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2 Kings 16:15 · World English Bible

2 Kings 16:15 Meaning King Ahaz Commanded Urijah the Priest

King Ahaz commanded Urijah the priest, saying, “On the great altar burn the morning burnt offering, the evening meal offering, the king’s burnt offering, his meal offering, with the burnt offering of all the people of the land, their meal offering, and their drink offerings; and sprinkle on it all the blood of the burnt offering, and all the blood of the sacrifice; but the bronze altar will be for me to inquire by.”

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What does 2 Kings 16:15 mean?

A king copies a foreign altar he admired and installs it at the center of worship, shoving the old one aside for his private use. Power tempts a man to redecorate the highest things around himself.

From the Clinical Psychology reading below.

2 Kings 16:15 through 1 lens

The same verse, read by one tradition.

CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY

Clinical Psychology

A king copies a foreign altar he admired and installs it at the center of worship, shoving the old one aside for his private use. Power tempts a man to redecorate the highest things around himself. What was sacred becomes a tool he keeps for consulting when it suits him.

Ahaz still performs every offering. The forms continue while the meaning has been quietly hollowed out. A person can keep the whole apparatus of devotion running and have bent it, at the root, toward himself. Ritual maintained by vanity is worship pointed at the wrong throne.

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Clinical Psychology lens

Live 2 Kings 16:15 today

  1. Take one habit you keep faithfully, the morning routine, the journal, the reading, and ask what it is currently aimed at. If the honest answer is how it makes you look, keep the habit and fix the aim.
  2. Look at a kindness you perform regularly for someone and check whether it has become a way of collecting credit. Do it once this week in a way nobody will see.
  3. When you share something good you did, at work, in a group chat, online, pause and ask who the post is for. Sometimes the answer is fine. Sometimes it quietly turns the whole thing into a monument to you.

What am I still doing beautifully that stopped being about anything but me?

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