2 Kings 16

Ahaz becomes Judah’s king

In the seventeenth year of Remaliah (Pekah’s son), Ahaz (the son of Judah’s King Jotham) began to reign. Ahaz was twenty years old when he took the throne, and he reigned for sixteen years from Jerusalem. He did not do what was right in the Existing One’s eyes, unlike his father David, but rather he walked in the ways of Israel’s other kings. He even burned his own son as an offering just like the despicable practices of the prior people group that inhabited that land before the Existing One drove them out. He offered sacrifices at the shrines and on the hills under every green tree.

Israel and Syria attack Judah, Assyria helps Judah defeat Syria

Then Syria’s King Rezin and Israel’s King Pekah (Remaliah’s son) came to wage war on Jerusalem, and they attacked Ahaz but couldn’t defeat him. Syria’s King Rezin only managed to recover Elath for Syria, driving Judah’s people out and replacing them with Edomites where they still live to this day. So Ahaz sent messengers to Assyria’s King Tiglath-pileser saying, “I am your servant and son. Come rescue me from Syria’s king and Israel’s king who are both attacking me.” Ahaz also took the silver and gold from the Existing One’s house along with the valuables from the king’s house and sent them to Assyria’s king as a gift. Assyria’s King listened and sent his army to Damascus where they  killed Rezin, captured the city, and took it’s people captive to Kir.

Judah’s Ahaz introduces Assyrian altar

When King Ahaz went to Damascus to meet Assyria’s King Tiglath-ileser, he saw the altar at Damazcus, and King Ahaz sent an exact model of the alter to Priest Uriah. Uriah replicated the alter perfectly before King Ahaz returned from Damascus. When the king got back, he admired it and used it to make a burnt offering, a grain offering, and a drink offering, also throwing the blood from his peace offerings on it. And he removed the bronze altar that was in front of the Existing One’s house and put it in a less prominent place. King Ahaz ordered Priest Uriah, “Use the great altar for the morning burnt offering, the evening grain offering, the king’s burnt offering, the king’s grain offering, the people’s burnt offering, the people’s grain offering, and the people’s drink offering. And throw all the blood from the offerings on it. We’ll only use the bronze altar when I need a question answered.” Uriah the priest did all these things, just as King Ahaz had ordered.

Judah’s Ahaz de-prioritizes God’s temple

And King Ahaz removed the side panels and basins from the sacrificial equipment. He also took the big bronze basin called the sea off the backs of the bronze oxen and put it on a stone pedestal instead. To appease Assyria’s king, he also rerouted the covered awning to go around the Existing One’s house instead of leading directly to it. The rest of Ahaz’s history and everything he did is recorded in the book The Chronicles of the Kings of Judah. And Ahaz slept with his fathers in the ground. He was buried with them in the city of David, and his son Hezekiah reigned in his place.