THE REIGNS OF UZZIAH AND JOTHAM. THE PROPHET ISAIAH IS SENT. THE REIGN OF AHAZ AND PART OF HEZEKIAH'S REIGN.
AND all the people of Judah took Uzziah, Amaziah's son, and made him king. He was sixteen years old when he began to reign, and at first he did what was right; for he had a good and wise counsellor, named Zechariah, whose advice he followed, and as long as he did right the Lord caused him to prosper. He built towers by the gates of Jerusalem, and made them ready for war. He owned a great many cattle, and had wells dug for them out in the fields where they fed, and towers built there for his herdsmen to go into and be safe from robbers. He loved to sow grain and plant vineyards, and he had husbandmen to work for him both on the plains and in the mountains.
He had also a great army of three hundred and seventy thousand men, and he made for them shields and spears, helmets and bows, and slings to throw stones. He built in Jerusalem curious engines, which he put in the towers and on the walls, to shoot arrows and stones against his enemies when they should come to make war on the city. And God helped him in fighting against the Philistines, so that he took cities from them; the Ammonites brought him gifts, and all the nations heard of him, for he became very great and strong.
But when he was strong he grew proud and disobeyed the Lord; for he went to the temple and into the holy place, with a censer in his hand, to burn incense on the golden altar. Then Azariah, the high priest, and eighty other priests with him, who were not afraid to reprove the king, went into the temple after him and said to him, It is not right for thee, Uzziah, to burn incense to the Lord, but only for the priests, the descendants of Aaron, who are commanded to burn incense. Go out of the temple, for thou hast sinned, neither will the Lord be pleased with thee for doing this thing. But Uzziah was angry at the priests for speaking these words, and while he Was angry, suddenly the leprosy came on his forehead, and the priests saw it there as he stood beside the golden altar. Then they took hold of him and thrust him out of the temple; yes, he himself made haste to go, because the Lord had sent this punishment upon him.
And Uzziah, the king, was never cured, but was a leper till his death; he lived in a house by himself, because God had said that no leper should live with the rest of the people: and Jotham, his son, ruled for him, over the land. Uzziah was king for fifty-two years, and he died, and they buried him in Jerusalem; and then Jotham was made king.
Jotham was twenty-five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem. He built cities in the mountains of Judah, and in the forests he built castles and towers. He went out to war against the Ammonites, and made them his servants, and they gave him each year, a hundred talents of silver, ten thousand measures of wheat, and ten thousand measures of barley. And he became very great, because in all that he did he tried to please the Lord.
But though he served the Lord, the people did wickedly; and God sent Isaiah the prophet to speak to them. Isaiah came and told them, That even the dumb ox remembered his master, who was kind to him and fed him, but the children of Israel did not remember the Lord who gave them everything that they had. For the land was full of idols, and the people worshipped them though they had made them out of pieces of wood with their own hands. The Lord asked them why they offered up sacrifices to him at the temple, when they went away afterward and worshipped idols. He did not care for their sacrifices any more, he said, and when they should pray to him, he would not hear them. If they would cease to do evil and learn to do good, then, the Lord said he would hear them and bless them.
But they would not do this, for their priests, their princes, and all the men of Judah did wickedly. Because of their sins, Isaiah told them, the Lord would call their enemies from far off countries. Those enemies would come swiftly with sharp spears and arrows; they would be fierce as lions and no man could save the people out of their hands. For the people of Judah should be carried away captive, their land should be left lonely and desolate, briars and thorns should grow over it, the cities should have no one living in them, and Jerusalem and the temple should be destroyed. But, after many years, Isaiah said, they should be rebuilt, for the Lord would raise up a great king named Cyrus who would command that the city and the temple should be built again.
Isaiah lived more than seven hundred years before our Saviour came on the earth, yet he prophesied about him, saying, That he would be descended from king David and born as a little child; that he would grow up to have sorrow and suffering, and afterward would be put to death for the people's sins. Isaiah spoke of John the Baptist also, and said that he would come before the Saviour came, and would preach to the people out in the wilderness, telling them to make ready for the Saviour's coming by repenting of their sins.
But the people of Judah would not listen to the preaching of Isaiah, and God took away their good king from them, for Jotham died. And Ahaz, his son, was made king.
