Reasons and the Real Reason

Doing doctoral work requires me reading and interacting with scholars of all different philosophies, from those who believe that the Bible is the inspired Word of God (as I do, naturally), to those who do not. It’s not a problem and is no challenge to my faith. It serves, however, as a challenge to make my scholarship as top-notch as possible to counteract them.

I recently read a book that just made me shake my head, though. It is called Bad Kings and Good Kings.[i] It is a collection of essays from the far left of Old Testament scholarship. Some of these scholars are not even sure if David and Solomon actually existed, much less Moses or Abraham.

What made this volume so amusing to me is that, for once, they understood what the Bible teaches; they just think that it is wrong. Let me explain.

After the death of Solomon. Judah’s history was up and down. Good kings (Jehosphaphat, Uzziah, Hezekiah, Josiah) who were faithful to the Lord and led the people to do the same alternated with bad kings (Rehoboam, Asa, Jehoram, Manasseh) were not faithful to the Lord, even worshiping other gods, and led the people to do the same.

The ultimate in evil kings was Manasseh (697-642 b.c.). His long reign was such an abomination, a kind of “last straw,” that God declared through a prophet:

“Manasseh king of Judah has committed these detestable sins. He has done more evil than the Amorites who preceded him and has led Judah into sin with his idols.  Therefore this is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: I am going to bring such disaster on Jerusalem and Judah that the ears of everyone who hears of it will tingle.” (2 Kings 21:11-12, NIV).

The text goes on to describe the exile of Judah, which took place between 605 and 587 b.c. This is the teaching of the book of Kings. The extreme critics in Good Kings and Bad Kings agree that the writer of Kings believed this to be the case. However, he let his religious convictions get in the way of doing real history!

For, according to these critics, the reign of Manasseh was the high point of the kingdom of Judah. It had its largest borders, its widest political importance, and its greatest prosperity. He was a vassal of Assyria, but life for the nation was good. One essay is titled, “The Glorious Days of Manasseh.”

According to them, what really sent Judah into captivity was the failed reign of Josiah (Judah’s greatest king according to the Bible). Josiah angered his Egyptian overlords who weakened the nation. Then Josiah’s successor further messed things up by angering their new Babylonian masters, which eventually led them into exile.

Therefore, “it would thus appear that the Kings Writer scapegoats Manasseh in order to distance Judah from direct responsibility for the exile.”[ii]

This kind of hubris astounds me. The writer of Kings believed that the God of Israel controls human history. He believed that this God punishes nations for their unfaithfulness. He further placed the blame for the exile upon the evil of all the people he states, “It was because of the Lord’s anger that all this happened to Jerusalem and Judah, and in the end, he thrust them from his presence” (2 Kings 24:20, NIV).

The problem for these critics is that they do not believe that the God of Israel controls human history, that he punishes anyone for sin, or that he could be the reason that anything happens.

We know better, of course. However, we sometimes live like extreme critics. When our country is politically and militarily strong, when our economy makes us rich beyond the wildest dreams of most of the world throughout most of history, we tend to forget that all may not be well.

If we (and especially we in the church) continue in sin, we could one day find this nation in ruins. If that happens, there will be no end to historians who will trace the political decisions that were made to bring this about. If our descendants are godly and paying attention, they might determine that the real reason for our destruction is that we angered God.

We should seek to live like Josiah and others, who, in the face of danger all around them, chose to serve God, regardless of their eventual political or economic state.