In the late eighth century b.c., thick smoke chokes the limestone ravines south of Jerusalem. Men pour molten bronze into casting pits to form foreign idols. The summer heat bakes the cracked earth of the Valley of Ben Hinnom. A heavy guard watches the perimeter against sudden raids. Soldiers drag captured women and children across the arid highlands toward Samaria. Bodies cover the rocky battlefields in Ephraim.
King Ahaz locks the heavy cedar doors of the Lord's temple. He diverts national wealth to pay the Assyrian empire for military support. He chops the bronze basins into scrap metal. Invading armies from Aram and Israel breach the borders. They slaughter 120,000 men in a single afternoon. Israelite soldiers march 200,000 Judean prisoners north as slave labor. A prophet named Oded intercepts the marching army outside Samaria. He commands the captors to release their own kin. Four local leaders intercept the plunder. They feed the prisoners and provide donkeys for the wounded. They escort the captives south to the palm groves of Jericho.
Closing a temple door is a deliberate act of political realignment. Ahaz liquidates the temple treasury to buy protection from Tiglath-Pileser. A standard tribute to a dominant king often required thousands of pounds of silver — roughly equal to millions of dollars in modern defense spending. The Assyrian king takes the metal. He provides no troops. Ahaz builds street-corner altars to Syrian gods to secure their favor. This proves the oldest rule of regional warfare. Desperate leaders will worship the weapons of the men who defeated them.
A man who buys his safety with borrowed metal will soon find the locks on his own gates broken.
The copper and tin idols of Ahaz eventually corroded in the dirt of the southern ravines. The temple remained dark and barred until the next king cut new keys for the bronze padlocks.