verses 6-11
Solomon-- God chose Solomon to reign as king after David his father (1 Kings 1:38-40). One of the best things that Solomon ever did was to pray for wisdom (1 Kings 3). Throughout his reign, Solomon was known for this wisdom and was able to show amazing discernment in all matters of his leadership. Solomon's greatest downfall would have to be. . . WOMEN! He took countless foreign wives and they turned his heart to their foreign gods. "Solomon loved the LORD, walking in the statutes of David his father, only he sacrificed and made offerings at the high places (1 Kings 3:2-4)." Nevertheless, under Solomon's rule, the land prospered due to the great intelligence that the Lord blessed him with. "Judah and Israel were as many as the sand by the sea. They ate and drank and were happy (1 Kings 4:19-21)." Solomon wrote the proverbial book of love known to us as the Song of Solomon and widely quoted at wedding ceremonies. Funny isn't it that for all his wisdom, Solomon was completely stupid about love? The man that wrote the most romantic love song, had countless wives and cheated on God with their foreign gods!
Rehoboam-- The most memorable thing about Rehoboam is that he rejected the counsel of the seasoned cabinet members his father had trusted for years and went with the advice of his young, inexperience friends when it came to an important decision concerning his rule. This turned out to be a very poor choice (1 Kings 12).
Abijah-- He readily admitted that his dad had been a wimp and announced to his enemies that under his rule, Judah would stick with the true God. Abijah's kingdom flourished and he had a very strong rule (2 Chronicles 13).
Asa-- This man was a good king, willing to even stand up to his own mother in order to adhere to righteousness (1 Kings 15:11-13).
Jehoshaphat-- Like his father Asa, Jehoshaphat was a God-fearing king during his reign over Judah. However, he made an alliance with the king of Israel, who was not a God-fearing king. This proved to be very unwize choice.
Joram (also short for Jehoram)-- This time in history gets a little confusing, because for a while, the kings of Judah and Israel have the same name Joram (or Jehoram). This Joram, the son of Jeshoshaphat was considered a bad king in God's perspective. He continued marrying into the family of the king of Israel thus forming alliances with God's enemies (2 Kings 8). Not only did he brazenly lead Jerusalem into sin by following after other gods, he even killed all of his own brothers and many priests (2 Chronicles 21)! As punishment, God inflicted Joram with a disease that made him poop his pants for two years before he finally died writhing in pain and humiliatingly incontinent. No one honored him like they normally honored kings at their death. The whole country was glad to be rid of him.
Uzziah (also commonly known as Ahaziah)-- This is also part of the confusing piece of history because there are a couple of Joram's mentioned who both had sons named Ahaziah (or Uzziah). In fact, I run into both of these names other places as well. They must have been extremely common names back then. He was completely evil and a mama's boy. His mother Athaliah encouraged him in his evil and was only so happy to take over when he died only a year into his rule (2 Chronicles 22).
It is also confusing, because the genealogy skips over a bunch of guys that weren't that memorable (very typical in any telling of a jewish family tree) and then there is another Uzziah! Uzziah was 16 years old when he began to reign (2 Chronicles 26:3) and his mother's name was Jecoliah. This kings fame spread all the way to Egypt because he was such a strong leader. He fortified the city and nicely outfitted the army. "But when he was strong, he grew proud, to his destruction (2 Chronicles 26:16)." This guy actually entered the temple to burn incense which was forbidden unless you were a consecrated priest! He took upon himself that honor! When the priests told him that he was doing wrong he became angry even though the law that God gave them stated clearly that only priests were to have that kind of duty! "When he became angry with the priests, leprosy broke out on his forehead. . .and King Uzzaih was a leper to the day of his death, and being a leper lived in a separate house, for he was excluded from the house of the Lord. And his Jotham his son was over the king's household (2 Chronicles 26:19-21)."
Jotham-- In God's eyes Jotham, the son of Uzziah was a good king following after the example of his father Uzziah minus the pride. His kingdom was strong because he was rooted in a steady and determined life of obedience to God (2 Chronicles 27:1-6).
Ahaz-- How come kids can't be good if their parents are good? Ahaz did not do what was right from God's perspective. He worshipped the homemade Baal gods and even burned his sons alive in the practice of worshipping these gods. This was disgusting to God, therefore God handed him over to the king of Aram who spanked him pretty good. It was quite a slaughter.
