Amon, Who Did Not Humble Himself
21 Amon was twenty-two years old when he began to reign; and he reigned two years in Jerusalem. 22 He did that which was evil in Yahweh’s sight, as did Manasseh his father; and Amon sacrificed to all the engraved images which Manasseh his father had made, and served them. 23 He didn’t humble himself before Yahweh, as Manasseh his father had humbled himself; but this same Amon trespassed more and more. 24 His servants conspired against him, and put him to death in his own house. 25 But the people of the land killed all those who had conspired against King Amon; and the people of the land made Josiah his son king in his place.
Two years, and the whole verdict is a comparison with a father who repented and a son who declined to.
Five verses, and the writer spends them on one contrast.
Amon does what Manasseh did, and the writer specifies which Manasseh: he sacrificed to all the engraved images which Manasseh his father had made 2 Chronicles 33:22. He inherits the idols and not the imprisonment, so he takes up his father's first career while the evidence of the second stands in front of him.
The indictment is then stated as a failure to copy rather than as a catalogue of crimes. He didn't humble himself before Yahweh, as Manasseh his father had humbled himself; but this same Amon trespassed more and more 2 Chronicles 33:23.
That is the whole charge. Not that he sinned, which every king in the book does, but that the one thing his father did right was available to him at closer range than to anybody in the nation, and he declined it. He had watched a man come home from a Babylonian prison and tear down the altars he had built. The example was not a story he had been told; it was his own household.
The verb that condemns him is the verb of the dedication promise 2 Chronicles 7:14, and it is the same verb that saved Rehoboam from destruction 2 Chronicles 12:6 and deferred the wrath in Hezekiah's day 2 Chronicles 32:26. In this book humbling is never described as difficult, and it is never refused for a reason. It is simply the thing some kings do and others do not.
He is killed in his own house by his servants after two years, and then something unusual happens: the people of the land killed all those who had conspired and put his son on the throne 2 Chronicles 33:24–25.
The assassins are not rewarded and the dynasty is not interrupted. The population intervenes to keep the succession in David's line, which is what they had done for the boy Joash and would do again. The promise of a lamp that would not go out 2 Chronicles 21:7 is carried here by ordinary people acting against a palace coup.
The son they crown is eight years old, and he is Josiah.
settled What this mark means