Chronicles: A History of Evil Kings
End of An Era
As we wrap up our series on the historical section of the Old Testament, it is important to keep in mind that Chronicles is doing an overview of the history of 1 & 2 Samuel and 1 & 2 Kings as well. When we reach chapter 10 in 2 Chronicles, Solomon is no longer with us and we find a line of evil kings from chapter 10 all the way to the end of chapter 36! Now it is important to note that not all of the kings mentioned here in this section were evil and against the Lord, but a majority were. Now if this is God’s people were are talking about, how do their leaders become so corrupt and fall away from God’s plan? Why can’t more kings and rulers be like David who even in his sin, turned to God? Also, if these kings are choosing unrighteousness, why does God allow them to remain? Why not start over at King if the current one is the Lord anyway? These are the questions that we will answer in this post today, but first, we must address the end of Solomon’s reign. Solomon died being quite possibly the most famous king on earth at the time, and leaving the Temple of The Lord as his greatest accomplishment. 2 Chronicles 9:30-31 says, “Solomon reigned in Jerusalem over all Israel for forty years. And Solomon lay down with his fathers and was buried in the city of his father David; and his son Rehoboam reigned in his place.” From the rule of Rehoboam and on, we see a list of Kings that never quite reach the level of Solomon and especially David. Loving Gospel even notes, “From the end of King Solomon's rule, there were thirty-nine good and evil Kings that reigned over Judah and Israel combined. Of the thirty-nine, there were only eight good Kings and they all reigned in Judah. Every single King in Israel, all nineteen of them were evil.” This is a wildly sorrowful statistic. With this in mind, however, let’s see how exactly these kings fell away from the Lord and why God allowed them to remain in power.
Ignorance
To begin, we don’t have to look far to find the first King who fell away from God and chose power over serving the Lord. Solomon’s own son Rehoboam would be the first example of this. When deciding what he should do as king, Rehoboam sought after the advice of elders who assisted his father when he was king and he also sought after the advice of younger men to see what they would do in his position. I bet you can guess which advice he took that was dishonoring to God. 2 Chronicles 10:6-8 says, “And then King Rehoboam consulted with the elders who had served his father Solomon while he was still alive, saying, “How do you advise me to answer this people?” They spoke to him, saying, “If you are kind to this people and please them and speak pleasant words to them, then they will be your servants always.” But he ignored the advice of the elders which they had given him, and consulted with the young men who had grown up with him and served him.” Probably one of the biggest ways men would fall away from God as king would be by the abuse of power. We see this very same temptation happening with rulers all around the world today as well. The saying ‘With great power comes great responsibility’ isn’t just popular, it’s true. Without responsibility as a leader, you will quickly abuse the power you have for selfish gain. But I want to point out a different reason many kings like Rehoboam fell away from the Lord.
Many of us know that power is different in the hands of a righteous ruler as opposed to an unrighteous one, but is that simply it? Is selfish motives the only thing that really separates a good king from a bad one? While selfish motives may always follow an evil king, I think there is another aspect of evil rulers that leads them away from the Lord. This aspect is seen in verse 8 above. We see in this verse that Rehobam ‘ignored the advice of the elders’. Ignorance is a trait and characteristic that I believe every evil ruler possessed in the Old Testament. These people had recent memories of Solomon and even David’s reign as king and saw what could be if they remained servants of the Lord. At some point, in order to choose your own path instead of God’s, you don’t just need to be selfish, you need to be ignorant. Imagine hearing the great stories of your grandfather when he was king and how God blessed him so mightily because of how committed he was to the Lord and passing up on this opportunity for yourself. When looking at evil kings near the end of 2 Chronicles, a case can be made that every one of those kings didn’t choose their own way because they didn’t know God, but rather because they ignored Him. To have such a rich and recent history of God leading your family and still abandoning the Lord is nothing short of sheer ignorance.
Discipline & Glory
So why didn’t God just start over at king? The answer to this question has two parts, discipline and glory. One of the greatest examples of this is found at the end of 2 Kings when a King named Zedekiah took over. Look at what 2 Kings 24:18-20 says “Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he became king, and he reigned for eleven years in Jerusalem; and his mother’s name was Hamutal the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah. He did evil in the sight of the LORD, in accordance with everything that Jehoiakim had done. For it was due to the anger of the LORD that this happened in Jerusalem and Judah, until He cast them out of His presence. And Zedekiah revolted against the king of Babylon.” Remember, having a king in the first place was not what God intended for His people, this whole mess started with Israel asking for Saul. Therefore, when an evil ruler arises, they aren’t just unrighteous toward God, but they are also used as a means of discipline since the people that are under them will be ruled unrighteously as well. And even beyond the discipline, we can see the glory of God through these kings. It may be hard to see it at first glance, but when you take the whole history of Israel into consideration, you can’t help but honor and glorify God for the great God that He is and because of the terrible selfishness and ignorance that follow mankind everywhere. This is a huge reason that many passages from the Old Testament are repeated in the New. They are a reminder of God’s greatness and glory, even they are reminders of tough times. I hope and pray that this month has filled you with knowledge and insight on the historical section of scripture as we tackled the timeline of Chronicles. May your love for God’s Word be increased as we close our session on history, and dive into our next section next month!
Sources
[1] Blue Letter Bible. (n.d.). Blue Letter Bible. https://www.blueletterbible.org/
[2] Good and Evil Kings. (n.d.). https://www.lovinggospel.com/GoodandEvilKings.html
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