2 Kings 1:16-18

2Ki 8:16-29

16. ¶ And in the fifth year of Joram the son of Ahab king of Israel, Jehoshaphat being then king of Judah, Jehoram the son of Jehoshaphat king of Judah began to reign.

17. Thirty and two years old was he when he began to reign; and he reigned eight years in Jerusalem.

18. And he walked in the way of the kings of Israel, as did the house of Ahab: for the daughter of Ahab was his wife: and he did evil in the sight of the Lord.

19. Yet the Lord would not destroy Judah for David his servant's sake, as he promised him to give him alway a light [Heb., candle or lamp], and to his children.

20. ¶ In his days Edom revolted from under the hand of Judah, and made a king over themselves.

21. So Joram went over to Zair, and all the chariots with him: and he rose by night, and smote the Edomites which compassed him about, and the captains of the chariots: and the people fled into their tents.

22. Yet Edom revolted from under the hand of Judah unto this day. Then Libnah revolted at the same time.

23. And the rest of the acts [or history ( 2Ch 21:1-11 )] of Joram, and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah?

24. And Joram slept with his fathers, and was buried with his fathers in the city of David [but not in the royal tombs (comp. 2Ch 22:1-6 )]: and Ahaziah his son reigned in his stead.

25. ¶ In the twelfth year of Joram the son of Ahab king of Israel did Ahaziah the son of Jehoram king of Judah begin to reign.

26. Two and twenty years old was Ahaziah [called Jehoahaz ( 2Ch 21:17 )] when he began to reign; and he reigned one year in Jerusalem. And his mother's name was Athaliah, the daughter of Omri king of Israel.

27. And he walked in the way of the house of Ahab, and did evil in the tight of the Lord, as did the house of Ahab: for he was the son-in-law of the house of Ahab,

28. ¶ And he went with Joram the son of Ahab to the war against Hazael king of Syria in Ramoth-gilead; and the Syrians wounded [smote] Joram.

29. And king Joram went back to be healed in Jezreel [the seat of the court at this time (comp. 2 Kings 10:11 , 2Ki 10:13 )] of the wounds [Heb., wherewith the Syrians had wounded] which the Syrians had given him at Ramah, when he fought against Hazael king of Syria. And Ahaziah the son of Jehoram king of Judah went down to see Joram the son of Ahab in Jezreel, because he was sick [wounded].

Jehoram King of Judah

These verses should be compared with the twenty-first chapter of the Second Book of Chronicles. The name Joram is an obvious contraction of Jehoram. Joram and Jehoram were almost interchangeable terms. The king of Israel is called Joram, and the king of Judah Jehoram. In another place Joram is the name of the king of Judah. In two other places both kings are called Jehoram.

