Bible Study Notes 9/23/2025

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Ahaz (735-715 BC; Co-Regency with Jotham, 735-732 BC)

(2 Kgs. 16, 2 Chr. 28, and Isa. 7-8)

 

Ahaz is one of the worst southern kings, for not only did he serve idols, “he walked in the way of the kings of Israel. He even burned his son as an offering, according to the despicable practices of the nations whom the LORD drove out before the people od Israel and he sacrificed and made offerings on the high places and on the hills and under every green tree” (2 Kgs. 16:3-4).

- Child sacrifice was known in the ancient world, but it was deemed an abominable practice by God (Deut. 12:31).

- Ahaz is behaving just like the nations that God had driven out of the land of Canaan.

Ahaz is attacked by Rezin, king of Aram (Syria), and by Pekah, king of Israel (2 Kgs. 16:1-6; 2 Chr. 28:5-15).

- Thousands of people in Judah are killed and thousands of others, including women and children, are brought to Samaria as slaves.

- This tragedy takes place because Judah has “forsaken the LORD, the God of their fathers” (2 Chr. 28:6).

- BUT the prophet Oded warns Pekah and the leaders of Israel, instructing them to return the captives, who were their relatives.

- God’s anger I burning against the northern kingdom, and they are adding to their guilt!

- So they clothe the captives and send them back to Judah, along with the spoil that they had taken.

- HOWEVER! King Ahaz has unrelenting problems since the Edomites and the Philistines have taken some of his territory.

- GOD IS HUMBLING JUDAH because of their unfaithfulness.

In walks Isaiah to speak to King Ahaz, while he is being attacked by Rezin and Pekah (Isa. 7-8).

- Isaiah prophesied to King Ahaz that Rezin and Pekah will not succeed, but rather, Ahaz is to believe in God.

- Isaiah tells the king that God will give him a sign: a child will be born whose name is “Immanuel,” meaning “God with us” (Isa. 7:14).

- Even though the birth of this child should encourage Ahaz in his faith, Ahaz will not trust God, nor does he want a sign, for he has already made up his mind.

- Instead of relying on God for deliverance, Ahaz turns to the idolatrous Assyrians for help (2 Chr. 28:16-21) and calls upon its king, Tiglath-Pileser III (also called Pul), to help him.

- Ahaz does not receive the help he had expected (2 Chr. 28:21) even though there are some initial and short-term results (2 Kgs. 16:9).

Ahaz becomes even more desperate and unfaithful: he sacrifices to the gods of Damascus, for he reasons that because they have helped the kings of Aram who attacked him, perhaps they would help him (2 Chr. 28:23).

- Isaiah continues to minister at this time, and speaks of the folly of trusting in idols, objects made by human hands (Isa. 44:9-20; cf. Jer. 10:1-16).

- Isaiah mocks the person who prays to an idol saying: “Deliver me, for you are my god” (Isa. 44:17).

- Again, Isaiah tells Ahaz to trust in the living God, but Ahaz seeks help from those idols, even closes the temple doors so that sacrifices cannot be offered to the God of Israel.

- He also cuts in pieces the vessels used in the temple and builds even more gigh places to burn incense to the other gods.

- God’s anger is provoked (2 Chr. 28:24-25).

- Ahaz is blind and deaf to God’s word (Isa. 6:9-10) and is like Israel in the north.

Ahaz dies and is buried in Jerusalem (2 Chr. 28:26-27).

 

The Prophet Isaiah

 

Isaiah is an eighth century BC southern prophet, with a vision concerning Judah and Jerusalem, during the reigns of “Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah” (Isa. 1:1).

In Isa. 6:1 we are told that Isaiah receives his vision in the year of Uzziah’s death, which locates his call to a ministry in 740 BC.

- We may be backtracking a few years, but Isaiah will continue his prophetic ministry during the reigns of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah.

- Since Hezekiah’s reign ends in 686 BC, this places Isaiah’s ministry between 740 BC and 686 BC.

 

God Calls Isaiah to Speak to a Rebellious People

 

Isaiah describes Israel as a “sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, offspring of evildoers” (Isa. 1:4).

In the first 5 chapters, the prophet describes Judah and Jerusalem in a variety of shameful ways, including a rebellious child, a city filled with unrighteousness, an unfaithful whore, a land filled with idols, people who are proud and lofty, and finally, an unfruitful vineyard.

God will lay waste his vineyard, and his people will go into exile.

God’s judgment against his people climaxes in the call of the prophet when Isaiah is given a heavenly vision (Isa. 6), where he sees God’s enthronement in his heavenly temple, with angelic beings crying out: “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory” (Isa. 6:3).

When the prophet is confronted with God’s holiness, the prophet is profoundly aware that he himself is a man of unclean lips and unworthy to be in God’s presence for he has seen the King, the LORD of hosts.

- As his own sin is exposed, Isaiah’s iniquity is taken away and in a  remarkable act of mercy, his sin is forgiven (Isa. 6:7; cf. Isa. 43:25).

Having been cleansed from his sin, Isaiah is commissioned to proclaim God’s word the rebellious people who will not listen to his message: “Go, and say to this people: ‘Keep on hearing, but do not understand; keep on seeing, but do not perceive.’ Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and bling their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed” (Isa. 6:9-10).

