NOTE: Sunday and Monday studies are posted together on Monday.

Day 215 – Reading – I2 Chronicles 32 – 33, 

Day 216 – Reading – Nahum 1 – 3

Read today’s Scriptures … ANYWHERE you find yourself this summer. Stay in the WORD!

Day 215 – 2 Chronicles 32.

This chapter repeats some of what we learned about this time from 2 Kings and Isaiah. 

After chapter 31 listed all the good things Hezekiah did in removing idolatry and his faithfulness to God, Sennacherib and his hordes invaded Judah.  (Was this a test from the LORD?  If so, Hezekiah passed with flying colors.)

At the (verbal and written) threats from the king of Assyria and his commander, itemizing how “weak” and “impotent” Israel’s God was compared to their great army, God showed them up. Hezekiah went to the LORD and prayed, and Isaiah encouraged him.  Then God acted. The whole Assyrian army was killed in one night, and the King went home (with “shame on his face”), only to be assassinated by his own sons.

Then chapter 32 reviews the grave illness of Hezekiah, his prayer, and God’s answer of 15 more years of life.  After this answer to prayer, it seems that Hezekiah’s heart became proud. (Of his wealth?  Of his amazing answers to prayer? Of his extreme wealth? )  Regardless, self-pride over something that GOD DID brought God’s wrath on him, in the foretelling of Jerusalem’s eventual destruction. However, Hezekiah humbled himself, and God’s wrath did not come during his lifetime.

This chapter also reviews his foolishness in revealing all his riches and military strength to an “envoy from Babylon.” 

The other accounts say they came because they heard of Hezekiah’s illness, but this account adds that they were sent to “inquire about the sign that had been done in the land.”  You know it, that reversing of the sundial ten degrees.   If the sun went back in Israel, so it did everywhere, including Babylon.  That “far away land” was known for its astronomers (just like at Jesus’ birth, when that special star appeared), and they came to investigate.

Isaiah scolded Hezekiah for showing off all he had, and told him what he had revealed would be taken away by that very country (about 100 years later), Jerusalem would be destroyed, and his son’s taken captive.  Hezekiah, like us, shrugged and said, “Well, at least not in MY time…”

At Hezekiah’s death, those 15 years later, “all Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem did him honor.”  Then his son Manasseh, who was conceived and born in those very 15 years, became king, and a very wicked one at that.

.

2 Chronicles 33.

This whole chapter is about Manasseh, who reigned in Jerusalem 55 years, and the horrible evil he did for most of them.  He reversed all the good that his father, Hezekiah, had done (So he KNEW what was right! What got into him???), and restored all the idolatrous places for pagan worship, EVEN IN THE TEMPLE of the LORD GOD, and caused the people to stray into more evil than had King Ahab in the north.  

He went farther into devilish evil that had existed before Hezekiah. He sacrificed his sons on the burning altar of Molech, as had his grandfather, Ahaz.  And in direct violation of God’s law, Manasseh used fortunetellers, omens, sorcery, mediums, and necromancers to divine truth and direction.  (Not like Hezekiah, who went before God in the Temple for help and to pray for direction.) 

God warned Manasseh through his prophets about the coming fierce judgment for Judah and Jerusalem and the people, but he and the people “paid no attention.”  Tradition says Manasseh killed Isaiah, the prophet of God, by torture (maybe because he didn’t want to hear those awful coming events.).

As a foretaste, the LORD brought upon them commanders of another king of Assyria (Ashurbanipal), who captured Manasseh “with hooks!” and put him on trial in their vassal city of Babylon.  There, a miracle happened!!

In distress, Manasseh “entreated the favor of the LORD his God and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers. He prayed to him, and God was moved by his entreaty and heard his plea and brought him again to Jerusalem into his Kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the LORD was God.”

CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT???

OH, THE MERCY AND FORGIVENESS OF GOD!!

GOD HEARS AND ANSWERS THOSE OF A BROKEN AND CONTRITE HEART – even the most wicked!

.

NOTE: (This reminds me of the story of the “Amazing Grace” songwriter, John Newton. He learned about the things of God from his mom at an early age, but then strayed into all kinds of cruelty and debauchery for most of his life. But at an older age, with death by shipwreck facing him, he turned and cried to God.  And God saved him.  Later he wrote, “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me!”)

.

Manasseh went home and “took away the foreign gods and the idol from the temple, and all the altars he had built in Jerusalem. He restored the altar of God and offered sacrifices of peace and thanksgiving. He commanded Judah to serve the LORD, the God of Israel.”

