Year One, December 18

The LORD Is Able to Give You Much More Than This1

We now return to the history of the kingdom of Judah. Joash is succeeded by Amaziah.

  

2 Chronicles 25:1-11

1Amaziah was twenty-five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. 2And he did what was right in the eyes of the LORD, yet not with a whole heart.

Amaziah was like his father Joash. His views of right and wrong were changeable. He began well, but later he turned aside from doing what was right and suffered because of it.

3And as soon as the royal power was firmly his, he killed his servants who had struck down the king his father. 4But he did not put their children to death, according to what is written in the Law, in the Book of Moses, where the LORD commanded, “Fathers shall not die because of their children, nor children die because of their fathers, but each one shall die for his own sin.” (The king obeyed this righteous law even though it was common in those days for someone who took control of a kingdom by force to kill the reigning king and everyone in his family. Amaziah should be admired for obeying the law of the Lord and refusing to follow the custom of the time.)

5Then Amaziah assembled the men of Judah and set them by fathers’ houses under commanders of thousands and of hundreds for all Judah and Benjamin. He mustered those twenty years old and upward, and found that they were 300,000 choice men, fit for war, able to handle spear and shield.

This was only one-fourth the size of his great-great-grandfather Jehoshaphat’s army. The kingdom of Judah had suffered greatly from the wars that were the result of its sins.

6He hired also 100,000 mighty men of valor from Israel for 100 talents (about four tons) of silver. (This amount was paid to the king of Israel for agreeing to lend his troops to Amaziah. It was a relatively small amount and went directly to the king. The soldiers were not paid. They were expected to reward themselves by the spoils of war. What must war have been like under those kinds of rules? Human life was worth next to nothing and owning property meant even less.) 7But a man of God came to him and said, “O king, do not let the army of Israel go with you, for the LORD is not with Israel, with all these Ephraimites. 8But go, act, be strong for the battle. Why should you suppose that God will cast you down before the enemy? For God has power to help or to cast down.” (God would not have his people joining with idolaters. All the help we can get from the ungodly will prove to be a handicap.)

9And Amaziah said to the man of God, “But what shall we do about the hundred talents that I have given to the army of Israel?” The man of God answered, “The LORD is able to give you much more than this.” (These words should be remembered anytime it appears we will suffer loss for doing the right thing. God can make it up to us in many ways, both earthly and spiritual. We can compare the cost any way we please, but we will find that it is always best to obey the Lord.) 10Then Amaziah discharged the army that had come to him from Ephriam to go home again. And they became very angry with Judah and returned home in fierce anger. 11But Amaziah took courage and led out his people and went to the Valley of Salt and struck down 10,000 men of Seir. (He fought alone and was victorious. If we will trust in God and not rely on the arm of flesh, we will also be conquerors.2 Any loss we endure for Christ’s sake is a loss we may rejoice in.3)

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¹ 2 Chronicles 25:9

² 2 Chronicles 32:8, “With him is an arm of flesh, but with us is the LORD our God, to help us and to fight our battles.”

³ Philippians 3:8, “Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ.”