2 Kings 16:17

STILL FURTHER CHANGES ORDERED BY AHAZ

"And king Ahaz cut off the panels of the bases, and removed the laver from off them, and took down the sea from off the brazen oxen that were under it, and put it upon a pavement of stone. And the covered way for the sabbath that they had built in the house, and the king's entry without, turned he unto the house of Jehovah, because of the king of Assyria. Now the rest of the acts of Ahaz which he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah? And Ahaz slept with his fathers, and was buried with his fathers in the city of David: and Hezekiah his son reigned in his stead."

"All of the alterations and changes mentioned here had been demanded by the king of Assyria as tokens of Judah's reduction to the status of a vassal state."[23] Montgomery thought that the removal of the brazen oxen from under the laver, etc. was for the purpose of, "Smelting the brass and using it for tribute to Assyria."[24] However, Cook disputed this, pointing out that, "The oxen and the sea were not destroyed, because they remained at Jerusalem until its final capture (Jeremiah 52:17-20)."[25]

"From this time on, with the exception of two or three rebellions, Judah is a vassal state of Assyria - a fact usually overlooked by Bible students."[26]

"And Hezekiah his son reigned in his stead" (2 Kings 16:20). J. C. J. White noted that, "The fall of Samaria came in the sixth year of Hezekiah's reign (that was in 722 B.C.), and yet the invasion of Judah by Sennacherib is dated in 701 B.C., in the fourteenth year of his reign. It seems best therefore to assume that Hezekiah was co-regent with Ahaz from circa 729 B.C."[27]

This brings us to the obituary for Northern Israel as reported in the next chapter.