To top it off, the Israelites captured 200,000 men, women and children as well as huge cartloads of plunder. God's prophet Oded met the Israelite army and warned, "Stop right where you are and listen! God, the God of your ancestors, was angry with Judah and used you to punish them; but you took things into your own hands and used your anger, uncalled for and irrational, to turn your brothers and sisters from Judah and Jerusalem into slaves. Don't you see that this is a terrible sin against your God? Careful now; do exactly what I say-- return these captives,every last one of them. If you don't , you'll find out how real anger, God's anger works (2 Chronicles 28:9-11)." Some of their leaders agreed, so the soldiers actually freed the prisoners of war! Appointed men gathered the prisoners and gave them clothing, shoes, food, first aid and transportation for the sick ones and escorted them back and reuniting them with their families! How often do you see that happen in a time of war?
About this time Ahaz asked the king of Assyria for help. Assyria came and attacked them even more! To make matters worse, Ahaz ransacked the temple for gifts hoping to appease the king of Assyria but still got not a bit of help. Every time people were against Ahaz, he continued to be against God! He never learned his lesson. He never asked God for help.
Hezekiah-- Ahaz's son turned out to be a good king! Perhaps his mother Abijah had something to do with his upbringing because unlike his father Ahaz, Hezekiah held the high standards of King David. He had the priests clean up the temple that his dad had defiled. When the temple was finally clean again, he threw a party complete with an orchestra and choir of Levites and Priests! Then a month or so later, they planned a grand passover feast! Because of the corruption of past kings, no on living had ever celebrated it properly! They picked a different time than prescribed so that more people would have time to prepare themselves, and God accepted it. When the 7 days of passover celebration had ended, they decided to go on for another 7 days! Some had not prepared for the ceremony adequately and Hezekiah prayed for them, "May God who is all good, pardon and forgive everyone who sincerely desires God, the God of our ancestors. Even-- especially!-- these who do not meet the literal conditions stated for access to the Temple." God heard Hezekiah's prayer and healed the people! After the passover feast, they smashed the penis shaped statues and tore down all the other sex-religion buildings.
The King of Assyria came to attach Judah under Hezekiah's reign. Hezekiah tore out all the running water outside of the city and reinforced the city's walls. He also built up the people's morale, saying, "Be strong! Take courage! Don't be intimidated. . .there are more on our side than on their side. He only has a bunch of mere men; we have our God to help us and fight for us!" The King of Assyria sent messengers to shout up insults at the walls lumping th eGod of Jerusalem in with the handmade gods of other nations. King Hezekiah and the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz, prayed to God about this. God answered by sending an angel to wipe out the Assyrian army. The King returned home disgraced and his own sons killed him when he went to worship in the temple of his idol. So God saved Hezekiah and the people of Jerusalem from Assyria and everyone else.
Once Hezekiah became arrogant. This made God angry and affected Judah and Jerusalem. But Hezekiah repented of his arrogance and God withdrew his anger. God continued to bless Hezekiah and his kingdom.
Mannasseh-- This kid became king at 12 and he was evil-- nothing like his dad Hezekiah. He brought back all the bad things his dad had gotten rid of. He built penis statues, followed astrology for advice and even built astrology shrines and statues of sex-gods in the temple of GOD! He did witchcraft, fortune-telling and tried talking with dead people. He burned his sons to death in worship to some god made in shop class. Disgusting.
God sent Assyria after him. They but a hook in Mannaseh's nose as if he were a bull and chained his feet and took him away as a prisoner. Hitting rock bottom, was enough to change Mannaseh's heart. He prayed to God asking for help and was actually sorry for what he had done. He genuinely wanted to change. "As he prayed, God was touched; God listened and brought him back to Jerusalem as king. That convinced Mannaseh that God was in control (2 Chronicles 33:13)."
Mannaseh tore down all the nasty things he had built and told the people to once again worship God
Amon-- (2 Chronicles 33:21-23) Like his dad, he was an evil king except he did not repent like his father did. Amon’s servants killed the 24 year old king after only two years of reign. The citizens then killed the assassins and crowned Josiah, Amon’s son as king.
Josiah-- (2 Chronicles 34) This kid was 8 years old when crowned and reigned for 31 years. He was a good king regardless of his youth. He began to follow God at the age of 16. At the age of 20 he began to clean the country of the sex temples and many other idols. When he was 26, he commissioned a much needed renovation of the Temple. During the renovation, the high priest at the time, found a copy of the portion of the old testament written by Moses. This would be Genesis through Deuteronomy! The kings had gone in and out of corruption so many times, that they had actually lost it! The high-priest gave the book to the mayor, who read it to King Josiah. When King Josiah heard the words written in the Bible, he was dismayed because the country of Judah had not been following its directions! He called a gathering of the entire nation and read the entire book aloud to everyone himself! They celebrated the passover for the first time since Samuel was a prophet. After a good life, honoring God, Josiah died in battle.
Jehoiachin-- (2 Chronicles 36) The geneology skips to Josiah’s grandson Johoiachin. He was an evil king and reigned for only 3 months and 10 days!
After this, the people were taken into the Babylonian exile.
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