In 2 Chronicles 28 we meet King Ahaz of Judah, a man whose reign began with promise but slipped into shadows of compromise and calamity. He took the throne at just twenty years old, and at the outset he rejected the faith of his father and grandfather, turning instead to the detestable practices of surrounding nations. Rather than guiding his people in the worship of the Lord, he built high places to Baal, made offerings on every hill, and even sacrificed his own children in the fires—terrible acts that spoke of a heart gone astray.
These choices did not happen in isolation. As Ahaz pursued foreign gods, the neighboring kingdoms took notice. The kingdom of Aram and the northern tribes of Israel saw Judah’s weakness as their opportunity. They joined forces and invaded Judah, pouring down into the hill country and seizing fortified cities like Ephraim and Judah’s strategic border towns. The people of Judah were unprepared for such a combined assault. Men, women, even priests and Levites were taken captive, marched off toward Samaria, and sold as slaves—an unimaginable horror for families who had long known the Lord’s protection.
As we walk through these events, we feel the anguish of mothers weeping for husbands and children taken from their doorsteps, and the desperation of leaders striving to rally forces that feel inadequate against such a coalition. The chronicler tells us that the Lord allowed these invasions as a consequence of Ahaz’s rebellion, a painful reminder that turning from divine guidance can open the door to disaster.
But Ahaz’s fear went beyond military defeat. Instead of turning back to the Lord in genuine repentance, he sought refuge in the power of a far-off empire. He sent messengers to Tiglath-Pileser, king of Assyria, with treasures from the temple—scarlet robes, valuable vessels, even the doors and doorposts of the temple courts. He essentially paid tribute to Assyria to come and fight his battles for him. When the Assyrians marched in and scattered the allied armies of Aram and Israel, Judah experienced a fleeting relief. Yet this deliverance came at a heavy price: the plundering of their own worship house and the surrender of their political independence.
We can picture the crowned king breathing a short sigh of relief as the Assyrian forces crush his enemies, but that relief quickly curdles into a bitter lesson. By entrusting Judah’s security to a foreign power rather than to the Lord, Ahaz undermined the very foundation of his people’s identity and freedom. It is a moment that resonates with the temptation we all face to lean on human solutions when God’s way feels too uncertain or takes too long.
Just when it seemed Judah might find rest, another blow came. The Philistines and Edomites saw Judah weakened—not simply by foreign tributes but by the betrayal of covenant trust—and they too invaded, carrying off even more people from their cities. Judah’s fields and vines, once symbols of divine blessing, were harvested by enemy hands. We feel the shame of a nation left defenseless, its produce feeding invaders far from home.
Amid these calamities, Ahaz’s response was to double down on compromises. He began to burn incense not only in the high places but also on the temple’s own altars, effectively turning the Lord’s sanctuary into a shrine for Baal and other gods. He adopted a Syrian model for worship, sending to Damascus for an altar design and enthusiastically installing it in Jerusalem. He even replaced the Lord’s bronze altar with this foreign one, relegating the original to a corner and conducting his sacrifices according to Damascus’s pattern. The king who once risked life and fortune for preservation of divine worship now dismantled it in the name of political expediency.
In these actions we see a striking portrait of compromise insidious enough to reshape sacred spaces. Ahaz did not simply allow foreign cults alongside Israel’s worship; he elevated them above the true altar, making a public statement that he valued foreign gods and foreign power more than the living God of his ancestors. This move shattered trust in the temple’s sanctity and led the people further away from the heart of their covenant.
Finally, as Ahaz approached the end of his life, his sickness took him in Jerusalem—a fitting parallel to the moral sickness he had ushered into Judah. Because of all his idolatry, his body and reign suffered until he drew his last breath. His attendants buried him with his ancestors, but not in the City of David, a sign that his disobedience had cost him the honor usually reserved for God’s faithful line.
As we reflect on 2 Chronicles 28, we are faced with the sobering truth that a leader’s heart shapes a nation’s fate. When Ahaz sought solutions apart from God—whether through idolatry or foreign alliances—he invited devastation and disgrace upon his people. Yet the story also leaves us understanding how quickly things can unravel when we move our trust from divine guidance to human strategies. In our own lives, we may not build high places or pay tribute to an empire, but we face parallel temptations to compromise our deepest convictions for short-term gain or security.
In the end, 2 Chronicles 28 invites us into a posture of honest self-examination. It asks us where we have turned away from the paths we once vowed to walk, and it encourages us to remember that genuine security is found not in alliances of convenience, but in unwavering fidelity to the One whose promises never fail.