Day 22, Wed., 7th March: 2 Kings 18,1-8

The books of Samuel, Kings and Chronicles tell the story of Israel from the prophet Samuel to the Babylonian conquest and exile. From 1st Samuel chapter 8 onwards this story is dominated by the histories of Israel's kings. Since Israel split early in the reign of Solomon's son Rehoboam into a northern kingdom, called Israel, or sometimes Samaria (for its capital city) and the southern kingdom of Judah, we get histories of both countries' lines of kings.

After King David's affair with Bathsheba the evaluations of each of these kings tended to be judged according to how closely they obeyed God and walked in God's ways. The overall trend, from the heights of David's and Solomon's empire to the ignominy of the Babylonian exile, is downwards, but along the way there are several kings who are exceptions. Hezekiah was perhaps reckoned as the greatest of these. He was, according to the Hebrew Bible, the son of Ahaz became the 13th king of Judah. Archaeologist Edwin Thiele has concluded that his reign was between about 715 and 686 BC.  2 Kings says repeatedly that he "trusted the LORD", and did what was right in his sight. In particular Hezekiah acted against idolatrous practices. When you read the phrase "high places" in the Hebrew scriptures this means idol worship, in particular elevated sites where rituals were strongly influenced by the practices of Canaanite worship which had never been eradicated.

This text says that Hezekiah "went after" a particular form of syncretism, having both the "sacred pole", symbol of the Canaanite fertility goddess Asherah, and the bronze serpent that Moses had made destroyed. Ironically, as we read in yesterday's text from Numbers 21, the bronze serpent had been made on God's instructions to provide a means of healing for the people of Israel who were being stung by serpents. Over hundreds of years it had become another idol to be worshipped.

At this point in his commentary in With Love to the World  John Miller asks a good question. What are our idols today? What seriously interferes with my relationship with God? What, if anything in your life requires drastic, decisive action to get rid of it. It may be a crippling resentment or some form of addictive behaviour. Though our culture still doesn't really want to acknowledge this (except, perhaps in spectacular horror movies) it may even be the untoward influence of occult spiritual forces. As Miller says,

"Whatever it  may be, no half measures or rationalisations will address the issue. Radical action is needed. As with the religious reformation carried out under King Hezekiah, sometimes individuals need to conduct an honest stocktake of their relationship with God and get rid of whatever is in the way."

Now there's a good Lenten task!

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