2 Kings 8

Study Guide 39: 2 Kings 8:16-17:41 ISRAEL’ S FALL Overview When Jehu became king in Israel in 841 b.c., the Northern Kingdom had some 119 years left. Jehu wiped out the family of Ahab and purged the land of Baal worship. But Jehu continued to support the counterfeit religion established at the time of the division of the unified kingdom some 90 years before. Plagued by a series of weak and evil kings, Israel knew a brief glory only in the time of Jeroboam II, who began his rule in 793 b.c.During the long decades, God did not desert His people Israel. He sent them suffering and defeat in an effort to turn them back to Him. And God sent Israel other prophets. In the days of Jeroboam II, three of the most powerful of the prophets — Jonah and Amos and Hosea — labored to turn Israel to the Lord. Their efforts were in vain. The people of Israel hurtled on in their rush toward judgment. When destruction of the kingdom finally did come, and the Israelites were torn from the land by the Assyrians, the Scriptures make this sad comment: They forsook all the commands of the Lord their God and made for themselves two idols cast in the shape of calves, and an Asherah pole. They bowed down to all the starry hosts, and they worshiped Baal. They sacrificed their sons and daughters in the fire. They practiced divination and sorcery and sold themselves to do evil in the eyes of the Lord, provoking Him to anger. 2 Kings 17:16-17The people of the North would not turn from evil, so evil came.

Commentary The two major kings of Israel during the last half of its brief existence as a separate nation were Jehu and Jeroboam II. Their stories provide the context for looking briefly at three prophets, whose ministries help us see the reason for the nation’ s fall.

Jehu: 2 Kings 9-10 Jehu was an army commander when a messenger came from Elisha to tell him that the Lord intended him to be king of Israel. The prophet who anointed Jehu gave him this commission: “ You are to destroy the house of Ahab your master, and I will avenge the blood of My servants the prophets and the blood of all the Lord’ s servants shed by Jezebel. The whole house of Ahab will perish. I will cut off from Ahab every last male in Israel — slave or free. . . . As for Jezebel, dogs will devour her on the plot of ground at Jezreel, and no one will bury her” (2 Kings 9:7-10). When Jehu told his fellow officers what the prophet had said, his fellow officers immediately proclaimed him king. Jehu acted decisively to establish his claim. When King Joram came out to meet Jehu, the soldier killed him with a single arrow. His body was thrown in the field of Naboth, whom Ahab and Jezebel had murdered. Moving quickly, Jehu rushed to deal with Jezebel, the queen mother. She taunted him from a high window, calling him Zimri (another regicide, who had ruled only seven days before dying in flames). But Jehu was no Zimri. He ordered the wicked Jezebel thrown from the window, and Jehu went in to dinner. When he finally ordered her body disposed of, he found that she had been eaten by wild dogs, as the Lord had foretold. The only way that Jehu could establish his own rule was to destroy the whole family of Ahab. But Jehu was not about to open himself to later criticism. He sent a message to the families that were raising the king’ s sons. They could choose a leader and fight for the old royal family. Or they could kill their wards and demonstrate loyalty to Jehu. Frightened, the leading men of the kingdom murdered the royal sons. Now the responsibility for wiping out his predecessor’ s line was shared. At first Jehu’ s revolt was probably seen simply as a coup by an