Jehoram "walked in the way of the kings of Israel, as did the house of Ahab," in other words, as the house of Ahab acted; Jehoram as son-in-law of Ahab and Jezebel gave his patronage to the worship of the Tyrian Baal. Jehoram had examples enough before him of the fate which had befallen idolatrous worship, and yet, turning his eye backward upon all the ruins which had been created by divine anger, he pursued his evil way as if the Lord had approved the house of Ahab and its idolatry rather than manifested his judgments upon them. Rational men may well ask themselves how it is that history is lost upon some minds; they look backward and see that from the beginning sin has always been followed by punishment, and punishment has in many cases been carried as far as death itself; yet in view of all the suffering, and in full sight of the innumerable graves dug by the hand of justice, they continue the same policy without one particle of alteration. One would have supposed that, looking at the history of the kings of Israel, Jehoram would have said: I see now exactly what to avoid; and to see what to avoid is to begin to see what to cultivate and establish: it is perfectly evident that the worship of Baal is doomed, or that wherever it is set up divine anger instantly and severely attests the displeasure of God"; it must be my care, therefore, to destroy every trace of idolatry, and do my utmost to build up faith in the true God. This would have been called reflective and philosophical on the part of the king, and indeed anything opposed to this course of reasoning would appear to be marked by incredible fatuity: the contrary, however, is the exact fact: with all the evidences of divine displeasure around him Jehoram continued in the worship of Baal, or in some other form of idolatry which might appeal to the popular imagination or gratify the desires of his own corrupt fancy. It is easy for moralists to condemn this neglect of history, and to point out to those who, having neglected it, come into suffering and loss, that they ought to have been wise before the event; but the very same thing is done even by the moralists who criticise the course of Jehoram and his predecessors. This is the sin of every age, and it should be looked at clearly and acknowledged frankly, because until we do bring ourselves into vital relation to it our reasoning will be founded on false bases and will hasten itself to false conclusions. All history is teaching us that the wages of sin is death, that the way of transgressors is hard, that though hand join in hand the wicked shall not go unpunished, that the face of the Lord is as a flint against evil-doers; and yet with this plainest of all lessons written on the very face of history men are doing today as their predecessors did centuries ago, and will probably continue to repeat the folly and the wickedness until the end of time. Surely this is as curious a puzzle as any that occurs in all the annals of human history. It would seem indeed to be more than a puzzle; to be, in fact, indicative of a suicidal disposition on the part of the actor: it would not be tolerated in any other department of life: if a man had known that a hundred of his ancestors were killed by drinking a certain liquid, and he himself put that liquid to his lips, the iniquity of his suicide would be aggravated by the knowledge of what had occurred in the records of his family. How many murders, then, may he be said to accomplish who murders himself as to his moral nature and spiritual cultivation? He does not do it in ignorance. All history is surrounding him with its evidence, and doing its utmost to secure his attention, and he himself is not unwilling to acknowledge that the testimony of history is uniform and absolute, yet some immeasurable force within him drives him with infinite fury to the repetition of every sin and the defiance of every judgment.

What was the reason of all this patronage and support of idolatry? Jehoram had an excellent father, and if anything was to be expected from the operation of the law of hereditary dispositions, it would be that Jehoram would be of the same quality as Jehoshaphat. Some curious and energetic influence must have been at work to throw back all hereditary quality and convert the man into a totally different nature. What was that influence? An expression in the eighteenth verse explains its nature and its scope "for the daughter of Ahab was his wife." Whenever we find the name of Ahab we find the presence of evil. Ahab lived again in his daughter, though Jehoshaphat did not repeat himself in his son. "The evil that men do lives after them." Jehoram was under home influence; is not home influence the most potent of all? It is a daily influence; it begins with the early morning and continues all the day through; it does not assume aggressive attitudes or excite suspicion by tumult and defiance of temper; it is noisy or quiet, persistent or reluctant, energetic or languid, according to the peculiar circumstances of the family history: at this moment a word too energetically spoken might defeat its own object; at another moment a languid reference might be more than a vehement appeal; on other occasions anger, fury, clamour may bring to a point a long process of suggestion and education. This is the mystery of home-life. The plotter waits for opportunities, creates them, puts them in the way of his victim, measures distances, regulates the method of approaches; the plotter studies his prey, watches him with an evil eye, remembers all his words, weighs them, calculates all their unspoken meanings, and at the right moment interposes his own influence. Wicked men in this respect are often models to good men. The enemy of souls never rests. "Your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about seeking whom he may devour;" nor is he always a lion: sometimes he is as a serpent, and sometimes even as an angel of light: but his evil policy never hesitates; when he blesses it is that he may curse; when he leads his victim into the light it is that he may have the greater influence over him to persuade him into the darkness. Is it of no consequence with whom we live our daily life? Is the married relation one that expresses mere taste or momentary pleasure? Are not the companionships of life its true sources of tuition and inspiration? A man who is in happy fellowship at home may overget some of the worst hereditary infirmities and disablities, and may be encouraged into attainments of self-discipline and virtue which under other circumstances would be simply impossible. The conversion of the world it would seem, must begin at home. We must have happier married relations, fuller domestic confidence, riper household trust and sympathy; out of all this daily education under happy influences there may come a kind of character rich in its own quality and beneficent in its influence upon society.

