2 Kings, Chapter 14 - Hashem Steps In | Prophets of Israel Daily

[music] >> Shalom friends, welcome back to Prophets of Israel daily. This is the book of Second Kings chapter [music] 14. My name is Jeremy Kempel and I'm here with Ari Abramowitz. And this series is brought to you by the Land of Israel network at the land of israel.com. >> Yesterday we left a king with a bow in his hands and a promise that Israel would strike Aram three times. And three times it did. Today we start off in Yerushalayim. Amaziah, son of Joash, becomes the king of Judah at 25. And right away the narrator gives him a mixed report card. He did what was right in the eyes of Hashem, but not like David his father. David Hamelach, he is the bar that all other kings are matched up against. And David wasn't perfect. And David no one's perfect. He sinned. Um he messed up, but his heart was always with Hashem. Always. And we really see the kingdom of Judah as we read this part of the book of Kings, it's like a stock market chart that's declining with like little bumps of positivity, but you can really see the trajectory is not going great. Um and there's a detail that's easy to fly past. Amaziah's father was murdered by his own servants. Amaziah executes the killers, but he spares his children. And the narrator stops to tell us why. It's written in the Torah of Moses, fathers don't die for the sin of their children and children don't die for the sin of their fathers. Each man for his own sin. And so think about the world he lived in. A few chapters ago Jehu wiped out the entire house of Ahab. Athaliah murdered her own grandchildren for the throne. When you took revenge, you took it on the whole family. The whole world of the first temple is just outside the culture of free democratic elections that we have today and the passing of power from one leader to the next. We don't appreciate the civilization we live in at all. But even in that political bloody reality, King Amaziah holds back. And I think on his own level, that he was a king who feared God. That's the Amaziah we could have had. And then he goes to war with Edom in the valley of salt, south of the Dead Sea. 10,000 fall. He takes Sela, the rock fortress, and renames it. And then something happens to him. The Book of Chronicles tells us he came home from Edom carrying Edom's gods and bowed to them, the idols of the people he just defeated. >> Yeah, I mean victory has a way of going to your head. I can't really figure out what happened there. Maybe he had an encounter with a spiritual force of idolatry he couldn't overcome. I don't know, it's hard to rationalize it. The very next thing Amaziah does though is he sends a message north to Jehoash, king of Israel. The same Jehoash with the arrows from yesterday. And what does he say? "Come. Let's face off. Bring it on." He picks a fight. Judah is picking a fight with his own brothers from the north. Jehoash answers with a parable. "A thistle in Lebanon sent word to a cedar in Lebanon, 'Give your daughter to my son as a wife.' And a wild beast passed by and trampled the thistle." I don't really understand that parable, that's the truth. But But bottom line is Jehoash end up just dropping the whole parable and talk straight. In verse 10, he pretty much says, "Yeah, you beat Edom, but don't let that go to your head. Enjoy the glory and just go back home. Why provoke trouble and bring down your own kingship and the rest of Judah with you?" Bottom line is that Jehoash sees that Amaziah is getting a swelled head. As we say in Texas, he's gotten too big for his britches. Anyways, here's the irony. This diagnosis is coming from a king who worships God through two golden calves. But somehow, Jehoash understands Amaziah better than Amaziah seems to understand himself. And Amaziah doesn't listen. The armies meet at Beth Shemesh, inside Judah's own territory. Judah runs. Amaziah is captured, and Jehoash marches on Jerusalem, breaks down 400 cubits of the wall from the gate of Ephraim to the corner gate, empties the treasuries of the temple, takes hostages, and goes home to Samaria. And Jeremy, look at where the wall comes down. From the gate of Ephraim. That gate faced north, towards Ephraim. And I think it carried that name because that's the gate the brothers from the north would walk through on their way up to the temple. It was the gate for family. And that's exactly where the family came to tear the wall down. No Edomite, no Aramean, none of them breached Jerusalem in this chapter. Israel does. Our sages teach that the second temple fell because of baseless hatred. The pattern is already here. When Jews come at Jews, the walls come down. And whoever is waiting outside can walk right in. I think we lived that before October 7th. We were tearing at each other in the streets, and our enemies were watching. But we were also on the other side. The morning after, that gate swung open the other way with brothers running through it to stand with each other like I've never seen in my life. It's just a shame that it takes something like that to bring us together. May we learn to really stand together with brotherhood and unity without our walls being breached. >> Amen. But what's absolutely mind-bending here is that the northern tribes of Israel ransacked the temple, stole the gold like Vikings pillaging a town. The northern kingdom pillaged Judah, Jerusalem, and the temple of God. That's insane. I mean, people talk about the divide in the country right now around elections in Israel. It's like right now the right and the left and they're hating each other and it's so bad. We are in such a better place than the nation of Israel was at the end of the first temple period. It's unbelievable. And Amaziah's end is sad. A conspiracy forms against him in Jerusalem. He flees to Lachish. They follow him there and they kill him. And the people take his 16-year-old son Azariah, who will also He will also know him as Uzziah, and make him king. See, they didn't want to destroy the line of David. They wanted a king from the house of David. They just did not want this king. Um and there's one line about him um that's important to note. Verse 22. He built A lot restored it to Judah. A lot. That's the southernmost city of the modern state of Israel. The city the Houthis were firing at from Yemen in our own days. 3,000 years ago, a teenage king of Judah was building it up. And then Jeremiah Yirmiyahu Hanavi, the narrator of the Book of Kings, turns north again. Jeroboam, son of Joash, becomes the king in Samaria. The second Jeroboam. Now, that's confusing. Don't get confused with the first Jeroboam and the second Jeroboam. When the names start getting the same, really the second