2 Kings 16:10-15 And king Ahaz went to Damascus to meet Tiglathpileser king of Assyria, and saw an altar that was at Damascus… There is a blunt frankness about the transaction, almost amounting to facetiousness, that interests one. The cool way in which the old heathen altar is put in the front of the temple, while the brasen altar is ordered on one side, yet not put out of sight, but reserved for special exigencies, when the Damascus altar will not do, is very striking. Some men, having determined to have the Assyrian altar in the place of Jehovah's, would have commanded its destruction as a thing whose use was past, and which it were well to put out of sight. Not so Ahaz. He did not consider its use all gone. There might come a time — very probably there would come a time — when the brasen altar would be of essential service. Jehovah had many a time, through His prophets, come to the help of His people, and had instructed them through His priests, and it were a wise and good thing to keep the altar where, when occasion might demand it, he could go and get the direction and the help that might not be obtained from the Damascus altar's service. It was a wise forecast, but a very base and wicked one, — so base and wicked that such a man even as Ahaz was ought to have been ashamed of it. (W. Aikman, D. D.). Parallel Verses KJV: And king Ahaz went to Damascus to meet Tiglathpileser king of Assyria, and saw an altar that was at Damascus: and king Ahaz sent to Urijah the priest the fashion of the altar, and the pattern of it, according to all the workmanship thereof. |
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