_AMAZIAH OF JUDAH_
B.C. 796-783 (?)
2 KINGS xiv. 1-22
"All they that take the sword shall perish with the sword."--MATT.
xxvi. 52.
The fate of Amaziah ("Jehovah is strong"), son of Joash of Judah,
resembles in some respects that of his father. Both began to reign
prosperously: the happiness of both ended in disaster. Amaziah at his
accession was twenty-five years old. He was the son of a lady of
Jerusalem named Jehoaddin. He reigned twenty-nine years, of which the
later ones were passed in misery, peril, and degradation, and, like
the unhappy Joash, and at about the same age, he fell the victim of
domestic conspiracy.
The hereditary principle was too strongly established to enable the
murderers of Joash to set it aside, but Amaziah was not at first
strong enough to make any head against them. In time he became
established in his kingdom, and then his earliest act was to bring the
head conspirators, Jozacar and Jehozabad, to justice. It was noted as
a most remarkable circumstance that he did not put to death their
children, and extirpate their houses. In acting thus, if he were
influenced by a spirit of mercy, he showed himself before his time;
but such mercy was completely contrary to the universal custom, and
was also regarded as most impolitic. Even the comparatively merciful
Greeks had the proverb, "Fool, who has murdered the sire, and left his
sons to avenge him!"[276]
In epochs of the wild justice of revenge, when blood-feuds are an
established and approved institution, the policy of letting vengeance
only fall on the actual offender was regarded as fatal. Perhaps Amaziah
felt it beyond his power to do more than bring the actual murderers to
justice, and it is possible that their children may have been among the
conspirators who, in his hour of shame, intimately destroyed him.
The historian, it is true, attributes his conduct to magnanimity, or
rather to his obedience to the law, "The fathers shall not be put to
death for the children, nor the children for the fathers; but every
man shall die for his own sin." This is a reference to Deut. xxiv. 16,
and is probably the independent comment of the writer who recorded the
event two centuries later. In the gradual growth of a milder
civilisation, and the more common dominance of legal justice, such a
law may have come into force, as expressive of that voice of
conscience which is to sincere nations the voice of God. That the book
of Deuteronomy, as a book, was not in existence in its present form
till four reigns later we shall hereafter see strong reasons to
believe. But even if any part of that book was in existence, it is not
easy to understand how Amaziah would have been able to decide that the
law which forbade the punishment of the children with the offending
parents was the law which he was bound to follow, when Moses and
Joshua and other heroes of his race had acted on the olden principle.
The innocent families of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram were represented as
having been swallowed up with the ambitious heads of their houses.
Joshua and all Israel had not only stoned Achan, but with him all his
unoffending house. What, too, was the meaning of the law which
established the five Cities of Refuge as the best way to protect the
accidental homicide from the recognised and unrebuked actions of the
Goel--the avenger of blood? The vengeance of a Goel was regarded, as
it is in the East and South to this day, not as an implacable
fierceness, but as a sacred duty, the neglect of which would cover him
with infamy. Judging of our documents by the impartial light of honest
criticism, it seems impossible to deny that the law of Deuteronomy was
the law of an advancing civilisation, which became more mild as
justice became firmer and more available. If Deuteronomy represents
the legislation of Moses, we can only say that in this respect Amaziah
was the first person who paid the slightest attention to it. Such
exceptional obedience may well excite the notice of the historian, in
whose pages we see that prophets like Ahijah, Elijah, and Elisha had,
again and again, in accordance with the spirit of their times,
contemplated the total excision, not only of erring kings, but even of
their little children and their most distant kinsfolk.