ambitious military man. So when Jehu announced his commitment to Baal, and called all Baal worshipers and priests to come to Baal’ s temple for a great celebration, all appeared. Jehu then had every one of them killed, and had the temple of Baal burned to the ground. God rewarded Jehu for carrying out His intended judgment, and promised that this man’ s dynasty would last four generations. But Jehu did not turn to God. And he continued worship of the golden calves established 90 years earlier at Bethel and Dan. Jehu did not follow up his early decisive acts with similar leadership. His destruction of Baal worship, which had been imported from Phoenicia, must have strained relations with that nearby state. Both the Assyrians and the Arameans remained powerful during his era, and Jehu’ s 28-year reign was a time of political decline for Israel. Jeroboam II was fourth in Jehu’ s line. The Old Testament says very little about him, passing quickly over his time in 2 Kings 14:23-29, and giving him brief mention in 1 Chronicles 5:17. Yet we know from archeology that Jeroboam II was a vital, aggressive ruler. The Word Bible Handbook (Larry Richards, Word) describes his age in these words: The later reign of Jeroboam II was a time of exploding prosperity for Israel. The earlier destruction of the military power of Syria had enabled Jeroboam to expand his kingdom, even taking over the old capital of Aram, Damascus. Now Israel controlled the important trade routes which crisscrossed Palestine, linking the ancient world. Their multiplied revenues made Israel rich. But the wealth was distributed unequally. The old aristocracy of nobles and the new merchant class kept the wealth for themselves. They demanded luxury goods and residences, and the pattern of life in Israel began to change. More and more people left the country and drifted toward the cities and towns. For the first time towns in the Northern Kingdom became overpopulated. The concentration of wealth stimulated economic corruption. Heavier and heavier taxes were laid on workers. The wealthy became land-hungry, forcing out the small farmers and building great estates. Many of the poor were forced to sell themselves and their families as bondservants, becoming no better than serfs on lands that had once been their own. Even the small merchants were corrupted, and it became common for them to use unjust weights to measure out purchases. The process of corruption was accelerated by the failure of the justice system. Rather than acting to protect the poor, judges took bribes from the rich and so joined the oppressors! The old middle class began to disappear, and the society was increasingly divided into the oppressed poor and the very rich. In this situation the rich showed no sense of responsibility to the poor. Instead of showing compassion and concern, they seemed bent on depriving the poor of all rights and property. The heartlessness of the rich is well expressed in one angry charge hurled by Amos — these people are willing “ to sell . . . the needy for a pair of sandals” (Amos 2:6). Luxury footwear meant more to the wealthy of Jeroboam II’ s day than did the suffering of fellow human beings. Religiously, economically, and socially, Israel had become an unjust society. Again the summary in 2 Kings 17:1-41 written after Israel’ s deportation is succinct. “ The Lord warned Israel and Judah through all His prophets and seers: ‘ Turn from your evil ways. Observe My commands and decrees, in accordance with the entire Law that I commanded your fathers to obey and that I delivered to you through My servants the prophets.’ But they would not listen” (2 Kings 17:13-14).

