I was just about to get started with Isaiah – and I admit, I skimmed over Song of Songs because I was eager to get to the more historical and prophetic stuff. I also skipped Psalms and Proverbs as a straight read-through in favor of reading them one chapter a day alongside whatever else I’m reading. It seemed to me that a slower read for those books was in order, since they are not narratives. So Isaiah 1:1 just arrested me.
The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah. (Isaiah 1:1)
I did a quick refresher on those four guys and Hezekiah’s son Manasseh.
- Uzziah – His father “did what was pleasing to the Lord” but did not tear down the pagan altars. He followed in his father’s footsteps.
- Jotham – followed his grandfather and father; he did what was pleasing to the Lord but permitted pagan worship.
- Ahaz – actually practiced pagan worship, even sacrificing his own son.
- Hezekiah – was faithful, destroyed the pagan worship, and “carefully kept all the commands the Lord had given Moses.” In fact, Hezekiah trusted in the LORD, the God of Israel; Judah never had another king like him, either before or after his time. (2 Kings 18:5) BUT… after a lifetime of obeying and walking with the Lord, when the time came for him to die, he “cried bitterly” because he valued and trusted the world more than the Lord’s will. He begged for more time. So God permitted him another 15 years. After 3 of the fifteen years, he had a son, Manasseh.
- Menasseh – When Manasseh was 12, Hezekiah died. Now thinking of Manasseh, he was the son of an elderly father, whose judgement was obviously failing – he showed the enemy too much about his resources. The likelihood is that he was not a good father. In any event, Manasseh killed so many innocent people that the streets of Jerusalem ran with blood. The Lord said, “So I, the LORD God of Israel, will bring such a disaster on Jerusalem and Judah that everyone who hears about it will be stunned. I will punish Jerusalem as I did Samaria, as I did King Ahab of Israel and his descendants. I will wipe Jerusalem clean of its people, as clean as a plate that has been wiped and turned upside down. I will abandon the people who survive, and will hand them over to their enemies, who will conquer them and plunder their land. I will do this to my people because they have sinned against me and have stirred up my anger from the time their ancestors came out of Egypt to this day.” (2 Kings 21:12-15) He did repent in 2 Chronicles, but not before he caused a great deal of misery to many.
Had Hezekiah trusted the Lord enough to submit to His will and die when the Lord wanted to, Manasseh would not have been born. Interesting. In any event, Isaiah’s time spanned four kings, two “lukewarm,” one truly awful, and one who had a good start, but didn’t end well. You can see God’s sovereign hand over all this history, especially considering how He is glorified by the Babylonian captives whose status was largely due to Hezekiah’s foolishness and Manasseh’s evil behavior.
