Why the History Matters: Ahaz

… they will lie like acorns, as if they had fallen from the very husk that bore them (Isaiah 6:13). Solomon too says something of the kind: “As a bird when it falls from its own nest, so is a man when he is torn away from his own places” (Proverbs 27:8). For what could be more pitiable than those in captivity? What is so wretched and downtrodden as for people to fall into the hands of their conquerors?

“And it came to pass in the days of Ahaz son of Jotham, son of Uzziah, king of Judah, that Rezin king of Syria and Pekah son of Remaliah king of Israel went up against Jerusalem to wage war on it, and they could not take it by siege” (Isaiah 7:1).

Those who reject the history in the divinely inspired Scriptures as stale are, it seems, running away from being able to understand what is written in them in the proper way. Spiritual contemplation is good and profitable, and by greatly brightening the eye of the mind it makes people most discerning. But whenever some event of history is set before us through the sacred Writings, then above all we should hunt for what is useful in the history, so that the divinely inspired Scripture may be seen to save and benefit us from every side.

Here, then, the prophetic word recounts for us what befell those of Judah and Benjamin in the times of Uzziah’s reign, and the ten tribes in Samaria, which were called Ephraim and also Israel. Since the whole word of the prophecy came in the times of four kings (Isaiah 1:1), the prophet sets down what happened in the times of each, and he necessarily marks them, giving the best order to his visions, that is, to his own words.

When Azariah, also called Uzziah, had died, Jotham succeeded to the kingdom and followed the aim and practices of his own father. He too is said to have done what was right in the eyes of the Lord, as Uzziah had, except that he did not remove the high places, but the people still burned incense on the high places (2 Kings 15:34–35). Uzziah had sought, against what was lawful, to serve God as a priest and to offer incense, and for this reason he was struck with leprosy (2 Chronicles 26:16–21). Jotham, however, did not do so (2 Chronicles 27:2).

When he too died, Ahaz succeeded to the kingdom, while Pekah son of Remaliah was reigning over Israel, that is, over the twelve tribes. He waged war against Ahaz and Judah, and killed a hundred and twenty thousand in one day (2 Chronicles 28:6). For the God of all was provoked by the impieties of Ahaz, of whom it is written in the Second Book of Kings that he walked in the way of the king of Israel (2 Kings 16:3). For he was an impious man; he served idols and made his children pass through fire, burning incense to the unclean demons.