Thursday, August 25, 2016

II Chronicles 28: The Good Samaritans

Tucked away in II Chronicles 28 is a little story of God's grace being shown to captives from Judah, filtered through some good Samaritans, who were actually their conquerors.

After a battle which Judah lost decisively to Aram and Israel, an interesting event occurs.  The king of Aram takes captive "a great number" of people from Judah and brings them to Damascus (vs. 5).  Similarly, the people of Israel attempt to take 200,000 captives from Judah, along with much booty.  This act of aggression by the northern kingdom against their southern relatives seems to be focused on powerless women and children, probably the families of the 120,000 valiant warriors of Judah that were slaughtered that day (vs. 6-8).

However, there were still some righteous people in Samaria who did not let that happen.  First, a prophet of the Lord named Oded goes out to meet the returning army and points out that Israel was successful against Judah only because God was punishing them.  Yet that doesn't mean Israel is in the clear.  In fact, Oded says, Israel had overplayed her hand and killed them in a rage (vs. 9).  Now their own fate might be disastrous if they bring the captives into their land.  Oded charges them, "Now hear me, and send back the captives whom you have taken from your kindred, for the fierce wrath of the Lord is upon you" (vs. 11).

Then a number of chiefs from Samaria arise and back up Oded's words.  Azariah, Berechiah, Jehizkiah, and Amasa "stood up" against those who were returning from the war.  They demanded the release of the captives from Judah for fear of adding to Israel's sin and piling up the guilt and wrath against them (vs. 13).  

Amazingly, these men were able to convince the warriors to surrender their spoils of war in the captives and booty they had taken.  Not only were the would-be slaves given their freedom back, but they were also shown mercy and helped to return to their own land.  "Then those who were mentioned by name got up and took the captives, and with the booty they clothed all that were naked among them; they clothed them, gave them sandals, provided them with food and drink, and anointed them; and carrying all the feeble among them on donkeys, they brought them to their kindred at Jericho, the city of palm trees. Then they returned to Samaria" (vs. 15).  

With the description of the mercy shown the captives in terms of anointing them and putting them on donkeys, I can't help but hear echoes of Jesus' parable from Luke 10.  Talk about your good Samaritans!

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