Commentary - 2 Kings 14:1-7

Bird's-eye view

In this brief account of the beginning of Amaziah's reign, we are given a portrait of a tragically common figure in the history of God's people: the compromised reformer. Amaziah is a man of divided loyalties, and his reign is a study in contrasts. On the one hand, he is commended for doing "what was right in the sight of Yahweh," and he demonstrates a remarkable and laudable commitment to the letter of God's law in his execution of justice. He brings the murderers of his father to account but, in a striking departure from the pagan customs of the day, he spares their children, explicitly grounding his actions in the book of Deuteronomy. This is a high point. On the other hand, his righteousness is immediately qualified. It is not the wholehearted righteousness of his father David, and his fatal compromise is the same one that plagued so many of Judah's kings: he refused to tear down the high places. This mixture of principled obedience and pragmatic compromise defines his reign, and while he experiences initial military success as a sign of God's blessing, this seed of idolatry will eventually grow to choke out his early faithfulness.

This passage, then, serves as a crucial case study. It teaches us that covenantal faithfulness is not a matter of checking a few boxes, even very important ones. God demands total loyalty. Partial obedience is still, at its root, disobedience. Amaziah shows us that it is possible to be scrupulously biblical in one area of life while tolerating flagrant idolatry in another. This is a permanent warning against the kind of selective religion that is zealous for public justice but lazy when it comes to private and corporate worship.

Outline

Context In 2 Kings

The book of 2 Kings chronicles the steady decline of the divided kingdoms of Israel and Judah, a decline punctuated by moments of revival and reform that ultimately fail to turn the tide. This section on Amaziah follows the account of the death of his father, Joash, who also began his reign with promise but ended in apostasy and assassination. The narrative structure of Kings often alternates between the northern and southern kingdoms, and this passage is no exception, noting that Amaziah's reign began during the reign of Joash of Israel. Amaziah's story is part of a larger pattern: a king comes to the throne, he is evaluated by the Deuteronomic standard (i.e., how he compares to David and whether he removed the high places), his deeds are recorded, and then he dies. The recurring failure to deal with the high places is a major theme, highlighting how deeply entrenched syncretistic worship had become in Judah. Amaziah's initial obedience and subsequent pride and downfall (detailed later in the chapter) serve as another tragic example of the nation's spiritual decay, which will ultimately lead to the Babylonian exile.

Key Issues

Justice Tempered with Compromise

Amaziah presents us with a perplexing character. Here is a man who, in one of his first acts as king, demonstrates a profound respect for the authority and sufficiency of Scripture. In an age when kings were absolute monarchs and vengeance was a political tool, he bridles his own power and submits to a specific command in Deuteronomy. He refuses to visit the sins of the fathers upon the children. This is not sentimentalism; this is theonomic righteousness. This is applying God's revealed law to the civil sphere, and it is glorious.

And yet, this same man tolerates open idolatry. The high places were not just quaint country chapels; they were centers of worship that competed with the temple in Jerusalem, blending the worship of Yahweh with pagan practices. They represented a fundamental compromise of the First Commandment. To leave them standing was to leave a cancer in the body politic. How can we reconcile these two things? This is the picture of a divided heart. It is the picture of a man who believes the Bible is authoritative for the courtroom but optional for the sanctuary. He is willing to obey God when it comes to punishing criminals, but unwilling to obey God when it requires confronting a popular and culturally embedded sin. And as the rest of his story shows, this kind of compromise is never stable. The tolerated sin will always seek to conquer the whole man.

Verse by Verse Commentary

1 In the second year of Joash son of Joahaz king of Israel, Amaziah the son of Joash king of Judah became king. 2 He was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. And his mother’s name was Jehoaddin of Jerusalem.

The Chronicler begins with the standard formula for introducing a new king. The historical details are locked into place with precision: the year is synchronized with the reign of the king of the northern kingdom, his age at accession is given, as is the length of his reign and his mother's name. This is not myth or legend; it is sober history. God's redemptive work unfolds in real time and in real places. The mention of his mother, Jehoaddin of Jerusalem, is typical for the kings of Judah and underscores the importance of the maternal line in the royal house.

3 And he did what was right in the sight of Yahweh, yet not like David his father; he did according to all that Joash his father had done.

Here is the divine assessment, the only evaluation that ultimately matters. Amaziah gets a passing grade, but not a stellar one. He "did what was right," which sets him apart from the truly wicked kings. But his righteousness is immediately qualified in two ways. First, it was not like David his father. David is the gold standard, the benchmark for all subsequent kings. His defining characteristic was a wholehearted devotion to God. Amaziah's heart was divided. Second, his righteousness was derivative: he simply copied his father Joash. Joash himself was a reformer who later fell away. This tells us that Amaziah's righteousness was likely more about maintaining the status quo he inherited than about a personal, zealous passion for God's glory. He was a follower, not a leader in reformation.

