Ahaz was twenty years old when he began to reign; and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem. And he did not what was right in the sight of Jehovah his God, like David his father,
Ahaz takes the throne of Judah after a line of kings whose reigns God had already judged. Scripture does not describe him; it measures him against David — which raises three questions: what does God count as right, why is David the standard, and what does God do with a king who fails it?
Ahaz did not inherit a corrupt court. The kings just before him had good records, and he knew it.
Ahaz, king of Judah, came to the throne at a remarkable time in the history of God's earthly people. The three kings before him — Jotham, Azariah and Amaziah — reigned for about 130 years, and all of them had "done what was right in the eyes of the LORD." Ahaz surely knew this. So he knew the standard God sets for a king.
How does a son like this come from a house like that? One writer looks at Ahaz's upbringing.
It seems strange that the best of men often have the worst of sons. Ahaz's mother is not named, and it is possible that his father chose his wife badly. A king has the heavy work of government pressing on him all the time. He can give little time to training his children, so most of that important duty falls to the mother.
The phrase is not a general rating of character. People admired kings whose record before God was terrible.
Notice that this word "evil" is always used in reference to the Lord. It is true that turning away from God often hands the guilty person over to all sorts of moral evil, to crime and impurity, but it is not always so. Jeroboam I, Joash of Israel and Jeroboam II were remarkable kings in the eyes of men. Two of them were "saviours" of their nation, helping to build its reputation and win back its lands. But for God the question is a different one. What matters is the relationship these kings had with Him, and Ahaz king of Judah here as well.
The verse could have compared Ahaz with the good kings just before him. Instead it reaches back to David — and the reason lies in David's heart.
Scripture says this great thing about David: he followed the LORD with all his heart. The LORD had power to take hold of His people's hearts completely. This became the standard for measuring later unfaithful kings: "his heart was not perfect with the LORD his God, as was the heart of David his father." The LORD had all of David's heart, and worship flowed straight out of that. The later kings worshipped the Baals, and that is why they compare so badly with David.
The same standard removes every excuse a bad upbringing might offer. Ahaz's own son Hezekiah shows it:
His father set a very bad example, but Hezekiah did not follow it. Everyone should realize that he does not have to walk in his father's godless footsteps.
The numbers in this verse raise a well-known puzzle.
Ahaz began his reign, Scripture says, when he was twenty years old, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem. And Hezekiah, his son, was twenty-five years old when he came to the throne. This seems to teach that Ahaz was only eleven when Hezekiah was born, which is very unlikely, if not impossible. Modern commentators have suggested various solutions, and none of them is satisfactory. One writer answers them well: "It is never advisable to find any fault with the text except where there is no other tolerable solution, and that is not the case here."
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This verdict does not bring instant judgment. God sends a prophet to the king He has just condemned.
How moving is the patient grace God shows toward this evil king! He reassures him instead of crushing him. He announces rescue to him. He says to him, "Take heed and be quiet" — let Me act. He says "Fear not" to a man who himself had everything to fear.
Ahaz leaned on a human ally instead of God's word. The support he chose became the tool that struck him.
Our fear that trouble will come makes us look for support in what seems to us a safe path. Those are the very things God uses to chastise us. The kings of Israel and Syria came against Judah of their own will. God stops them. Ahaz and his people wanted to lean on the king of Assyria, and in the end God makes the Assyrian come against them.
- Standard set. David is the measure because his heart was wholly God's — not the nearest good example, but the original one.
- Standard refused. Ahaz knew that measure from three good reigns before him, and chose the kings of Israel instead.
- Measured by God. "Evil" is always measured against the Lord. Men God condemned were national heroes to their own people.
- Grace first. God met this condemned king with "Fear not" and a promise of rescue before any judgment came.
- Prop becomes rod. Ahaz refused God's word and leaned on Assyria. Assyria became the power that came against him.
but walked in the way of the kings of Israel, and even caused his son to pass through the fire, according to the abominations of the nations that Jehovah had dispossessed from before the children of Israel.