(NOTE: It’s mentioned in this chapter that Manasseh’s prayer was recorded in “the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah” and “the Chronicles of the Seers (or Prophets).” Hmmm, I’d love to read those, but God determined it wasn’t necessary to preserve them for us.)

Eventually, this converted sinner king died, and his son, Amon, reigned.  This man was not affected by his father’s conversion.  He learned early the horrible practices of Idolatry and again sacrificed to idols and images.   He “incurred more and more guilt.”  And eventually, his servants killed him in his house.

Then the people of the land (Jerusalem’s leaders) killed Amon’s assassins and installed the very young Josiah (8 years old) as king in his place.

(Sneak preview:  Josiah did what was RIGHT in the eyes of the Lord…)

.

###

.

DAY 216 – Nahum 1-3 

Not much is known about the prophet Nahum (meaning “comfort”). He was from Elkosh, but that is an unknown place. (It could have been Al Qosh in northern Iraq, meaning he was a descendant of one of the early Jewish captives of Assyria. He could have been from Capernaum (“Town of Nahum”) in the northern kingdom, or even from southern Judah. (see Nahum 1:15).  We don’t know, and it really doesn’t matter.)

He prophesied a message against Nineveh, the capital of Assyria, probably before the death of King Ashurbanipal. (Remember him? He was the king who captured Manasseh “with hooks” and took him to Babylon for trial?)  Assyria had recovered from the defeat (and embarrassment) of Sennacherib.  Now, the great Assyrian Empire spread from Babylon to Egypt.

This was probably 100 years after Jonah preached to Nineveh, and they repented. Now they have returned to idolatry and violence, at the height of their power. 

Think of Nahum as a “sequel to Jonah.”

Nahum predicted the FULFILLMENT of the judgment that Jonah SO wanted.

.

Nahum 1.

Verses 1-2, and 6 describe the LORD towards his enemies, the guilty.

• “The LORD is a JEALOUS and AVENGING God, the LORD is AVENGING and WRATHFUL; the LORD takes VENGEANCE on His adversaries and keeps WRATH for his  enemies.
• “The LORD is low to anger and great in power, and the LORD will by no means clear the guilty.”
• “Who can stand before His INDIGNATION? who can endure the heat of his ANGER?

Specific prophecies against Nineveh.

• “With an overflowing flood, He will make a complete end of the adversaries. (Nineveh’s walls reached 100 feet high.  The moat surrounding the city was 150 feet wide and 60 feet deep.  The “overflowing flood” that God brought was when the Tigris River flooded, joined the moat waters to destroy enough of the walls of Nineveh to let the Babylonians through.)
• “Though they are at full strength and many, they will be cut down and pass away. (As the LORD cut down the 185,000 soldiers encircling Jerusalem in one night, so shall he do to Nineveh.)

But to those who put their hope in the LORD … “He is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble; He knows those who take refuge in Him.”

.

Nahum 2.

This is a vivid picture of the destruction of Nineveh. (Jonah would have LOVED this!)

• “The SCATTERER has come up against you.”  Assyria made a practice of scattering it’s captives throughout its empire. Now it would happen to them.
• “The shield of his mighty men is red; his soldiers are clothed in scarlet…” Shields were covered with hide, dyed red to absorb flaming arrows and mask the sight of blood.
• “Chariots come with flashing metal, they race madly, rush to and from through the streets; they gleam like torches…  Polished metal on the chariots would catch the sun and flash like lightning.
• And the conquerors raise a siege tower, while the waters of the flooding Tigris river and moat “melt the palace away.”  “Nineveh is like a pool whose waters run away.”
• “Desolate! Desolation and ruin! Hearts melt and knees tremble.”
• “Plunder the silver, plunder the gold! There is no end of the treasure or of the wealth of precious things.”  Assyria plundered other nations, including Israel. Now it was there turn.

.

Nahum 3.

Nahum continues on with the gruesome details of the end of Nineveh, the capital of Assyria.

• “Woe to the bloody city.”  
• “The crack of the whip… the rumble of the wheel… galloping horse and bounding chariot.  Horsemen charging, flashing sword, glittering spear… 
• Try to picture or imagine the carnage of the city of Nineveh.  “A HOST of slain, HEAPS of corpses, dead bodies WITHOUT END… They stumble over the bodies!  Your shepherds are ASLEEP, O king of Assyria; your nobles SLUMBER. Your people are SCATTERED on the mountains with none to gather them (THEIR BODIES). 

 

And “all who hear the news about you clap their hands over you.”

Yes, Jonah is clapping his hands, no doubt.