2 Chronicles 28

Tyndale Open Study Notes

Verse 1

28:1 After a co-regency with his father, Jotham, Ahaz became king in his own right and reigned . . . sixteen years, from 731 to 715 BC.

Verse 3

28:3-4 even sacrificing his own sons in the fire: Ahaz was imitating the abominable conduct of the Canaanites (see Deut 12:31; 18:9-10; Jer 7:31; 19:5; 32:35).

Verse 9

28:9-10 you have gone too far: Although the Lord was using Israel as a means of punishment toward Judah, the covenant prohibited the enslavement and murder of fellow Israelites (28:10; Lev 25:39-55).

Verse 11

28:11 The Chronicler expresses a positive attitude toward the north with the term relatives (literally brothers). • now the Lord’s fierce anger has been turned against you: Later, during Ahaz’s reign, the kingdom of Israel would be destroyed and exiled (722 BC, 2 Kgs 17:5-23).

Verse 16

28:16 Ahaz . . . asked the king of Assyria for help: See 2 Kgs 16:7-9 for more details.

Verse 17

28:17-18 The Edomites and the Philistines were natural enemies of Judah. The towns captured by these armies were all along the Aijalon, Sorek, and Elah valleys in the buffer zone of the foothills of Judah or the Negev.

Verse 22

28:22-23 King Ahaz spurned the Lord by building an altar modeled after one in Damascus (2 Kgs 16:10-16) and by offering sacrifices to the gods of Damascus.

Verse 24

28:24-25 Judah reached its spiritual nadir—a condition similar to exile—under King Ahaz.

Verse 26

28:26 Samaria, the capital of the northern kingdom of Israel, fell to Assyria in 722 BC, during the twenty-first year of Ahaz’s reign in Judah (2 Kgs 17:1-6). The Chronicler, with his emphasis on the southern kingdom, does not even mention this event.