Ahaz was twenty years old when he began to reign. He did not serve God as his father had done, but served idols and offered up sacrifices to them on the high places and the hills, and under the shade of trees; and made his sons pass through the fire before them as the heathen nations did. And the Lord sent the kings of Syria and Israel against him. They came up to Jerusalem and besieged the city. The king of Syria took many of the people and carried them away captive to his own city of Damascus; and the king of Israel killed a hundred and twenty thousand of the men of Judah in one day. He took away also, great numbers of the women and children, and brought them to the city of Samaria where he lived.
And not only the kings of Syria and Israel made war against Ahaz, but the Edomites and the Philistines came up and fought against him. Then Ahaz took some of the silver and gold out of the temple, and some of the treasures out of his own palace, and sent them to Tiglath-pilezer, king of Assyria, and asked that king to help him against his enemies. And Tiglath-pilezer took the present of gold and silver and did as Ahaz asked him, for he fought against the Syrians and took the city of Damascus from them; but it did Ahaz little good, because the Lord was against him on account of his sins.
And Ahaz went to Damascus to meet Tiglath-pilezer. While he was there he saw an idol's altar that greatly pleased him. And he sent the pattern of it to the high priest in Jerusalem, commanding him to make one like it. The high priest did so, and put the altar he had made in the court of the temple. When Ahaz returned to Jerusalem he went to it and offered sacrifices on it: he even took away the altar of the Lord from its place in the court, to make room for the idol's altar.
After this Ahaz did still more wickedly. For he took to pieces the lavers which Solomon had made to stand and hold water in the court of the temple; he took down the great sea of brass from the backs of the twelve oxen on which it rested, and set it on the pavement of the court. He also carried out from the temple the sacred vessels of gold and silver and cut them in pieces. Then he shut up the doors of the temple, so that no one could go there to worship; but in every corner of Jerusalem he set up his idols, and in every city of the land he made high places on which to burn sacrifices to them. And the Lord was very angry with Ahaz and the people of Judah for their wickedness.
Ahaz was king for sixteen years and he died, and was buried in Jerusalem, but they did not bury him in the sepulchre of the kings. And Hezekiah his son was made king in his place.
Hezekiah did what was right and pleased the Lord. As soon as he was made king he opened the doors of the temple, which his father Ahaz had shut up, and he called the priests and Levites who had been sent away from the temple, to come and cleanse it and put it in order, so that God might be worshipped there again. For he said, Our fathers have done wrong; they have shut up the doors of the temple and have put out the lamps, and not burned incense or offered burnt offerings. And the Lord has been angry with us and sent us trouble, and shame, as you have seen; our men have been killed by our enemies, and our sons and daughters have been led away captive on account of these things.
And now, Hezekiah said, I want to make a promise and a covenant with the Lord, to obey him, so that he may not be angry with us any more. Therefore, ye priests and Levites, be diligent and make haste to cleanse and open the house of the Lord; for you are the ones whom he has chosen to go into his house and attend to his worship. Then the priests, when they heard what the king said, went into the inner part of the temple, and brought out all the uncleanness that they found there, and the Levites took it and emptied it into the brook Kidron. They began this work on the first day of the month, and on the sixteenth day they came to the king, saying, We have cleansed all the house of the Lord, and the altar that is in the court, and the table on which is set the shewbread; and the vessels of gold and silver which Ahaz took away, we have put there again, and all things are ready.
Then king Hezekiah rose early in the morning and called the rulers of the city, and they went up together to the temple. They took with them seven bullocks and seven rams, seven lambs and seven goats; and Hezekiah commanded the priests to offer these up on the altar as a sacrifice for all the people's sins. And Hezekiah set the priests and the Levites in the temple, to play on instruments and sing praises to the Lord. When the offering began to burn on the altar, the songs of praise began, with music from the cymbals, the harps, and the trumpets, that the priests and Levites held in their hands. And all the people worshipped and the singers sang and the trumpets sounded, until the burnt offering was finished.
After the offerings which the king and the rulers had brought, were offered up, Hezekiah invited the people to bring their offerings; and they brought seventy bullocks, a hundred rams, and two hundred lambs. And the priests offered up these also. And the king rejoiced, and the people with him, because the Lord had made them willing to bring so many offerings, and because the Lord's worship was begun at the temple again.
