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2 Chronicles 22:1-12 - Homilies By T. Whitelaw

A chapter of tragedies.

I. THE SLAUGHTER OF JEHORAM 'S SONS . ( 2 Chronicles 22:1 .) An illustration of three things.

1 . The perils attending high station. Jehoram's sons were among the captives taken by the Philistines and Arabians ( 2 Chronicles 21:17 ). Had they been common soldiers, their lives might have been spared; being princes of the blood, they were put to death. A man's social elevation attracts towards him the arrows of hate, envy, malice, and other secret foes; an obscure position tends to protect him. Therefore let none murmur that the Arbiter of destinies has not made them kings or great ones; neither let any rejoice that their places on earth are not low.

2 . The mischances accompanying war. It was probably their duty to take the field against the combined hordes of the Philistines and Arabians; nevertheless, they who go to war even for defence, and much more for aggression, must not be surprised if they are killed. In the case of Jehoram's sons, the camp of Judah had been surprised by a reconnoitring party who had come with the Arabians (Keil), or by "a hand of wild men who served in the army of the Arabians, possibly against the will of the leaders" (Bertheau); and Jehoram's sons, having first been carried off as prisoners, were afterwards put to death. In ancient timed, when prisoners became troublesome or proved dangerous, this was the customary way in which they were disposed of.

3 . The retributions wrought by Providence. Even if Jehoram's sons were not as wicked as himself, it was a signal illustration of the lex talionis, a conspicuous demonstration of the truth that with what measure one metes it shall be measured to him again ( Matthew 7:2 ). Jehoram had assassinated all his brothers on ascending the throne; before he descended from it, Jehovah suffered him to see all his sons (except the youngest) cut off by invading marauders. "Are not my ways equal? saith the Lord" ( Ezekiel 18:29 ).

II. THE EXTERMINATION OF AHAB 'S HOUSE . ( 2 Chronicles 22:7 .) Incidentally referred to by the Chronicler, it is more fully detailed in 2 Kings 9:1-37 and 2 Kings 10:1-36 ; and may here be briefly narrated.

1 . The thing determined by God.

2 . The instrument selected by God.

3 . The work carried through by God. By means of his instrument. The Chronicler recognizes ( 2 Kings 10:7 , 2 Kings 10:8 ) that Jehu was God's sword. How far Jehu himself was under the dominion of this thought may be hazardous to affirm. But, in any case, he lost no time in discharging the bloody business entrusted to his hand. With a swiftness and relentless severity that suggested leonine ferocity as much as religious zeal, he posted to Jezreel and began the work of butchery. First he drove an arrow through the heart of Jehoram ( 2 Kings 9:24 ); next procured the death of Jezebel by commanding two of her servants, his minions, to throw her from the palace window ( 2 Kings 9:33 ); and finally caused the seventy sons of Ahab in Samaria to be beheaded ( 2 Kings 10:7 ).

III. THE MURDER OF THE PRINCES OF JUDAH . ( 2 Kings 10:8 .)

1 . Who these were.

2 . When they were killed.

3 . Where they were killed. At the pit or cistern of the shearing-house, or "house of gathering" ( 2 Kings 10:13 ); at "the shepherds' house of meeting" (Chaldee Version, Thenius, Bahr)—a house which served the shepherds of the region round about for assembling; or at the house where the shepherds tied up their sheep for shearing (Keil). "In a well close by, as at Cawnpore, they were all slaughtered' (Stanley).

4 . By whom they were killed. Jehu, whose motive may have been either

IV. THE ASSASSINATION OF AHAZIAH . ( 2 Kings 10:9 .)

1 . After a brief reign. Ahaziah succeeded to his father's throne in his forty-second year, or in his twenty-second ( 2 Kings 8:26 )—a discrepancy removed, by supposing the forty-two to. indicate the age of the kingdom of his mother s family (Lightfoot), but best explained by conceding that an error has crept into the text (Keil, Bertheau, Bahr). After enjoying regal power for one year, he fell a victim to the sword of Jehu—a startling reminder cf the uncertainty of life and the vanity of human greatness.

