2 Chronicleschapter 27
9 verses · KJV2 Chronicles book hub →
Key verse
So Jotham became mighty, because he prepared his ways before the Lord his God.
It stands in Jotham became mighty because he ordered his ways before God, verses 1 to 6.
The chapter
Chapter summary
Jotham's reign is short and almost entirely positive, told in one careful contrast with his father: he did right according to all that Uzziah had done, 'howbeit he entered not into the temple of Jehovah', the son learned the lesson the father paid for. He builds the upper gate of the house, works extensively on the wall of Ophel, and raises cities in the hill country and castles and towers in the forests. He fights the Ammonites and receives a hundred talents of silver and ten thousand measures of wheat and barley for three years running. The Chronicler's summary is his cleanest formula for a life: 'So Jotham became mighty, because he ordered his ways before Jehovah his God.' The people still did corruptly.
Context
History · Ezra · 2 Chronicles overview
The world behind this chapter
2 Chronicles 27The history
Jotham's projects are all defensive and all sensible. He built the upper gate of the temple and did extensive work on the wall of Ophel, the ridge that connects the old city of David to the temple platform, and the weakest seam in Jerusalem's defenses. He built towns in the hill country and forts and towers in the wooded areas, which is where an invading force would try to move unseen.
The rest of the history, and what it meant to them
The Ammonite tribute is recorded in kind, which is how tribute usually came: a hundred talents of silver, ten thousand measures of wheat, and ten thousand of barley, for three years running. Grain by the ton was as good as money, since it fed an army or a building crew.
The single most pointed line in the chapter is that he did not enter the temple of the LORD. Read after the previous chapter, it is not a criticism but a commendation, he learned from his father's disaster and stayed on the right side of the line.
And the chapter is honest about the limit of a good reign: the people still did corruptly. A king could build walls; he could not make a nation faithful.
What it meant to them
For a community rebuilding a wall with one hand and a trowel, a king remembered mainly for gates and towers was worth remembering.
The verdict on the people also spoke directly. Good leadership is necessary and not sufficient. The state of a nation is not the same thing as the state of its ruler.
Sources cited
- Roland de Vaux, Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions
- Edwin R. Thiele, The Mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew Kings
Where the chapter sits
2 Chronicles 27 falls in Kings of Judah: Rehoboam to Ahaz (chapters 10–28). The divided kingdom narrated from Judah's side only; reform kings (Asa, Jehoshaphat, Joash, Uzziah, Jotham) and evil kings; prophetic interventions unique to Chronicles (Azariah, Hanani, Zechariah son of Jehoiada).
Before it: Solomon's reign, chapters 1–9. After it: Hezekiah to the exile, chapters 29–36.
The whole shape of 2 Chronicles→The structure of this chapter
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
A. Jotham became mighty because he ordered his ways before God
1. (vv. 1-2)
2 Chronicles 27:1
“Jotham was twenty and five years old--(See on 2Ki 15:32-35). Jerushah, the daughter of Zadok--or descendant of the famous priest of that name [2Sa 8:17].”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
2 Chronicles 27:2
“And he did that which was right,.... See Gill on 2Ki 15:34, howbeit, he entered not into the temple of the Lord; to burn incense, as his father did; he did according to his good ways, but not his evil ones: and the people did yet corruptly; in sacrificing and burning incense in the high places, 2Ki 15:35 which some think Joash himself did, and is meant in the preceding clause; but the sense given is best.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Chronicles 27:2
“What was amiss in his people he could not prevail to amend: The people did yet corruptly. Perhaps it reflects some blame upon him, that he was wanting in his part towards the reformation of the land.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
twenty and five years old: Jotham is twenty-five at his accession, the same age Kings gives him at 2 Kings 15:33, and his mother Jerushah is named as Zadok's daughter there too. He did right as his father Uzziah had done, but Chronicles adds a clause Kings does not carry: howbeit he entered not into the temple of the Lord, the very room where Uzziah's censer brought him leprosy at 26:16-19. And the people did yet corruptly is Chronicles' own honest qualifier, a good king's record that will not hide what the nation still did.
2. (vv. 3-4)
2 Chronicles 27:3
“He built the high gate in the house of the Lord,.... See the note on 2Ki 15:35. and on the wall of Ophel he built much; which Kimchi interprets an high place; it was the eastern part of Mount Zion. Josephus (f) calls it Ophlas, and says it joined to the eastern porch of the temple; and some have thought the porch of the temple is meant; the Targum renders it a palace; it is a tradition of the Jews that it was the holy of holies (g). (f) De Bell. Jud. l. 5. c. 4. sect. 2. (g) Vid.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Chronicles 27:3
“Ophel was the name given to the long, narrowish, rounded spur or promontory, which intervenes between the central valley of Jerusalem (the Tyropoeon) and the Kidron, or valley of Jehoshaphat. The anxiety of Uzziah and Jotham to fortify their territory indicates a fear of external attack, which at this time was probably felt mainly in connection with Samaria and Syria (2Ki 15:37 note). The faithless trust put in fortifications was rebuked by the prophets of the time Hos 8:14; Isa 2:15.”