part of the Book of Kings really gets a little bit confusing. But, 41 years he was the king, and the verdict we've heard over and over again is he did evil in the eyes of Hashem. You call him Jeroboam. And what do you expect? So, this is what it says in verse 25. Who heshiv et gvul Yisrael mi L'vo Hamat ad yam araba. He restored the border of Israel from Lebo-Hamath to the sea of Arabah, according to the word of Hashem, the God of Israel, which he spoke through his servant Jonah, son of Amittai, the prophet who was from Gath Hepher. Lebo-Hamath, that's the northern edge of Solomon's kingdom. An evil king that was doing evil in the eyes of God restores the borders of Israel to the golden age of Solomon. And see how that ask question, why? What's going on here? So, Jeremiah the prophet tells us the reason, verse 26. Ki ra Hashem et ani Israel moreh. Me od ve efes atzur ve efes azuv ve ein ozer Israel. For Hashem saw the affliction of Israel. And it was very bitter. There was none restrained and none left free, for there was no helper for Israel. And if your ear is tuned into the Hebrew, you've heard those words before, efes atzur ve azuv, none restrained and none left free. They come straight out of Ha'azinu, the song of Moshe at the end of the Torah, which we read in synagogues and which we just read it a month ago. I mean, ki yad Hashem amo ve al avadav yitnakham. Ki er ki azlat yad ve efes atzur ve azuv. For Hashem will judge his people and have compassion on his servants when he sees that their strength is gone and there is none restrained or none free. Moses promised it at the end of his life. When Israel has nothing left, no strength, no helper, and they're not even good, Hashem steps in. Not because they earned it, but because we're his people. And the narrator of Kings tells us, here it is. It happened under Jeroboam the second it happened. >> Yeah, and uh and Jeremy, we have a here a witness. The prophet Amos lived under this Jeroboam. He watched these conquest happens. And and in Amos chapter six, he names two of the towns that Israel took back across the Jordan, right? Lo Debar and Karnaaim. And he mocks the people for celebrating over Lo Lo Debar, a name that literally means Lo Debar, nothing. And bragging that they took Karnaaim by their own strength. Karnaaim means horns, power. They watched Solomon's borders come back and said, "Look what we did." Hashem gave them those borders out of pure compassion. They turned it into a story about themselves. About 30 years after Jeroboam dies, Samaria is gone. I and I think that's part of the warning for our generation and really for all generations, but ours in specific, Hashem brought us home after 2,000 years. The danger isn't that he used imperfect vessels. He always uses imperfect vessels. Look at our farm and who he used to build this place, us. We're the definition of imperfect vessels. The danger is looking at the miracle and saying, "Our own hands did this." >> You know, that's exactly right. I'm always torn when we talk about how powerful the IDF is, how sophisticated our intelligence is, the Israeli army is so strong, because we rarely say who hanoten lanu koach lasot chayil. Hashem is the one who gives us the ability to be powerful and brilliant. And that brings us back to the man named in verse 25, Jonah son of Amittai. Yep, that Jonah. The man who ran from Nineveh and ended up inside a whale. Here in Kings, he shows up as a prophet of good news. >> There's a beautiful tradition about this, Jeremy. In Pirkei De Rabbi Eliezer, It says Jonah's first mission was this one, to tell an undeserving Israel that their borders would be restored, and it came true. Then he was sent to Jerusalem to warn of destruction. The people repented, Hashem had mercy, the destruction never came, and they called him a false prophet because the destruction that he prophesized never came. So when Hashem sends him to Nineveh, Jonah knows how this ends. He runs. He onto the ship, the whale swallows him. Later in his own book he admits why. He knew all along that Hashem is gracious and compassionate and slow to anger. His whole life Jonah watched Hashem's mercy outrun his prophecies. And we read his book every Yom Kippur afternoon, every afternoon of the Day of Atonement. A month ago, and we were hungry and worn out after a day of standing in judgment and just standing the entire day, not eating, not drinking, we are exhausted, we read about a prophet who couldn't make peace with how merciful God is. And I think that's exactly what we need to hear at that moment. Because by then we are the ones praying that he'll be merciful to us. >> That is so true. And that's how the the chapter closes in verse 27. For Hashem had not said that he would blot out the name of Israel from under the heavens. So he saved them by the hand of Jeroboam, son of Joash. Hashem never said he would blot out the name of Israel. Now listen to the next Psalm that I'm going to read you, Psalm 83. Asaph describes the nations plotting together against Israel, and he quotes them. They said, "Come, let us cut them off from being a nation, that the name of Israel may be remembered no more. They said Pharaoh, Haman, Hitler, the Pope. Today, it's chanted in capitals around the world from the river to the sea. Not a two-state solution. The enemy wants to erase the name of Israel from the world. But, Hashem will never allow it. And when the words of the nations meet the word of Hashem, that's it. Hashem's word will stand. We are living proof, my friend. The borders came back, the name came back. We're not called Jews anymore. We're Israel again. Hashem saw our affliction, saw that there was no helper, and he came, and he's saving us now. And our part is to remember who did it, who's doing it. He's the one that gives us the strength. He's the one that gives us the brilliance to never say our strength won this, to keep the gate of Ephraim open for our brothers to walk through. And so, if this journey is speaking to you, and you want to walk through the gates, there are a few ways that you can walk with us. You can continue listening to Prophets of Israel daily, but I think much better would be to join the Land of Israel Fellowship. Join this global movement of families from over 35 countries around the world. We learn together every week. Every week new families are joining. It's amazing, and it's absolutely for free right now to try it out. What are you waiting for? Just try it. If you know, you know, [music] but you won't know if you don't try it. So, click on the link below, come to the landofisrael.com, [music] and try it out, my friends. Hazak u'matz. Tomorrow, b'ezrat Hashem, we will dive into chapter 15 with Ari.