2 Kings Chapters 22 and 23

We are almost at the end of 2 Kings so there will only be one post following this one left, and then we will be moving on! I have learned so much from this book and I hope y’all have as well. My summer so far has focused on prayer and evangelism, and I have learned so much about prayer from these books, whether it be from Elijah, Elisha, Hezekiah, Josiah, and so on. Overall this historical book is filled with so much spiritual juice, and you just have to squeeze it out and focus on the bigger picture and not on all the various leaders and cities and so on. This post will tell of another great ruler in Judah, and then more not so wonderful, and unrighteous leaders.

So the key person in these chapters is Josiah, king of Judah for 31 years. He ruled righteously and the Bible says he “walked in the ways of David his father,” 2 Kings 22:2. Okay so if a king is compared to David, it is a BIG DEAL. You know he was a great, spiritual man with fervor to share the awesomeness of his LORD. Other good leaders who were righteous were always labeled as being still less than David, so you know Josiah was class A in character. So one of the first things Josiah does as king is that he repaired the temple and unlike other leaders from the past, he completely trusts the money to the workers. He puts his faith into them instead of watching them like a hawk. He trusts also Hilkiah, the high priest at the time, with the operations of the reparation. Something amazing happens during the repairs! Hilkiah finds the Book of the Law…he found THE LAW from God. The temple must have been cluttered or something, but Hilkiah was able to find it. When the Book of the Law is read aloud to Josiah, Josiah reacts as many do, he “tore his clothes,” 2 Kings 22:11. What does this mean? Josiah was humbled and honored to be in contact with the Book of the Law that he showed his devotion and acceptance of not being worthy to be in sight of the Book by baring himself and purify himself in the presence of this object. The picture from Wikipedia above shows the joy Josiah had when he heard the Book of the Law. Josiah turns to a prophetESS, A WOMAN PROPHET, y’all I really have never heard of a woman prophet, so when I read about her I was just excited and ecstatic. Girl Power! Her name is Huldah, and was keeper of the wardrobe (I of course automatically think of Narnia). Huldah shares God’s message to Josiah. God tells her to say that Judah will face great wrath because of how they have been living (think to the last post about Manasseh), but because Josiah is so humble and faithful, the wrath will not occur while Josiah is alive. God will wait for Josiah to be at peace in his grave with his fathers before He takes down Judah. God says, “Your eyes shall not see all the disaster that I will bring upon this place,” 2 Kings 22:20. What anxiety Josiah probably experienced! His beloved country would be in shambles and there is nothing he could do about it, but at the same time he is blessed with not having to see it. 

Upon hearing the prophecy, Josiah begins many reforms for Judah. Josiah had all citizens, priests, prophets, I mean literally everyone of Judah and especially of Jerusalem to gather around him. Josiah then read aloud the Book of the Law for all to hear. No one could now say that they have never heard the Law because Josiah is preaching it from the actual source. After reading the Law in front of all, he then made a public covenant with the LORD to, “walk after the LORD and to keep his commandments and hist testimonies and his statutes with all his heart and all his soul, to perform the words of this covenant that were written in this book,” 2 Kings 23:3. All of the people of Judah joined in on this covenant as well. Josiah then had the false gods (like Baal) taken down…all their temples, statues, priests, prophets, and so on. He also stopped a popular culture thing at the time-male cult prostitutes. Josiah wanted all uncleanness out of his kingdom, so the people would feel no pressure or desire from Satan or the flesh to become reattached to the false gods. Josiah also restores Passover, which had been forgotten or not practiced for a long time. The Bible says that no king would ever lead with all their heart and soul like Josiah had. So after we read about all the restorations and new reforms, it tells that although Judah has done a complete flip from their past, that Judah would still be punished because of Manasseh. Josiah dies in battle against the Pharaoh of Egypt, and was returned to Jerusalem to lay in peace. So we all know that based on the prophecy that Judah’s end will come soon. Josiah’s son Jehoahaz rules for 3 months and was the complete opposite of his father. He was evil and eventually held captive by the Pharaoh Neco of Egypt, and the Pharaoh then named another one of Josiah’s sons as king, and his name was Eliakim and was then renamed by the Pharaoh: Jehoiakim. So Egypt was using Judah pretty much as a puppet state at this point. Egypt was indirectly controlling Judah until they payed to get Jehoahaz back. Jehoiakim was able to gather all the talents he needed to pay off the Pharaoh so that he could get his brother back, but he did so by heavily taxing the people of Judah. Jehoiakim reigned in Judah for 11 years and was evil like his brother. I just always wonder how they could have had such a great and righteous father, yet they are pure evil. We will find out what happens next in the last chapters of 2 Kings in the next post! 