Jehoram had provoked the Lord, yet so pitiful is the God of heaven that he spared Judah for David his servant's sake, as he promised to give David alway a light. But Jehoram was nevertheless severely punished for his wickedness. In his days Edom revolted from under the hand of Judah and made a king over themselves. Libnah revolted at the same time. Thus the peace of the kingdom was broken up, and Jehoram was made indirectly to suffer for the sin of idolatry. How quietly the twenty-third verse reads, "And the rest of the acts of Joram, and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah?" It would seem as if the bad king had simply fallen asleep like a tired child. But let us inquire further into the method of the king's death. We find the particulars in the Second Book of Chronicles:

"Moreover he made high places in the mountains of Judah, and caused the inhabitants of Jerusalem to commit fornication, and compelled Judah thereto. And there came a writing to him from Elijah the prophet, saying, Thus saith the Lord God of David thy father, Because thou hast not walked in the ways of Jehoshaphat thy father, nor in the ways of Asa king of Judah, but hast walked in the way of the kings of Israel, and hast made Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to go a whoring, like to the whoredoms of the house of Ahab, and also hast slain thy brethren of thy father's house, which were better than thyself: behold, with a great plague will the Lord smite thy people, and thy children, and thy wives, and all thy goods: and thou shalt have great sickness by disease of thy bowels, until thy bowels fall out by reason of the sickness day by day. Moreover the Lord stirred up against Jehoram the spirit of the Philistines, and of the Arabians, that were near the Ethiopians: and they came up into Judah, and brake into it, and carried away all the substance that was found in the king's house, and his sons also, and his wives; so that there was never a son left him, save Jehoahaz, the youngest of his sons. And after all this the Lord smote him in his bowels with an incurable disease. And it came to pass, that in process of time, after the end of two years, his bowels fell out by reason of his sickness: so he died of sore diseases. And his people made no burning for him, like the burning of his fathers" ( 2Ch 21:11-19 ).

This is the end! Who would choose it? Elijah in his extreme age sent a written prophecy to Jehoram. Terrible are the charges which prophets of God drive home upon the heart of wicked men! Jehovah not only smote with a great smiting the people and the sons of Jehoram, but he sent upon the king himself a most awful disease. We read that Jehoram died of sore diseases, and the "people made no burning for him," that is, the usual honours of a sovereign were withheld in this particular case. He died in contempt and neglect. He departed without being desired; in other words, he departed without regret, or died unregretted. He was indeed not refused burial in the city of David, but his body was not laid in the sepulchres of the kings. Thus, sooner or later, wickedness finds out a man, and brands him with dishonour. If under other conditions wickedness is carried to the grave amid great pomp and circumstance, it is only that the dishonour may be found in some other quarter, in the hatred of good men, and in the bitter recriminations of those who have been wronged. Set it down as a sure doctrine, that wherever a bad man is buried, dishonour attaches to his whole name, and contempt withers every flower that may be planted upon his grave. The words "but not in the sepulchres of the kings" may receive a larger interpretation than the technical one which belongs to this immediate circumstance. Men are buried in the sepulchres of the kings when their lives are full of beneficence, when their names are the symbols of noble charity, large-minded justice, heroic fortitude, tender sympathy for others; their burying-place is not a merely topographical point; their relation to the hearts that knew them, their place in the memory of those who lived with them, the tears which are shed over the recollection of their good deeds, the void which has been created by their removal, all these constitute the royalty of their interment. Let us so live that there will be no "but" in the designation of our last resting-place; be that resting-place where it may, in the sea, in the wilderness, in the choice garden, in a cemetery emulous in beauty with paradise itself, it shall indeed be the sepulchre of the kings. We need be under no concern respecting our burial: our one solicitude should relate to the method of our life. Let us follow the true worship, fear God and keep his commandments, practise the pure religion and undefiled commended by Jesus Christ; let us cling to the cross of the Saviour, and look to his omnipotent priesthood for our salvation, and leave all questions of burial, without troubling ourselves concerning them. God will know where our bodies repose, and send his angels to watch those who sleep in Jesus.