A father and son could hardly differ more. Jotham gets six quiet verses of a kingdom made mighty because he prepared his ways before the LORD. His son Ahaz gets the rest of this book’s attention for the next chapter and a half — molten images, his own children burned in the fire, a temple stripped and finally shut, and a closing verdict so blunt the text simply names him: this is that king Ahaz.
A study in 2 Chronicles 27-28 · Arthur Baldwin · StandUp4Jesus.Org · 12 min read
Jotham Prepared His Ways Before The LORD
“And he did that which was right in the sight of the LORD, according to all that his father Uzziah did: howbeit he entered not into the temple of the LORD.… So Jotham became mighty, because he prepared his ways before the LORD his God.”
2 Chronicles 27:2, 6
That one qualifying clause — “howbeit he entered not into the temple” — is Jotham’s whole character in five words. He watched his father’s leprosy rise in that exact room (His Heart Was Lifted Up To His Destruction) and drew the only sane conclusion: stay out. Ammon pays him tribute for three straight years without a war fought over it (27:5), and the text gives the plainest possible reason for all of it — not luck, not inheritance, but a king who “prepared his ways before the LORD.”
“The judgment that befell Uzziah seemed to have a restraining influence on his son. Jotham bore heavy responsibilities during the later years of his father’s reign and succeeded to the throne after Uzziah’s death.”
Ellen G. White · Prophets and Kings, p. 305
He Did Not That Which Was Right, Like David His Father
“Ahaz was twenty years old when he began to reign… but he did not that which was right in the sight of the LORD, like David his father: For he walked in the ways of the kings of Israel, and made also molten images for Baalim.”
2 Chronicles 28:1-2
Every reforming king in this book gets measured against “David his father.” Ahaz is the first one this book simply says failed the comparison outright, with no qualifying “but not with a perfect heart” the way Amaziah earned. And the next verse goes further than any king before him has gone: “he burnt his children in the fire, after the abominations of the heathen” (28:3) — child sacrifice, in Jerusalem, by a son of David.
“This was indeed a time of great peril for the chosen nation. Only a few short years, and the ten tribes of the kingdom of Israel were to be scattered among the nations of heathendom. And in the kingdom of Judah also the outlook was dark.”
Ellen G. White · Prophets and Kings, p. 324
The LORD Delivered Him Into The Hand Of The King Of Syria
“Wherefore the LORD his God delivered him into the hand of the king of Syria… And he was also delivered into the hand of the king of Israel, who smote him with a great slaughter.… Pekah the son of Remaliah slew in Judah an hundred and twenty thousand in one day.”
2 Chronicles 28:5-6
Two enemies in a single chapter, both explicitly sent — not merely permitted, delivered — by the LORD Himself. A hundred twenty thousand dead in one day is the single bloodiest verse this book records against Judah, worse than anything Shishak or the Moabite coalition inflicted on more faithful kings.
Sins Against The LORD Your God
“Behold, because the LORD God of your fathers was wroth with Judah, he hath delivered them into your hand, and ye have slain them in a rage that reacheth up unto heaven.… Are there not with you, even with you, sins against the LORD your God?”
2 Chronicles 28:9-10
Oded confronts the victorious army from the north as it returns to Samaria with two hundred thousand Judean captives (28:8) — a prophet of the LORD, rebuking Israel for a victory God Himself had just granted them. Being the instrument of judgment, Oded insists, is not the same as being innocent.
They Clothed All That Were Naked Among Them
“The men which were expressed by name rose up, and took the captives, and with the spoil clothed all that were naked among them, and arrayed them, and shod them, and gave them to eat and to drink, and anointed them, and carried all the feeble of them upon asses, and brought them to Jericho.”
2 Chronicles 28:15
Four named heads of Ephraim take Oded’s rebuke seriously enough to act on it immediately — not a token release, but captives clothed from the very spoil taken from them, fed, anointed, the weak carried on donkeys all the way home to Jericho. This is the closest thing to the parable of the good Samaritan anywhere in the Old Testament, and it comes from the kingdom this book otherwise treats as almost entirely apostate. Chronicles is not interested in a simple map of good Judah and bad Israel. Mercy shows up exactly where the narrative logic says it should not.
Ahaz Sent Unto The Kings Of Assyria To Help Him
“For Ahaz took away a portion out of the house of the LORD, and out of the house of the king, and of the princes, and gave it unto the king of Assyria: but he helped him not.… Tilgath-pilneser… distressed him, but strengthened him not.”
2 Chronicles 28:20-21
Asa bought Syria’s help with temple silver and it worked, in the narrow sense (Asa Sent To Ben-Hadad King Of Syria). Ahaz tries the identical move with Assyria on a larger scale, emptying the temple, the palace, and the princes’ own houses — and it simply fails. Assyria takes the payment and gives nothing back but more distress. The strategy that once bought Asa a rebuke buys Ahaz nothing at all.
“Had Ahaz and the chief men of his realm been true servants of the Most High, they would have had no fear of so unnatural an alliance as had been formed against them. But repeated transgression had shorn them of strength.”
Ellen G. White · Prophets and Kings, p. 328
This Is That King Ahaz
“And in the time of his distress did he trespass yet more against the LORD: this is that king Ahaz.… He said, Because the gods of the kings of Syria help them, therefore will I sacrifice to them, that they may help me. But they were the ruin of him.”
2 Chronicles 28:22-23
“This is that king Ahaz” is a verdict, not a description — the same conquering gods that had just defeated him get worshiped for it, the exact logic Amaziah already tried with Edom’s gods and lost by (Why Hast Thou Sought After The Gods Of The People?). Then the last measure: temple vessels cut in pieces, the doors of the house of the LORD shut, altars built “in every corner of Jerusalem” (28:24). Every previous apostate king in this book left the temple standing, however neglected. Ahaz is the first to close it.
“And Ahaz slept with his fathers, and they buried him in the city, even in Jerusalem: but they brought him not into the sepulchres of the kings of Israel.”
2 Chronicles 28:27
His own father Jotham is buried “in the city of David,” the standard formula this book gives its better kings. Ahaz gets only “the city” — the same demotion his grandfather Jehoram received (He Departed Without Being Desired), earned this time not by murder but by the doors he chose to shut. His son inherits a temple standing closed, and the very next study in this book will open with that son reopening it on the first day he has the power to do so.