1 Peter 5:6-7

Humility in prayer is so so important and this verse shows it. Tell God everything, and express your weakness and His strength. Like the parable of the persistent widow, why would our just God ignore us when we cry out to him in prayer? You must believe in Him and be willing to lay yourself out there to Him and talk to Him. He loves you so much and wants to hear you speak to Him and ask for His help. Don’t be afraid to ask for His help, guidance, or maybe even something materialistic and selfish. God wants us to come to Him for everything. Most people go to their dads asking for help or something, so why don’t we go to our Father? 

2 Kings Chapters 19, 20, and 21

It is now the beginning of having Isaiah throughout 2 Kings. It is definitely more interesting to read about how awesome God’s prophets were and their stories to go along with it. Since Elisha’s death, it has been a lot more about the chronological wars, and kings and not as much about the prophecies of God, which are of course more interesting. Isaiah is just great to read about, especially his book. Stick with me through these 3 chapters…please? 🙂 A common theme, and it might be because I am so focused on it at the moment for my summer program with my campus ministry is PRAYER! We are doing a character study on Daniel, but Hezekiah shows so much boldness in prayer like Daniel did as well and I am glad to know that I am realizing how important the prayer is to all people no matter what time it is! 

So the end of the last chapter had the messenger from Assyria talking bad about Hezekiah and the members of Judah were silent and did not follow him. Naturally, Hezekiah became nervous for his kingdom. He went to ISAIAH and asked him to pray with him for Judah. Isaiah passed on a message from God, “‘Thus says the LORD: Do not be afraid because of the words that you have heard, with chichi the servants of the king of Assyria have reviled me. Behold, I will put a spirit in him, so that he shall hear a rumor and return to his own land, and I will make him fall by the sword in his own land,” 2 Kings 19:6-7. I mean you know, I know, Hezekiah knows, and Isaiah knows that this prophecy will of course come true. So the messenger returns to Assyria because he heard of the king fighting with Libnah, and feels false hope. Sennacherib, the king of Assyria, sends yet another messenger to how that he has not forgotten about Judah I am guessing, and the messenger says the same things as before; Hezekiah is an evil ruler and leading under a false god and Assyria never loses…yada yada yada. Pretty much a bunch of crap! Hezekiah then does what so many people have a hard time doing, including myself, he got on his hands and knees and just prayed to God! He prayed and praised God and just asked for protection. One of the coolest parts of his prayer was, “‘Incline your ear, O LORD, and hear, open your eyes, O LORD, and see; and hear the words of Sennacherib, which he has sent to mock the living God,'” 2 Kings 19: 16. I mean God is always listening and seeing us in prayer and it is just awesome to think over it! Millions of people can be praying at once and he is listening and seeing all of us at once! So following Hezekiah’s prayer, Isaiah prophesies Sennacherib’s downfall which as all his prophecies from God do, comes true. What is cool is that before the prophecy he tells Hezekiah that God has heard his prayer about Sennacherib! THIS IS PROOF THAT GOD WAS LISTENING AND SEEING. So so awesome! Isaiah’s prophecy was that Assyria would not win and that God would protect Judah out of zeal. Zeal is a very big word. You don’t just throw out “zeal” whenever you want. That next morning, God struck down 185,000 Assyrian soldiers and Sennacherib returned to Assyria where he was killed by his own sons.

Around the time that all of this was happening, Hezekiah fell ill (pretty much waiting for death). Isaiah came to him and told him that God’s message was that Hezekiah needed to have his house settled for he would pass away soon. What was Hezekiah’s response? Prayer of course! He prayed to God that God would bless him and keep him alive longer, and he reminded God that he was a servant to God and had Judah living in His hands again. He prayed this prayer right after Isaiah left, and literally before Isaiah was able to leave the palace walls (I am thinking he had just gotten down a few hallways), God told Isaiah to give Hezekiah a new message. The new message is that Hezekiah was a true loving servant and for that reason, Hezekiah would live for 15 more years. Prayer works, and people that don’t think it works, must not understand God and the Spirit. So towards the end of his life, Hezekiah befriends the Babylonians and gives them a grand tour of the palace and the kingdom. Isaiah shows up after..which could be good news or bad news. For this instance it was not good news like it recently had been. God says that he wished that Hezekiah had not shown the Babylonians the kingdom because eventually Babylon will conquer Judah and take all the treasures and bring ruins to Judah. Hezekiah’s own sons would end up being eunuchs in Babylon. So not happy news at all for the people of Judah. 

