2 Chronicles 25:1-4--Amaziah Reigns in Judah

2 Chronicles 25:1-4
English Standard Version

Amaziah Reigns in Judah
25 Amaziah 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. 2 And he did what was right in the eyes of the LORD, yet not with a whole heart. 3 And as soon as the royal power was firmly his, he killed his servants who had struck down the king his father. 4 But he did not put their children to death, according to what is written in the Law, in the Book of Moses, where the LORD commanded, “Fathers shall not die because of their children, nor children die because of their fathers, but each one shall die for his own sin.”

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Last time we saw Joash assassinated by his men in retribution for his assassination of Jehoiada the high priest.  Amaziah, Joash's son, became king in Joash's place.  Amaziah reigned in Jerusalem from the time he was 25 to the time he was 54--a total of 29 years.  As we might expect, he was much like his father that he was a "mixed bag" following after the LORD, but not wholeheartedly.

As soon as the royal power was securely his, he ordered the deaths of those who had assassinated his father (it was still murder and they deserved capital punishment for it under the Law).  Life and death are in the hands of the LORD and He is able to take someone's life (or use a foreign power to do so in war), but we are never to engage in premeditated murder or assassination.  This is another good place to say just because things happen in the Bible doesn't mean that God condones or endorses such behavior.  However, Amaziah followed the Law and did not put the children of these men to death because the quotation given from the Law, "Fathers should not die because of their children, nor children die because of their fathers, but each one shall die for his own sin." (Deuteronomy 24:16, cf. Jeremiah 31:30 and Ezekiel 18:20).

So far, it sounds like we're off to a good start, but we'll see what appears later as the text has told us that he did not follow the LORD wholeheartedly, so we know that something is coming that will show us what the author meant.