Sunday 9th February
Read Psalm 95
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
This is the most quoted Psalm in the New Testament and with reason. It is a call to worship and a warning to those who won’t and who turn away from God. The majority of it is marvellous poetry telling of the greatness of God and giving invitations to praise: –
“Come let us bow down in worship, Let us kneel before the Lord our Maker, For He is our God, And we are the people of His pasture, The flock under his care” Believing this gives us certain cause to praise and thank God. I once remember telling a man who said he was an atheist that the thing about atheists was that they had no-one to thank. He paused at that and had no real answer. We however who gather in Church Sunday by Sunday are declaring that we do believe He is our maker and Shepherd and worthy of all our praise and glad service. We are glad to “Shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation …. And extol Him with music and song” (v1,2). Say Amen to that today.
READINGS FOR THE WEEK AHEAD
As you read the Bible Stop; Read; Ponder; and Pray.
In this passage we come to Jeroboam the son of Jehoash, also referred to as Jeroboam the second to differentiate him from the Jeroboam who split the nation and formed the Northern Kingdom of Israel back in the time of Rehoboam.
He was the fourth generation from Jehu and was the longest serving King of Israel. The writer of Kings says he did evil in the eyes of the Lord by not turning away from the worship of the Golden Calves the First Jeroboam had set up at Bethel and Dan.
He was a successful militaristic King expanding the territory and enriching the Kingdom which archaeological evidence shows had become the most populace part of the Levant in the 8th Century BC. The prophets Hosea, Joel, Amos and Jonah lived during this time and condemned the materialism of the Kingdom – Amos says “Woe to those who lie upon beds of ivory …. Dining on choice calves … drink wine by the bowlful … etc” (Amos 6). Despite the fact that God had used Jeroboam to bring relief to the people their resultant wealth didn’t turn them back to the Lord. Always a warning to those who find themselves with more than they need.
Tuesday 2 Kings 15:1-7
In this chapter we are introduced to Azariah as King of Judah after his father Amaziah. There are conflicting lengths of his reign given in Kings and in Chronicles (29 or 52 years) but the likely resolve of these is that the King named Uzziah was in fact Azariah, the one being the personal name and the other the royal name also co-regency between Kings and their sons was not uncommon and when the date that reigns begin can be either at the beginning of co-regency or when full reign began.
However, we are told in Kings that Azariah did right in the eyes of the Lord although the high places of sacrifice were not removed and also that he suffered from Leprosy, his son Jotham becoming co-regent. These details confirm the name of Azariah as the personal name of Uzziah because Jotham is marked as Uzziah’s son (15:32). His leprosy is described as coming about through overstepping his Kingly role and entering the Temple and offering incense which only the priests could do (2 Chron 26). So his reign is viewed as mixed and his name is well known through the book of Isaiah where Isaiah speaks of his vision in chapter 6 as being given “In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne, and the train of his robe filled the Temple”. It was a good reminder that amidst all the comings and goings of the Earthly Kings there was one sovereign King over all, a useful thing for us to remember in all the political goings-on in our present age.
Wednesday 2 Kings 15:8-28
The Kingdom of Judah is left for the moment and it is to Israel (the Northern Kingdom with its capital in Samaria) that is turned to and to a string of short-lived Kings. They are short lived because of internal intrigues.
Jehu who we saw earlier and who assassinated Ahab, Jezebel and all their house was commended by God and promised that his house would hold the Kingship of Israel down to the fourth generation. This happened and was completed when Zechariah the son of Jeroboam the second came to the throne, however the statement about his reign was similar to many, “he did evil in the eyes of the Lord”. He only reigned 6 months before being assassinated by Shallum. Shallum only reigned for one month before he was assassinated by Menahem. Menahem heldg onto his throne however it was at a cost for Pul, the King of Assyria, invaded the land and extracted from Menahem a thousand talents of silver. After a titular ten year reign he died and his son Pekahiah reigned for two years before one of his chief officers, Pekah the son of Remaliah assassinated him and succeeded him.
If your ears spring up at the name Pekah son of Remaliah it is because he features in the prophesy of Isaiah chapter 9. That chapter tells us that through Isaiah God told Jotham, son of Uzziah, the King of Judah not to fear the forces of Assyria invading every land in the near East and that God would give him a sign of security. Jotham refuses to ask God for a sign but God tells him that he will give him a sign anyway and that is the well-known passage beginning with “Behold a virgin shall conceive ….”.
Thursday 2 Kings 15:29-31
The next verses tell of the beginning of the end for Israel, the Northern Kingdom. During the time of Pekah of Israel, Tiglath-Pileser, King of Assyria over-ran and conquered much of the land just as Isaiah had prophesied would happen later on from God’s initial deliverance of them.
Once again unhappiness with the King is seen when Hoshea son of Elah conspires against Pakah and assassinates him seizing the Kingdom for himself however it did him little good for he became a vassal of the King of Assyria paying him taxes and having to acknowledge him as the overall ruler. Hoshea continued in the way of his predecessors doing evil in the eyes of the Lord. At the end of the day it is the latter that counts; no matter what we have done or have in the way of this worlds goods it is what we are in the eyes of the Lord that counts.
Friday 2 Kings 15:32-16:20
We return to what was going on in Judah now and while Pekah was reigning in Israel, Jotham the sun of Uzziah began to reign in Judah. He reigned for 16 years and the writer says, “did what was right in the eyes of the Lord” but like others, the high places where people offered sacrifices continued. However the situation in Judah was not great in that Rezin King of Aram and Pekah son of Remaliah came against them.
When Jotham died his son Ahaz became King, but he did not follow in the footsteps of his father for it says that he did not do what was right but followed the ways of the Kings of Israel. His departure from the truth was such that he even sacrificed his son in the fire according to the detestable practices of the nations round about.
He found himself under the cosh of Rezin and Pekah as both Aram and Israel had joined together to fight against Judah. Ahaz sent to Tiglath-Pileser of Assyria to come and help him and took much treasure from the Temple and the royal Palace as a gift. The Assyrians complied and at first attacked Damascus, the Capital of the Arameans, deporting its inhabitants to Kir East of the Euphrates.
When he was at Damascus Ahaz went to meet him and while he was there he saw an altar that caught his eye and he wanted one like it; he sent drawings back to Jerusalem for one to be built instructing Uriah the priest on how it was to be used. Judah was drawn away from the Lord under him and after he died, his son Hezekiah succeeded him.
In this chapter we come to the last King of Israel, Hoshea, who also “did evil in the eyes of the Lord” though he wasn’t the worst of them (v2). He was a vassal of Shalmaneser the King of Assyria but Shalmaneser found out that he had been trying to change allegiance to Egypt and so he imprisoned him, Samaria was put under siege and eventually fell with the whole of the land of Israel. The existing inhabitants were carried off and resettled in Assyria in various places and thus came the end of the Northern kingdom of the Jews. These became the supposed ‘lost tribes of Israel’.
The rest of the chapter gives the reason God scattered them, listing all the sins and crimes of the people who had turned aside from God and all his laws down generations (v7).
The writer reminds us that it all started with Jeroboam and the split in David and Solomon’s Kingdom around 930/920 BC (v21). When the Assyrians over-ran and dispersed the Israelites, it was now 722 BC.