Alright so Hezekiah passes 15 years after his illness, and soon after he befriends the Babylonians. Hezekiah’s son, Manasseh, rules Judah for 55 years. He was opposite of Hezekiah! He was evil, and rebuilt the pillars and high places which Hezekiah had FINALLY taken down. He sacrificed his own sons, and worshipped so many idols that if you looked up idolater in the dictionary you would see a pic of Manasseh. Manasseh was able to “provoke” God to anger…which that takes a lot of effort which I have mentioned before! God is patient and kind, but Manasseh was able to make him so angry. God had many prophets tell of how  God will tear down Judah because of Manasseh and his idolatry that he has brought back to Judah. On top of all of this Manasseh killed many innocent people throughout all of Jerusalem. Manasseh finally died after his long reign and his son Amon reigned in Judah. Amon only ruled for  years,  and was evil like his father. He was eventually conspired against. The conspirators, after they killed Amon, were actually killed by the people of Judah because they did not approve. They then put Josiah, his son, into power rather than having a conspirator rule.

 

 

Pic at the bottom is suppose to be an image of Hezekiah praying to God! Of course it can really be anyone praying to God and expressing themselves completely to God! Thank you http://www.bibleline.org for the picture!

Romans 1:16

The verse I am memorizing is shorter but stands for so much! My campus ministry has been focusing on sharing the Gospel/Evangelism, which I am honestly not the best at. I am always nervous to bring up the Gospel for many reason, whether it be the fear of rejection, not knowing how to answer questions, or not “feeling” like I am close enough with the person to share. I am not super social either, so that is against me as well. I don’t want to say I am ashamed of the Gospel, I just feel like I cannot share it with all of the glory that it deserves. This verse shows however, that you shouldn’t be ashamed but feel filled with love. I need to share this love with others through sharing the love, and grace of God through His son. My goal this summer is to begin to feel comfortable with sharing the Gospel! And I know I will get better and I will definitely be praying to be more confident. I need to trust that the Spirit will fill me while talking of the Gospel, and I cannot wait! 

Oh and isn’t the moon just gorgeous in this pic! I was glad that I was at the beach during the “honey-moon.” 

2 Kings Chapters 17 and 18

Hey y’all! Sorry for the lack of posts, I was on vacation for a week! It was a great trip and was able to get some good reading in. If you haven’t read The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis, you should! Both my Dad and I read it at the beach! Takes me back to when I read all of the Lion, Witch, and the Wardrobe books, except this time the allegory is very obvious, since the locations are heaven and hell. Maybe I will post about the book one day….but for now we are working our way through 2 Kings still! These two chapters are not many transfers of kings throughout the different kingdoms, but more fixated. A lot begins to happen! Lets get it started!

So in Israel, Hoshea reigns for 9 years and he was evil but not as evil as those before him…but he was definitely not the nicest person.The Assyrian king attacked Israel and pretty much had Hoshea paying him money as a vassal, which is pretty crazy. As a history major I am thinking of how Hungary was continuously giving money to Germany during WWII, but still was ruled by their own leader, but let be real Hitler was ruling. Anyway, sorry about that! I love history (I am a nerd I know)! The Assyrian king felt betrayed by Hoshea at one point, because Hoshea sent a messenger to the king of Egypt for help, and then Hoshea did not pay “tribute” to the Assyrian king…so Shalmaneser(Assyrian king) was not too happy and bound up Hoshea and threw him into prison and then invaded Israel. Kind of overdramatic, but I guess he wanted his point across? In my art history class in high school we had to remember the different time periods for ancient artwork, and we remembered the Assyrians as the ASS-ryians. They were not very friendly people in general, so their leader was no exception, that is for sure. Shalmaneser took all the Israelites into captivity in Assyria. “And this occurred because the people of Israel had sinned against the LORD their God who had brought them up out of the land of Egypt from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and had feared other gods,” 2 Kings 17:7. So throwing in this verse shows how God was punishing them for pretty to appreciating their Savior and continuing to worship idols rather than their LORD. Thank God for Jesus, because goodness only knows what would happen to the nations of today in this considered “post-church” era. There are two paragraphs in this chapter about what all the Israelites had done to make God angry, and in verse 11 it says, “provoking God to anger.” God is patient with them but they continue to ignore him. This stuff was happening for hundreds of years and I guess God was saying enough is enough. God eventually removed all of the Israelites other than the tribe of Judah. God did allow all of the Israelites to be plundered, and had them removed from their land. God wanted them out of their sight aka in Assyria. This next part is surreal and shows how evident God is in our lives, no matter what people may think…atheist or agnostic, how can you deny this. So Assyria had new ethnicities move into Samaria (Israel) and they refused to worship God, so what does God do? He sends in lions to eat them. To prevent these new groups of being killed the Assyrian king sent a priest that was in Samaria previously before being exiled to Assyria back in order to change the people’s hearts to the Lord. Shalmaneser obviously feared the Lord. The people that moved into Samaria were similar to the Assyrian king…they feared the Lord but continued to worship their other gods. 