2 Chronicles 27:4
“Moreover, he built cities in the mountains of Judah,.... In the mountainous part of it, the hill country of Judea, Luk 1:65, and in the forests he built castles and towers; for the safety of travellers, and of shepherds and their flocks, see 2Ch 26:10.”
the high gate of the house of the Lord: Kings gives Jotham's building in one clause, the higher gate of the house of the Lord at 2 Kings 15:35; Chronicles keeps that gate and adds the wall of Ophel, cities built in the mountains of Judah, and castles and towers in the forests. Ophel is the high ground between the temple mount and the Kidron valley, and the fortified cities read as continued defensive building, the same posture Uzziah kept at 26:9-10. Chronicles' fuller list matches its habit of recording what a king leaves standing, not only what battles he fought.
3. (v. 5)
2 Chronicles 27:5
“The Ammonites, who had submitted to Uzziah 2Ch 26:8, revolted against Jotham. This revolt he firmly repressed; and, to punish it, he exacted a high rate of tribute for the three years following the termination of the war. The productiveness of the Ammonite country in grain, which is here indicated, has been remarked upon as extraordinary by modern travelers.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Chronicles 27:5
“But when Rezin, king of Syria, and Pekah, king of Israel, combined to attack the kingdom of Judah, they took the opportunity of revolting, and Jotham was too distracted by other matters to attempt the reconquest (see on 2Ki 15:37).”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
the king of the Ammonites: The Ammonites had already submitted to Uzziah at 26:8; here they revolt, and Jotham prevails against them, a war Kings never mentions at all. The tribute is exact: a hundred talents of silver and ten thousand measures each of wheat and barley, paid the same year and again the second and third, a scale that marks real subjugation rather than a token gift. Chronicles alone keeps this record, one more entry in its pattern of kings who prospered because they sought the Lord.
4. (v. 6)
2 Chronicles 27:6
THIS is a very singular expression which is used here concerning Jotham who is one of the kings of Judah who are commended as having done that which was right in the sight of the Lord. All of them had their faults, yet they were the best monarchs that sat upon the throne of Judah—and concerning Jotham it is mentioned as his peculiar honor that he "became mighty, because he prepared his ways before the Lord his God."
Charles Spurgeon· written before 1892· The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Sermon No. 3063: “Jotham's Peculiar Honor” (lightly modernized text, CCEL edition)Particular Baptist
So Jotham became mighty: The verdict stands alone in Scripture: so Jotham became mighty, because he prepared his ways before the Lord his God, the seeking thread Chronicles has measured every king by since 1 Chr 16:11 and will measure Hezekiah by again at 31:21. Spurgeon preached this verse itself as Jotham's peculiar honor, noting that among kings who did right, few earn a sentence explaining why their reign prospered rather than simply recording that it did. The verb is not fought or built but prepared, a quieter word for a king remembered mostly for a quiet reign.
B. The rest of his wars and the years of his reignvv. 7-9
the rest of the acts of Jotham: The closing formula points past Chronicles itself to a fuller source, the book of the kings of Israel and Judah, one of several royal records this book names without claiming to be. Verse 8 repeats the accession notice of verse 1, twenty-five years old and sixteen years reigned, in the reversed order five and twenty, Chronicles' own way of bracketing a reign it has already summed up. Jotham sleeps with his fathers in the city of David, and the chapter closes on Ahaz his son reigning in his stead, the name that will undo nearly everything Jotham prepared.
2 Chronicles 27:7
“Now the rest of the acts of Jotham, and all his wars,.... Not only with the Ammonites, but with the Syrians, and ten tribes, see 2Ki 15:37. and his ways, lo, they are written in the books of the kings of Israel and Judah; not in the canonical books of Kings, but in the Chronicles of the kings of both nations, see 2Ki 15:36.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Chronicles 27:7
“The last words of the chapter are the most melancholy, as they inform us that Ahaz his son, whose character, in all respects, was the reverse of his, reigned in his stead. When the wealth and power with which wise men have done good devolve upon fools, that will do hurt with them, it is a lamentation, and shall be for a lamentation.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
2 Chronicles 27:8
“He was twenty five years old,.... The same is repeated here as in 2Ch 27:1.”
This page carries no textual note on 2 Chronicles 27. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes on the Old Testament; Charles Spurgeon, The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Sermon No. 3063, Jotham's Peculiar Honor; Jamieson Fausset and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; Keil, The Books of the Chronicles and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.