Bible in 90 Days - Day 33 (2 Chronicles 23:16-35:15)

Shine within our hearts, loving Lord,

with the true light of your divine knowledge,

and open the eyes of our minds,

that we may comprehend the message of your Word,

through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

In 2 Chronicles 24 we see that Jehoida the priest is really the hero during Joash’s reign. In the Kings account we don’t really see the fall of Joash, but in today’s text we really see the difference coming at the death of Jehoida. The priest guided the king in godly ruling.

If you are trying to compare the accounts of Uzziah in Kings and Chronicles, note that Uzziah is called Azariah in Kings. As if distinguishing the kings wasn’t already difficult enough! In the Kings account Uzziah is struck with leprosy, but no reason is given. Here in Chronicles we get the theological story.

2 Chronicles 28:23 – Ahaz had it exactly backwards. It is interesting that we often think that what works for (or against) us is right. Our job is not to seek our own success first, but rather God's kingdom, his glory, and his righteousness. The chief end of people is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. We must stick with glorifying God even when it seems that he is not seeking our glory.

On Sunday we were talking as a group about the sacrifices at the high places. It seems that sometimes these sacrifices were to God, but other times they were to the pagan gods. Even when they were to God, God himself had specified that he wanted his sacrifices to happen at the temple. There is a lot we just don’t see about what worship looked like at the high places. Here in 33:15 we read, “The people, however, continued to sacrifice at the high places, but only to the Lord their God.” The contrast to that comes in verse 19 where we read that Manasseh originally rebuilt the high places for pagan worship. That gives us another little window into the situation.

In 35:3 Josiah tells the Levites to put the ark back in its place. We didn’t see it leave, but it could have been the old pattern of trying to manipulate the presence of God. It is possible also that it was moved by Manasseh or Amon to simply get it out of the way (showing their disregard). It may have been moved for protection during the renovations. Since Josiah also says that it is not to be carried around, I’m going with the first option.