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Context No. 92 of 4322 · 2 Kings

Context · Reflection

2 Kings 15:32-38: in context

32In the second year of Pekah the son of Remaliah king of Israel, Jotham the son of Uzziah king of Judah began to reign. 33He was twenty-five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Jerusha the daughter of Zadok. 34He did that which was right in the LORD’s eyes. He did according to all that his father Uzziah had done. 35However the high places were not taken away. The people still sacrificed and burned incense in the high places. He built the upper gate of the LORD’s house. 36Now the rest of the acts of Jotham, and all that he did, aren’t they written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah? 37In those days, the LORD began to send Rezin the king of Syria and Pekah the son of Remaliah against Judah. 38Jotham slept with his fathers, and was buried with his fathers in his father David’s city; and Ahaz his son reigned in his place.

The book of Kings runs through the rulers of Israel and Judah at speed, giving each a short entry: when he took the throne, how long he reigned, whose son he was, and a verdict. This passage is the whole reign of Jotham of Judah in the eighth century BC, in seven verses.

The verdict is positive. He did what was right in the eyes of the LORD, according to all that his father Uzziah had done. Then the qualification that follows nearly every good king in this book: however, the high places were not removed, and the people went on sacrificing and burning incense there. He built the upper gate of the temple. And that is the reign.

The formula is doing something. Jotham is credited with what he did and marked for what he left alone, and the thing he left alone is the same thing his predecessors left alone. Reform stopped at the point where it would have cost him the countryside. Then the last verse notes that in his days God began sending Aram and Israel against Judah, so the trouble that broke over his son Ahaz started here. What am I doing well enough that nobody questions it, while the one thing I have never touched keeps getting handed forward?

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