2 Kings 16:15
And king Ahaz commanded Urijah the priest, saying, Upon the great altar burn the morning burnt offering, and the evening meat offering, and the king’s burnt sacrifice, and his meat offering, with the burnt offering of all the people of the land, and their meat offering, and their drink offerings; and sprinkle upon it all the blood of the burnt offering, and all the blood of the sacrifice: and the brasen altar shall be for me to enquire by.
The word rendered sprinkle is the Hebrew zah-rak, rendered in the Septuagint by ekcheis, meaning to scatter and hence to sprinkle, not to dip or immerse. The verse belongs to the account in which Ahaz of Judah acknowledged Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria as his sovereign and paid him tribute in connection with the overthrow of Damascus in 740 B.C., and Tiglath-pileser's own inscriptions naming Ahaz among those who submitted confirm the record and show the Old Testament can be trusted. It belongs to the closing history of Kings marked by the wicked and weak reigns of the kings of Judah, standing apart from the one bright chapter of reformation under the good king Josiah supported by godly priests and counselors. It belongs to the record of Ahaz the weak king of Judah and shows Judah following Israel in departure from God through idolatry toward captivity. It shows Ahaz robbing Solomon's temple of its treasures and defiling its holy precincts, illustrating that the history of the temple reflects the religious experience of Israel in which departure from the Lord brought neglect of the temple and sometimes even violence against it.
After seeing an altar at Damascus that pleased him, Ahaz sent its pattern to Urijah the priest with orders to duplicate it, and on his return commanded that the new great altar be used for the morning burnt offering, the evening meat offering, the king's burnt sacrifice and meat offering, and all the burnt offerings, meat offerings and drink offerings of the people of the land with all their blood sprinkled upon it, while the brasen altar would be reserved for the king to inquire by. In doing this he replaced God's appointed temple order with a pagan altar copied from Damascus. He pushed the brasen altar of David aside into an obscure place, rearranged the furniture of the temple, and removed a Sabbath booth to give to the king of Assyria.
This paganizing of Jewish worship with heathen impurity and superstition led to neglect of the temple until its great doors were closed, the lamps were not lighted, no incense was offered in the sanctuary, and incense was burned to false gods on high places in all the cities of Judah. The altar Ahaz modeled on one he had seen in Damascus was sinful because he made it for worship. The elaborate altar modeled on one seen in Damascus is an example of copying worldly designs in God's work, and such imitation can mar that work and foster a worldly spirit.