2 Kings 14:1

THE REIGN OF AMAZIAH IN JUDAH AND THE REIGN OF JEROBOAM IN ISRAEL

"The record of Amaziah is the story of how an arrogant heart lifted up in pride is abased, and how the Lord brought judgment upon arrogant pride."[1]

THE EARLY SUCCESS OF AMAZIAH IN WAR AGAINST EDOM

"In the second year of Joash son of Jehoahaz king of Israel began Amaziah son of Joash king of Judah to reign. He was twenty and five years old when he began to reign; and he reigned twenty and nine years in Jerusalem: and his mother's name was Jehoaddin of Jerusalem. And he did that which was right in the eyes of Jehovah, yet not like David his father: he did according to all that Joash his father had done. Howbeit the high places were not taken away: the people still sacrificed and burnt incense in the high places. And it came to pass, as soon as the kingdom was established in his hand, that he slew his servants who had slain the king his father: but the children of the murderers he put not to death; according to that which is written in the book of the Law of Moses, as Jehovah commanded, saying, The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, nor the children be put to death for the fathers; but every man shall die for his own sin. He slew of Edom in the Valley of Salt ten thousand, and took Sela by war, and called the name of it Jokthel unto this day."

This is one of the most important paragraphs in the O.T., because it is an unanswerable argument for the EXISTENCE of the Law of Moses long prior to the "Deuteronomist nonsense" so brazenly advocated by unbelieving critics. Of course, such critics go out of their way to deny what is written here. Honeycutt, for example, denied that 2 Kings 14:6 here reflects a statement in God's Word, declaring that, "It reflects the Deuteronomist conception of individualism."[2] On the contrary, as Stigers truthfully stated it, " 2 Kings 14:6 is a citation from the Law of Moses and is evidence that Deuteronomy is NOT a late composition as some critics hold."[3]

If the commandment of God as recorded in 2 Kings 14:6 had not actually existed in the Torah, or Pentateuch, during the reign of that proud, arrogant, rebellious ruler, king Amaziah, there is no possibility whatever that he would have spared the children of those who murdered his father.

Those who vainly attempt to make the law given in 2 Kings 14:6 a "later development" point out that Joshua had put to death the whole family of Achan; but the cases are not parallel. Achan's family could not have failed to know of his sin, and they were, therefore, participants after the fact in his guilt. And besides that, Moses was the great Lawgiver, not Joshua. Joshua also made a covenant with the Gittites contrary to the Law of Moses.

Our sacred text here flatly declares that the commandment mentioned in 2 Kings 14:6 came from the Law of Moses, but, in spite of that, Raymond Calkins wrote that, "The historian here quotes a law which only later came into existence."[4] All believers should reject such denials of Biblical text. For any believer to allow a fallible (and sinful) human being to deny what the Bible plainly declares is the modern equivalent of the mistake that Eve made when she allowed Satan to convince her that what the Lord had said was untrue.

Cook pointed out that there is a strange parallel in the lives of Amaziah and his father Joash. "Both were zealous for Jehovah in the earlier portions of their reigns, but in the latter part fell away. Both disregarded the rebukes of prophets; and both, having forsaken God, were in the end conspired against and slain."[5]

"He did according to all that Joash his father had done" (2 Kings 14:3). His father was an apostate from God, and so was Amaziah. In the parallel account in 2 Chronicles 25:14ff, it is written that he brought back the pagan gods from Edom and worshipped them. "That sin of Amaziah was so ridiculous as to be almost unbelievable. But how believable or rational is any sin?"[6]

"He slew in the Valley of Salt ten thousand, and took Sela by war" (2 Kings 14:7). That is not all that he did. Josephus tells us how he, "Took many prisoners alive, whom he brought to a great rock which is in Arabia, and he threw them down headlong."[7] It appears that Amaziah became almost insane with egotistical pride. Again from Josephus, "He was puffed up and began to overlook God who had given him the victory."[8] "Sela mentioned in this verse is the same as ancient Petra, the great stronghold of the Edomites."[9]