The Bible Recap - Day 189 (2 Kings 15, 2 Chronicles 26) - Year 5

Episode Date: July 8, 2023

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Hey Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble, and I'm your host for the Bible recap. If you didn't have a chance to look this up, it might have been a bit confusing to you, but today we have another nickname tag situation happening with King Azaria of Judah. He also goes by the name Uzaya. When we read about him in second kings, he's Azaraya, but when we read about him in second chronicles, he's Uzaya. He's just taken over after his father's death, and we don't hear much about him except that he's a pretty good king.

High places notwithstanding because they're still standing. But then things take a turn. After his people may be invent the catapult and a series of military victories making rich and famous, Azaria grows prideful. He decides he wants to burn incense in the temple in Jerusalem, which is a big no-no unless you're a priest. When the text describes this by saying, he was unfaithful to the Lord his God, it uses the same word that is often used for marital unfaithfulness. The actual priests are a guest, and 81 of them, including one who shares the name as a raya, rush into rebuke him, but he's unrepentant. And when he grows angry with the priests,

God strikes him with leprosy. What's interesting to me about this text is that it seems to indicate he never actually lights the censor to burn the incense. They stop him before he can. And if that's true, then even though he doesn't physically commit the sin here, his heart is still set on it. So when God strikes him with leprosy, it really seems like the motives of his heart are what's being judged here. He has to leave the temple immediately to prevent defiling it, and after this, he lives in a separate house, because of the cleanliness laws we read about in the Vedic as 13. He likely either stopped performing the roles of King when he became ill, or co-rained with

his son, Jotham, until Jotham officially took over for him. Jotham was considered to be a good King, mostly walking in God's ways, but you guessed it, those high places in Judah are still as untouched as ever. Meanwhile in Israel, we quickly move through five kings, most of whom kill the previous king. These short-lived kings and the way their reigns end show us how the kingdom of Israel is really on the decline. This shouldn't surprise us, though, for two reasons.

First, not only do we know that God's promise is connected to the other kingdom, the southern kingdom of Judah, the line of David, but we also got a little heads up from God that there was a deadline for the northern kingdom of Israel. We read a reminder of this today in 1512, but we first read it a few days ago in 2nd Kings 1030, when God said to Jehoo, because you have done well in carrying out what is right in my eyes, and have done to the house of Ahab according to all that was in my heart, your sons of the fourth generation shall sit on the throne of Israel. So now we have all these short-term wicked kings cropping up,

and it's become really evident that we've crossed that fourth-generation threshold, and the northern kingdom seems to be unravelling. Today, my God shot came from the incident in the temple where God struck Aziraya Uzaya with leprosy. The first thing that struck me was God's holiness. He refused to let the king defile his temple. The second thing I realized about this was how efficiently and thoroughly God handled that situation. He punished Azarai Uzayez Rebellion while effectively stopping him from lighting the incense, and ensuring he had to leave the premises and not return, and he toppled him as king without even killing him, which is also merciful.

So many of God's attributes are on display in this one scene. Not to mention the kind of wisdom it takes to come up with something that works on so many levels. Righteous, efficient, thorough, merciful, wise, wow. He's where the joy is. Tomorrow we'll be starting the Book of Isaiah, it's 66 chapters long. We're linking to a short video overview in the show notes that covers the first part of Isaiah, and we'll link to the second video on day 206 before we begin the second part

of Isaiah. The video is 8 minutes long, so check it out if you have some time to spare. Okay, Bible readers, it's time for our weekly check-in. How is your summer going? Maybe you're out of your routine, and you're further behind than you'd like to be. Maybe you had good intentions on your vacation, but then just never got around to it? Don't beat yourself up. I believe you're right on time and you're reading exactly what you need to read today. God is with you, and I'm asking him to keep bringing you

back to his word every day for more joy and more intimacy with him. Most dads feel undervalued, misunderstood, and that no matter what they do, it isn't enough. It seems like fatherhood is often undervalued and heavily criticized. But, what if you could be encouraged to real conversations about the value of Christian fatherhood? Text grow to 67101 to grow in your confidence as a Christian father, or tell the dad in your life about this great study from way nation. Text grow to 67101.