Day 187 – Reading – 2 Kings 14, and 2 Chronicles 25

Day 188 – Reading Jonah 1 – 4

Read today’s Scriptures.  Do you see connections?

2 Kings 14 & 2 Chronicles 25.

These two chapters essentially tell the same story, but with a few different details.  It’s a bit confusing because BOTH the King of Israel and the King of Judah are named Joash! It would be like the President of the United States and the President of Russia BOTH named Trump.  Can you imagine the confusion in the press!!

Then, the southern kingdom of Judah’s King Joash was assassinated by his own servants, and his son, Amaziah, succeeded him as king.  Amaziah was a semi-good king, at least at first, doing what was “mostly right in the sight of the LORD,” but not quite as well as David.  The first thing Amaziah did was to kill the servants who had killed his father, Joash. (Remember, Joash killed Zechariah, the priest, the son of the priest who’d raised him. Two servants then conspired to kill  him.) Now the new king killed those servants. What a chain of cruelty and death! Will it stop there?

Amaziah mustered an army in Judah (along with 100K paid mercenaries from Israel) to fight against the men of Mt. Seir (Edom).  But God told him NOT to use soldiers from Israel.  God was NOT with them, but God WOULD help Judah alone to defeat Edom.  Amaziah sent the Israeli soldiers home (which made them mad), and went on to defeat Edom.

But, those 100K mercenaries, angry at not being able to go to war (and get loot), attacked and looted cities in Judah and Jerusalem!!

And then, Amaziah came back with – get this – some idols of the Edomites. And he started worshiping THEM!!  Can you believe it??  God sent a prophet to reprimand the king, but Amaziah made him stop.

Feeling emboldened, Amaziah sent to Israel and challenged King Joash of Israel to fight him. WHAT??  King Joash told King Amaziah to “Stay home, you little weed (thistle)!”  But Amaziah would not listen.  Why?  GOD HAD ORDAINED HIS DOWNFALL because of the idols from Edom.

The two kings, with their armies, fought at Beth-Shemesh in Judah’s territory, and Judah was defeated.  The southern army ran away, and King Amaziah was captured. The northern king then went to Jerusalem and seized all the gold, silver, and all the vessels that were in the Temple and the king’s own house, and even broke down part of Jerusalem’s wall!  He took hostages (but left King Amaziah there) and returned to Samaria, with a smug smirk on his lips. Thistle indeed!

Amaziah lived 15 more years, but a conspiracy against him made him flee to Lachish (a fortified city about 25 miles southwest of Jerusalem). But the angry people went after him and killed him there.  The people then put his son, the sixteen-year-old Azariah, in his place as king.  (Azariah did right in God’s sight and reigned 52 years!)

Meanwhile, back in Israel, King Joash also died and was buried in Samaria.  His son Jeroboam II succeeded him.  Unsurprisingly, he did what was “EVIL in the sight of the LORD.”

Now, here is an interesting fact.  The LORD used Jeroboam to “restore some of the borders of Israel, east of the Jordan River.  Why?  “The LORD saw that the affliction of Israel was very bitter, for there was none left, bond or free, none to help Israel. The LORD had not said that He would blot out the name of Israel from under heaven, so He saved them by the hand of Jeroboam.”  WHAT MERCY!

And, according to (2 Kings 14:25), who told Jeroboam to go and do that? 

NONE OTHER THAN THE PROPHET OF GOD — JONAH!!   

But we are much more familiar with the prophet’s other story.

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Jonah 1 – 4.

We’ve all heard about “Jonah and the whale” from Sunday School stories and children’s books. Those stories usually tell how Jonah was thrown overboard in a storm and was swallowed by a whale. Then God made the critter spit him out on the shore three days later, after he prayed.

All true.

But much more.

First, his name means “Dove.”  Today, we would think of “peace,” or someone who is anti-war.  Well, Jonah WAS a rebel, for sure, but not anti-war.  Earlier, God had used Jonah to encourage Jeroboam II to push back against the Syrians, which he did, and gained back almost as much land for Israel as in the days of David and Solomon. 

But the Syrians had grown weak.  Soon, a greater, fiercer, and crueler nation would swallow them up, and then look toward Israel.  Who? The Assyrians. Whereas Syria’s capital was Damascus, the capital of Assyria was Nineveh, WAY to the North-East, over 500 miles away.

“Go to that wicked city, Nineveh, and tell them to repent,” God told Jonah.

“No way!” said the prophet of God, who was all for defeating Israel’s enemies.  Jonah promptly went down to Joppa and bought a ticket on a boat to Tarshish. (Modern Spain, which is WAY to the West.) 