4 Only the high places were not taken away; the people still sacrificed and burned incense on the high places.

This is the specific indictment, the great "only" or "but" that tarnishes the reigns of so many of Judah's kings. The high places were local shrines, often on hilltops, that had been used for Canaanite worship. Though some may have been dedicated to Yahweh, they represented a direct violation of the command to worship God only in the place He would choose, which was the temple in Jerusalem (Deut. 12). To allow them to continue was to tolerate syncretism and will-worship. It was a failure to enforce the First Table of the Law. It was popular, it was traditional, and taking them down would have been politically difficult. Amaziah chose the path of least resistance, and this compromise with idolatry was a spiritual rot that would eventually consume him.

5 Now it happened as soon as the kingdom was strong in his hand, that he struck down his servants who had struck down the king his father.

Once his power was consolidated, Amaziah acted decisively to establish justice. His father, Joash, had been assassinated by his own officials. For a kingdom to have any stability, such treason cannot be left unpunished. Amaziah acts as God's deacon of justice (Rom. 13:4), wielding the sword against evildoers. This was a necessary and righteous act to restore order and demonstrate that the throne would not tolerate rebellion.

6 But the sons of those who struck him down he did not put to death, according to what is written in the book of the Law of Moses, which Yahweh commanded, saying, “Fathers shall not be put to death for their sons, nor sons be put to death for their fathers; but each shall be put to death for his own sin.”

This verse is the high-water mark of Amaziah's reign. In the ancient Near East, the standard practice when dealing with traitors was to eradicate their entire family line to prevent any future blood feuds or claims to power. But Amaziah rejects this pagan standard of justice. Instead, he governs his actions by the clear instruction of God's Word. He quotes directly from the principle found in Deuteronomy 24:16. This is a beautiful demonstration of biblical justice. Guilt is personal, not generational. God may visit the iniquity of the fathers on the children in a covenantal sense, but civil justice must punish individuals for their own crimes. Amaziah shows here that he takes the law of God as his ultimate authority for civil rule. It is a stunning moment of faithfulness.

7 He struck down 10,000 of Edom in the Valley of Salt and seized Sela by war and named it Joktheel to this day.

Obedience brings covenantal blessing. Having established justice at home, Amaziah is granted victory abroad. Edom, a perennial enemy of Judah, is soundly defeated. The victory is decisive, with 10,000 slain, and strategic, with the capture of their capital city, Sela (likely the rock city of Petra). This success would have been seen by everyone as a sign of Yahweh's favor upon Amaziah's rule. God honored his obedience, even his partial obedience. However, as the subsequent narrative shows, this victory became a snare for Amaziah. He would become proud, and the heart that tolerated idolatry at home would soon be lifted up in arrogance, leading to his ruin.

Application

The story of Amaziah is a mirror for the modern church, and for every individual Christian. It forces us to ask uncomfortable questions about our own compromises. Where are we like Amaziah? Where are we zealous for biblical principle in one area, while blithely tolerant of sin in another? Perhaps we are passionate about defending the unborn but have no problem with gossip in our small groups. Perhaps we are sticklers for doctrinal precision but are negligent in showing mercy to the poor. Perhaps we tithe meticulously but allow the high places of lust and bitterness to stand untouched in our hearts.

Amaziah's great failure was his refusal to tear down the high places. The high places represent any rival to the exclusive worship of God through the means He has appointed. They are the culturally acceptable sins, the popular compromises, the traditional idols that we are afraid to challenge. True reformation, whether in a nation, a church, or a heart, must begin with the sledgehammer of repentance aimed squarely at these high places. Partial obedience is a fool's bargain. It gives the appearance of righteousness while allowing the root of rebellion to remain.

The good news of the gospel is that we have a king who is not like Amaziah. The Lord Jesus Christ is the greater David, the king with a whole and undivided heart. He did not merely follow the law in one or two particulars; He fulfilled it all. He did not tolerate the high places but cleansed the temple and, more than that, tore down the high places of our sin and rebellion at the cross. Our hope is not in our own ability to achieve a perfect record of obedience, but in clinging by faith to the perfect King who obeyed in our place. He gives us His Spirit, not so that we can be content with partial reform, but so that we can be empowered to lay the axe to the root of every idol, until He alone is king over every inch of our lives.