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King Jotham of Judah
(2 Kings 15.32-38)
1Jotham was 25 years old when he became king of Judah, and he ruled from Jerusalem for 16 years. Jerushah his mother was the daughter of Zadok.
2Jotham obeyed the Lord and did right. He followed the example of his father Uzziah, except he never burned incense in the temple as his father had done. But the people of Judah kept sinning against the Lord.
3Jotham rebuilt the Upper Gate of the temple and did a lot of work to repair the wall near Mount Ophel. 4He built towns in the mountains of Judah and built fortresses and defense towers in the forests.
5During his rule he attacked and defeated the Ammonites. Then every year for the next three years, he forced them to pay 3.4 tons of silver, 1,000 tons of wheat, and 1,000 tons of barley.
6Jotham remained faithful to the Lord his God and became a very powerful king.
7Everything else Jotham did while he was king, including the wars he fought, is written in The History of the Kings of Israel and Judah. 8After he had ruled Judah 16 years, he died at the age of 41. 9He was buried in Jerusalem, and his son Ahaz became king.
Reflect
It couldn’t have been easy. All around him people were living without regard to God and his commands. They had instead given in to the practices of the pagan nations around them and worshipped the pagan gods. Perhaps it was easier. Perhaps it was more fun. Ever since Aaron and the golden calf – which they worshipped while God was giving Moses the ten commandments! – people preferred the pagan rituals. The pagan practices didn’t make the same demands on your day to day life. They didn’t ask you to love your neighbour or to give to the poor. They allowed you to go on living your own self-centred life without being bothered by a God who cared about what was going on in your heart. This was a much easier way to live than ordering your whole life before God. And you could join in with what the tribes around you were doing rather than stand out and be different.
But Jotham determined to walk obediently before God (v 6). The CEV “remained faithful” loses a bit of the punch of the original. The ESV translates it “he ordered his ways before the Lord his God.” God was his God and he determined to live his way, every day.
At least, that’s what he did in principle. The writer of Chronicles didn’t mean that this king lived a perfect life. He was a sinner, like the rest of us. He didn’t do anything to stop the people living like pagans, though as king that would have been his responsibility. But his heart was committed and his life was consistent. That was what God valued.
Respond
Father, teach us what it means to live as your children, “ordering our ways before you.” In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
Annabel Robinson
Annabel was born in Kew, near London, England. She committed her life to Jesus Christ at a Scripture Union camp when she was 16, and immediately found joy and peace. At Oxford she was active in the Oxford Inter-Collegiate Christian Union, where she met her husband, Reid. They emigrated to Canada in 1965, where she taught Classics at the University of Regina until 2007. She has two children, Heather in Oslo and Alasdair in Calgary.