• Verse 3 states twice that Jonah was “fleeing the presence of the LORD.”  Is that possible?  We may think so, but remember God is “omnipresent,” which means everywhere at once. 
• Check out Psalm 139:7-10, where David asks the question, “Where shall I flee from Your presence?  Heaven? You are there. The grave? You are there. The uttermost parts of the sea?  Even there, Your hand shall hold me.”  I guess Jonah never read that psalm.

The boat sailed. Jonah went below deck for a nap. God “HURLED” a great wind on the sea, which whipped up into a horrible tempest!  The ship started to break up!  The sailors were terrified and began to pray to their god (Poseidon?).  They hurled the cargo into the sea (There goes their profit!)  Then, at his request, they hurled the prophet into the sea as well.

(Jonah had told them the true God of Heaven was angry with him. They got REALLY afraid – that’s why they obeyed and tossed him overboard.)

Immediately, no wind and placid seas.

That terrified the sailors even more, and they WORSHIPPED the LORD.  (A foretaste of Nineveh?)

Down, down, down went Jonah. Right into the mouth of a great fish that God had prepared. (Like Moby Dick??)

AND JONAH PRAYED TO THE LORD FROM THE BELLY OF THE FISH!

Not exactly repentance, but an acknowledgment of God’s sovereignty.  The “vow” in verse 9 could have been a vow to carry out God’s call to preach in Nineveh.

And the LORD spoke to the fish, and it vomited (Yuck!) Jonah on dry land.  “Terra firma, Hooray!”  Good to be there.  Then…

Again came God’s message, “Go to Nineveh. Call out against it with the message I will give you.”

“Yeah, yeah. I KNOW, God.”

So, after a “swish-off” in the Mediterranean, Jonah set off, Eastward.

How long it took him, we don’t know.  Did he catch a ride with a caravan, or hot-foot it all the way?  Regardless, Jonah finally arrived at that great city (in modern-day Iraq).  The city was HUGE!  It would take a person THREE DAYS to walk across it. (Like Los Angeles??)

Jonah went halfway in and cried, “IN 40 DAYS, NINEVEH WILL BE OVERTHROWN!” And then he left, went outside the city to a hill, and sat down to watch the “holy fireworks.”

They didn’t come.

Instead, the whole city repented. (FROM ONE 7-WORD SERMON!!)  The people believed God. They put on sackcloth in mourning for their sin, the king too, and all his court.

He proclaimed a fast from all food and water (for the animals as well!) and told the people to “Call out mightily to God. Turn everyone from his evil ways and the violence he’s done. For who knows?  God may turn and relent from His fierce anger, and we may not perish.”

And when God saw their hearts, He relented of the disaster that He said he would do to them.  (At least for a while.)

Not what Jonah imagined, or wanted. He was furious! 

• “SEE!!!  This is what I said would happen when I was back home!
• This is why I fled to Tarshish! 
• I KNEW You were a gracious God, merciful, slow to anger, abounding in mercy, and relenting from disaster!    (He was quoting Psalm 103, now, so I guess he did read God’s word.)

JONAH SHOULD HAVE BEEN THANKFUL that God was merciful… a God of second chances. Or else, he might have still been in that fish’s belly, rotting away!

• Oh, please just kill me, for that is better than living (and seeing this!)

It got very hot.  Jonah put up a lean-to to shade himself while he watched. And the good and kind LORD caused a vine to grow up over the lean-to, which added more shade and a sweet fragrance.

Nice. 

Jonah settled back.

Then the good and kind LORD caused a worm to kill the plant.  And the next day, a scorching east wind blew, and the sun beat down. 

Jonah was angry that the plant died.  “It’s better for me to die than to live,” he moaned.

“You are angry and pity a vine that you did not plant or cause to grow, that came into being in a night and  perished in a night?”

“YES!“

And the good and kind LORD said, “And should I not pity Nineveh, a great city, in which there are more than 120K small children?”

No answer.

Silence.

About 40 years later, the NEXT generation of Assyrians reverted to their evil, violent ways. They came down on Israel, destroyed the kings, and carried the people away into captivity, never to return. 

End of the northern kingdom. 

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(**** Ah, LORD, You are faithful to save, when people turn their hearts from sin and trust in You…. at the preaching of Your Word.  

"For the scripture says, Everyone who believes in Him will not be put to shame. 
For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek. 
For the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing His riches on ALL who call on Him. 
For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.
How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed?
And how are they to believe in Him of whom they have never heard?
And how are they to hear without someone preaching?
And how are they to preach unless they are sent?"
Romans 10:11-15.