2 Chronicles · chapter 25 of 36
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2 Chronicles 25 tells the reign of Amaziah of Judah: he does right, but not wholeheartedly. He obeys a prophet and dismisses the mercenaries from Israel, defeats Edom, and then worships the gods of the defeated. He challenges Joash of Israel, is beaten at Beth-shemesh and is finally assassinated at Lachish.
After Joash's assassination (chapter 24), his son Amaziah takes the throne of Judah. The Chronicler presents him as a king with real virtues but a divided faith. The chapter shows how half-hearted obedience leads from victory to pride and from pride to defeat.
Amaziah is twenty-five years old when he begins to reign and reigns twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. He does right in the sight of the Lord, but not with a whole heart. Once his kingdom is secure, he kills the servants who had murdered his father, but not their children, as written in the law of Moses. He gathers Judah and Benjamin, counts three hundred thousand chosen men for war and hires a hundred thousand warriors from Israel for a hundred talents of silver.
A man of God warns him not to take the army of Israel with him, because the Lord is not with them, and that God has power to help or to cast down. Amaziah asks about the hundred talents, and the prophet answers that the Lord can give him much more. He dismisses the soldiers of Israel, who go home in a rage. Amaziah attacks in the Valley of Salt and kills ten thousand Edomites; another ten thousand are captured and thrown from the top of a cliff. Meanwhile the dismissed soldiers raid cities of Judah and kill three thousand people.
Amaziah brings the gods of the Edomites, sets them up as his gods and burns incense to them. A prophet asks why he seeks gods who did not deliver their own people. The king answers with contempt, and the prophet announces that God has determined to destroy him. Then Amaziah sends a challenge to Joash, king of Israel. Joash replies with the parable of a thistle asking for a cedar's daughter, and tells him his heart has grown proud from defeating Edom. Amaziah does not listen. At Beth-shemesh Judah is defeated; Joash captures Amaziah, breaks down about four hundred cubits of Jerusalem's wall, plunders the temple and the palace and takes hostages.
Amaziah lives fifteen years after Joash's death. From the time he stopped following the Lord, a conspiracy forms in Jerusalem; he flees to Lachish, and they kill him there. He is brought back on horses and buried with his fathers.
References follow ESV book names and verse numbers. Read each verse in your Bible before the explanation.
Amaziah did right in the sight of the Lord, but not with a whole heart. In one sentence the Chronicler sums up the chapter: partial obedience that holds only while it is convenient.
When Amaziah worries about the silver he already paid, the prophet answers that the Lord can give him much more. God asks for obedience even when it costs, and promises that what is lost for his sake is not lost.
Amaziah brings the gods of the Edomites and worships them. It is absurd: he honors the gods of a people he has just defeated. The victory God gave him becomes an occasion for idolatry.
Amaziah would not listen to Joash's counsel, because it was from God, who meant to give them into the hand of their enemies for seeking the gods of Edom. Even the defeat falls within God's judgment on idolatry.
6 questions with answers and references, ready for Sunday school, small group or a Bible quiz night.
Answer: He did right in the sight of the Lord, but not with a whole heart. — 2 Chronicles 25:2
Answer: Because the law of Moses says each person dies for his own sin, not parents for children or children for parents. — 2 Chronicles 25:4
Answer: That they should not go with him, because the Lord was not with Israel. — 2 Chronicles 25:7
Answer: Ten thousand. — 2 Chronicles 25:11
Answer: He set them up as his own gods, bowed down before them and burned incense to them. — 2 Chronicles 25:14
Answer: At Beth-shemesh. — 2 Chronicles 25:21-22
Amaziah's divided heart is a question for anyone who serves the Lord: do I obey only where it suits me? The king obeyed the prophet when it cost him a hundred talents, which was admirable, but afterward he let success carry him to another loyalty. A small group can talk about areas where obedience is partial and which victories or achievements can become occasions to forget God.
The humility that was missing also shows. Amaziah despised counsel and rushed into an unnecessary war. Pride closes the ears to warnings. Let us ask God for a teachable heart, one that listens to brothers and sisters and to the Word before acting, and let us remember that when he asks something of us, he is also able to give us much more.
2 Chronicles 25 shows how a king who began well ended defeated and assassinated, because he obeyed God only in part. With the reign of his son Uzziah, in chapter 26, Judah will know years of prosperity, but the Chronicler warns that pride rises again.
It means Amaziah did what was required, but his loyalty to the Lord was not complete. The chapter confirms it: he obeyed when the prophet spoke and bowed before foreign gods when he won the war.
He applied what the law of Moses sets out: each person answers for his own sin, not for his parents'. The Chronicler highlights it as a point in Amaziah's favor.
Joash compares Amaziah to a small thistle that wants to marry into a cedar's family, and says a wild beast tramples it. It is his way of saying Amaziah has grown proud from defeating Edom and should not provoke a war he will lose.