Commentary - 2 Chronicles 28:1-4

Bird's-eye view

The reign of Ahaz represents a catastrophic spiritual plunge for the kingdom of Judah. This is not a slow fade or a minor stumble; it is a full-throated, headlong dive into the very dregs of pagan depravity. The Chronicler presents Ahaz as a man who systematically repudiates the covenant and enthusiastically embraces every form of idolatry available to him. He is the anti-David, the negative image of a faithful king. The passage sets the stage for the severe divine judgment that will follow, demonstrating that Ahaz's unfaithfulness is not merely personal but national. He leads Judah down a path of rebellion that mirrors the worst sins of the northern kingdom of Israel and even the Canaanite nations whom God had originally dispossessed. This section serves as a stark reminder that covenant privilege does not guarantee covenant faithfulness and that apostasy from the highest places invites the most severe consequences. Ahaz is a case study in how a nation's leader can, through his own flagrant impiety, undo generations of reform and bring the wrath of God down upon his people.

The key here is the comprehensiveness of his rebellion. It is not just one sin, but a cascade of them. He rejects the Davidic standard, adopts the idolatry of Israel, manufactures idols for Baal, and culminates his wickedness with the horrific practice of child sacrifice in the valley of Ben-hinnom. His worship is syncretistic in the worst way, taking place on every high hill and under every green tree, demonstrating a total abandonment of God's prescribed worship at the temple. This is not a man struggling with temptation; this is a man running toward it with open arms.

Outline

Context In 2 Chronicles

The book of Chronicles is written after the exile, and one of its primary purposes is to teach the returned remnant what it means to be the people of God, with a particular focus on the temple, right worship, and the Davidic monarchy. The historian consistently evaluates the kings of Judah based on their faithfulness to Yahweh, especially as it relates to their leadership in worship. Ahaz's father, Jotham, was a righteous king, though the people continued in some corruption (2 Chron 27:2, 6). The reign of Ahaz, therefore, marks a sharp and tragic downturn. His story is a powerful negative example, illustrating the covenantal principle that rebellion by the king leads to disaster for the nation. The calamities that befall Judah later in this chapter at the hands of Syria and Israel are presented as the direct consequence of the sins outlined in these first four verses. Ahaz's reign stands in stark contrast to the reforms of his son, Hezekiah, who will follow him and provide one of the book's great examples of repentance and restoration.

Key Issues

The Downward Spiral of a Faithless King

Apostasy is rarely a sudden event; it is more often a series of compromises that gather momentum. But with Ahaz, the Chronicler shows us a man who seems to hit the ground running in the wrong direction. The text doesn't just say he sinned; it provides a detailed charge sheet. He is measured against the gold standard of faithfulness, his ancestor David, and is found to be base metal. This is the fundamental failure of every bad king in Judah. God established the throne of David as the instrument of His rule, and to abandon the Davidic pattern was to abandon God Himself. Ahaz does not simply neglect his duty; he actively pursues the opposite. He doesn't just tolerate false worship; he champions it. He doesn't just fail to lead the people to God; he leads them to Baal and Molech. This is a portrait of covenantal treason at the highest level, a deliberate and enthusiastic rejection of everything a king of Judah was supposed to be.

Verse by Verse Commentary

1 Ahaz was twenty years old when he became king, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem; and he did not do what was right in the sight of Yahweh, as David his father had done.

The Chronicler begins with the basic biographical data but immediately gets to the heart of the matter: the spiritual evaluation of Ahaz's reign. The ultimate standard for any king in Jerusalem is David. David was not a perfect man, as we all know, but he was a man after God's own heart, and his public, official posture was one of unwavering loyalty to Yahweh and His covenant. To "do what was right in the sight of Yahweh" was the king's primary job description. This wasn't about popular opinion or political expediency; it was about conformity to the revealed will of God. Ahaz failed this fundamental test. By rejecting the Davidic standard, he was rejecting the divine standard. He was a covenant king who broke the covenant, a son of David who spat on the legacy of his father.

