise of Hezekiah to ask for a sign. We shall see more of the outcome in coming chapters.
To understand what was going on here it is necessary to get an idea of the ancient Empires and where they were. In the 8th Century BC Assyria with its capital in Nineveh was the dominant force in the North. Babylon was a part of the Empire situated in the South on the Persian Gulf but it would become the major Near Eastern Empire after the fall of the Assyrian Empire in 612 BC
Hezekiah reigned from 715 – 687 BC and Jerusalem escaped being over-run by Assyria as we have seen in the previous chapter. Merodach-Baladan was King of Babylonia from 721-710 BC but managed to grab independence of Babylonia from Assyria for a short period in 703 BC but it would another 100 years before the fall of Assyria and the rise of Babylon as the dominant Near Eastern empire.
During Hezekiah’s illness, Marduk-Baladan sent Hezekiah letters and a gift and Hezekiah, being so pleased with this attention showed the Babylonian envoys all around Jerusalem and its treasures. Isaiah came to him and asked him what he had done. Hezekiah told him that he had shown them everything but they came from a far-away place and were of no danger! Isaiah’s prophecy was that a time would come when everything in Judah – including the people – would be taken captive to this ‘far-away place’ called Babylon.
Hezekiah’s response was a sigh of relief that it wouldn’t happen in his day. It does us well to remember that everything we do has an effect upon the future. Hezekiah dies as a good King but perhaps more concerned about his own life and times.
When we read the first verse of chapter 21 – “Manasseh was 12 when he became King”- we realise that he was born during the extra 15 years that Hezekiah was granted by God. One wonders whether he would have been best advised to accept his earlier death as Manasseh would never have been born. Manasseh’s reign was long and in contrast to his father it says that he did evil in the eyes of the Lord. He reversed all the work of his father restoring the high places of the idols, restoring the worship of Baal, putting an Asherah pole in the Temple and verse after verse tells of the depravity of his reign.
Manasseh led the people astray so that “they did more evil than the nations the Lord had destroyed” when he settled them in the promised land (v9).
The result of this was that God said he would bring his judgement down on this remnant of his people as he had done on Samaria. They would be looted and plundered by their enemies. It is a lesson that God is good but he requires his people to heed his word and not return to sinful ways of the world about. The legacy of Manasseh is a complete contrast to that of his godly father.
After a fifty-five year reign, what was Manasseh’s son, Amon, going to be like? We don’t have to wait long before the biblical writer tells us in v20, “he did evil in the eyes of the Lord, as his father Manasseh had done”. Parents have an influence on their children which is not definitive of the people they will turn out to be but nevertheless do pass on traits of behaviour which, as in the case of Amon, if they are not resisted can become like father like son, which is what we see here.
However as we saw in some of the kings of Israel he was not well liked by his officials and they conspired against him and had him assassinated. The people of the land however were not over the moon with these officials and all who had joined in this conspiracy were brought to justice and killed and they made his son Josiah, who was only eight years old, king in his stead. Unlike his father he will prove the opposite in that he wouldn’t follow in his father’s footsteps but become a good king like his great-grandfather, Hezekiah.
Josiah followed the ways of his ancestor David in doing what was right in the eyes of the Lord. Looking back further than our immediate predecessors is sometimes a good thing to do especially when the kind of society they formed was one worthy of praise and remembrance.
The temple of the Lord had been abused in the time of Manasseh and had deteriorated from its original purpose and Josiah set-to to repair things. Payment was made to the artisans who worked on the temple and they appeared to be honest men as accounting was not needed from them for the money. Even in disreputable societies honest people can sometimes be found and this should be a cause of thanks to God.
What happens next is an indication of how far the people had fallen away from the words of God in that it was only in the repair work that the Book of the Law (generally thought to be Deuteronomy) was found. Today it would be equivalent to a rediscovery of the Bible by people. How many people in our country today even have a Bible, and how many people who come to Church have modern readable Bibles? How central is it in the Church’s work and worship? Well worth asking.
“Josiah did what was right in the yes of the Lord” – we rejoice in hearing this again given that numbers of the Kings of Israel and Judah did not do what was right. We notice that the right is “in the eyes of the Lord”, we can sometimes make our own definition about what is right but the biblical writer knows that it is only that which the Lord approves that is really right.
In the restoration of the temple the Book of the Law was found and Shaphan the secretary took it to the King and read it out. The king tore his robes in the symbolic act of grief and sorrow because what he heard made him realise how far the people were from godly obedience. He asked his officials to inquire of the Lord and they went to the prophet Huldah who told them what God’s message was. It was a message of judgement on the people but because Josiah showed true repentance and humbled himself the judgement would not fall during his lifetime; a reflection of what happened in Hezekiah’s day.
When we read God’s Word in the Bible there are various responses but only that which starts in humility is the one that receives God’s blessing.