- Isaiah preaches to the people, but his message will confirm the hardness of their hearts and their spiritual blindness.

- This imagery is connected to the core sin of idolatry in the Bible – remember that idolatry entails trusting in anyone or anything in the world, rather than the living God.

Isaiah’s major theme is the sin of idolatry.

 

God’s People are Blind and Deaf Like Their Idols

 

God’s people in the southern kingdom are worshiping idols of silver and gold, which they themselves have made (Isa. 2:8, 20; 10:11; 40:18-20; 42:17; 44:9-20; 46:1-7).

Isaiah continues to proclaim that there is no other God beside the LORD God (Isa. 40-48).

Then God thunders in the book of Isaiah with the question: READ Isa. 40:25-26.

            - Yahweh is the Creator God who has formed Israel from the womb (Isa. 44:2, 24).

            - He alone is God – Thus, Isaiah says of Yahweh: READ Isa. 44:6-7.

- Isaiah speaks of the folly of making idols out of wood, silver, and gold (Isa. 44:9-20) – A person crafts an idol, bows down and worships it, and even prays to it, saying: “Deliver me, for you are my god” (Isa. 44:17).

Throughout the OT, we have seen that people like to worship a god that cannot speak, for it means that they tell the god what to do, instead of the god telling them what to do.

- Doing so causes God’s people to become like the idols they worship, as the psalmist testifies: READ Ps. 115:4-8.

God’s people have become blind and deaf like their idols.

- Isaiah depicts Israel (or other Israelites in Judah) in this way: “Hear, you deaf, and look, you blind, that you may see! Who is blind but my servant, or deaf as my messenger whom I send? Who is blind as my dedicated one, or blind as the servant of the LORD? He sees many things, but does not observe them; his ears are open, but he does not hear” (Isa. 42:18-20).

            - READ Isaiah 43:8.

Let’s move back to Creation for a bit: When God created Adam, he formed him to become a living image, with eyes, ears, a mouth, and God’s breath was in him, for Adam was made in the image of the living God.

- NOW, human beings have become spiritually blind and deaf, and so the image has been distorted by sin.

Isaiah preaches but Israel’s heart continues to harden. READ Isaiah 44:18.

Jeremiah and Ezekiel will later describe God’s people in a similar way:

- Jeremiah says the Israelites are those “who have eyes, but see not, who have ears, but hear not” (Jer. 5:21),

- Ezekiel says Israel is “a rebellious house, who have eyes to see, but see not, who have ears to hear, but hear not, for they are a rebellious house” (Ezek. 12:2).

- As a result, the last Davidic king, Zedekiah, will leave Jerusalem blind, because the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar gouges out his eyes before taking him into exile (2 Kgs. 25:6-7; Jer. 39:6-7).

- Judah’s last king will go into exile “in the dark,” blind just like the people who walk in darkness (Ezek. 12:1-13).

- Isaiah had already announced that Israel would go into exile, and this is precisely what will take place in 586 BC.

 

God Will Restore His People after the Judgment

 

Like other prophets, Isaiah sees beyond the exile to a period of restoration, when God’s righteousness will reign.

At that time, “the eyes of those who see will not be closed, and the ears of those who hear will give attention” (Isa. 32:3; cf. Isa. 29:18).

            - God will raise up his royal Servant, and his light will shine into the darkness.

- Isaiah announces this glorious hope of restoration after the judgment, when the blind and deaf will see and hear (Isa. 29:18; 32:3-4; 35:5-6; 42:6-7).

            - Jesus begins his public ministry when he reads from the book of Isaiah in the synagogue.

- He announces that God’s Spirit is upon him and that he has been sent to “proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind” (Luke 4:18; cf. Isa. 61:1).

- After rolling up the scroll, Jesus says: “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:21).

- Interesting that a lot of Jesus’ healings were to give sight to the blind (Isa. 42:6-7; cf. Matt. 9:27-31; 11:4-5; 12:22-24; 20:29-34; Mark 8:17-26; 10:46-52; Luke 7:21-22; 18:35-43; John 9: Acts 9:1-18).

- Isaiah had announced that God’s salvation would entail a restoration, so that those who were blind would see.

- When John the Baptist sends messengers, he asks if Jesus is the one who was to come or if he should look for another.

- Jesus tells them to report to John what they have seen: “the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have good news preached to them: (Luke 7:22; cf. Isa. 35:5; 61:1).

- These healings by Jesus, which include the blind receiving their sight, signify the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecies (Isa. 35:5, 42:6-7; cf. Luke 4:18, 7:18-22).

- Yet, only those who believe will truly “see” and, sadly, not all will believe, regardless of the many signs they witness with their own eyes (spiritual blindness).

Thus, a blinding and hardening will continue to be effective for those who refuse to believe (Matt. 13:10-17; Mark 4:11-12; John 12:37-40; Acts 28:24-28; Rom. 9-11).

 

(Much gratitude is given to Dr. Carol Kaminski for her Old Testament Survey course at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and the study materials that accompany and inform this teaching.)