#amassment

Yesterday we talked about how King Amaziah of Judah did not learn to live in divine contentment and how that led to a startling loss on the battlefield and in Judah’s fortunes. Jerusalem was raided, the walls were torn down in one area, the temple and the palace were stripped of all gold and silver, and hostages were taken by the nation of Israel. King Amaziah, himself, was captured and humiliated by this stunning reversal. We quoted from 2 Kings 14. But there is a parallel passage in 2 Chronicles that is very revealing:

  2 Chronicles 25:1–2 (ESV)

Amaziah was twenty-five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Jehoaddan of Jerusalem. And he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, yet not with a whole heart.

 Amaziah began well. Performed things at first by the word of God, but soon her gave a place to the amassment weakness. But he honored the word of God at first:

  2 Chronicles 25:4 (ESV)

But he did not put their children to death, according to what is written in the Law, in the Book of Moses, where the Lord commanded, “Fathers shall not die because of their children, nor children die because of their fathers, but each one shall die for his own sin.”

 He also honored the man of God early in his life:

  2 Chronicles 25:5–13 (ESV)

Then Amaziah assembled the men of Judah and set them by fathers’ houses under commanders of thousands and of hundreds for all Judah and Benjamin. He mustered those twenty years old and upward, and found that they were 300,000 choice men, fit for war, able to handle spear and shield. He hired also 100,000 mighty men of valor from Israel for 100 talents of silver. But a man of God came to him and said, “O king, do not let the army of Israel go with you, for the Lord is not with Israel, with all these Ephraimites. But go, act, be strong for the battle. Why should you suppose that God will cast you down before the enemy? For God has power to help or to cast down.” And Amaziah said to the man of God, “But what shall we do about the hundred talents that I have given to the army of Israel?” The man of God answered, “The Lord is able to give you much more than this.” Then Amaziah discharged the army that had come to him from Ephraim to go home again. And they became very angry with Judah and returned home in fierce anger. But Amaziah took courage and led out his people and went to the Valley of Salt and struck down 10,000 men of Seir. The men of Judah captured another 10,000 alive and took them to the top of a rock and threw them down from the top of the rock, and they were all dashed to pieces. But the men of the army whom Amaziah sent back, not letting them go with him to battle, raided the cities of Judah, from Samaria to Beth-horon, and struck down 3,000 people in them and took much spoil.

 Then Amaziah began to enter the amassment weakness. After defeating Edom, he took to himself all the spoils of the men of Seir including their gods. And refused to be corrected:

  2 Chronicles 25:14–16 (ESV)

After Amaziah came from striking down the Edomites, he brought the gods of the men of Seir and set them up as his gods and worshiped them, making offerings to them. Therefore, the Lord was angry with Amaziah and sent to him a prophet, who said to him, “Why have you sought the gods of a people who did not deliver their own people from your hand?” But as he was speaking, the king said to him, “Have we made you a royal counselor? Stop! Why should you be struck down?” So, the prophet stopped, but said, “I know that God has determined to destroy you, because you have done this and have not listened to my counsel.”

Then Amaziah decides that he will take revenge upon the men who made up the army that he had sent back to Israel. He challenges Joash, king of Israel, who responds this way:

  2 Chronicles 25:18–20 (ESV)

And Joash the king of Israel sent word to Amaziah king of Judah, “A thistle on Lebanon sent to a cedar on Lebanon, saying, ‘Give your daughter to my son for a wife,’ and a wild beast of Lebanon passed by and trampled down the thistle. You say, ‘See, I have struck down Edom,’ and your heart has lifted you up in boastfulness. But now stay at home. Why should you provoke trouble so that you fall, you and Judah with you?” But Amaziah would not listen, for it was of God, in order that he might give them into the hand of their enemies, because they had sought the gods of Edom.

 Amaziah had not been careful to obey God’s word in his victory over Edom. He took spoils that spoiled him and destroyed his relationship with the true God. His new gods left him with just the resources of his genetics, his upbringing, and the results of his poor choices. All he was able to amass were weaknesses and proudful self-confidences. When he rejected the word of God and the man of God in his life, his weaknesses and prideful boastings took over. Even his enemy’s words were truer than his own:

 “A thistle on Lebanon sent to a cedar on Lebanon, saying, ‘Give your daughter to my son for a wife,’ and a wild beast of Lebanon passed by and trampled down the thistle. You say, ‘See, I have struck down Edom,’ and your heart has lifted you up in boastfulness. But now stay at home. Why should you provoke trouble so that you fall, you and Judah with you?”