It has not been two hundred and fifty years since the godly reign of David began, but things have deteriorated to a point where it is almost predictable. The kings will lead the people of Israel and Judah into sin, they will be defeated by their enemies, the king will die, he will be succeeded, usually by another more wicked king who leads them into more sin, and on and on and on.
Occasionally there will be a different twist to the same story. For about six years, one of the kings of Judah was a woman ....Athaliah. She was not the kindly grandmotherly type of ruler one would imagine. In fact, if possible, she was more wicked than the men. Once her son Ahaziah died, Athaliah proceeded to kill the entire remaining royal family. It was only through the efforts of his aunt who rescued him and the priest Jehoiada who hid him, that the young prince Joash was saved. Joash grew up under the tutelage of Jehoiada the priest, and so had a more godly bent than most of his recent predecessors. He rebuilt the temple and did right in the eyes of the Lord all the years Jehoiada instructed him.
But even Joash did not remove the high places and the people continued to offer sacrifices there. The end of God's protection came when he took all the gifts, that he himself had dedicated to the temple, and all the gold in the temple treasuries and sent them to Hazael ,the king of Aram, to keep him from attacking Jerusalem. He wasn't killed by Hazael, as he feared, but by his own officials who conspired against him.
Why was it so hard for the kings of Israel to trust in the God of Abraham, Moses and David? Or perhaps the question should be, why was it so easy for them to trust in other gods when time and time again, those gods had failed them? Why was it so easy for them to trust in the strength of their enemies, when time and time again they had been powerless when they came up against the one true God.
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