An end to seasonal kings
This week is on 2 Kings 10:10-15:
I read these verses and thought about how short of a reign Shallum had. We don't know whether he was a good king or a bad one. All we know is that he betrayed and slaughtered the evil king who came before him, and was then slaughtered himself a month later. What a month that must have been: hacking a man to death in front of a crowd, then being the supreme leader and establishing a new government, only to be cut to pieces by a rival just when you were getting used to the role of king.
Zechariah was an evil king who had turned his back on God and did all kinds of evil. Was Shallum then a freedom fighter of sorts, like Bonhoeffer plotting to kill Hitler? Or was he just another evil man out for his own gain? It barely matters, because he was cut down by another evil man, Menahem, who sacked a whole town for snubbing him and who taxed his own people to pay off an invader.
But look at it from Israel's perspective: In the space of three months they had three kings. Most or all were schemers, bloodthirsty men, bent on self-gain as opposed to God's plan or a love for their people. It happened time after time in the Old Testament. Good people got bad leaders, or the leaders changed suddenly. What stability was there when one king was practicing witchcraft, bringing a curse down on you, while another was scheming and plotting to kill him, and then another kills that guy and starts taxing and slaughtering the people he's there to protect?
And then I realized how lucky we are to have Jesus, the King of Kings. In the days of the Old Testament, people were just as subject to the whims of bad leaders as we are today, but they were dependent on these guys for their connection with God. Priests and Kings were there to carry out God's will and talk to them. The people were dragged along without much say in the matter.
Today we're free from that. We can talk to the King of Kings directly. We're not carried along by the randomness of regime change or the sanity of a particular leader. We have a direct line now. The same God who always was will always be there for us. If we had three different presidents in three months, and most or all of them were horrible, what difference does it make for us? We still have the same Jesus. We're part of his kingdom. It doesn't matter very much what happens in this one.
There's a stability to knowing our God will always be there. There's comfort in knowing he will always love us. He's not a man who will come and go in the span of a month, or grow old and senile, die, and be replaced by someone different. His loyalties aren't going to shift. He isn't going to wipe us out for refusing to let him in, or rob us in order to protect us. We don't live our whole lives in an imperfect earthly kingdom. We live in an eternal kingdom too. No matter what happens in the earthly kingdom, God's kingdom will outlast it.
Shallum son of Jabesh conspired against Zechariah. He attacked him in front of the people, assassinated him and succeeded him as king. The other events of Zechariah’s reign are written in the book of the annals of the kings of Israel. So the word of the Lord spoken to Jehu was fulfilled: “Your descendants will sit on the throne of Israel to the fourth generation.”
Shallum son of Jabesh became king in the thirty-ninth year of Uzziah king of Judah, and he reigned in Samaria one month. Then Menahem son of Gadi went from Tirzah up to Samaria. He attacked Shallum son of Jabesh in Samaria, assassinated him and succeeded him as king.
The other events of Shallum’s reign, and the conspiracy he led, are written in the book of the annals of the kings of Israel.
I read these verses and thought about how short of a reign Shallum had. We don't know whether he was a good king or a bad one. All we know is that he betrayed and slaughtered the evil king who came before him, and was then slaughtered himself a month later. What a month that must have been: hacking a man to death in front of a crowd, then being the supreme leader and establishing a new government, only to be cut to pieces by a rival just when you were getting used to the role of king.
Zechariah was an evil king who had turned his back on God and did all kinds of evil. Was Shallum then a freedom fighter of sorts, like Bonhoeffer plotting to kill Hitler? Or was he just another evil man out for his own gain? It barely matters, because he was cut down by another evil man, Menahem, who sacked a whole town for snubbing him and who taxed his own people to pay off an invader.
But look at it from Israel's perspective: In the space of three months they had three kings. Most or all were schemers, bloodthirsty men, bent on self-gain as opposed to God's plan or a love for their people. It happened time after time in the Old Testament. Good people got bad leaders, or the leaders changed suddenly. What stability was there when one king was practicing witchcraft, bringing a curse down on you, while another was scheming and plotting to kill him, and then another kills that guy and starts taxing and slaughtering the people he's there to protect?
And then I realized how lucky we are to have Jesus, the King of Kings. In the days of the Old Testament, people were just as subject to the whims of bad leaders as we are today, but they were dependent on these guys for their connection with God. Priests and Kings were there to carry out God's will and talk to them. The people were dragged along without much say in the matter.
Today we're free from that. We can talk to the King of Kings directly. We're not carried along by the randomness of regime change or the sanity of a particular leader. We have a direct line now. The same God who always was will always be there for us. If we had three different presidents in three months, and most or all of them were horrible, what difference does it make for us? We still have the same Jesus. We're part of his kingdom. It doesn't matter very much what happens in this one.
There's a stability to knowing our God will always be there. There's comfort in knowing he will always love us. He's not a man who will come and go in the span of a month, or grow old and senile, die, and be replaced by someone different. His loyalties aren't going to shift. He isn't going to wipe us out for refusing to let him in, or rob us in order to protect us. We don't live our whole lives in an imperfect earthly kingdom. We live in an eternal kingdom too. No matter what happens in the earthly kingdom, God's kingdom will outlast it.
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