Verses sixteen to twenty-nine, inclusive, of the eighth chapter of the second Book of Kings should be compared with the twenty-first chapter of the second Book of Chronicles. The name Joram is an obvious contraction of Jehoram. Joram and Jehoram were practically interchangeable terms. The king of Israel is called Joram, and the king of Judah Jehoram. In another place Joram is the name of the king of Judah. In two other places both kings are called Jehoram.
Jehoram “walked in the way of the kings of Israel, as did the house of Ahab”—in other words, as the house of Ahab acted. Jehoram, as son-in-law of Ahab and Jezebel, gave his patronage to the worship of the Tyrian Baal.
Jehoram had examples enough before him of the fate which had befallen idolatrous worship, and yet, turning his eye backward upon all the ruins which had been created by divine anger, he pursued his evil way as if the Lord had approved the house of Ahab and its idolatry rather than manifested His judgments upon them.
Rational men may well ask themselves how it is that history is lost on some minds. They look backward and see that from the beginning sin has always been followed by punishment, and punishment has in many cases been carried as far as death itself. Yet in view of all the suffering, and in full sight of the innumerable graves dug by the hand of justice, they continue the same policy without one particle of alteration.
One would have supposed that, looking at the history of the kings of Israel, Jehoram would have said:
“I see now exactly what to avoid; and to see what to avoid is to begin to see what to cultivate and establish. It is perfectly evident that the worship of Baal is doomed, or that wherever it is set up divine anger instantly and severely attests the displeasure of God. It must be my care, therefore, to destroy every trace of idolatry, and build up faith in the true God.”
This would have been called reflective and philosophical on the part of the king, and indeed any thing that stood opposed to this course of reasoning would seem to be marked by incredible fatuity.
The contrary, however, is the exact fact. With all the evidences of divine displeasure around him Jehoram continued in the worship of Baal, or in some other form of idolatry which might appeal to the popular imagination or gratify the desires of his own corrupt fancy.
It is easy for moralists to condemn this neglect of history, and to point out to those who, having neglected it, come into suffering and loss, that they ought to have been wise before the event; but the very same thing is done even by the moralists who criticize the course of Jehoram and his predecessors.