“Now it came to pass in the days of Ahaz the son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah, king of Judah, that Rezin king of Syria and Pekah the son of Remaliah, king of Israel, went up to Jerusalem to make war against it, but could not prevail against it.” (Isaiah 7:1)
After hearing Isaiah’s call to prophesy the fullness of God in chapter 6, the book jumps forward many years and drops us in the middle of a battle. This is disorienting, but maybe that’s the point – the main character is a king disoriented by having many ways to turn and no good options. One of the voices is right, but he can’t tell which one. Spoiler: It’s Isaiah’s.
Skipping over King Jotham’s 16-year reign entirely, we see King Ahaz besieged in Jerusalem, caught between not one, but three enemies. Ahaz needs some good counsel, and he needs it fast. He makes a good choice, then a bad one. I think I know the feeling.
We’re about three hundred years into Israel’s existence, and it is split into two kingdoms. The great kings David and Solomon had only reigned for 80 years combined. Then civil war fractured the nation, with Israel/Samaria to the north and Jerusalem/Judah to the south. Those two kingdoms lived side by side for 200 years, fighting like the brother-kingdoms they were.
This first verse of Chapter 7 sets the stage like the opening crawl text of a movie. King Ahaz of Judah (brown on the map) is being attacked from the north by King Rezin of Syria/Aram (green) and King Pekah of Israel/Samaria (blue). But the worst enemy is lurking farther to the northeast, too big to fit on this map, ten times the size of all three countries shown here. That’s no kingdom, it’s an empire: the Assyrian Empire.
We enter the story at a low point: the king of Israel is teaming up with Syria against the Assyrian Empire — yet they’re attacking Judah. It had all started when King Rezin of Syria tired of paying tribute to the Empire, so he rebelled, and Israel/Samaria agreed to help Syria fight Assyria. In terms of the map above, blue and green are fighting the empire to the northeast, represented by the menacing capital letters at the very top.
The Assyrian Empire was still several times bigger than those two kingdoms combined, so they needed more help. They asked nicely but Ahaz was reluctant. The prophet Isaiah kept telling him that God didn’t want this war.
So the two rebellious kingdoms turned away from their real enemy to a side battle they had a hope of winning. They gave King Ahaz the proverbial “offer you can’t refuse.” Then Isaiah told Ahaz to refuse it.
When Ahaz did the right thing and still said “no,” the two kingdoms actually besieged Jerusalem, planning to depose Ahaz and install another, more agreeable king.
There’s no happy ending here and no good choices. Looking back on history, we can see that these two kings’ rebellion will fail, just as surely as Jewish rebellions against the Roman Empire failed centuries later. The line of King Rezin will end when Assyria kills him, and King Pekah will be the second-to-last king of Israel, also destroyed by Assyria a little later. Isaiah predicts their fall before it happens in Chapter 7.
2 Kings 16 tells the end of this story. After standing firm admirably, Ahaz cracks under the stress of the siege. Ahaz actually invites the Assyrian Empire to “come up, and save me out of the hand of the king of Syria, and out of the hand of the king of Israel, which rise up against me.” (2 Kings 16:7) The Assyrians are all too happy to do so, given that Ahaz sweetens the deal by paying tribute with sacred gold.
The thing is, Ahaz’s plan works, for the moment. Ahaz himself keeps his life and his kingdom, and his country Judah continues for a hundred-plus more years — so Ahaz lives to make even worse choices. After the Assyrians smash the Syrian rebellion, Ahaz joins his new imperial “friends” in the defeated Syrian city of Damascus. 2 Kings 16 tells in detail how Ahaz orders Judah’s High Priest to copy the design of the Syrian altar at the Temple in Jerusalem. Then Ahaz himself takes on the duties that God specifically gave to priests, not kings, by offering sacrifices on that altar himself.
If you ever wonder why the sacrifices are described in such excruciating detail in the Torah, part of it is so you know to react in horror when someone brazenly violates those rules later. God kept the offices of priest and king separate. King Saul mixed those offices to his own harm, and here King Ahaz does the same. The Torah tells Ahaz to build the altar a certain way and not to offer sacrifices, but instead of copying the Torah, Ahaz copies the patterns of the foreign (and defeated!) Syrian kingdom.
Over-copying is easy to see when others give in to it, but hard to see when we ourselves give in to it. Maybe it’s easier to see in old stories, once we dust off the cobwebs of unfamiliar places and customs. History doesn’t repeat, but it does rhyme.
King Ahaz’s problem is my problem too. Ahaz seeks safety and salvation by allying with and copying the most powerful people around. Don’t forget, Ahaz listened to Isaiah and didn’t join the violent, hopeless rebellion of the two kings to his north. But then Ahaz allied with, and even paid off, the empire to his northeast instead. I’m not sure that’s much wiser.
I see this in myself in how, when the most powerful university or the prominent professor does things a certain way, I want to do so too. There’s nothing wrong with following best practices. But there must always be at least a few times where God says, no, do this My way. If I can’t see where my faith changes how I live, I have to ask, where is He calling me to be different – and how? Where am I copying others like Ahaz copied the Syrian altar? Where am I replying on Empire rather than God?
And this doesn’t necessary mean working more or working harder. It means being true to your original call. If you’re a king, be a king, don’t try to be a priest, too.
When these three small kingdoms consumed each other and chose war, history was colored red with blood, with multiple betrayals and political power plays that ultimately just benefitted the Empire.
Ahaz felt his need acutely, but that wasn’t enough. He was able to say “save me,” but said it to the powerful empire rather than the still small voice of God. Ahaz needed a wonderful counselor and a prince of peace, but wouldn’t listen to the prophet of peace that he had. Still, even when Ahaz did not remain with God, God remained with Ahaz.
2 Kings 16 tells what happened when Ahaz turned away from God to the Empire, then even copied the worship of other nations in God’s own sacred space. But Ahaz had another option, and when we read the rest of Isaiah 7 over the next few days, we see in detail what it was.
God was pleading with Ahaz to change his direction, and to look for salvation in God, even when surrounded and coerced. To this cornered king, out of the complicated and bloody politics of the Iron Age, God will speak the first of three great passages of hope in Isaiah 7-12.
(Image source: https://www.sumasacchurch.com/uploads/2/8/5/5/2855419/map-of-israel-for-ahaz-period_orig.png)