2 Kings 21:19 – 25 “Amon was twenty-two years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem two years. His mother’s name was Meshullemeth daughter of Haruz; she was from Jotbah. And he did evil in the sight of the LORD, as his father Manasseh had done. He walked in all the ways of his father, and he served and worshiped the idols his father had served. He abandoned the LORD, the God of his fathers, and did not walk in the way of the LORD. Then the servants of Amon conspired against him and killed the king in his palace. But the people of the land killed all those who had conspired against King Amon, and they made his son Josiah king in his place.
As for the rest of the acts of Amon, along with his accomplishments, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah? And he was buried in his tomb in the garden of Uzza, and his son Josiah reigned in his place.”
Manasseh reigned 55 years and plunged Judah into idolatry. Of course, the Judeans weren’t exactly protesting; they were going along enthusiastically, suggesting that those faithful to the Living God were in a distinct minority. After Manasseh’s death, his son Amon enjoyed a very brief reign of two years, just long enough to prove that he was a true son of his father and a vile betrayer of David’s legacy. According to Wikipedia, “The Talmudic tradition recounts that “Amon burnt the Torah, and allowed spider webs to cover the altar [through complete disuse] … Amon sinned very much.” Like other textual sources, Flavius Josephus too criticizes the reign of Amon, describing his reign in similar terms to the biblical accounts.
After reigning two years, Amon was assassinated by his servants or officials, who conspired against him, and he was succeeded by his son Josiah, who at the time was eight years old. After Amon’s assassination his murderers became unpopular with the “people of the land”, and they were ultimately killed. It was the people of the land who proclaimed Josiah as his successor; it is not clear what succession would have been anticipated by the officials who assassinated Amon. Some scholars, such as Abraham Malamat, assert that Amon was assassinated because people disliked the heavy influence that Assyria, an age-old enemy of Judah responsible for the destruction of the Kingdom of Israel, had upon him.” (In other words, Amon was being threatened or bought off by the Assyrians.)
Wikipedia continues to quote the Rabbinic literature: The fact that Amon was the most sinful of all the wicked kings of Judah (II Chron. xxxiii. 23) is brought out in the Talmud (Sanh. 103b) as follows: (Sanh. 104a) Ahaz suspended the sacrificial worship, Manasseh tore down the altar, Amon made it a place of desolation [covered it with cobwebs]; Ahaz sealed up the scrolls of the Law (Isa. viii. 16), Manasseh cut out the sacred name, Amon burnt the scrolls altogether [compare Seder Olam, R. xxiv. This is derived from the story of the finding of the Book of the Law, II Kings, xxii. 8]; Ahab permitted incest, Manasseh committed it himself, Amon acted as Nero was said to have done toward his mother Agrippina. (Many people believe that Nero had his mother assassinated.) And yet, out of respect for his son Josiah, Amon’s name was not placed on the list of the kings excluded from the world to come.
A midrashic fragment preserved in the Apostolical Constitutions, ii. 23, which appears to follow an account of the repentance of Manasseh according to a lost Jewish apocryphal writing, reads: “No sin is more grievous than idolatry, for it is treason against God. Yet even this has been forgiven upon sincere repentance; but he that sins from a mere spirit of opposition, to see whether God will punish the wicked, shall find no pardon, although he say in his heart, ‘I shall have peace in the end (by repenting), though I walk in the stubbornness of my evil heart'” (Deut. xxix. 19). Such a one was Amon, the son of Manasseh, for the (Apocryphal) Scripture says: “And Amon reasoned an evil reasoning of transgression and said: ‘My father from his childhood was a great transgressor, and he repented in his old age. So will I now walk after the lust of my soul and afterward return to the Lord.’ And he committed more evil in the sight of the Lord than all that were before him; but the Lord God speedily cut him off from this good land. And his servants conspired against him and slew him in his own house, and he reigned two years only.” It is noteworthy that this very midrashic fragment casts light upon the emphatic teaching of the Mishnah (Yoma, viii. 9): “Whosoever says, ‘I will sin and repent thereafter,’ will not be granted the time for repentance.” (In other words, Amon thought he had plenty of time to sin and then stage a death bed repentance, but his assassination made that impossible.)
Two years was plenty long enough for Amon to far exceed all the evil that his father Manasseh had already accomplished. But when the palace servants assassinated Amon, whom were they trying to bring in? Did they assume that since Josiah was only eight years old, they would be able to manipulate Josiah as someone had earlier manipulated the twelve year – old Manasseh? When “the people of the land” put those assassins to death, what was their intention? Was the execution of Amon’s assassins merely an example of continuing power plays between two different factions at the royal court?
APPLICATION: How much damage can a bad ruler do in two years? Amon serves as a perfect example of a disaster. Once more, we are reminded of Psalm 11:3 “If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?”
The story of Amon serves to remind us that evil must be resisted and not tolerated. Jonathan Goforth was a Canadian Presbyterian missionary to China in the latter nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. When Goforth was considering entering a new province in China, he consulted Hudson Taylor, founder of the China Inland Mission, for advice. Taylor told Goforth, “If you want to enter that province, you must enter it on your knees.” By this, Taylor meant that any efforts to spread the Gospel in the intended area were doomed to failure unless those efforts were preceded by a great deal of prayer. Goforth took Taylor’s advice and became known as one of the greatest missionary revivalists ever to work in China.
Any efforts to resist evil must be preceded by prayer and undergirded by continuing and persistent prayer. We can use the “corners of the day” to pray – praying at stop lights while driving, praying while waiting in line at a store or waiting online for a computer interface to open, etc. Many people keep prayer lists on their cell phones or day timers. It takes very little time to move through a prayer list, especially after you have become familiar with the petitions. If you want something more organized, you can download the Operation World prayer app that allows you to pray for all the nations of the world in a year. (https://operationworld.org)
Luke 18:1 – 8 tells us, “Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. He said: “In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared what people thought. And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, ‘Grant me justice against my adversary.’
“For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, ‘Even though I don’t fear God or care what people think, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually come and attack me!’ ”
And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?”
Remember what God told Hezekiah, “I have heard your prayer; I have seen your tears.” God hears our prayers and sees our tears; however, God can only move if we pray and pray so fervently that we are moved to tears on behalf of all those around us.
PRAYER: Father God, thank You for loving us and for caring for us. Lord, help us to understand that when we pray “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done,” we are praying the most powerful prayer that we possible can. Help us to pray and to never lose heart, no matter how dark things appear to be. In the matchless Name of King Jesus. Amen.
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