Who was the biggest ninny in the Bible?
Was it the Pharaoh who wouldn’t let the people go? Surely Adam and Eve are in the running. But those were major, world-shaping sins whose effects are still being felt today.
No–I’d say, hands down, the biggest chowderhead in the Bible is Amaziah, king of Judah, son of J0ash. He becomes king in Chapter 24 of 2 Chronicles, and in Chapter 25, Verse 14, he invades Edom and conquers it.
And what does he do next? He “brought the gods of the children of Seir [Edom], and set them up to be his gods, and bowed down himself before them, and burned incense unto them.”
God sent a prophet the ask Amaziah the entirely reasonable question, “Why hast thou sought after the gods of the people, which could not deliver their own people out of thine hand?” (v. 15) Amaziah refused to listen, and threatened the prophet into silence.
The rest of his career is briefly told. He picked a fight with Israel and lost, to the great cost of the people of Judah, and fifteen years later was assassinated by his own subjects.
It took the world some 2,500 years to generate leaders who could match Amaziah for perverse stupidity. By now we have a bumper crop of them. “Hmmm… I think I’ll drop the real God, who gave me everything I have, and worship the idols of these pagans whom I’ve just defeated in a war… Yeah, that ought to work!”
Yes, truly worthy of Angela Merkel. Maybe even worthy of Obama. Definitely Bidenesque in its depth of foolishness.
If Amaziah were alive today, he’d surely be a big wheel in the E.U.
The Northern Kingdom of Israel did some truly stupid things. Their dispersal has had a profound effect on the demographics of the world. They are finding distinct enclaves of people in far flung places whom eschew pork, bleed their meat and in many cases keep Shabbat, even though they have lived among other ethnicities for millennia.
Conquering Edom, than adopting their idols is pretty durned stupid. We live in interesting times.
You’d swear this clown was a Democrat.
He was his time’s version of one.
Solomon told us ‘there’s nothing new under the sun’ so I guess we had a heads-up looking to our day with the likes of Obama and Merkel. There’s no explaining a chowderhead 🙂
When I read this post I thought of Solomon and how in his older age joined his pagan wives in worshiping their gods. As a result, his kingdom was split in two after his death. But I really don’t think of Solomon as a “Ninny” as much as a righteous man who backslid big time, and I believed he repented.
I can never understand what happened to him.
He seems to be remembered kindly in the scriptures, even if he did have major failings. Perhaps he repented, I hope so.
That’s been the problem down through history – Israel has looked to other gods, causing themselves no small measure of grief. We can only look to the day when they finally, once and for all, know Messiah.