Reflections on 2 Chronicles 27

 2 Chronicles 27 (Contemporary English Version)

1. Jotham was twenty-five years old when he became king of Judah, and he ruled from Jerusalem for sixteen years. Jerushah his mother was the daughter of Zadok.
2. Jotham obeyed the LORD and did right. He followed the example of his father Uzziah, except he never burned incense in the temple as his father had done. But the people of Judah kept sinning against the LORD.
3. Jotham rebuilt the Upper Gate of the temple and did a lot of work to repair the wall near Mount Ophel.
4. He built towns in the mountains of Judah and built fortresses and defense towers in the forests.
5. During his rule he attacked and defeated the Ammonites. Then every year for the next three years, he forced them to pay four tons of silver, sixty thousand bushels of wheat, and sixty thousand bushels of barley.
6. Jotham remained faithful to the LORD his God and became a very powerful king.
7. Everything else Jotham did while he was king, including the wars he fought, is written in The History of the Kings of Israel and Judah.
8. After he had ruled Judah sixteen years, he died at the age of forty-one.
9. He was buried in Jerusalem, and his son Ahaz became king.

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Verse 21 of chapter 26 says that, "King Uzziah was diseased to the time of his death . . . his son Jotham was over the king's household governing the people of the land." So Jotham was co-regent with his father for several years before his father's death and then he ruled alone. Verse 1 says that he was 25 years old when he became king, but the question is whether this was when he first began with his father or when he ruled on his own. Since it is mentioned here in the context of ruling after his father's death, we might assume it was when he began to rule alone.

His reign was not particularly dramatic. Based on the few details provided in this chapter, his reign was primarily one of maintenance. He repaired the Upper Gate of the temple and the Ophel wall around the old portion of Jerusalem, and he followed up on projects in the hills and forest areas that his father had begun. He also restored the payments of tribute by the Ammonites who were subjects of Judah. They had evidently stopped paying tribute at the death of his father. Jotham went to war with them to restore the payments.

The greatest tribute to Jotham's rule is given in verse 6: "So Jotham strengthened himself because he did not waver in obeying the LORD his God." Further tribute is made by what is not said. That is, he was faced with no threats by his enemies which would likely have been the case had he not been faithful to the Lord. One negative comment comes in verse 2: "However, the people still behaved corruptly." Though Jotham personally did what was right throughout his reign, he did not press reform on the nation failing to get rid of the high places, and evidently doing little to prevent the people from acting corruptly.

The history of Israel is not just an account of the descendants of Abraham but is an illustration of mankind's universal bent toward corruption. Israel turned to God only when inspired to do so by a leader, and sometimes had to be coerced to do so. But left on their own the people turned away from God. It was not, however, a question of being religious or non-religious but of who they would worship. In general, their preference was to worship a god that allowed them to follow a form of religion without disturbing their corrupt practices.