Now refocusing onto Judah! Hezekiah rules Judah for 29 years and he was wonderful in the eyes of the LORD; he even lived on the same level of David! Which with the other good kings there is always that sentence that says they did not live up to David’s legacy, but Hezekiah does! He did what others had yet to do! He removed the high places and pillars and idols! God was with him always and the Bible says that none would rule as great as he did after he was done. Hezekiah was able to stand up to Assyria because God was there to support him! Hezekiah was able to prosper as king! Eventually Assyria kept on threatening Judah though, even after they lost, and Hezekiah began to give them silver, gold, and other treasures so that Assyria would leave Judah alone. The rest of the chapter tells of Assyrian people speaking about how Judah should surrender because Assyria always win and that God would give Judah to Assyria like he had done with Israel. The soldiers that were speaking beforehand were going around telling the people of Judah that Hezekiah was a bad person and that they should be turning to their “other gods” aka false gods for help, not Hezekiah and the LORD. I LOVE LOVE LOVE how the people of Judah respond to the Assyrians! The people were silent. Not a peep was said, because Hezekiah had told them that the Assyrians would try to persuade them and the best thing to do was to remain silent no matter what. 

I cannot wait to post about the next chapters because Isaiah will be thrown into the storyline! Isaiah is just an amazing prophet, and his book is awesome! So much insight from the prophecies that God gave him to share with us all! 

Hebrews 12:11

I have been on vacation with my family so I have not been able to post! However I have still been keeping up with studying the word and memorization. This is the verse for this week! This week the verse revolves around the theme of the week which is a word study on “discipline,” “diligence,” and “self-control.” All hardships we face are a test for us to go through with God. Like a common metaphor throughout the Bible, being with God is like a race, a race where you never give up and instead of winning a trophy, you win an eternal life. 

 

Jeremiah 20:11

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I have never read through Jeremiah but memorizing this verse gets me excited to read through it! When you ever feel the need of uplifting, this is one of the verses you should turn towards. God will protect you from those that are against you, and it is truly a blessing.

 

PS I love this photo I took in Assisi…I miss Europe! 

2 Kings Chapters 15 and 16

Not gonna lie y’all, these two chapters are rather…dry. These two chapters tell of 8 different rulers between Israel and Judah alone. Oh and there are mentions of Syria and Assyria with their rulers names. Lucky for us, the names are not repeated like the last chapters, so it is not the trouble with keeping track of WHICH certain person I am talking about but rather about which number of king are we on now. Chapter 15 has 7 of the different rulers, and chapter 16 talks of only one ruler. So I am just going to do separate paragraphs for each king, even though I normally write a paragraph per chapter. If I did that with chapter 15 it would read like a mess. I know some of the times I have written in the past it has been like that, but like this would literally be ridiculous if I thought people would be able to keep up!

Okay king number one we are going to talk about in this post is: Azariah of Judah. He ruled for 52 years, and God approved of the way that he ruled Judah, like how his father ruled well. What is unique about this guy however is that he did not live in the palace, or around his court or anything because he was a leper. That is right he was a leper! Usually when we think of lepers throughout the Bible, they are healed in some way, they become lepers as punishment, or they are poor folk outside the gates that are mentioned briefly. Now the Bible says, “Nevertheless, the  high places were not taken away. The people still sacrificed and made offerings on the high places. And the LORD torched the king, so that he was a leper to the day of his death,” 2 Kings 15:4-5. So by the Word saying that God “touched” him with leprosy, it makes it sound like it falls under a form of punishment, but he did rule good in the eyes of the Lord. I think God gave him leprosy as a way to test him and keep him separate from the court, and as a result for not getting rid of the high places. The Bible does not specify, so we don’t truly know why Azariah had leprosy. Azariah was still able to be a great king while ruling away, and having his son over the household (Jotham). 

