2 Chronicles 25:14 - Meaning and Application

Here we see Amaziah’s turning away from the God of Israel to the gods of the Edomites, a shocking folly. Ahaz worshiped the gods of those who had conquered him, and that at least had some twisted excuse (2 Chronicles 28:23). But Amaziah worshiped the gods of people he had just defeated, gods who could not even save their own worshipers. What did he see in the gods of Seir that could make him set them up as his own and bow before them (2 Chronicles 25:14)?

If he had thrown those idols down from the rock and smashed them, instead of killing the prisoners, he would have shown more of an Israelite’s faith and more mercy too. Perhaps because of that cruel act, God let him fall into this foolish idolatry.

God then sent a prophet to rebuke him for this sin. The Lord was rightly angry with him, but before bringing judgment, God first tried to warn him and bring him back, so that he might escape ruin. The prophet reasoned with him gently and fairly: Why have you sought favor from gods that could not save their own people (2 Chronicles 25:15)? If people truly thought about how helpless all the things they trust in are, once they turn away from God, they would not keep harming themselves in this way.

Amaziah had no defense for his own foolishness, because the rebuke was too true to answer. But instead of repenting, he became angry with the prophet. He insulted him as rude and meddling, as if the prophet had no right to speak: Are you the king’s counselor? Yet as a prophet, he really was speaking as one sent by the King of kings, and the king ought to have listened. Amaziah silenced him, telling him to stop speaking, like those who say, “Do not prophesy to us what is right” (Isaiah 30:10). He also threatened him, saying, in effect, that if he kept speaking, he would suffer for it. He seems to have remembered how a prophet in the previous reign was put to death for bold words against the king, and he warned this man to take care. In doing this, he both defended the murder of that earlier prophet and made himself guilty of the blood of both.

Amaziah had listened to a prophet before, when he was told to send home the Israelite army, even though it went against his plans and cost him 100 talents of silver (2 Chronicles 25:10). But now, when a prophet told him not to worship the gods of Edom, he turned on him with a wild rage. That is the strange power of idolatry. He could give up silver money, but he would not give up his silver gods.

After this, the prophet gave him God’s sentence. He had more to say to teach and warn him, but Amaziah was set on evil, so he stopped. It is a terrible thing when God, working through ministers and through conscience, no longer keeps striving with a person (Genesis 6:3). After much rejection, even the outward reproofs and the inward warnings will at last fall silent. A secure sinner may think it is a great victory to shut his reprovers up and be free of them, but what does that really mean? It means, “I know that God has decided to destroy you, because you have done this and have refused my counsel.” Those who will not listen to correction are hurrying fast toward destruction (Proverbs 29:1).