Ahaz sat on David's throne, but he followed the kings of the north — even burning his own son. How does a king of Judah fall this far, and why is copying those kings the heaviest charge against him?
Judah's kings are charged in many ways. This one is the heaviest, and it has a starting point.
Another effect of the earlier connection with Ahab is that Ahaz walked in the ways of the kings of Israel. This expression seems to mark the greatest guilt of the kings of Judah. Scripture uses it after the marriage link with Ahab. Ahaz burned his children in the fire. Manasseh consulted mediums and spiritists. Could the chosen nation sink lower?
A good king began this pattern generations earlier, with one bad alliance.
The kings of Israel had set a deadly example. That course led Judah and all Israel to ruin (see 2 Kings 16:3). All this began with the godly Jehoshaphat's alliance with Ahab. Evil bears fruit, and that fruit keeps reproducing itself for a long time.
The wording is mild. The act was not. One writer describes what it involved and where Ahaz did it.
He made idolatrous images and burned incense in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom. There he sacrificed his own children to the fire (v. 3). They did this by placing the young child in the arms of a metal idol. Then they lit a fire under it and beat drums to drown out the child's cries. That is how hard-hearted the wickedness of idolatry is. Yet men like Ahaz think they are being very religious when they do it.
Older translations read "pass through the fire" here instead of "burned his son as an offering." One writer names the god behind the rite, and refuses the softer reading.
Satan so blinded parents that they gave their own children as sacrifices to Molech, the god of the Ammonites... Some have argued from "passing through the fire," here and elsewhere, that their children were not burned. But this seems a kindly effort to soften how wicked the act really was. It was the fullest, though not the only, profaning of the name of Israel's God. The Lord accepted a sheep or an ox, or even a much smaller sacrifice; Satan, under these names, demanded their sons.
The verse compares Ahaz with the peoples God removed from Canaan. God had warned Israel long before about those same practices.
A solemn warning closes this chapter. God would cast the people of Canaan out of the land because of their vileness. The Lord would not spare His own people if they practised these things. They did commit all this wickedness. Israel, cast out of the land and wandering homeless, shows that God carried out this solemn warning.
God measures a king in one direction only. His verdict can fall on a ruler the public admires.
He did what was evil in the sight of the Lord like the kings of Israel. Notice that this word "evil" is always given to us in reference to the Lord... Jeroboam I, Joash of Israel, and Jeroboam II were remarkable monarchs in the eyes of men. Two of them were "saviours" of their nation, helping to build its reputation and to win back its territory. But for God the question is a different one. It is a matter of what relationship these kings, like Ahaz king of Judah here, had with Him.
Syria and Israel soon besieged Ahaz. God's answer to a king this far gone was not what you would expect.
The Lord sends Isaiah to meet the king... How moving is the patient grace God shows toward this evil king! He reassures him instead of crushing him. He announces deliverance to him. He says, "Take care and be quiet" — let Me act. He says "Fear not" to the man who had everything to fear.
The attack aimed at more than one man. That is why Jerusalem held.
"The two tails of these smoking firebrands" aimed to remove king Ahaz from the throne and set up "the son of Tabeal" in his place... This was surely Satan's plot, if not man's, to destroy the line of David. For this reason God did not hand Jerusalem over to them... A remnant would be left to return to the land, and the virgin would bear a son. So a king would never fail on the throne of David.
- Pattern — Copying the kings of Israel is the heaviest charge against any king of Judah. It began with one godly king's alliance with Ahab, and that evil bred on for generations.
- Practice — The mild wording covers real child-sacrifice by fire in the Valley of Hinnom. Reading it as anything less only softens the wickedness.
- Power — Behind the idol stood Satan. God accepted an ox or a sheep; Satan demanded their sons — and the men doing it felt religious.
- Precedent — Judah took up the same practices God expelled the Canaanites for. He warned Israel of the same end, and the scattered nation shows He kept His word.
- Patience — God weighs a man by his relationship with Him, not by his public record. Yet He met this king with "Fear not," guarded David's line, and promised the virgin's Son.