Three Prophets Three of the prophets that are dealt with in detail in future units in this book spoke out during the time of Jeroboam II. Each of their messages constituted both a warning and a promise to the people of Israel. And each prophecy contains warnings and promises for us, who in many respects live in a time of prosperity much like that of Jeroboam’ s. Jonah. Jonah is not only known from his book. He is also mentioned in this section of 2 Kings that traces the decline and fall of Israel in the North. Jonah was somewhat unusual. He was a popular prophet. The reason is seen in the text. “ He [Jeroboam II] was the one who restored the boundaries of Israel from Lebo Hamath to the Sea of Arabah, in accordance with the word of the Lord, the God of Israel, spoken through His servant Jonah son of Amittai, the prophet from Gath Hepher” (2 Kings 14:25, italics added). Jonah was popular because he foretold good things for Israel. And Jonah was also a patriot. It was particularly difficult then when Jonah was sent to Nineveh to warn that city of coming judgment. Jonah was unwilling to go. Jonah 4:2 explains that Jonah was afraid that the people of Nineveh might heed him and repent, and that the Lord would withhold judgment. Jonah didn’ t want that! Nineveh was capital of mighty Assyria, which had raided Israel before and which would later be the agent of Israel’ s destruction. So rather than going overland to Nineveh, Jonah found a ship going in the opposite direction! We all know the story of Jonah’ s repentance in the belly of the great fish. And we remember that he finally did go to Nineveh and deliver his message. We also remember the results: the people of Nineveh repented, and God withheld His judgment. The last we see of Jonah is the angry and discouraged prophet slumped on a hill overlooking the city, deaf to God’ s explanation of His concern for the children and even the dumb animals who would have perished with the responsible adults. But if we are to understand the impact of Jonah’ s ministry in Israel, we need to see his adventure as God’ s object lesson. Soon Amos and Hosea would appear. They would detail the sins of Israel, and call the people to return to the Lord. The mission of Jonah to Nineveh provided proof that if only a people would repent, they could be saved. But despite the example of Nineveh, the people of Israel simply would not respond to the prophets of the Lord. It was their failure to repent that made judgment inevitable! Amos. Amos was one of the poor that the wealthy in Israel despised. Amos was a citizen of neighboring Judah, where he worked caring for sheep and a stand of sycamore trees. We know that Amos was poor, for sycamores were to the poor what figs were to the rich. Though neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet, Amos responded to God’ s call and trudged in his rags across the border into Israel. There he must have visited the cities that had grown up around the worship centers at Bethel and Dan. He must have walked past the great houses, seen the luxury goods in stores outside of which the poor crouched. Walking through the market he must have noticed merchants mix chaff with the grain they sold, or slyly exchange honest weights for lighter ones when they measured out the purchases of the poor. Angered by the heartlessness and the materialism, Amos boldly identified the sins for which God was about to judge the Northern society. In his rebuke we can hear God’ s evaluation of man’ s greed, and a powerful expression of the divine values that had been expressed for centuries in the Law. For three sins of Israel, even for four, I will not turn back My wrath. They sell the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals. They trample on the heads of the poor as upon the dust of the ground and deny justice to the oppressed. Father and son use the same girl and so profane My holy name. They lie down beside every altar on garments taken in pledge. In the house of their god they drink wine taken as fines. Amos 2:6-8You hate the one who reproves in court and despise him who tells the truth. You trample on the poor and force him to give you grain. . . . You oppress the righteous and take bribes and you deprive the poor of justice in the courts. Therefore the prudent man keeps quiet in such times, for the times are evil. Amos 5:11-13Based on this indictment, Amos announced the sure approach of divine judgment. Yet, the example of God’ s gracious dealing with Nineveh, not even His own people, should have offered hope! And Amos made this hope plain in a clear, well defined promise. Seek good, not evil, that you may live. Then the Lord God Almighty will be with you, just as you say He is. Hate evil, love good; maintain justice in the courts. Perhaps the Lord God Almighty will have mercy on the remnant of Joseph. Amos 5:14-15Hosea. We know little about the prophet. What we do know is heartrending. Hosea was called to suffer the pain of commitment to a faithless wife — a prostitute. His experience graphically reveals the meaning of Israel’ s religious apostasy. Just as Hosea’ s wife would not remain faithful to her marriage covenant, so God’ s people had abandoned Him. The imagery of sexual unfaithfulness is appropriate in this case. The religions which the Israelites followed were nature faiths. They sought to influence fertility in lands and animals as well as humans by sexually stimulating the gods, whose passions were thought to overflow as fertility on earth. So the pagans of Palestine engaged in all sorts of sensual excess in an effort to arouse their gods. So idolatry and sexual promiscuity were closely linked in Hosea’ s day. And God, through the anguished prophet, communicated something of His own anguish at His rejection by an Israel that ran after pagan, sensual faiths. Hosea announced proof upon proof of Israel’ s abandonment of God and His Law. There is no faithfulness, no love, no acknowledgment of God in the land. There is only cursing, lying, and murder, stealing and adultery; they break all bounds, and bloodshed follows bloodshed. Hosea 4:1-2Despite all this, God continued to pour out His love on Israel. In a beautiful passage Hosea describes God’ s loving care. When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called My son. But the more I called Israel, the further they went from Me. They sacrificed to the Baals and they burned incense to images. It was I who taught Ephraim to walk, taking them by the arms; but they did not realize it was I who healed them. I led them with the cords of human kindness, with ties of love; I lifted the yoke from their neck and bent down to feed them. Hosea 11:1-4Even so, God was anguished at the thought of giving Israel up and handing His people over to her enemies (Hosea 11:8-11). Though Israel’ s sin demanded punishment, ultimately this people would return to Him and beg forgiveness. Then, “ I will heal their waywardness and love them freely, for My anger has turned away from them” (Hosea 14:4). But Israel was as unmoved by the pleas and the pain of Hosea as the nation had been by the angry denunciations of Amos. And Israel remained blind to the promise implicit in God’ s gracious treatment of Nineveh. The prophets spoke. But Israel would not hear.

