2 Kings 16 Upgrade or Looting?

seekeroftruth

Well-Known Member
2 Kings 16:10 Then King Ahaz went to Damascus to meet Tiglath-Pileser king of Assyria. He saw an altar in Damascus and sent to Uriah the priest a sketch of the altar, with detailed plans for its construction. 11 So Uriah the priest built an altar in accordance with all the plans that King Ahaz had sent from Damascus and finished it before King Ahaz returned. 12 When the king came back from Damascus and saw the altar, he approached it and presented offerings[a] on it. 13 He offered up his burnt offering and grain offering, poured out his drink offering, and splashed the blood of his fellowship offerings against the altar. 14 As for the bronze altar that stood before the Lord, he brought it from the front of the temple—from between the new altar and the temple of the Lord—and put it on the north side of the new altar.

15 King Ahaz then gave these orders to Uriah the priest: “On the large new altar, offer the morning burnt offering and the evening grain offering, the king’s burnt offering and his grain offering, and the burnt offering of all the people of the land, and their grain offering and their drink offering. Splash against this altar the blood of all the burnt offerings and sacrifices. But I will use the bronze altar for seeking guidance.” 16 And Uriah the priest did just as King Ahaz had ordered.

17 King Ahaz cut off the side panels and removed the basins from the movable stands. He removed the Sea from the bronze bulls that supported it and set it on a stone base. 18 He took away the Sabbath canopy (b) that had been built at the temple and removed the royal entryway outside the temple of the Lord, in deference to the king of Assyria.

19 As for the other events of the reign of Ahaz, and what he did, are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Judah? 20 Ahaz rested with his ancestors and was buried with them in the City of David. And Hezekiah his son succeeded him as king.​

a. 2 Kings 16:12 Or and went up
b. 2 Kings 16:18 Or the dais of his throne (see Septuagint)

So Israel's king Ahaz saw an altar that he liked better than the one God designed. So he ordered a new altar, had it set up in the Temple, moved some things around, and even altered the entryways to the building.

Judah is in debt to Assyria. Judah had to pay a tribute to the king of Assyria. He had already taken the gold and silver out of the Temple and the palace. Now he had to find more money. Did he pull that altar apart and replace it with a cheap copy? It looks like he took the big top off the the altar and put it on a rock. It looks like he took the big bronze bulls that held the top of the altar away completely. AND it appears that the chief priest helped in this destruction. He's not creating his own religion like the people in Israel have done, is he?

This is from the easy English site.

Ahaz went to Damascus (the capital of Syria) to pay tax to Tiglath-Pileser. There, Ahaz saw an altar that he liked. He ordered the chief priest to make a copy of it in Jerusalem. When Ahaz returned to Jerusalem, he sacrificed offerings on it. Ahaz was doing this in the inner area of the Lord’s temple. But Ahaz was not loyal to the Lord. He had decided to import Syria’s religion and Syria’s gods to Jerusalem (2 Chronicles 28:23). He had seen how, during the war, Syria’s army was stronger than his own army. So he supposed that Syria’s gods were more powerful than the Lord.

The new altar was much larger than the old one. Ahaz moved the old altar to a less important place. But he did not want to destroy it. He still wanted it to be there so that he could ask the Lord for advice.

It is terrible that Uriah, the chief priest, allowed the king to do these things. The chief priest permitted the worship of false gods in the Lord’s temple. This fact proves how wicked the people in Judah were. But when King Ahaz wanted to follow false religions in the temple, Uriah, this chief priest, agreed. And he even carried out the changes that were necessary for that false religion.​

We do not know why Ahaz made the changes in verse 17. It was King Solomon who designed those objects for the temple. They were works of art. Some people think that perhaps Ahaz wanted the metal in order to pay taxes to Tiglath-Pileser. But perhaps Ahaz simply wanted to make the temple more modern.

Also, Ahaz took away the platform for the royal seat. That showed that he was not still in complete control of his country. Ahaz shut the king’s private entrance to the temple. That action showed that he would not go through that entrance. The king of Assyria had become so important in Judah that Ahaz could not still use his royal entrance. Originally, Ahaz was trying to give just a little control over Judah to the king of Assyria. But the king of Assyria took more and more control over the country. Soon his control became complete.

Ahaz died when he was 36 years old. Although Ahaz’s grave was near the royal graves, it was not among them (2 Chronicles 28:27). There were still some people in Jerusalem who were loyal to God. Perhaps those people decided that such an evil king did not deserve a royal grave. They did not want to give him that honour.​

So did Ahaz modernize the Temple or did he just try to change the Temple to fit his gods? Was he making the Temple a better place or looting it?

:coffee:
 
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