Scripture Daily

Context No. 1256 of 4322 · 1 Kings

Context · Reflection

1 Kings 22:45-53: in context

45Now the rest of the acts of Jehoshaphat, and his might that he showed, and how he fought, aren’t they written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah? 46The remnant of the sodomites, that remained in the days of his father Asa, he put away out of the land. 47There was no king in Edom. A deputy ruled. 48Jehoshaphat made ships of Tarshish to go to Ophir for gold, but they didn’t go, for the ships wrecked at Ezion Geber. 49Then Ahaziah the son of Ahab said to Jehoshaphat, “Let my servants go with your servants in the ships.” But Jehoshaphat would not. 50Jehoshaphat slept with his fathers, and was buried with his fathers in his father David’s city. Jehoram his son reigned in his place. 51Ahaziah the son of Ahab began to reign over Israel in Samaria in the seventeenth year of Jehoshaphat king of Judah, and he reigned two years over Israel. 52He did that which was evil in the LORD’s sight, and walked in the way of his father, and in the way of his mother, and in the way of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, in which he made Israel to sin. 53He served Baal and worshiped him, and provoked the LORD, the God of Israel, to anger in all the ways that his father had done so.

The account of Jehoshaphat's reign closes on a mixed note. He was a good king, who removed the last of the male shrine-prostitutes his father had missed and generally did right. But there is a shadow: his ships built to sail for gold were wrecked at Ezion-geber and never sailed. And when Ahaziah, the wicked son of Ahab, proposed that his sailors join Jehoshaphat's, this time Jehoshaphat refused, having apparently learned a lesson. The chapter then turns to Ahaziah of Israel, who did evil, walked in the ways of his father Ahab and mother Jezebel, and served Baal.

Jehoshaphat was a genuinely faithful king, and yet his one persistent weakness was his entanglements with the wicked house of Ahab. He had allied with Ahab in war and nearly died for it; he had bound his family to Ahab's by marriage; and here his commercial venture, tied up with that alliance, ends in shipwreck, the fleet dashed to pieces before it could sail. It reads like God's judgment on the compromising partnership. But notice the encouraging detail: when Ahaziah proposes another joint venture, Jehoshaphat this time says no. He seems, at last, to have learned. The good king who kept getting drawn into unequal partnerships with the ungodly finally refused one. There is both a warning and a hope in that. The warning is that even a faithful person can have a besetting weakness, a repeated compromise, an entanglement they keep returning to that keeps ending in shipwreck. The hope is that we can learn, that after enough wrecked ships even a slow learner can finally say no. Jehoshaphat's fleet was wrecked because of a compromise he kept making; and then, at last, he stopped making it. Even our persistent weaknesses are not beyond correction.

What compromising entanglement do I keep returning to that keeps ending in shipwreck, and, like Jehoshaphat learning at last to say no, am I willing to finally break the partnership that keeps costing me?

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