Our tour through the Bible looking at Heart/ Hearts has brought us to the early years of the divided kingdom, as recorded in 2 Chronicles. Of course, we have already covered this part of history in 1 Kings, but Kings looks mostly at what was happening in the Northern Kingdom, while Chronicles focuses more on the Southern Kingdom.
One detail that is not mentioned in the narrative in 1 Kings is that a number of the people who were, technically, supposed to be in the Northern Kingdom bailed when Jeroboam promoted idolatry. The Levites, of course, all moved south to be where the Temple was, but turns out...they weren't the only ones.
[Jeroboam] appointed his own priests for the high places and for the goat and calf idols he had made. Those from every tribe of Israel who set their hearts on the LORD, the God of Israel, followed the Levites to Jerusalem to offer sacrifices for the LORD, the God of their fathers. -- 2 Chron. 11: 16 ('Hearts' - Strong's H 3824 - lebab, which we have seen frequently).
So the Southern Kingdom of Judah, which was kind of officially the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, also included the Levites and a goodly number of folks from other tribes who did not want to follow the idols that Jeroboam set up. Their hearts were for God...so they left their homes and moved to Judah. But, even though the Temple was there and the Levites were offering sacrifices to the Lord, Rehoboam, who was the son of an Amonite woman, did not pursue God.
King Rehoboam established himself firmly in Jerusalem and continued as King. He was forty-one years old when he became king, and he reigned seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city the LORD had chosen out of all the tribes of Israel in which to put his name. His mother's name was Naamah; she was an Ammonite. He did evil because he had not set his heart on seeking the LORD. -- 2 Chron. 12:13-14 ('Heart is Strong's H 3820 - leb, the other frequent word used , which is actually a form of 3824, above).
Do you see the cause and effect there? He did evil BECAUSE he had not set his heart on seeking God. If you turn that sentence around...He did not set his heart on seeking God, therefore, he did evil.
It doesn't take an active choice to do evil. Evil comes because...we don't make God a priority. Evil is the default setting. It takes a deliberate choice to seek God to avoid doing evil. And, truth be told, even those who DO set their hearts on seeking God mess it all up royally at times (Consider David and Bathsheba). Every king of Judah messed up somewhere. Every single one. We won't cover all of them because not all of those narratives mention 'heart', but a good exercise is to read through 2 Chronicles and see what each of those kings did that resulted in ...negative consequences. But not seeking God in a particular area is pretty much the summation of what resulted in them making bad decisions.
Rehoboam was succeeded by his son Abijah, who reigned three years and isn't recorded of doing much other than defeat Jeroboam, who was still king of the northern kingdom, in battle. Actually humiliated him pretty badly, but that defeat did not serve to unite the kingdom. However, that did strengthen the position of the southern kingdom, and Abijah's son Asa came to power in a fairly good position.
And Asa brought the people back to serving the Lord...mostly, anyway.
They entered into a covenant to seek the LORD, the God of their Fathers, with all their heart and soul. -- 2 Chron. 15:12 ('Heart' - Strong's H 3824)
He even removed his grandmother from her position as 'Queen Mother' because she had made a forbidden Asherah pole, which he cut down and burned.
Although he did not remove the high places from Israel, Asa's heart was fully committed to the Lord all his life. -- 2 Chron. 15:17 ('Heart' - Strong's H 3824)
But Asa did make a mistake. Baasha, then king of the Northern Kingdom, set up a blockade to prevent folks from entering or leaving Judah. And Asa, instead of turning to God for help, took silver and gold from the treasury and sent it to Ben-Hadad, king of Aram, to get his military support against Israel. It broke the blockade, but at a higher cost than Asa expected. The prophet Hanani was sent to Asa to tell him of his error and its consequences.
"For the eyes of the LORD range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him. You have done a foolish thing, and from now on you will be at war." -- 2 Chron. 16:9 ('Heart' - Strong's H 3824)
Jehoshaphat was Asa's son, and he, like his father, was devoted to God.
