2 Kings 16:1

THE WICKED REIGN OF AHAZ OVER JUDAH

Ahaz was one of the very worst of Judah's kings, only Manasseh and Ammon either reaching or exceeding his state of wickedness and rebellion against God. The full name of this king was Jehoahaz, the same as that of one of the kings of Israel (2 Kings 13:1), as revealed by the discovery of an ancient seal.[1] LaSor dated his reign from 732 to 716 B.C., with a co-regency from 735 B.C.[2]

THE GENERAL CHARACTER OF AHAZ'S REIGN

"In the seventeenth year of Pekah the son of Remaliah Ahaz the son of Jothan king of Judah began to reign. Twenty years old was Ahaz when he began to reign; and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem: and he did not that which was right in the eyes of Jehovah his God like David his father. But he walked in the way of the king's of Israel, yea, and made his son to pass through the fire, according to the abomination of the nations, whom Jehovah cast out before the children of Israel. And he sacrificed and burnt incense in the high places, and on the hills, and under every green tree."

Three charges against Ahaz are made here. (1) He did not walk in the way of David; (2) he offered his son as a burnt offering to Molech; and (3) he participated in the licentious worship in the high places. The prior kings had winked at the old Canaanite worship still going on in the high places, but Ahaz was the first king of Judah actually to engage in it himself. There was nothing innocent about that worship in the high places. One should compare the phrase "under every green tree," as used here with the use of it in Jeremiah 3:6, where that prophet wrote that Israel had played the harlot "under every green tree." Yes, "harlotry" was used as a metaphor for worship of pagan gods, but the religious prostitutes were a vital part of that worship, and the words are also literally true.

"Twenty years old was Ahaz when he began to reign" (2 Kings 16:2). "Sixteen years afterward, his son was said to be twenty-five years old, which would mean that he married at ten years of age and had a son when he was eleven."[3] Although that was not impossible, it appears to be better to take the Septuagint (LXX) rendition of "twenty-five years" for the age of Ahaz when he began to reign.

"He made his son to pass through the fire" (2 Kings 16:3b). "This was not a symbolic rite."[4] Diodorous Siculus, as quoted by Hammond, describes such worship as it was practiced in Carthage, where there was a great temple in honor of Saturn (Molok), where there was the horribly ugly image of the god, a human form with a bull's head, having outstretched arms, where the children were laid and rolled downward into the bronze belly of the god. A furnace heated the whole image to a red-hot intensity; and as the screaming child was thrown into the god's arms, the noise was drowned out by flutes and kettle-drums.[5]

"This is the first instance of an actual Molech-sacrifice among the Israelites."[6] However, it was practiced quite frequently afterward as indicated by the denunciations of it by Ezekiel and Jeremiah. Ahab's horrible sacrifice here was doubtless made in that temple which Solomon had erected to Molech (1 Kings 11:7); "Thus we see the frightful flowering of the seed planted by Solomon."[7] Moses himself had warned God's people against such sacrifices, and all of God's prophets had vigorously denounced and condemned it. Ahaz's sacrifice of his son, "Was probably on some extraordinary occasion, like the sacrifice of his son by the king of the Moabites (2 Kings 3:27).[8]

Keil pointed out that, "In the closing year's of Ahaz's reign he actually closed the temple hall and suspended the temple worship (2 Chronicles 28:24)."[9]