Friday, September 11, 2026
Scripture Readings
- Primary Reading: 2 Kings 11-16
- Secondary Reading: Psalms 105
Key Verse
2 Kings 14:11 — “But Amaziah would not hear. Therefore Jehoash king of Israel went up; and he and Amaziah king of Judah looked one another in the face at Bethshemesh, which belongeth to Judah.”
Devotional Thought
On a September morning, when the world marks a day of sudden loss and shaken towers, the eleventh chapter of 2 Kings opens with a different kind of terror: Athaliah, hearing that her son Ahaziah is dead, rises up and destroys all the seed royal. In one stroke she tries to erase the line of David. But God is not caught off guard by a massacre. Jehosheba, a daughter of the king, steals away one small boy, Joash, and hides him with his nurse in a bedchamber of the house of the LORD. For six years a child grows up in secret while a usurper sits on the throne. Then in the seventh year Jehoiada the priest gathers the captains, arms them with David’s spears and shields, and brings out the king’s son. They put the crown on his head, give him the testimony, anoint him, and the people clap and cry, “God save the king.” Athaliah tears her clothes and shouts “Treason,” but she is led out and slain, and the people tear down the house of Baal. The city is quiet. A seven-year-old boy sits on the throne.
That is how God often works—not with a sudden, visible rescue, but with a hidden child, a faithful sister, a priest who keeps his oath, six quiet years that look like nothing. We want the rescue to be loud and immediate. God is content to work in a bedchamber. He preserves His promises through ordinary people doing small, brave, unseen things, and He keeps His covenant through generations that never see the fulfillment. Psalm 105 says it plainly: “He hath remembered his covenant for ever, the word which he commanded to a thousand generations.” He remembered it when a wicked queen thought she had ended David’s line. He remembered it when Joseph’s feet were hurt with fetters, “until the time that his word came.” He remembered it when Israel was few and strangers in the land.
The rest of today’s reading is a long, sad ledger of kings who did right and kings who did evil, of repairs left undone, of treasures sent to a foreign king to buy peace, of Elisha sick and dying, of an arrow shot only three times when it should have been five or six. Even the good kings are incomplete; even Joash, who did right all the days Jehoiada instructed him, ends up murdered by his own servants. And yet, in the middle of it, a dead man tossed into Elisha’s grave touches his bones and revives. God is still at work in the graveyard.
What does this ask of us today? It asks us to be Jehosheba—to hide and protect what is precious even when the world is tearing it down. It asks us to be Jehoiada—to keep our vows, to teach the young king, to repair the breaches in the house of the LORD. It asks us to remember the covenant when the throne looks empty and the enemy looks victorious. And it asks us to shoot more than three arrows. God’s promises are not fragile. They outlast Athaliah, they outlast Hazael, they outlast the grave itself.
Reflection
- Where in your life has God been working quietly and unseen—like a child hidden in a bedchamber for six years—while you were waiting for a loud rescue?
- When you face the “Syrians” in your life, are you shooting only three arrows, or are you trusting God’s promise enough to keep striking the ground?
Prayer
Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, You remember Your covenant forever, and You have never once forgotten Your people. When the enemy rises to destroy the seed royal, You hide a child in Your own house and bring him out in Your perfect time. Teach us to trust Your quiet work. Make us faithful like Jehosheba, bold like Jehoiada, and persistent in prayer. Forgive us for the times we have shot only three arrows, doubting the fullness of Your promise. Preserve Your church, repair its breaches, and let the crown rest on the head of Your anointed King. In the name of Jesus, who lives and reigns forever. Amen.
Psalm Verse
Psalms 105:1 — “O give thanks unto the LORD; call upon his name: make known his deeds among the people.”