His heart was devoted to the ways of the LORD; furthermore, he removed the high places and the Asherah poles from Judah. -- 2 Chron. 17:6 ('Heart' - Strong's H 3820)
Jehoshaphat was the first king of Judah to NOT be at war with the king of the northern kingdom of Israel. In fact, Jehoshaphat rode to battle allied with Ahab and, although it is not mentioned in this passage, it is mentioned elsewhere that his son Jehoram was married to the daughter of Jezebel and Ahab. Perhaps Jehoshaphat believed that he could reunite the kingdom by marrying his son to Ahab's daughter? We'll never know, but on his way back from the battle in which he had fought as Ahab's ally (and, incidentally, in which Ahab was killed by a stray arrow), he was met by a prophet with a word for him:
Jehu, the seer, the son of Hanani, went out to meet him and said to the king, "Should you help the wicked and love those who hate the LORD? Because of this, the wrath of the LORD is upon you. There is, however, some good in you, for you have rid the land of the Asherah poles and have set your heart on seeking God." -- 2 Chron. 19:2 - 3 ('Heart' - Strong's H 3824)
There were dire consequences coming to the house of Jehoshaphat as a direct result of his alliance with the house of Ahab, which we will see shortly.
But aside from that serious blunder, Jehoshaphat was, overall, a good king who was a good leader, involved with his people.
He walked in the ways of his father Asa and did not stray from them; he did what was right in the eyes of the LORD. The high places, however, were not removed, and the people still had not set their hearts on the God of their fathers. -- 2 Chron 20:32-33 ('Heart' - Strong's H 3824)
So, somewhere along the line, apparently the people, whose hearts were not set entirely on God, had rebuilt the high places because they were there at the end of his reign. He was succeeded by his son Jehoram, who was married to Athaliah, the daughter of Ahab and Jezebel. Jehoram rebelled against his father's legacy and followed the gods of the Northern Kingdom. He also slaughtered all of his brothers immediately upon becoming king. This was clearly the influence of Jezebel manifesting...the first disaster to hit the house of Jehoshaphat. Jehoram reigned for eight years, then died a horrible, grisly death from diseased bowels. The people buried him in the city, but not in the tombs of the kings, and did not mourn him. He was succeeded by his son, Ahaziah, but his wife Athaliah clearly retained some power as the Queen Mother.
Ahaziah was no less a pagan than his parents, and he was close to his cousin, the king of Israel. In fact, he was visiting him when God's judgment, in the form of Jehu, came crashing down on the house of Ahab. Jehu killed the princes of Israel, had Jezebel thrown down from her balcony, and did not let Ahaziah escape.
He then went in search of Ahaziah, and his men captured him while he was hiding in Samaria. He was brought to Jehu and put to death. They buried him, for they said, "He was a son of Jehoshaphat, who sought the LORD with all his heart." So there was no one in the house of Ahaziah powerful enough to retain the kingdom. -- 2 Chron. 22:9 ('Heart' - Strong's H 3824)
It's interesting that, out of respect for Ahaziah's grandfather Jehoshaphat ('son' frequently is used for 'descendant' in Hebrew genealogies...think how many times Jesus was called 'the son of David'), Ahaziah was given an honorable burial instead of being thrown outside the city for carrion. So the legacy of Jeremiah was still somewhat revered, even though his house had abandoned the worship of God.
And what followed was more bloodshed...Athaliah, the queen mother, upon hearing that her son had died, proceeded to slaughter all her grandchildren and seize power. As a grandmother myself, that action just chills my heart. I can NOT imagine a woman so perverted and cold that she could kill off her grands. It just doesn't compute. But the horror is that...it's true. And it happened because Jehoshaphat made an alliance with the house of Ahab.
Oh, did I say all? There was one...an infant... who escaped, thanks to his quick thinking aunt. We'll pick up the narrative with Joash in the next installment.
As I am reading through all of this, the repetitive concept of seeking God with one's whole heart is hammering home the vital importance of it. Folks, that means making it a priority. But it is one that protects...as we kind of saw with Rehoboam, failing to do so leads to bad things. Jeroboam apparently missed seeking God on only one thing...but what horrific consequences followed. I don't think the consequences were horrific because he failed once...but because of WHAT he failed in that one time. It was a major area that he just went with what made sense to him. And it caused great loss in his family and great turmoil in the nation. That failure didn't negate his overall devotion or reputation, but it did affect generations to come. Sobering.
