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2 Chronicles 25

Amaziah’s reign moves from obedience to rejected correction, showing God’s power to help and to overthrow a king.

Amaziah takes the throne in Jerusalem and punishes his father’s killers while sparing their children under Moses’ law. He listens to a man of God and dismisses hired troops from Israel before attacking Edom. Judah wins, then kills thousands of captives. Amaziah brings home Edom’s gods and worships them, threatening the prophet who confronts him. His challenge to Israel ends in defeat, Jerusalem’s plunder, and his capture. The account closes with a conspiracy and his murder at Lachish.

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1Amaziah was twenty-five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Jehoaddan, of Jerusalem.
2He did that which was right in the LORD’s eyes, but not with a perfect heart.
3Now when the kingdom was established to him, he killed his servants who had killed his father the king.
4But he didn’t put their children to death, but did according to that which is written in the law in the book of Moses, as the LORD commanded, saying, “The fathers shall not die for the children, neither shall the children die for the fathers; but every man shall die for his own sin.”
5Moreover Amaziah gathered Judah together and ordered them according to their fathers’ houses, under captains of thousands and captains of hundreds, even all Judah and Benjamin. He counted them from twenty years old and upward, and found that there were three hundred thousand chosen men, able to go out to war, who could handle spear and shield.
7A man of God came to him, saying, “O king, don’t let the army of Israel go with you, for the LORD is not with Israel, with all the children of Ephraim.
8But if you will go, take action, and be strong for the battle. God will overthrow you before the enemy; for God has power to help, and to overthrow.”
9Amaziah said to the man of God, “But what shall we do for the hundred talents which I have given to the army of Israel?” The man of God answered, “The LORD is able to give you much more than this.”
10Then Amaziah separated them, the army that had come to him out of Ephraim, to go home again. Therefore their anger was greatly kindled against Judah, and they returned home in fierce anger.
11Amaziah took courage, and led his people out and went to the Valley of Salt, and struck ten thousand of the children of Seir.
12The children of Judah carried away ten thousand alive, and brought them to the top of the rock, and threw them down from the top of the rock, so that they all were broken in pieces.
13But the men of the army whom Amaziah sent back, that they should not go with him to battle, fell on the cities of Judah from Samaria even to Beth Horon, and struck of them three thousand, and took much plunder.
14Now after Amaziah had come from the slaughter of the Edomites, he brought the gods of the children of Seir, and set them up to be his gods, and bowed down himself before them and burned incense to them.
15Therefore the LORD’s anger burned against Amaziah, and he sent to him a prophet who said to him, “Why have you sought after the gods of the people, which have not delivered their own people out of your hand?”
16As he talked with him, the king said to him, “Have we made you one of the king’s counselors? Stop! Why should you be struck down?” Then the prophet stopped, and said, “I know that God has determined to destroy you, because you have done this and have not listened to my counsel.”
17Then Amaziah king of Judah consulted his advisers, and sent to Joash, the son of Jehoahaz, the son of Jehu, king of Israel, saying, “Come! Let’s look one another in the face.”
18Joash king of Israel sent to Amaziah king of Judah, saying, “The thistle that was in Lebanon sent to the cedar that was in Lebanon, saying, ‘Give your daughter to my son as his wife. Then a wild animal that was in Lebanon passed by and trampled down the thistle.
19You say to yourself that you have struck Edom; and your heart lifts you up to boast. Now stay at home. Why should you meddle with trouble, that you should fall, even you and Judah with you?’”
20But Amaziah would not listen; for it was of God, that he might deliver them into the hand of their enemies, because they had sought after the gods of Edom.
21So Joash king of Israel went up, and he and Amaziah king of Judah looked one another in the face at Beth Shemesh, which belongs to Judah.
22Judah was defeated by Israel; so every man fled to his tent.
23Joash king of Israel took Amaziah king of Judah, the son of Joash the son of Jehoahaz, at Beth Shemesh and brought him to Jerusalem, and broke down the wall of Jerusalem from the gate of Ephraim to the corner gate, four hundred cubits.
24He took all the gold and silver, and all the vessels that were found in God’s house with Obed-Edom, and the treasures of the king’s house, and the hostages, and returned to Samaria.
26Now the rest of the acts of Amaziah, first and last, behold, aren’t they written in the book of the kings of Judah and Israel?
27Now from the time that Amaziah turned away from following the LORD, they made a conspiracy against him in Jerusalem. He fled to Lachish, but they sent after him to Lachish and killed him there.
28They brought him on horses and buried him with his fathers in the City of Judah.
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Key verses
2 Chronicles 25:9Amaziah’s concern over lost silver meets the assurance that God’s resources exceed the cost of dismissing the hired army.
2 Chronicles 25:16The king who once accepted correction now threatens God’s messenger, and the prophet announces his coming destruction.
2 Chronicles 25:4Sparing the assassins’ children shows Amaziah submitting royal vengeance to the limits God set in Moses’ law.
Where this chapter reaches

2 Kings recounts Amaziah’s reign and defeat, while Deuteronomy supplies the law against executing children for their fathers’ sins, a principle of personal accountability also found in Ezekiel. Proverbs shares the chapter’s warning that pride and refusal to receive correction lead to ruin.

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Notice

After reading the whole chapter

What do you notice about Amaziah’s responses to the two messengers God sends?

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Where might the cost of changing course weigh on your willingness to heed correction?

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Questions people ask about 2 Chronicles 25

What does it mean that Amaziah did right without a perfect heart?

The opening judgment distinguishes Amaziah’s right actions from wholehearted devotion to YHWH. He honors Moses’ law and accepts the first warning about his army. Yet after defeating Edom, he worships its gods and threatens a prophet. Those later choices expose the divided allegiance described at the start.

Does 2 Chronicles 25:9 promise that God will replace money lost through obedience?

The man of God assures Amaziah that YHWH can give more than the hundred talents already paid to Israel’s troops. The statement concerns God’s ability as Amaziah faces a specific command. The account records no repayment of that sum and gives no general guarantee of financial gain after obedience.

What is the meaning of the thistle and cedar in 2 Chronicles 25?

Joash uses the thistle for Amaziah and the cedar for himself, portraying Judah’s king as overreaching after his victory over Edom. The animal trampling the thistle pictures how easily that ambition can end in disaster. Joash then states the warning in plain terms: Amaziah’s boastful challenge threatens both himself and Judah.

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2 Chronicles · 36 chapters
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Cross-reference data from OpenBible.info (CC BY). Scripture from the World English Bible (public domain). Arc diagram after Chris Harrison and Christoph Römhild (2007).