For king #2 we are moving our eyes over to Israel. Jeroboam II’s son Zechariah began to reign but he only did so for 6 months. He being Jeroboam II’s son, he ruled wickedly and was conspired against by a man named Shallum. What is interesting about the excerpt about Zechariah is that God’s promise to Jehu is the last part of the paragraph. Zechariah was the fourth generation of Jehu’s lineage which God said would be the last to rule Israel from that lineage. Once again we see, as we always do, that God keeps his promises. 

King #3 was Shallum, whom conspired against Zechariah. Shallum reigned over Israel for 1 MONTH (hah talk about a long time). There was a coup against him, and I will explain the guy behind the coup next!

So King #4 was Menahem from Tirzah was the one to kill Shallum. Along with killing Shallum, on his way to power Menahem sacked Tiphsah and all in the territory because they refused to follow him. “Therefore he sacked it, and he ripped open all the women in it who were pregnant,” 2 Kings 15: 16. So a common theme I have recognized throughout 2 Kings is that a common way to attack and harm a community is to rip out babies from the womb…just terrible. He obviously ruled wickedly and for 10 years in Israel. The king of Assyria (Pul) was attacking Israel so he gave money to him to make him leave Israel alone. He forced the wealthy men throughout Israel to give money to give to Pul. Pul eventually left them alone.

King #5 was Menahem’s son named Pekahiah. Pekahiah reigned over Israel for 2 years and was evil as well. He was eventually conspired against by one of his captains and fifty men. 

The captain that killed Pekahiah of course became our king #6. His name was Pekah (similar name to the man he killed…ironic?). He reigned over Israel for 20 years. During his reign a new Assyrian king named Tiglath-pileser (too long of a name if you ask me) kept taking more and more territory from Israel. Not only did they capture the areas but they also took the residents of those areas back to Assyria as prisoners/slaves. While all of this was happening, Pekah was conspired against by a man named Hoshea. 

Alright the last king of this chapter (#7) goes to Jotham the new king of Judah! We are moving back to Judah now, so forget about Israel for the time being. He reigned over Judah for 16 years, and he helped rule while his father was separated because of his leprosy. He ruled well in the eyes of the Lord (always encouraging to actually read that rather than ripping of babies from wombs). He still did not remove the high places however so God sent Pekah (Israel) and Rezin (Syria) against Judah during Jotham’s reign. 

CHAPTER 16 finally! And our last king (#8) for this chapter! He was the son of Jotham and his name is Ahaz. So he obviously does some important stuff if he gets his own chapter and 7 other kings did not! So he ruled over Judah for 20 years and he followed the ways of Israel’s kings aka wickedly. The Bible says, “…but he walked in the way of the kings of Israel. He even burned his son as an offering,” 2 Kings 16:3. The fact that they throw in that small sentence about killing his own son is intense! Abraham was going to sacrifice his son but that was a test from God, and God was not going to allow that to happen under His will. This guy CHOSE to kill his own son…sick and disturbing. I think a lot of these kings had mental disorders to be sure based on what they have done. Now he was able to get Assyria to protect Judah from Syria and Israel as they continued to attack Judah. Ahaz went to Damascus to meet up with the king of Assyria and had a priest named Uriah prepare an altar. Ahaz offered multiple offerings on this altar (I am guessing he had already used his son as a burnt offering previously). Ahaz has many different parts of the temple that David built altered and taken apart. I am sure that God was not pleased since he specified to David specifically what he wanted! 

 

Phew sorry y’all but every part of the Bible is important! No matter the names, something of importance derives from it or else it would not have been included in the Word! 

2 Kings Chapters 13 and 14

These chapters made me feel like I was going a bit insane to be honest! I guess people of this time period were not creative with names, even though I find them to be very unique! Names are repeated. Sort of like how there are manyyyy King Henrys overtime in England, there are many Ben-hadads and Jeroboams. I am going to try my best to keep them sorted out in my mind! Also J had to have been one of the most popular letters while naming children in this time as well…just saying! Anyway, one of my favorite people’s life comes to an end…his human life anyway!