Concern for Justice All the Old Testament prophets, those sent to Judah as well as Israel, had a deep concern for justice. It is one of the repeated themes of the Old Testament. Too often evangelical Christians have made a distinction between what is seen as God’ s concern for souls and His concern for social issues. The distinction rests on several assumptions. First is the belief that the basic issue each individual must resolve is one of relationship with God. Will a person come to faith, and receive the forgiveness that salvation provides? Until that issue is resolved, all else seems irrelevant. Eternity is what counts. A second belief is that attention given to social conditions steals attention from the eternal. Some have become so focused on society that concern for man’ s relationship with God has been lost. A third belief is that the only real solution for social injustice is transformation of individuals through personal relationship with Jesus Christ. If injustice and oppression are an expression in society of the sin that mars humanity, then the way to make a difference is to challenge men to deal with their sin in a personal, life-transforming way. Thus, for many Christians, aggressive evangelism is an expression of concern for justice, and if successful, this will change society. While there is a measure of validity in each of these arguments, they do not justify a withdrawal from the social justice arena! There are other factors we must consider.

1. A believers’ concern for justice is not associated with utopian political or social theory. The Christian does not seek to “ do justice” because he expects to bring in the kingdom of God. Long after Israel had demonstrated that the people had lost all concern for others and had adopted materialistic values, Micah cried out to individuals: He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8When, in England, William Wilberforce initiated his long campaign to outlaw slavery in the British empire, he did not act as a social reformer. He was moved by Christian compassion: he acted because he cared about those helpless chattels that the majority in his day viewed as scarcely human. In working for justice, in showing loving-kindness, in committing his health and fortune to the betterment of his oppressed fellow man, this man uniquely pleased and honored God. It is not some utopian dream but a practical concern for people that drives us to seek justice.
2. It is tragically wrong to view the Christian’ s concern for justice as something to be valued or devalued on the basis of its contribution to evangelism. The church has often done this. We have said, “ Send doctors — that we might break the power of the witch doctor and win the lost.” These statements implicitly assign to justice a value based on the end it is supposed to achieve. Thus “ doing justice” is viewed as a means to an end, and when it does not seem to promote that end (evangelism), it is roughly thrust aside. But is concern for the oppressed and the hungry a tool? How do we differ from the Pharisees if our commitment to do right by all men is conditional on whether we believe our actions will help us gain other ends? No, we “ do justice” because it is right.
3. It’ s an amazing thing that concern for people’ s social and material needs is conceived as somehow intrinsically different from concern for their souls. But the Bible does not describe man as composed of an immaterial “ soul” captured in a physical body. Instead it speaks of the breath of life breathed into the body God prepared so that “ man became a living soul” (Genesis 2:7, KJV). Human beings experience life as a unity: we do not separate our selves from our bodies, or from our souls. It follows that when we come in contact with others, we are to reach out to them in love and love them fully. We are to care about their every need. There may be little we can do to change basic conditions in our society. But we are not to hold back in loving because one sort of need is “ social” and another “ spiritual.” If minority children in our neighborhood need tutoring, we do not ignore that need because such a thing in our church would not be “ religious.” If an inner-city store gouges the poor who can not shop elsewhere, we don’ t keep silent because the injustice is only bodily and not related to the soul. If pornography is openly sold in a shop near a school, we don’ t just ignore it. Simply put, the Christian has a commitment to justice, simply because doing justice is right.
4. Probably the most compelling reason that Christians today need to be committed to doing right by others is this: that’ s the kind of person God is. God Himself is just. He is committed to doing right by all. God, as the Old Testament clearly reveals, does care deeply when injustice and indifference to others are accepted elements in an individual’ s or society’ s lifestyle. As the New Testament adds, “ Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world” (James 1:27). Our study of the Old Testament prophets brings us face-to-face with a dimension of faith that our generation has tended to overlook. The prophets’ constant emphasis and God’ s constant call to Israel teaches us that we need to have a concern for the whole person. A concern that God feels deeply, as He calls us today as then to “ hate evil, love good, and maintain justice in the courts” (Amos 5:15).

Teaching Guide Prepare Consider: How is a godly commitment to doing justice demonstrated in my life?

Explore

1. In a minilecture summarize briefly the history of Israel during its last 100 years. Include a review of how Jehu came to power, and describe the economic and political resurgence under Jeroboam II.
2. Or, ask three of your group members to prepare to take the roles of Jonah, Amos, and Hosea. Each should quote from his book to give a feel for the message. Then each can give a brief review of the issues which so concern him and the Lord.
3. Or, write on the board, “ Christians should be involved in justice issues.” Ask the group members whether they agree or disagree. After discussion, ask each person to list what he or she thinks “ justice issues” are. Then compare the lists.

Expand

1. Select passages from Amos and Hosea. Duplicate them, or have your group members read them from their own Bibles. Work in threes from these passages to answer the following questions: What would it have been like to live in Israel in this period? What characterized Israel religiously? What characterized Israel socially?
2. Divide the group into teams to look through Amos and Hosea to locate the “ justice” issues your group identified earlier. As they search, each team should add to the list, and note those things which the prophets emphasized. After reporting, discuss: “ How do we today show a disregard for, or a concern for, justice?”
3. Discuss the pro and con arguments for involvement in social justice issues raised in the last section of this unit. Do not try to bring everyone into agreement. But when viewpoints have been expressed, remind your group that injustices that the people would not correct were a basic cause of the fall of that kingdom, and of the judgment of God.

Apply What do your members know that is happening in your community today that involves injustice? What should Christians do about it?