Israel was for the most part more powerful, wealthy, and cultured than Judah. When Ahaz came to the throne as a mere youth, Pekah was apparently in the prime of life and the zenith of power. He is no inapt symbol of what the modern tempter at any rate desires to appear: the showy, pretentious man of the world, who parades his knowledge of life, and impresses the inexperienced youth with his shrewdness and success, and makes his victim eager to imitate him, to walk in the ways of the kings of Israel. (W. H. Bennett, M.A)
Molten images for Baalim.--
Molten images for the Baals
The prospect of making images for the Baals is an insidious temptation. Ahaz perhaps had found the decorous worship of the one God dull and monotonous. Baals meant new gods and new rites, with all the excitement of novelty and variety. Jotham may not have realised that this youth of twenty was a man; he may have been treated as a child and left too much to the women of the harem. Responsible activity might have saved him. The Church needs to recognise that healthy, vigorous youth craves interesting occupation, and even excitement. If a father wishes to send his son to the devil, he cannot do better than make that son’s life, both secular and religious, a routine of monotonous drudgery. Then any pinchbeck king of Israel will seem a marvel of wit and good fellowship, and the making of molten images a most pleasing diversion. A molten image is something solid, permanent, and conspicuous, a standing advertisement of the enterprise and artistic taste of the maker; he engraves his name on the pedestal, and is proud of the honourable distinction. Many of our modern molten images are duly set forth in popular works; for instance, the reputation for impure life, or hard drinking, or reckless gambling, to achieve which some men have spent their time and money and toil. Other molten images are dedicated toanother class of Baals: Mammon the respectable and Belial the polite. (W. H. Bennett, M.A.)