2 But he walked in the ways of the kings of Israel; he also made molten images for the Baals.

Instead of following the faithful pattern of Judah's founder, David, Ahaz looked north for his inspiration. He "walked in the ways of the kings of Israel." This was a damning indictment. The northern kingdom was established in rebellion and schism, and its official, state-sponsored religion, from Jeroboam onward, was idolatry. For a king of Judah, seated on David's throne in Jerusalem, to imitate the apostate kings of the north was an act of profound spiritual treason. He wasn't just a bad king of Judah; he was acting like a king of Israel. And he put this imitation into practice. He didn't just tolerate idolatry; he became a manufacturer of idols, making "molten images for the Baals." Baalism was the corrupting Canaanite fertility cult that Israel was supposed to have eradicated. Ahaz, the king of God's people, is now mass-producing their gods.

3 Moreover, he offered offerings in smoke in the valley of Ben-hinnom and burned his sons in the fire, according to the abominations of the nations whom Yahweh had dispossessed from before the sons of Israel.

Here the depravity of Ahaz reaches its nadir. The Valley of Ben-hinnom, just outside Jerusalem, would later become synonymous with hell itself (Gehenna), and for good reason. It was the site of the most grotesque pagan rituals. And Ahaz was a participant. The ultimate act of devotion to the dark gods of Canaan, particularly Molech, was child sacrifice. The text says he "burned his sons in the fire." This is not some spiritual metaphor. This is the king of Judah, a descendant of David, taking his own children and offering them as a burnt sacrifice to a demon. The Chronicler explicitly connects this to the "abominations of the nations whom Yahweh had dispossessed." This is the very reason God drove the Canaanites out of the land, and now the king of Judah is doing the same thing, right on the doorstep of the Holy City. This is the absolute inversion of the covenant, where the seed of Abraham, which was to be blessed, is instead offered up to the devil.

4 He also sacrificed and offered offerings in smoke on the high places and on the hills and under every green tree.

Ahaz's apostasy was not only deep, it was wide. The worship of Yahweh was centralized at the temple in Jerusalem for a reason: God is one, and He is to be worshiped in the way He prescribes. Ahaz decentralized and democratized idolatry. He participated in the syncretistic worship at the "high places," which even some of the good kings had failed to remove, but he went further. His rebellion was comprehensive, taking place "on the hills and under every green tree." This phrase denotes the common locations for Canaanite fertility rites. The picture is one of a land completely polluted by false worship, led by its king. Every prominent geographical feature became a shrine to a false god. He turned the entire Holy Land into a landscape of idolatry, an open-air brothel of spiritual adultery.

Application

The story of Ahaz is a stark warning against spiritual declension, both personal and corporate. It shows us that a godly heritage is no guarantee of a godly life. Ahaz had a righteous father, but he chose the path of rebellion. We must never rest on the faith of our parents or our traditions; faith must be personal and active. Each generation is responsible for its own covenant faithfulness.

Furthermore, Ahaz teaches us that worship is at the center of life. When worship is corrupted, everything else follows. Ahaz began by rejecting God's standard for worship, and he ended by burning his own children. False worship is never harmless; it is dehumanizing and destructive because we become like what we worship. When a man or a nation bows down to cruel, arbitrary, and demonic powers, that man and that nation will become cruel and arbitrary. We see this today in the modern cult of the state, which demands absolute allegiance, and in the abortion industry, our modern form of child sacrifice, offered on the altar of convenience and self-fulfillment.

The only hope in the face of such profound wickedness is the coming of a better King. Ahaz is the anti-David, but he points us to our need for the true Son of David, Jesus Christ. Jesus is the King who did not sacrifice His children for Himself, but rather offered Himself for His children. He entered the true Valley of Hinnom, the hell of God's wrath on the cross, to rescue us from the consequences of our own idolatries. The story of Ahaz drives us to despair of human leadership and to place all our hope in the one perfect King who always does what is right in the sight of the Father.