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Context No. 1169 of 4322 · 2 Chronicles

Context · Reflection

2 Chronicles 21:16-20: in context

16The LORD stirred up against Jehoram the spirit of the Philistines and of the Arabians who are beside the Ethiopians; 17and they came up against Judah, broke into it, and carried away all the possessions that were found in the king’s house, including his sons and his wives, so that there was no son left to him except Jehoahaz, the youngest of his sons. 18After all this the LORD struck him in his bowels with an incurable disease. 19In process of time, at the end of two years, his bowels fell out by reason of his sickness, and he died of severe diseases. His people made no burning for him, like the burning of his fathers. 20He was thirty-two years old when he began to reign, and he reigned in Jerusalem eight years. He departed with no one’s regret. They buried him in David’s city, but not in the tombs of the kings.

This is the grim end of Jehoram, king of Judah, whose reign had been marked by idolatry and the murder of his own brothers. God stirs up the Philistines and Arabs against him; they raid Judah, carry off his possessions, his wives, and all his sons except the youngest. Then God strikes him with an incurable disease of the bowels, and after two years of agony his bowels come out and he dies. His people make no fire of honor for him as they had for his fathers. He was thirty-two when he began to reign, reigned eight years in Jerusalem, and departed, the text says starkly, with no one's regret. They buried him in the city of David, but not in the tombs of the kings.

The haunting line in the whole account is the epitaph: he departed with no one's regret. A king reigned eight years and died, and no one was sorry to see him go. Consider what a verdict that is on a life. He had every advantage, a throne, a godly heritage, the promises to David's line, and he squandered it all on idolatry and the murder of his own family, and when he died, agonizingly and young, the nation felt only relief. No mourning fire, no burial among the kings, no grief. It is one of the sad sentences in the Bible, precisely because it is so quiet. The tragedy is not only the disease or the disgrace but that a whole life came to this, a man whose passing moved no one to sorrow, remembered only as someone the people were glad to be rid of. It is worth letting that sober epitaph do its work. A life is measured, in part, by whether its passing is grieved, whether it was spent on things that made others glad it existed or on the self-serving cruelty that made them glad it ended. Jehoram left no one regretting him. It is a warning to spend a life on what will leave love behind, not relief.

What will my passing leave behind, grief that a good presence is gone, or the quiet relief Jehoram earned, and am I spending my life on what makes others glad I am here?

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