Ahaz was a king of Judah, one of the long list of names we know from the books of Kings and Chronicles. He is also featured in Isaiah (and Micah) though perhaps we often forget this connection. He was arguably the worst, most ungodly monarch in the history of Israel and Judah.
The son of Jotham, who was one of the “good” ones, Ahaz took over Judah’s throne at the age of twenty and immediately displayed the most staggering levels of evil. He worshipped Molech (or Moloch) by “[sacrificing] his son in the fire” (2 Kings 16:3, NIV). If you feel like being especially horrified, here’s a link that describes more precisely what that entailed. It’s as bad as you’re imagining. Other details from 2 Kings and 1 Chronicles show Ahaz actively dismantling the Lord’s temple in Jerusalem and ordering another altar to be built instead, based on a pagan one he’d seen in Damascus when he met with the king of Assyria.
Oh, the reason he was meeting with this Assyrian king, Tiglath-Pileser, was to pay him off—using silver and gold from the Lord’s temple—for coming to fight off Rezin, king of Aram, who was reconquering land taken from them earlier.
Oh, the reason Ahaz was having trouble fighting off Rezin was because when the Arameans attacked, God sent Ahaz a prophecy via Isaiah, which basically said, “It’s going to be okay. Trust in me, your God, and I’ll save Judah” (Isaiah 7:7-11). Well, Ahaz basically replied, “Nope. Not gonna do that. I’ll do it myself.” When that didn’t work out so well, Ahaz chose to become indebted to the Assyrians instead of trusting God to save the country.
What many of us forget is that this is the immediate context in which we read Isaiah 7:14, “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.” God is basically telling Ahaz, “No, you can’t do this yourself. You can’t save the nation or anybody. Your plans will fail; mine will not. Here’s my plan.” But Ahaz was young and foolish and headstrong and selfish, and he allowed himself to be corrupted by ungodly cultures nearby that had no regard for the Lord and the ways of righteousness. Ahaz rejected God outright and directly in a manner both real and symbolic.
Now, what’s super interesting is that I just recently passed through Romans 13 in my daily Bible reading, which starts off with “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities; for there is no authority except from God, and those authorities that exist have been instituted by God” (Romans 13:1, NRSV).
What, then, do we do with this awful dichotomy? Ahaz was a horrible, ungodly authority, and pretty much the only good thing about his reign was that it set up his son, Hezekiah, to be one of the best-looking kings in contrast. Ahaz reigned for about sixteen years, so God clearly didn’t immediately smite him when he first started down the path of evil, taking the whole nation with him in his sanctioning of the worst pagan practices around.
I’m not going to claim to have succinct answers for you on this. I suggest you “ask the Lord your God for a sign” in the depths of your own heart (Isaiah 7:14, NIV). Be well.
Kelly Reed has taught various English classes and acted in various dramatic productions at La Sierra University for almost twenty years and is now a reference librarian at the La Sierra University Library, which is pretty much his dream job.