And Hezekiah wrote letters to all the people in Judah, and to the people of the ten tribes of Israel also, asking them to come to Jerusalem and keep the feast of the passover; for it had been many years since the people kept that feast as the Lord commanded them to keep it. And the messengers whom the king sent, went out among the people, carrying the king's letter, which said, Ye children of Israel, who have been disobeying the Lord, turn now and obey him; then he will turn to you and bless you. Be not like your fathers and your brothers who have gone on sinning against him, and been carried away captive for their sins; but obey his commandments and come to his temple and serve him, that he may take away his anger from you. If you will do this, he will remember those who have been taken captive, and will make their enemies kind to them, so that they will allow them to come back to their own land.
So the messengers with the king's letters, went out through all the land. But when they came into the land of Israel, the men of the ten tribes would not listen to them; they mocked them and laughed them to scorn. Yet not all the men of Israel did this, for some of them confessed their sins and were sorry for them, and came to Jerusalem. But in the land of Judah, the Lord made all the people willing to come. So there came to Jerusalem a very great company of people to keep the feast. But before they began to keep it, they went out through the city and took away all the idols' altars that were still left there, and cast them into the brook Kidron.
Then they made ready to keep the feast of the passover: each man took a lamb, and brought it to the temple; there it was killed before the altar. Afterward the man took it to his own house, and it was roasted with fire, and he and his family ate of it in the night, as the children of Israel did on the night that they came out of Egypt. For the Lord wanted the people to remember that night, how he had saved them from Pharaoh and the cruel Egyptians; therefore he commanded them to keep the feast every year. But they had neglected to do this, and now Hezekiah called them to Jerusalem to keep it again, so that they might obey the Lord, and he might be pleased with them and bless them.
We have read that when the children of Israel kept the passover the first time in Egypt, they were commanded to eat only one kind of bread, called unleavened bread; and for seven days afterward they were allowed to eat no other bread but this. So now, and for seven days after they had eaten the lamb, they ate unleavened bread. And they kept the feast through all those seven days with gladness. The priests and the Levites sang praises every day, playing on harps and trumpets. And the Levites went out among the people and taught them the law of the Lord, that they might know his law and take care to obey it. And king Hezekiah spoke kindly to the Levites who were doing this work, and encouraged them to go on in it.
Through the seven days of the feast the people feasted on the flesh of the peace offerings which they had brought to the temple, and they confessed their sins to the Lord. And after they had kept these seven days, they all agreed to stay seven days more, praising God. And king Hezekiah and the princes gave them great numbers of cattle for sacrifices, two thousand bullocks and seventeen thousand sheep. And all the people of Judah, with the priests and Levites, and the men of Israel also, who had come to keep the feast with them, rejoiced; for since the time when Solomon lived, no such feast had been kept in Jerusalem.
When the feast was over, the people went out to the different cities of the land and broke in pieces all the idols that they found there, and cut down the groves; and they destroyed the high places and the altars that had been made to worship idols on. They did this both in the land of Judah and in the land of Israel. Afterward they returned every man to his own home.
And Hezekiah sent the different courses, or companies, of the priests and Levites, to the temple, as king David had appointed them, to take turns in attending to the worship of the Lord; and he gave them sacrifices to be offered up every day, in the morning and evening, and on the sabbath, and feast days. The king told the people also, to bring a tenth part of all that grew in their fields, to the priests and Levites for food, as Moses had commanded; for the people had long neglected to do this. But now they obeyed the king and brought these things to the temple. Not only the people of Judah did so, but many who lived in the land of Israel. In the third month they began to bring them, and they kept on bringing until the seventh month.
When the king and the princes came to the temple and saw the great heaps of food that had been brought, they thanked the Lord who had made the people willing to bring so much. Then Hezekiah asked the priests and the Levites how it happened that there was so much. Azariah, the chief priest, answered him, saying, Ever since the people began to bring their offerings, the priests and Levites have had enough to eat, and not only enough, but plenty to spare; for after eating all they wanted, these heaps are left. For the Lord has not only made the people willing to bring offerings, but he has blessed their fruit and their grain, out in the field, making them grow well, so that the people have had large offerings to bring.
Then Hezekiah commanded that some chambers, or store rooms, should be made ready, near the temple, where the heaps of food could be brought and kept safe. And they made the chambers ready and brought the food into them. And Hezekiah appointed some of the Levites to take care of it, and to give to all the priests and Levites as much as they needed for themselves and their families to eat: not only to those whose turn it was to stay at the temple; but to those also who were resting at home, or teaching the laws of God to the people in different parts of the land.