2 Kings 16:5-7 - Homiletics

God's punishments of a nation's sins are often long delayed, but, when they come, it is not by degrees, but suddenly, violently, and at once.

This subject may best be treated, as the last, under three heads, viz.

I. THE SINS OF JUDAH . Though, on the whole, less guilty than her sister, Ephraim, still Judah had, from the division of the kingdom of Solomon, been more or less unfaithful to Jehovah in several respects.

1. An unauthorized and illegitimate high-place worship, tinged with superstition and perhaps even idolatry, had maintained its place by the side of the authorized Jehovah-cult, throughout the whole period of the divided monarchy, from the accession of Rehoboam to the death of Ahaz ( 1 Kings 14:23 ; 1 Kings 15:14 ; 1 Kings 22:43 ; 2 Kings 12:3 ; 2 Kings 14:4 ; 2 Kings 15:4 , 2 Kings 15:35 ; 2 Kings 16:4 ).

2. The worship of Baal had been introduced from the sister kingdom by the influence of Athaliah, and had prevailed during the reigns of her husband, Jehoram, her son, Ahaziah, and her own ( 2 Kings 8:18 , 2 Kings 8:27 ; 2 Kings 11:18 ).

3. Luxury and effeminacy had crept in, especially during the prosperous reigns of Uzziah and Jotham, and had led on to debauchery and licentiousness ( Isaiah 1:4 ; Isaiah 2:6-8 ; Isaiah 3:16-24 ; Isaiah 5:11 , Isaiah 5:12 ; Joel 1:5 ; Amos 6:1-6 , etc.).

4. Injustice and oppression had become rife. The rich men sought to "join house to house, and field to field' ( Isaiah 5:8 ); they stripped the poor of their small properties by legal chicanery ( Isaiah 3:14 ), oppressed them, and "ground their faces" ( Isaiah 3:15 ). The judges in the courts accepted bribes ( Isaiah 1:23 ) and gave wrong judgments ( Isaiah 5:23 ). Widows and orphans were the special objects of attack, on account of their weakness and defenselessness ( Isaiah 1:17 , Isaiah 1:23 ; Isaiah 10:2 ).

5. The forms of religion were kept up, but the spirit had evaporated. Men thronged God's courts, brought abundant offerings, made many prayers, kept the new moons and the sabbaths and the appointed feasts, but without any real care for the honor of God or any thought of seeking to serve and obey him. Hence their worship was "an offence;" their ceremonies were mockeries, their oblations "vain," their solemn meetings "iniquity" God was "weary to bear them" ( Isaiah 1:11-15 ).

II. THE LONG DELAY IN THEIR PUNISHMENT . More than two centuries had elapsed since Judah began to "do evil in the sight of the Lord, and to provoke him to jealousy with their sins which they had committed, above all that their fathers had done" ( 1 Kings 14:22 ). Above a century had passed since the apostasy of Jehoram and Ahaziah. During all this time Judah had maintained her independence, had received no severe blow, fallen under no crushing affliction. Latterly, she had even prospered. Under Uzziah she had recovered Elath ( 2 Kings 14:22 ), conquered a part of Philistia ( 2 Chronicles 26:6 ), defeated the Arabians and Mehunim ( 2 Chronicles 26:7 ), and made the Ammonites her tributaries ( 2 Chronicles 26:8 ); under Jotham she had maintained these conquests, and when Ammon revolted bad reduced her to subjection ( 2 Chronicles 27:5 ) without any difficulty. God, in his long-suffering mercy, bore with his people. He would win them by kindness, draw them to him by cords of love, at any rate give them ample time for repentance. But it was in vain. The longer he left them unpunished, the further they wandered from the right way, and the more they hardened their hearts. The time came when the prophet could only say of them, "Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evil-doers, children that are corrupters: they have forsaken the Lord, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger, they are gone away backward. The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrefying sores" ( Isaiah 1:4-6 ).

III. THE SUDDENNESS AND OVERWHELMING FORCE WITH WHICH THE PUNISHMENT DESCENDED WHEN IT CAME . Bishop Butler remarks how, in the punishment which God brings upon vicious individuals in this world, there is often a long respite. "After the chief bad consequences, temporal consequences, of their follies have been delayed for a great while; at length they break in irresistibly, like an armed force; repentance is too late to relieve, and can only serve to aggravate their distress; the case is become desperate, and poverty and sickness, remorse and anguish, infamy and death, the effects of their own doings, overwhelm them, beyond possibility of remedy or escape". And so it is often with nations; so it was now with the nation of the Jews. As soon as the punishment began, blow was dealt upon blow. First, Rezin "smote them, and carried away a great multitude of them captives, and brought them to Damascus" ( 2 Chronicles 28:5 ). Then they were delivered into the hand of Pekah, who "smote them with a great slaughter, slaying a hundred and twenty thousand in one day, which were all valiant men" ( 2 Chronicles 28:5 , 2 Chronicles 28:6 ). Next, Edom had her fling at the sick lion, and "came and smote Judah, and carried away captives" ( 2 Chronicles 28:17 ). Then Philistia attacked the cities of the low country, and of the south of Judah, and took a number of them, "and dwelt there" ( 2 Chronicles 28:18 ). Presently, Pekah and Rezin, joining their forces, advanced together to the siege of Jerusalem. All was lost, except only honor; and then honor was thrown into the gulf; Judah went down on her knees to Assyria, and implored aid, gave tribute, accepted a suzerain, made the inglorious confession, "I am thy servant and thy son" ( 2 Kings 16:7 ). Having incurred defeat, disgrace, the loss of military honor, the loss of the flower of her troops, she crowns all by giving up her national independence, inviting a master, and herself placing a foreign yoke upon her own shoulders. But for the wonderful efforts made by Hezekiah when he ascended the throne ( 2 Kings 18:3-8 ), Judaea's ruin would have been completed under Ahaz; and the punishment so long delayed, when it came, would have been final, "without escape or remedy."