What was Judah like when Hezekiah became king? One of the prophets, Hosea, can give us some thoughts on that subject.
·
Hosea 1-3 is the great message concerning Judah’s
spiritual harlotry (idolatry), the promise of judgment, and the assurance of
God’s love by which He would eventually retrieve His people. So if the question is “what was Judah like,”
the answer is there was widespread idolatry.
This is no surprise, given the reign of Ahaz, Hezekiah’s father (2 Ki.
16). Ahaz had instructed the priest to
build a second altar in the temple area, so that Ahaz could alternate between the
two, depending on his purposes. That was the height, or rather, the depth of depraved idolatry. How little Ahaz thought of YAHWEH!
·
The leadership of the king in spiritual matters
was important for the people and the culture of Judah. From Hosea’s record we can say that the
society of Judah was “godless,” or specifically “Jehovah-less.” Hear the prophet’s message:
There is no truth or mercy or knowledge
of God in the land (Hos. 4:1).
My people are destroyed for lack of
knowledge. Because you have rejected
knowledge, I also will reject you from being priest for Me; because you have
forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children. (Hos. 4:6)
I will not punish your daughters when
they commit harlotry, nor your brides when they commit adultery; for the men
themselves go apart with harlots, and offer sacrifices with a ritual
harlot. Therefore people who do not
understand will be trampled. (Hos. 4:14)
They do not direct their deeds toward turning to their God,
for the spirit of harlotry is in their midst, and they do not know the LORD.
(Hos. 5:4).
Hosea is sometimes considered to be the “prophet
of social justice.” In the above texts you
see that there is a lot of “social injustice” going on in Judah. But that is not the “primary sin,” if I can
say it that way. The primary sin is that
they do not know God. And because there
is knowledge of God, depravity is full steam ahead.
We need to remember this in our own
society. Ultimately, our problem is not,
for example, that we are destroying marriage by Congress passing the law that
requires the rights of homosexual “marriage.”
The problem is that long before that we “suppressed the truth in
unrighteousness” and did not “glorify Him as God nor give Him thanks.” Thus the knowledge of God has departed and
God has given us over to immorality, perversion and depravity (cf. Rom.
1:18-32).
·
Another thing Hosea pointed out in Judah was
their hypocrisy. Hosea 6:3 quotes the
people saying, “Let us pursue the knowledge of the LORD.” But apparently, they didn’t mean it. They only want “the latter and former rain”
mentioned later in the verse. Their
response was to crank up the worship at the temple. But God’s response was, “For I desire mercy
and not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings” (6:6).
It is over this corrupt society that Hezekiah
became king.
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