Assessing Jotham
Although his memory is enshrined among the ancestors of the Savior (Matt. 1:9), we know rather little about Jotham. This eleventh king of Judah receives the attention of just seven verses of 2 Kings (15:32–38) and only ten in 2 Chronicles (26:23—27:9). We do know that his father, Uzziah, being struck with leprosy as a punishment for his sins, was obliged to take Jotham as a coregent in the latter part of his life. This period seems to have lasted from about 750 to Uzziah’s death in 742 (Is. 6:1).
Jotham then reigned in his own name from 742 to 735. His sixteen years on the throne (2 Kings 15:33; 2 Chr. 27:1), then, must include both of these periods. This chronological complexity would explain why Josephus (Antiquities 9.11.2; 9.12.1) leaves out all time references for Jotham.
Both Kings and Chronicles attest of Jotham that “he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord,” each also admitting the king’s inability to exercise much influence over an unfaithful nation. From Isaiah and Micah, both books partly composed during his reign (Is. 1:1; Micah 1:1), we gain some sense of the national infidelity that Jotham was obliged to face.
While 2 Kings barely mentions Jotham’s construction of the “upper gate of the house of the Lord,” the Chronicler goes into much more extensive detail about the king’s building projects and especially his conquest and treatment of the Ammonites.
Jotham is praised for not pursuing his father’s example of usurping authority over the temple (2 Chr. 27:2). Also unlike his father Uzziah, who acted exactly as he pleased, Jotham “ordered his ways before the Lord his God” (27:6). This is an expression of praise we do not often find in the description of biblical kings!
The comment also hints at a potential problem. It may be the case that the authors of both Kings and Chronicles were puzzled by the reign of Jotham, particularly his inability to get the citizens of Judah to follow his lead. He is faulted in neither source. It is impossible not to observe, however, that Jotham did not enjoy the longevity and success that the Book of Proverbs promises to a wise and virtuous man.
Jotham thus becomes a sort of tragic figure, even though the Bible does not stop to reflect on the nature and dynamics of the tragedy, as it does in the case of Job. One is also struck by Jotham’s resemblance to Job in one particular—namely, the almost “individual” nature of his righteousness, in the sense that nobody would pay his example much attention. In the case of Job, this moral insouciance is found in his wife and children. In the case of Jotham, we see it in the citizens of Judah, but especially in his unfaithful son, Ahaz.
Jotham is treated, rather, in the way the Bible treats Abner—as a decent man who did not receive all that we would expect a decent man to receive. The Bible does not pause to reflect on this anomaly, even to reflect that it was an anomaly, no more than it does in the case of Abner or, even earlier, righteous Abel.
The Chronicler’s chapter on Jotham is, in fact, the shortest chapter written by that author, who limits himself to his precise task—to chronicle, to record the story of Jotham. Without drawing our attention to it, he describes a reign much shorter and less rewarding than the reigns of some of Judah’s other righteous kings, such as Asa, Jehoshaphat, Hezekiah, and Josiah. Even as he was dying, Jotham’s enemies prepared to invade his kingdom (2 Kings 15:37–38).
As for the Chronicler, he advances no thesis with respect to Jotham’s story. Nor does he indicate, in even the faintest way, how we should view the problem of theodicy implicitly posed by that story. He not only does not answer the implied question; he does not even mention that the story has a question. On all this, only silence.
A Foreshadowing of the Cross
Patrick Henry Reardon is pastor emeritus of All Saints Antiochian Orthodox Church in Chicago, Illinois, and the author of numerous books, including, most recently, Out of Step with God: Orthodox Christian Reflections on the Book of Numbers (Ancient Faith Publishing, 2019).
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