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- What attributes of God’s character does this passage reveal?
- How does the passage point to Jesus?
- How should the truth of this passage change me?
- How do the events of today’s reading help you better understand the grand narrative of Scripture?
2 Kings 14
“The LORD had not said He would blot out the name of Israel under heaven, so He delivered them by the hand of Jeroboam son of Jehoash.” (2 Kings 14:27). God did not deliver Israel because of anything they had done. He delivered them because of His word and because of who He is. I believe He demonstrated this to us through the nations of Israel and Judah so that we can know that our deliverance through His covenant in Christ Jesus can never fail. Because the salvation He offers is dependent solely on His word and who He is, we can trust it with our lives.
2 Chron. 25
The Chronicler’s version of Amaziah’s reign answered a couple of the questions I had after reading 2 Kings 14. First, I wondered why Amaziah would pick a fight with Israel. From this account, I would say he picked that fight in revenge for the actions of the rejected Israeli division. I figured a safe bet was that Amaziah did not seek God before taking this action. I see here, though, that it was actually worse than that. Not only did he not seek God, but he took counsel from elsewhere.
The second question I had was why Amaziah was assassinated. Both he and his father, Joash, were noted as doing what was right before God. Yet both men’s lives ended by assassination. As with his father, it turns out that Amaziah’s assassination came about because he abandoned God. Neither man served God with a whole heart. Thus, both succumbed to temptations that drew them away, and pride brought them both to an end.