Jehoshaphat was thirty-five years old when he began to reign; and he reigned twenty-five years in Jerusalem; and his mother's name was Azubah, the daughter of Shilhi.
After Ahab's death, 1 Kings turns to the throne of Judah. One line sums up a whole reign: Jehoshaphat's age, his years on the throne, and his mother's name.
Kings gives Jehoshaphat only a brief notice. What it does say sets him beside his father.
Not a great deal is said about Jehoshaphat in Kings, though more is recorded of him in 2 Chronicles 17-20. He became king at 35 years of age and reigned 25 years. He followed the example of his father Asa, in general doing what was right before God.
Add the two numbers and you have the length of his life. His mother's name appears in only one other place in Scripture.
Jehoshaphat reigned twenty-five years, and died at the age of sixty. His mother, Azubah, was the only other person in Scripture to bear the name of Caleb's first wife (1 Chron. 2:18).
Kings names the mother of one king after another. One writer follows that thread through these books, and finds it again in a family Paul knew.
Throughout these books we will see how the mothers' character, and where they came from, influenced their children. A godly mother sees her sons prospering around her. The apostle Paul reminds Timothy of his blessed ancestry: "I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, dwells in you as well" (2 Tim. 1:5).
The same principle runs the other way. Where the mother's line was corrupt, that too showed in the children:
On the mother's side, the family line was evil, and a mother has enormous influence for good or evil.
Still, a good mother is no guarantee. Some kings broke the pattern in both directions.
But whatever the effect of these good or bad influences, grace alone explains the characters of Hezekiah and of Josiah. The last kings of Judah prove it: they were ungodly despite their Jewish mothers and their godly father.
Jehoshaphat's first act as king was to strengthen Judah against Israel in the north. Israel was the danger he guarded against first — and the one he never shook off.
Jehoshaphat's first act was to "strengthen himself against Israel." This is worth noticing. Israel and Israel's king were always a snare to the heart of Jehoshaphat. But at the start of his reign, while he was still fresh, he was able to fortify his kingdom against the power of Israel. Now, one often observes this in the history of Christians. The evils that prove their greatest snares in later life are the ones they watched against most carefully at first. It is a happy thing when our watchfulness grows as we learn more about what our own hearts can do. But sadly it is not always so. How often we find Christians of some years' standing allowing themselves things their consciences would once have shrunk from.
These closing verses end a book full of collapse. They bring relief — though not without regret.
A few words close this book (vv. 41-50) and refresh our heart a little amid so much ruin. Jehoshaphat was faithful, though not free from reproach. He was not zealous enough to destroy the high places, the remains of the idolatry planted in Judah. He did wipe out the shameful men who had settled in the land along with the idolatry of Canaan. But one sees with regret that he joins himself with Ahab's son Ahaziah, who does wickedly, and joins with him in building ships to go to Ophir for gold.
Yet the record does not end there. Loss taught him what success never did:
Thank God, after the prophet's word and the destruction of his fleet, Jehoshaphat understood the great weakness of his life. An alliance with the world, whatever its purpose, is a thing God disapproves of. It will bring judgment upon His children.
- Named — One line holds a whole life: king at thirty-five, twenty-five years on the throne, dead at sixty, his mother Azubah named beside him.
- Formed — Mothers mattered. Their character and where they came from shaped their sons, for good or for evil.
- Given — Influence is not enough. Grace alone explains why some sons stood and others fell.
- Guarded — He began by strengthening himself against Israel. The evil we watch hardest at the start is often the one that snares us later.
- Finished — Faithful, but not faultless. The high places stayed, yet by the end he knew that an alliance with the world brings God's judgment.
And he walked in all the way of Asa his father; he turned not aside from it, doing what was right in the sight of Jehovah. Only, the high places were not removed the people offered and burned incense still on the high places.
One verse gives Jehoshaphat two verdicts: he did what was right, and yet the high places stayed. That word "yet" raises three questions — what the high places were, why a good king left them, and how God can praise a man and still record his flaw.