2 . By the hand of Providence. "The destruction of Ahaziah was of God" ( 2 Kings 10:7 ); not merely as all things are under the Divine control, but in the special sense that the incidents which led to Ahaziah's destruction were of God's permitting, if not ordering.

3 . As a just retribution for his wickedness. For Ahaziah a tremendous misfortune, for which he was in no way responsible, that he had Jehoram and Athalish for his parents. If any man might be said to have "a double dose of original sin," or inherited corruption, he had. If he may be pronounced happy who has the piety of generations at his back and within his veins, propelling him forward in the ways of virtue and religion, on the other hand he should be deemed an object of pity who is not only held back from the paths of godliness, but urged into the broad roads of sin and vice by secret forces of heredity that have been gathering momentum through a long succession of wicked ancestors. Disadvantageously placed as Ahaziah was, he was under no compulsion to yield to the evil influences by which he was surrounded. That he did not resist them, but abandoned himself to them without let or hindrance, was his sin.

4 . In spite of strenuous efforts to escape. The accounts given of these efforts to escape are considerably divergent. According to the Chronicler, when Ahaziah saw Jehorem sink down in his chariot after being struck with Jehu's arrow, he fled by the way of the garden house, but was followed by Jehu, and, like his uncle, wounded with an arrow at the going up to Gur, which is by Ibleam, whence he fled to Megiddo, and died there ( 2 Kings 9:27 ). According to 2 Kings, Ahaziah had hid himself in Samaria, and, being found there, was slain by Jehu's servants. The accounts are pronounced irreconcilable, that of Kings being the older and more authentic (Bahr, Bertheau); but the explanations ordinarily proffered (Lightfoot, Keil) are deserving of consideration—that Ahaziah, on first escaping, fled to Samaria, and was afterwards found there by Jehu's servants, who brought him to Jehu, at whose command he was shot while in his chariot at Gur, beside Ibleam, and that, once more escaping, though this time mortally wounded, he reached Megiddo, and perished them. On the sites here mentioned, consult the Exposition.

V. THE DESTRUCTION OF THE SEED ROYAL OF THE HOUSE OF JUDAH . (Verse 10.)

1 . victims of this massacre. All the seed royal, i.e. all the direct descendants of the kingly house, all who might in any measure or degree aspire to the throne. As Ahaziah's elder brothers had been captured and slain by the Arabs ( 2 Chronicles 21:17 ), and as their sons, Ahaziah's nephews, had been (in part at least) put to death by Jehu ( 2 Chronicles 22:8 ), it is possible that the actual victims were not numerous.

2 . The perpetrator of this massacre. Athaliah, the queen-mother, who thereby proved herself a true daughter of Jezebel. Instead of grieving at the tidings of her son's death, and taking measures to shield his young children, her grandsons, from the sword of Jehu, she herself compassed their destruction. Thereby she showed herself a most unnatural mother, an inhuman monster—a woman, like Lady Macbeth, "from the crown to the toe, top-full of direst cruelty" ('Macbeth,' act 1. sc. 5).

3 . The motive of this massacre. Probably mingled fear and ambition. Apprehensive of her own safety when she saw that Jehu had slain her son, she may have judged that the speediest and surest way to establish her security was to cut off every possible rival from her side, and seize the throne of Judah for herself. It was the usual mode of procedure amongst Oriental sovereigns, on ascending the throne, to put to death all possible claimants of the crown. It is not difficult to see who was Jehoram's teacher ( 2 Chronicles 21:4 ).

4 . The extent of this massacre. All the seed royal, with one exception, Joash, Ahaziah's son, who was rescued by his aunt, Jehoshabeath, his father's daughter but not his mother's—she was obviously the daughter of one of Jehoram's secondary wives—and the wife of Jehoiada the priest (see next homily).

LESSONS .

1 . The vicissitudes of human life (verse 1).

2 . The vanity of earthly glory (verse 2).

3 . The danger of evil counsel (verse 3).

4. The self-destructive character of sin (verse 4).

5 . The madness of walking with wicked men (verse 5).

6 . The propriety of sympathizing with the ungodly in their afflictions (verse 6).

7 . The tiger-like ferocity of some monsters in sin (verses 7-10).

8 . The mystery of Providence in suffering such monsters to live.—W.

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