Further:--We are told that Amaziah "did that which was right in the
sight of Jehovah: he did according to all things _as Joash his father
did_." The Chronicler also bestows his eulogy on Amaziah; but having
told such dark stories of the apostasy of Joash to Asherah-worship
and his murder of the prophets, he could hardly add "as Joash his
father did"; so he omits those words. The reservation that Amaziah did
right, "yet not like David his father" (2 Kings xiv. 3), "but not with
a perfect heart" (2 Chron. xxv. 2), is followed by the stock abatement
about the _bamoth_, and the sacrifices and incense burnt in them. This
was a crime in the eyes of writers in B.C. 540, but certainly not in
the eyes of any king before the discovery of the "Book of the Law" in
the reign of Josiah, B.C. 621. We are compelled, therefore, by simple
truth, to ask, How came it that Amaziah should be so scrupulous as to
observe the Deuteronomic law by not slaying the sons of his father's
murderers, while he does not seem to be aware, any more than the best
of his predecessors, that while he obeyed one precept he was violating
the essence and spirit of the entire code in which the precept occurs?
The one main object, the constantly repeated law of Deuteronomy, is
the centralisation of all worship, and the rigid prohibition of every
local place of sacrifice. Strange that Amaziah should have selected
for attention a single precept, while he is profoundly unconscious of,
or indifferent to, the fact that he is setting aside the regulation
with which the law, as Deuteronomy represents it, begins and ends, and
on which it incessantly insists!
Joash had been something of a weakling, as though the gloom of his
early concealment in the Temple and the shadow of priestly dominance
had paralysed his independence. Amaziah, on the other hand, born in
the purple, was vigorous and restless. When he was secure upon the
throne, and had done his duty to his father's memory, he bent his
efforts to recover Edom. The Edomites had revolted in the days of his
great-grandfather Jehoram,[277] and since then "did tear
perpetually,"[278] harassing with incessant raids the miserable
fellahîn of Southern Judah. They reaped the crops of the settled
inhabitants, cut down their fruit-trees, burnt their farmsteads, and
carried their children into cruel and hopeless slavery. One verse
tells us all that the historian knew, or cared to relate, of Amaziah's
campaign. He only says that it was eminently successful. Amaziah
confronted the Edomites in the Valley of Salt,[279] on the border of
Edom, to the south of the Dead Sea, and inflicted upon them a signal
defeat. He not only slaughtered ten thousand of them, but, advancing
southwards, he stormed and captured Selah or Petra, their rocky
capital, two days' journey north of Ezion-Geber, on the gulf of
Akabah.[280] Considering the natural strength of Petra, amid its
mountain-fastnesses, this was a victory of which he might well be
proud, and he marked his prowess by changing the name of the city to
Joktheel, "subdued by God." The historian, copying the ancient record
before him, says that Selah continued to be so called "to this
day."[281] This is a curious instance of close transcription, for it
is certain that Selah can only have retained the name of Joktheel for
a very short period, and had lost it long before the days of the
Exile. Even in the reign of Ahaz (B.C. 735-715) the Edomites had so
completely recovered lost ground that they were able to make
predatory excursions into Judah, and to threaten Hebron, which would
have been obviously impossible if they were not masters of their own
chief capital.[282] The district which Amaziah seems to have conquered
was mainly west of the Arabah. He wished to restore Elath, and perhaps
to carry out the old commerce with the Red Sea which Solomon began,
and which had fired the ambition of Jehoshaphat. The conquest of Selah
secured the road for his commercial caravans.
So far the older and better authorities. The Chronicler expands the
story in his usual fashion, in which historical and critical verity is
so often compelled, if not to suspect the disease of exaggeration and
the bias of Levitism, at least to feel uncertainty as to the details.
