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Context No. 1850 of 4322 · 2 Chronicles

Context · Reflection

2 Chronicles 21:1-7: in context

1Jehoshaphat slept with his fathers, and was buried with his fathers in David’s city; and Jehoram his son reigned in his place. 2He had brothers, the sons of Jehoshaphat: Azariah, Jehiel, Zechariah, Azariah, Michael, and Shephatiah. All these were the sons of Jehoshaphat king of Israel. 3Their father gave them great gifts of silver, of gold, and of precious things, with fortified cities in Judah; but he gave the kingdom to Jehoram, because he was the firstborn. 4Now when Jehoram had risen up over the kingdom of his father, and had strengthened himself, he killed all his brothers with the sword, and also some of the princes of Israel. 5Jehoram was thirty-two years old when he began to reign, and he reigned eight years in Jerusalem. 6He walked in the way of the kings of Israel, as did Ahab’s house, for he had Ahab’s daughter as his wife. He did that which was evil in the LORD’s sight. 7However the LORD would not destroy David’s house, because of the covenant that he had made with David, and as he promised to give a lamp to him and to his children always.

Jehoram succeeds his father Jehoshaphat as king of Judah, and one of his first acts is to murder all his brothers with the sword to secure his throne. He walks in the evil ways of the kings of Israel, having married a daughter of Ahab, and does what is evil in the LORD's sight. And yet, the text says, the LORD would not destroy the house of David, because of the covenant he had made with David, and because he had promised to give a lamp to him and to his descendants always.

Jehoram was as wicked a descendant of David as one could imagine: a fratricide who slaughtered his own brothers, a follower of Ahab's idolatry, a doer of evil. If any heir deserved to have God's promise to David withdrawn, it was he. And the text says God would not destroy David's house, because of the covenant, because he had promised a lamp to David always. God kept his promise even through a descendant who deserved nothing, preserving the lamp he had sworn to keep burning, though the man who held it was faithless and evil. There is something steadying in this about the ground of God's promises. God's covenant with David did not rest on the worthiness of David's descendants; it rested on God's own faithfulness. And so even when the heir was wicked, even through the darkest chapters of the royal line, God kept his word, would not let the lamp go out, preserved his purpose through people who deserved to have it taken from them. The promise held not because the descendants were faithful, but because God was. This is how God's promises hold for us as well. They do not rest on our worthiness, which fails, but on his faithfulness, which does not. God keeps his covenant through our unworthiness, preserves his purposes through our failures, will not let the lamp he has lit go out because of us. And there is more here: the lamp God kept burning through Jehoram and every dark reign was the promise that would find its fulfillment, at last, in Christ, the son of David in whom the covenant was kept forever. God preserved the line through every unworthy heir, because through it he would bring the Savior. If we are tempted to think God must abandon his purposes because of the failures of those who carry them, including our own, Jehoram's reign says otherwise: God kept David's lamp lit through a murderer, because his promises rest on his faithfulness, not ours, and he will not let the light he has purposed go out.

When I fear that God must abandon his purposes because of the failures of those who carry them, including my own, can I take steadying hope from how God kept David's lamp burning even through the wicked Jehoram, because his promises rest on his own faithfulness and not on our worthiness, and he will not let the light he has purposed go out?

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