Tuesday, September 23, 2025
Scripture Readings
- Primary Reading: 2 Chronicles 25-30
- Secondary Reading: Psalms 110
Key Verse
2 Chronicles 28:16 — “At that time did king Ahaz send unto the kings of Assyria to help him.”
Devotional Thought
Amaziah begins well enough. He is twenty-five when he takes the throne of Judah, and the chronicler grants him a qualified verdict: he did right in the eyes of the LORD, “but not with a perfect heart.” That phrase shadows everything that follows. He obeys the law of Moses in sparing the children of his father’s assassins, and he listens, at first, to the man of God who warns him against marching with the hired soldiers of Ephraim. “The LORD is able to give thee much more than this,” the prophet says when Amaziah frets over the hundred talents already spent. It is one of the great lines of the book—and Amaziah never really believes it. He dismisses the Israelites, wins a brutal victory over Edom, and then, incredibly, carries home the gods of Seir and bows before them. The prophet’s question cuts to the bone: why seek gods that could not deliver their own people out of your hand? Pride finishes what unbelief began. He picks a fight with Joash of Israel to salve his wounded ego, loses, watches Jerusalem’s wall torn down, and is finally assassinated by his own men.
His son Uzziah repeats the pattern at a higher pitch. For years he seeks God in the days of Zechariah, and “as long as he sought the LORD, God made him to prosper.” Towers, wells, vineyards, a trained army, engines of war—the man is marvelously helped, until he is strong. Then strength becomes his ruin. He strides into the temple to burn incense, a prerogative belonging only to the sons of Aaron, and when eighty priests withstand him, he rages at them with the censer still in his hand. Leprosy breaks out on his forehead before the altar. He dies a leper, cut off from the house of the LORD. Jotham, by contrast, “prepared his ways before the LORD his God” and became mighty—yet even he could not reform a people who “did yet corruptly.” Then comes Ahaz, who burns his own children in the valley of Hinnom and sacrifices on every high hill. Even in judgment, mercy appears: when Israel carries away two hundred thousand captives from Judah, the prophet Oded and the chiefs of Ephraim clothe the naked, feed the hungry, and carry the feeble home on donkeys to Jericho.
These are autumn chapters, and not only because September is upon us. They read like a harvest: what a man sows in his heart, he reaps in his reign. The same sun that ripens Uzziah’s vineyards hardens Amaziah’s pride. And over it all stands Psalm 110, where the LORD says to David’s Lord, “Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool.” Every king in these chapters is a footstool in the making. Amaziah, Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz—each one rises, prospers, and falls. But there is a Priest forever after the order of Melchizedek who does not grasp at what is not His, who intercedes rather than intrudes, whose heart is never lifted up to His destruction. When our own prosperity whispers that we no longer need to seek Him, these chapters and this psalm call us back to the One who is able to give us much more than anything we have lost.
Reflection
- Amaziah obeyed God only until obedience cost him something—the hundred talents he had already paid. Where in your life are you tempted to follow the LORD only as far as it is affordable?
- Uzziah’s strength, not his weakness, was what destroyed him. What good gift has God given you that you are now tempted to use as a substitute for seeking Him?
Prayer
Lord God, we confess that we are often like Amaziah—doing right, but not with a perfect heart—and like Uzziah, lifted up by the very blessings You gave us. Teach us to seek You as long as we live, in prosperity as surely as in want. When we are strong, keep us humble; when we have lost much for Your sake, remind us that You are able to give us much more than this. Fix our eyes on Jesus, our Priest forever after the order of Melchizedek, who sits at Your right hand and never grasps at what is not His. Prepare our ways before You, and let our lives be a harvest of faithfulness, not pride. Amen.
Psalm Verse
Psalms 110:1 — “The LORD said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool.”