He says that Amaziah collected an army of three hundred thousand men
of Judah, trained them to a high state of discipline, and armed them
with spear and shield. He hired in addition one hundred thousand
Israelitish mercenaries, mighty men of valour, at the heavy cost of
one hundred talents of silver. He was rebuked by a prophet for
employing Israelites, "because the Lord was not with them," so that if
he used their aid he would certainly be defeated. Amaziah asked what
he was to do for the hundred talents, and the prophet told him that
Jehovah could give him much more than this.[283] So he dismissed his
Ephraimites who, returning home in great fury, "fell upon the cities
of Judah," from Samaria even unto Beth-horon, killed three thousand of
their inhabitants, and took much spoil. Amaziah, however, defeated the
Edomites without their aid, and not only slew ten thousand, but took
captive ten thousand more, all of whom he dashed to pieces by hurling
them from the top of the rock of Petra.[284]
Then, by an apostasy much more astounding than even that of his father
Joash, he took home with him the idols of Mount Seir, worshipped them,
and burnt incense before them. Jehovah sends a prophet to rebuke him
for his senseless infatuation in worshipping the gods of the Edomites
whom he had just so utterly defeated; but Amaziah returns him the
insolent answer, "Who made thee of the king's council? Be silent, or I
will put thee to death." The prophet met his ironical sneer with words
of deeper meaning: "If I am not on _your_ council, I am on God's.
Because thou hast not hearkened to my counsel, I know that God has
counselled to destroy thee."
The later writer thus accounts for the folly and overthrow of this
valorous and hitherto eminently pious king. Certain it is, as we shall
narrate in the next chapter, that, in spite of warning, he had the
temerity to challenge to battle the warlike Joash ben-Jehoahaz of
Israel, grandson of Jehu. The kings met at Beth-Shemesh, and Amaziah
was utterly routed, with consequences so shameful to himself and to
Jerusalem that he was never able to hold up his head again. He could
but eat away his own heart in despair, a ruined man. After this he
"lived" rather than reigned fifteen years longer.[285] The wall of
Jerusalem, broken down near the Damascus Gate, on the side towards
Israel, for a space of four hundred cubits, was a standing witness of
the king's infatuated folly. His people were ashamed of him, and weary
of him; and at last, seeing that nothing more could be expected of one
whose spirit had evidently been broken from impetuosity into
abjectness, they formed a conspiracy against him. To save his life he
fled to the strong fort of Lachish, a royal Canaanite city, in the
hills to the south-west of Judah.[286] But they pursued him thither,
and even Lachish would not protect him. He was murdered. They threw
the corpse upon a chariot, conveyed it to Jerusalem, and buried it in
the sepulchres of his fathers. The people quietly elevated to the
throne his son Azariah, then sixteen years old, who had been born the
year before his father's crowning disgrace. What became of the
conspirators we do not know. They were probably too strong to be
brought to justice, and we are not told that Azariah even attempted to
visit their crime upon their heads.
FOOTNOTES:
[276] Νήπιος ὃς πατέρα κτείνας υἱοὺς καταλείπει. Comp. Q. Curtius, vi.
11: "Lege cautum erat ut propinqui eorum qui regi insidiati cum ipsis
necarentur." Cic., _Ad Brut._, 15.
[277] 2 Kings viii. 20-22.
[278] Amos i. 11.
[279] The Valley (_Gê_) of Salt is "the plain of the Sabkah," about
two miles broad, between the southern end of the Dead Sea and the
hills which separate the Ghôr from the Arabah (Seetzen, _Reisen_, ii.
356; Robinson, _Researches_, ii. 450, 488). David had won a great
victory there (2 Sam. viii. 13; Psalm lx., _title_).
[280] Selah, "a rock" (Πέτρα). Eusebius calls it Rekem.
[281] It is the name also of a city of Judah (Josh. xv. 38).
[282] 2 Chron. xxviii. 17; Jos., _Antt._, XII. viii. 6.
[283] 2 Chron. xxv. 5-10, 13.
[284] Κατακρημνισμός. This mode of execution prevailed till quite
recent times in the little republic of Andorra.
[285] 2 Kings xiv. 17. The phrase that "he _lived_ fifteen years" is
unusual, and seems to imply that the historian saw,--
"In more of life true life no more."
[286] Josh. x. 6, 31, xv. 39; 2 Kings xviii. 17; 2 Chron. xi. 9.