2 Kings 16 in plain modern English. New Ground English Translation.
Time Period
~735-715 BC, during the war in which Aram and Israel tried to force Judah into an anti-Assyrian alliance
Location
Jerusalem, with Damascus to the north where Ahaz travels to meet the Assyrian king
Audience
Judeans in exile, asking how their own kingdom drifted toward the same end as the north
Situation
King Ahaz of Judah, attacked by Aram and Israel together, buys Assyrian protection with silver and gold stripped from the temple. After Assyria destroys Damascus, Ahaz visits the city, sends home a design of the altar he saw there, and rearranges the temple around it.
Key Background
Appealing to Assyria meant accepting vassal status, which normally carried religious obligations toward the overlord's gods, and the altar copied from Damascus should be read against that political pressure rather than as private taste. Passing a son through the fire refers to child sacrifice, a practice associated with times of national panic and condemned throughout Israel's law. This is the same crisis in which the prophet Isaiah confronted Ahaz and offered him a sign, which gives the chapter its place in the wider story.
In the seventeenth year of son of Remaliah, son of Jotham became king of
Ahaz was twenty years old when he became king, and he ruled in Jerusalem for sixteen years. He did not do what was in the eyes of his God, the way his ancestor David had.
Instead, he followed the ways of the kings of Israel. He even — copying the of the nations that Yahweh had driven out ahead of the Israelites.
He offered sacrifices and at the on the hills, and under every
That's when king of and Pekah son of Remaliah king of Israel came up to attack Jerusalem. They put Ahaz under siege but couldn't overpower him.
At that time, Rezin king of Aram recovered for Aram and drove the Judeans out of Then the moved into and have lived there ever since.
So Ahaz sent messengers to king of Assyria, saying, "I am and Come and rescue me from the king of Aram and the king of Israel — they're attacking me."
Ahaz took the silver and gold found in the of and in the treasuries of the royal palace and sent it as a gift to the king of Assyria.
The king of Assyria agreed. He marched against and captured it, its people to and put Rezin to death.
King Ahaz went to Damascus to meet Tiglath-Pileser king of Assyria. When he saw the in Damascus, King Ahaz sent the priest a detailed sketch of the along with plans for how it was built.
So the priest Uriah built an altar following every detail that King Ahaz had sent from Damascus. Uriah finished it before King Ahaz got back.
When the king returned from Damascus and saw the altar, he approached it and offered sacrifices on it.
He burned his and his poured out his and splashed the blood of his on the altar.
As for the that stood before Yahweh, he moved it from the front of the house — from between his new and the house of Yahweh — and put it on the north side of his new
Then King Ahaz gave orders to the priest Uriah: "On the burn the morning entirely-consumed offering, the evening grain offering, the king's entirely-consumed offering and his grain offering, and the entirely-consumed offerings of all the people of the land along with their grain offerings and drink offerings. Splash all the blood of the entirely-consumed offerings and sacrifices on it. But the bronze — I'll decide what to do with that."
The priest Uriah did everything exactly as King Ahaz commanded.
King Ahaz cut off the panels from the and removed the basins from on top of them. He took the down from the that supported it and set it on a stone pavement.
He also removed the for the that had been built at the house, and the king's outer entrance to the house of Yahweh — all of the of
The rest of what Ahaz did — isn't it all written down in the of the of
Ahaz with and was buried with in the of son became king after him.