In the beginning of chapter 13 we are introduced to Jehoahaz. He was Jehu’s son and he reigned for 17 years in Israel. The downfall is however that he ruled wickedly, so as a result God continued to allow Hazael to defeat the Israelites and gain more and more of Israel’s territory. This reminds how a few chapters ago, after Hazael killed Ben-hadad, that Elisha wept over the killings and torture he would bring to the Israelites, so I would guess that Hazael’s capture of Israel’s lands during Jehoahaz’s reign is when all the killings were taking place. Not only did Hazael keep taking land but so did his son. His son’s name was….Ben-hadad! This is the second Ben-hadad, and the father of this second Ben-hadad killed the first Ben-hadad…ironic. God was not happy however with just how much land Syria was getting from Israel, so he sent a savior for Israel, but Israel continued to live in sin. The military of Jehohaz consisted of, “an army of more than fifty horsemen and ten chariots and ten thousand footmen, for the king of Syria had destroyed them and made them like dust at threshing,” 2 Kings 13:7. That may seem like quite a bit of people, but when compared to Syria, that was a minuscule army. So after Jehoahaz, Jehoash reigned in Israel. Jehoash is not the same Jehoash from Judah FYI. Really they need to find new names…it just becomes more and more confusing as 2 Kings continues. The Israeli Jehoash only reigned for 16 years, which of course was happening at the same time that Joash/Jehoash of Judah reigned…I bet this made it a lot more difficult within international politics….Anyway, Israeli Jehoash ruled in sin, that is why he probably only ruled for 16 years; however something very important happened during his reign. Elisha (one of my faves) died. Elisha was on his deathbed and Israeli Jehoash showed up and wept. Elisha told Jehoash to shoot an arrow out the window, and this arrowed represented the arrow of victory for Israel over Syria. Elisha then told him to shoot arrows at the ground multiple times. Jehoash struck the ground with arrows three times, and this upset Elisha. Elisha said to Jehoash, “‘You should have struck five or six times; then you would have struck down Syria until you had made an end of it, but now you will strike down Syria only three times,'” 2 Kings 13:19. God allowed Israel to beat Syria three times out of grace because of His covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob to protect Israel. A small little story is included within chapter 13 about Elisha that I find interesting. After Elisha died and was buried a crazy sort of thing happened! Moabites were trying to burry a random man into a grave, but this man’s corpse fell into Elisha’s grave and was brought back to life. I mean that is just crazy! What makes it even more interesting is how the writer of 2 Kings just randomly throws in this crazy bit of information and then gets back to business about reigns of various kings…it is randomly thrown in there! People say 1 and 2 Kings are boring, but they obviously don’t pay attention to everything they read. I think it is crazy cool how that happens! This is why reading every bit of the word is important, so you don’t miss anything that is important (HINT: all of it is important) and you will not miss anything that is interesting! 

Now we are redirecting our attention to Judah in chapter 14! So Judah’s Joash, his son began to reign! His name is Amaziah. He reigned for 29 years and actually reigned in a way that was good in the eyes of the Lord (it is always nice to read that, especially with some of the past kings throughout this book). Chapter 14 specifies though that he was a great king, BUT not as great as King David had been. David is like a standard to use when comparing kings during this time. David at the top and I would say definitively that Ahab is at the bottom with his wife Jezebel. Now remember that is father was brought down by a conspiracy by servants, so after he definite power as king he killed the servants, but not their children (he actually kept to the Book of the Law of Moses, which most ignored). So that sounds great what he did by actually keeping the Law, but he still caused unnecessary trouble. He wanted to meet up with the Israeli Jehoash, but Jehoash did not want to meet up to avoid conflict. Amaziah insisted though, so Jehoash just gave in and met up with him. They got into various battles and Judah lost, and along with their lost they had to give many treasures over to Israel. Amaziah was actually killed by conspiracy of servants like his father was, and his son reigned after him and his name is Azariah (A and J were the most common letters for names during this time for sure). On top of that we learn of Jehoash of Israel dying, and his son taking place…and what was his name? Of course it starts with a J and of course it is a name we have already read about! His son is Jeroboam II (they actually include numbers next to his name, which makes it easier to differentiate). Jeroboam II ruled wickedly (like the first Jeroboam did as well) and he ruled for 41 years which is quite a long time! God continued to restore Israel in spite of Jeroboam II’s evilness because of God’s promise. This shows how God always keeps his promises no matter what. No one can question him on not keeping promises. After his death his son Zechariah reigned, and we will hear about him next post!