Context & Key Themes
2 Chronicles 27 is the brief, uncomplicated reign of Jotham — a king who does right, does not enter the temple as his father did, builds and fights and prospers, and receives a quiet verdict: he became mighty because he ordered his ways before the Lord his God. The chapter is only nine verses long. The Chronicler does not linger because there is no crisis to narrate, no warning to record, no collapse to explain. Jotham simply does right and prospers. The Chronicler’s note that the people still act corruptly is the single dark shadow — the gap between a righteous king and a righteous people, which the next reign will demonstrate at catastrophic cost.
Key Verse
“So Jotham became mighty, because he ordered his ways before the Lord his God.”
— 2 Chronicles 27:6
Summary
Jotham is twenty-five years old when he begins to reign and reigns sixteen years in Jerusalem. He does right in the eyes of the Lord according to all that his father Uzziah had done, except he does not enter the temple of the Lord. But the people still act corruptly. He builds the upper gate of the house of the Lord and builds extensively on the wall of Ophel. He builds cities in the hill country of Judah and fortresses and towers on the wooded hills. He fights against the king of the Ammonites and prevails. The Ammonites give him a hundred talents of silver and ten thousand cors of wheat and ten thousand of barley that year and in the second and third years. So Jotham becomes mighty because he orders his ways before the Lord his God. The rest of the acts of Jotham and all his wars and his ways are written in the Book of the Kings of Israel and Judah. He is twenty-five years old when he begins to reign and reigns sixteen years in Jerusalem. Jotham slept with his fathers and they buried him in the city of David, and Ahaz his son reigns in his place.
Reflection
The Chronicler gives Jotham nine verses because Jotham gives the Chronicler very little to work with in terms of crisis or contrast. He simply ordered his ways before the Lord and became mighty. That is both the simplest and the most complete statement that can be made about a king in these books. The Chronicler is not being dismissive of Jotham by giving him a short chapter. He is accurately reporting a reign that had no catastrophic failure to diagnose and no dramatic revival to celebrate. It was a reign of steady faithfulness, which is rare enough in 2 Chronicles to be worth noting.
The gap between Jotham’s faithfulness and the people’s corruption is the tension that will explode in the next chapter under Ahaz. A righteous king cannot guarantee a righteous people. Jotham ordered his ways. The people still acted corruptly. External order — the king doing right, the armies winning, the walls going up — does not transform internal character. The Chronicler’s observation about the people is a warning placed where it will do the most good: immediately before the chapter of the worst king in Judah’s history, who will give the people’s corruption a royal sponsor.