Ahaz and the Altar From Damascus
1 In the seventeenth year of Pekah the son of Remaliah, Ahaz the son of Jotham king of Judah began to reign. 2 Ahaz was twenty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem. He didn’t do that which was right in Yahweh his God’s eyes, like David his father. 3 But he walked in the way of the kings of Israel, and even made his son to pass through the fire, according to the abominations of the nations whom Yahweh cast out from before the children of Israel. 4 He sacrificed and burned incense in the high places, on the hills, and under every green tree. 5 Then Rezin king of Syria and Pekah son of Remaliah king of Israel came up to Jerusalem to wage war. They besieged Ahaz, but could not overcome him. 6 At that time Rezin king of Syria recovered Elath to Syria, and drove the Jews from Elath; and the Syrians came to Elath, and live there to this day. 7 So Ahaz sent messengers to Tiglath Pileser king of Assyria, saying, “I am your servant and your son. Come up and save me out of the hand of the king of Syria and out of the hand of the king of Israel, who rise up against me.” 8 Ahaz took the silver and gold that was found in Yahweh’s house, and in the treasures of the king’s house, and sent it for a present to the king of Assyria. 9 The king of Assyria listened to him; and the king of Assyria went up against Damascus and took it, and carried its people captive to Kir, and killed Rezin. 10 King Ahaz went to Damascus to meet Tiglath Pileser king of Assyria, and saw the altar that was at Damascus; and King Ahaz sent to Urijah the priest a drawing of the altar and plans to build it. 11 Urijah the priest built an altar. According to all that King Ahaz had sent from Damascus, so Urijah the priest made it for the coming of King Ahaz from Damascus. 12 When the king had come from Damascus, the king saw the altar; and the king came near to the altar, and offered on it. 13 He burned his burnt offering and his meal offering, poured his drink offering, and sprinkled the blood of his peace offerings on the altar. 14 The bronze altar, which was before Yahweh, he brought from the front of the house, from between his altar and Yahweh’s house, and put it on the north side of his altar. 15 King Ahaz commanded Urijah the priest, saying, “On the great altar burn the morning burnt offering, the evening meal offering, the king’s burnt offering and his meal offering, with the burnt offering of all the people of the land, their meal offering, and their drink offerings; and sprinkle on it all the blood of the burnt offering, and all the blood of the sacrifice; but the bronze altar will be for me to inquire by.” 16 Urijah the priest did so, according to all that King Ahaz commanded. 17 King Ahaz cut off the panels of the bases, and removed the basin from off them, and took down the sea from off the bronze oxen that were under it, and put it on a pavement of stone. 18 He removed the covered way for the Sabbath that they had built in the house, and the king’s outer entrance to Yahweh’s house, because of the king of Assyria. 19 Now the rest of the acts of Ahaz which he did, aren’t they written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah? 20 Ahaz slept with his fathers, and was buried with his fathers in David’s city; and Hezekiah his son reigned in his place.
A king who burns his son, buys Assyria with the temple gold, admires an altar in Damascus and has one built at home — and moves God's out of the way.
But he walked in the way of the kings of Israel, and even made his son to pass through the fire, according to the abominations of the nations whom Yahweh cast out from before the children of Israel.
Ahaz is the first king of Judah to be described in the terms reserved for the north, and the charge escalates past anything yet recorded in the south. Child sacrifice is the practice named in the law as the reason the previous inhabitants were driven out Leviticus 18:21 Deuteronomy 12:31, and a son of David is doing it in Jerusalem.
So Ahaz sent messengers to Tiglath Pileser king of Assyria, saying, “I am your servant and your son. Come up and save me out of the hand of the king of Syria and out of the hand of the king of Israel, who rise up against me.”
Under attack from Syria and Israel, Ahaz appeals to Assyria in the language of vassalage — your servant and your son — and pays with the silver and gold of the temple and the palace 2 Kings 16:8. This is the moment Isaiah had been sent to prevent, offering him any sign he liked to confirm that the two kings threatening him were spent torches Isaiah 7:4–14. He refused the sign and bought an empire instead, and the empire he bought is the one that will besiege his son.
The policy works immediately and catastrophically. Damascus falls, Rezin is killed 2 Kings 16:9, and Judah is now a client state of the greatest military power in the world with its treasury emptied.
King Ahaz went to Damascus to meet Tiglath Pileser king of Assyria, and saw the altar that was at Damascus; and King Ahaz sent to Urijah the priest a drawing of the altar and plans to build it.
At the victory ceremony he sees an altar he admires and mails home the blueprints. The detail is small and it is the whole reign: a king whose sense of what worship should look like is set by whatever the imperial capital is doing. And the high priest builds it, on schedule, before the king gets home 2 Kings 16:11. Urijah's compliance is reported without a word of protest anywhere in the account.
The bronze altar, which was before Yahweh, he brought from the front of the house, from between his altar and Yahweh’s house, and put it on the north side of his altar.
Solomon's altar is not destroyed. It is moved aside — shifted off center to make room for the new one, and reassigned to the king's private use: the bronze altar will be for me to inquire by 2 Kings 16:15. Nothing is denied and nothing is renounced. The God of Israel keeps his altar and loses the central position, which is a more accurate picture of how worship actually goes wrong than any outright apostasy in the book.
He removed the covered way for the Sabbath that they had built in the house, and the king’s outer entrance to Yahweh’s house, because of the king of Assyria.
The last act is stripping the temple's fittings — the bronze basins off their stands, the great sea off its twelve oxen — and dismantling the Sabbath structure and the royal entrance, because of the king of Assyria. Either the metal went as tribute or the arrangements were altered to suit an imperial inspection. Both amount to the same thing: the house Solomon built is being remodeled to the taste and budget of a foreign court.
His son Hezekiah inherits that temple, and the first thing chapter eighteen records him doing is a purge.
settled What this mark means