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52. Kings in Judah.
But in Jerusalem, on
the throne of David, twenty kings reigned in succession after the
unfortunate division of the kingdom over the Jews and Benjamines.
Rehoboam son of Solomon was the first. Oh that the Jews and Benjamines
would remain better and happier than their brothers, the ten tribes!
True, Jerusalem had the rightful throne and the beautiful new temple,
the priesthood and the law. But they were not much better and not much
happier. The Jews also followed after foreign gods and grew more and
more wild in forgetfulness of God and injustice, and the worst of them
covered up their wickedness with hypocrisy. Rehoboam himself set the
first example of unfaithfulness to the God of Israel. Although Solomon,
his father, set it before him. Only rarely did another wise and pious
king come to the throne. Such a king was Jehoshaphat. One must name good
men and honor their memory.
A few years after Jehoshaphat's death, a royal child went missing and
only reappeared in the temple six years later. Jehoram, the son of
Jehoshaphat, had Athaliah as his wife. She was a daughter of Ahab, king
of the ten tribes, a domineering and insolent woman. After the death of
her husband and the death of her son Ahaziah, she murdered all the other
children of the royal house so that she alone ruled, and there was a
one-year-old baby boy named Joash. The baby went missing when the others
were killed. No one could say where it had gone. For God did not yet
want to leave the throne of David without an heir. It was not yet time.
Jehosheba, the wife of the priest Jehoiada, a relative of the baby, took
it to one side with its nurse when the others were killed and handed it
over to the priests. Under their supervision, she was kept secret for
six years and brought up in a side chamber of the temple, where she was,
so to speak, fed and cared for by the good Lord. Although all children
are in the care and nurture of God, so are the adults.
After six years, when no one was thinking about the lost child, least of
all the queen, Jehoiada suddenly occupied the temple with priests and
Levites and surrounded the whole building with armed soldiers who were
loyal to him. When all the people were eager and waiting to see what
would happen, he brought a beautiful seven-year-old boy into the temple
and proclaimed him to be Joash son of King Ahaziah, the child who had
been lost in the first year of his life and of whom no one had heard
since.
They anointed Joash king and put a little crown on his head, such as a
seven-year-old child might wear, and the whole temple resounded with the
sound of trumpets and strings and shouts of joy. All the people rejoiced
in the dear, tender infant king with his royal crown. The whole nation
rejoiced in the dear, tender infant king with his royal crown. So God
has preserved the only heir to the throne of David.
But you faithful priest Jehoiada, how badly your ungrateful fosterling
will repay you! It would almost be better not to know. As long as
Jehoiada lived - he lived to be one hundred and thirty years old - the
king did nothing wrong. But after his death Jehoash forgot his God and
the good deeds of his foster father and savior. He who forgets God also
forgets his benefactors. God is our greatest benefactor. Joash
reintroduced idolatry and had Zechariah, the son of his foster father,
stoned to death because he objected to it. But when Zechariah died, he
said nothing more than: “God will see and judge.”
Ahaz, the fourth king after Joash, erected idolatrous altars throughout
Jerusalem and even had the temple in Jerusalem closed and dilapidated
and the sacred lamps extinguished, so that the temple was like an
extinct house that no longer has a master who is on sale. Is it any
wonder that in times like these even the holy book of the law was lost
and not even lacking?
Ahaz was succeeded by Hezekiah, his pious son. In his days the ten
tribes were carried away to Assyria. The pious king Hezekiah reopened
the temple and restored it. He re-established the church service, as
well as it was known by heart, and destroyed the altars of the idols.
Like him was the third after him, Josiah. He came to the throne as a boy
of eight and remained so pious and faithful to the God of his fathers
until death. Something came into the hands of the priest Hilkiah in the
temple by chance. It was the lost book of the law. It was read again for
the first time, with all its beautiful promises and terrible threats.
They corrected what could still be corrected. But the throne of King
David could not last much longer. The descendants of Josiah were no
longer like him. Jehoiakim, Jechoniah and Zedekiah are the names of the
last kings.
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