Solomon, at the height of his splendor, commissioned the casting of golden shields to hang in his royal palace. One generation later, the king of Egypt swept into Judah and looted Jerusalem, carrying off the shields as booty.

The Lord allowed the Egyptians to invade because the people abandoned the law of the Lord. The Lord made them subject to the foreign king, so that they may learn the difference between serving me and serving the kings of other lands.

One difference quickly noted—the kings of other lands carry off your golden shields.

I once saw a painting in the National Gallery of London, commissioned by Henry VIII (he of many wives), titled The Ambassadors. Oddly, the artist added a distorted skull at the bottom of the painting. It’s an example of an anamorphic, an image which can only be clearly viewed from a side perspective. The story goes that Henry hung the painting in a stairwell. There he saw the skull as he passed, a daily reminder of his mortality.

Rehoboam, the king of Judah, made bronze shields to replace the golden ones, and gave them to his palace guards. Like Henry’s skull, the shields served as symbols of mortality. Every day as the men carrying the new shields marched past, Rehoboam mourned the loss of his treasure and understood his dependence on the Lord.

The kings of the earth belong to God; he is greatly exalted (Psalm 47:9).

While I don’t possess any golden shields, or even paintings of skulls, I do possess many, many good things. For these I’m grateful, and hope to retain a bit of humility, knowing that all good things come from the hand of our gracious God.

2 Chronicles 12 in week twenty-eight of reading the Bible cover to cover

The Ambassadors (1533) by Hans Holbein the Younger.