Scripture gives honourable mention to kings who handled their own responsibility well. That honour stands beside their failures; it does not deny them.
Each in his own day handled his personal responsibility well, and so honourable mention is made of David (1 Kings 15:5), of Asa (1 Kings 15:11), and of Jehoshaphat (1 Kings 22:43). Each of them could therefore take comfort from the express promise given to such men in Psalm 101:6. Personal failures still searched their hearts, and each had reason to mourn over them with a humbled spirit. Absolute perfection is seen only in the LORD's "Servant."
The problem was not always open idol worship. Some of these sites served the worship of the true God, and that is what makes them so instructive.
Readers should study Deuteronomy 12 carefully. The LORD told His people about the ways of the nations around them, and forbade them to copy those ways. The Word alone must govern them in everything to do with worship, as indeed in everything else. The LORD would choose His own centre, and there His people must bring their burnt offerings and sacrifices... The time soon came, sadly, when Israel chose high places for themselves. Some of these were for idolatrous worship, and some for the worship of the LORD. But all the high places were offensive in His sight, whatever the motives of those who set them up. They expressed the self-will of the creature, and hearts not subject to His commandments.
Chronicles says Jehoshaphat took the high places away. Kings says they were not. Commentators explain the difference in two ways. One reading finds two kinds of high place.
This last statement does not contradict what is said in 1 Kings 22:43. He removed the high places and groves used for the worship of Baal; "yet the high places (dedicated to the LORD) were not taken away, and the people still sacrificed and made offerings (to the true God) on the high places."... He abolished idolatry, but he could not bring the people to see that offering sacrifices anywhere other than Jerusalem was against God's law and dangerous.
The other reading is about timing. He began the work but lost the power to finish it — and his father Asa left the same mixed record.
This only proves that at the beginning of his reign Jehoshaphat set out to abolish them and kept it up himself. But the people quickly slipped back into these idolatrous practices, because their consciences had never been reached. His alliance with the king of Israel had weakened Jehoshaphat, so he could not use his authority to lead the people in the right way. It had been the same with Asa: one passage says he removed the high places out of all the cities of Judah (2 Chronicles 14:5), another that the high places were not removed from Israel (2 Chronicles 15:17)... All this can easily be explained. Let us remember that God never contradicts Himself.
God blessed men who had grown up inside this practice and never questioned it. That blessing was not approval of the practice.
God met these good men, honoured and blessed them, as He does thousands inside religious systems today... These godly men had grown up in the evil and been taught it, so the question of whether it was right had never arisen in their consciences. God therefore blessed and owned their faithfulness up to the light they had... Did He therefore approve this direct violation of His own word, or endorse it, or even turn a blind eye to it? He has answered that Himself with unmistakable clearness: "Yet the high places were not taken away." Again and again this qualifies the approval He expresses of the otherwise faithful acts of His servants. It shows that He never lost sight of the sin, even though they had grown up unaware of it.
Sincerity does not settle how we may come to God. What we offer must match what He has revealed.
Clearly man is not to decide his own ways as a worshipper. Willingness in worship is right; wilfulness destroys it all... we are to worship "in spirit" — that is perfectly true — in the grace and liberty of the Holy Spirit whom God has given us. But we are to worship "in truth" also, according to God's revelation of Himself and of His worship... Keeping groves and high places in Israel always showed that the people had not properly prepared their hearts to seek the LORD God of Israel. He is the only true God, and He had set His name at Jerusalem.
- Commended — Scripture gives Jehoshaphat honourable mention for doing right. Only God's "Servant" is perfect.
- Qualified — the word "yet" is God's own comment. He blesses faithfulness up to the light a person has, but He never loses sight of the sin.
- Defined — a high place could honour the true God and still be wrong. It expressed self-will, not submission to His Word.
- Explained — commentators differ on the Chronicles account. Some see two kinds of high place. Others see a reform that began well and then failed.
- Applied — willingness in worship is right, but wilfulness ruins it. Worship must be in spirit and in truth, on ground God Himself has chosen.