171 - King Ahaz—a Wicked King in Judah
- Gwen Diaz
- Jun 20, 2022
- 3 min read
Updated: May 15
JUNE 20 - Nº 171 2 Kings 16; 2 Chronicles 28; Isaiah 7:1-17
Ahaz was 20 years old when he became the ruler of the southern kingdom of Judah. But unlike his father Jotham, he did not obey God. Instead, he brought the detestable practices of Baal worship to Jerusalem. One of them was child sacrifice. King Ahaz even sacrificed his own children on the altars of Baal hoping to please the gruesome god!
During this time, the king of Syria joined forces with Pekah, the king of Israel and attacked Judah. Because of the wicked things Ahaz was doing, God allowed Pekah to slaughter 120,000 of Judah’s soldiers in one day and take 200,000 women and children captive. (We talked about this in #170 - June 19.)
Obed, a prophet of God, met Pekah’s soldiers as they returned to Israel. He challenged them by saying, “God is the One who gave you this victory because He was angry with Judah for worshiping Baal. But now He is angry with you because you went too far. You slaughtered men you did not need to kill and took their women and children as slaves! God will do the same to you if you do not let them go home.” The soldiers wisely returned their prisoners to Judah.
God then sent a prophet named Isaiah to Judah to warn King Ahaz not to offer the king of Assyria a bribe to help him destroy his enemies. Isaiah assured Ahaz that if he would turn to God, God would wipe out both Israel and Syria for him. God promised to give Ahaz a sign that this was true if he would ask for one. But Ahaz refused. He wanted military help from Assyria—not a sign from God!
Isaiah continued the prophecy: “In less time than it will take for a baby to grow up and know right from wrong, the two kings you fear the most will be destroyed.” Included in this prophecy was one of the most important promises in the Bible: “One day a virgin will conceive and give birth to a savior who will ultimately rescue the nation and the world” (Isaiah 7:14).
Unfortunately King Ahaz rejected Isaiah’s message. He sent gold and silver from the Temple treasuries to Tiglath-Pileser, the king of Assyria, with this message: “I will be your servant if you will rescue me from Syria.” Tiglath-Pileser gladly accepted the gift and sent his army to attack Syria. Syria was destroyed, and its people were taken into exile as slaves. Then Tiglath-Pileser invaded Israel. It was at this time that the northern kingdom of Israel was reduced to a tiny strip of land (see #170 - June 19).
King Ahaz of Judah traveled to Damascus to thank Tiglath-Pileser for destroying Syria and devastating Israel. While he was there, he saw an ornate pagan altar. He wanted one just like it for himself. So he copied the plans and sent them back to Jerusalem. A priest named Uriah began to build it right away, and the altar was finished by the time King Ahaz returned to Judah.
Ahaz then took things that belonged in the Temple, broke them apart and used them to make more altars so that he could worship more foreign gods. Defiantly he locked the doors of God’s Temple and forced everyone to worship at the altars he had built instead of at the altar God's priests had previously used.
Many nations continued to attack Judah. The Philistines and the Edomites looted and carried off prisoners. Once again, Ahaz turned to Assyria for help, but this time Tiglath-Pileser refused. Still King Ahaz would not turn to God. Instead, he worshiped more false gods and aligned himself with other nations—hoping they would rescue him.
Do you take the time to talk to God and listen to Him? His solutions are always better than anything we come up with.
King Ahaz was so busy trying to come up with his own solutions that he didn’t take time to listen to God.
He didn’t realize that God is greater than any other power on earth
and that He controls history!
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