Here is, I. Ahaz abusing the temple, not the building itself, but some of the furniture of it. 1. He defaced the bases on which the lavers were set (Kg1 7:28, Kg1 7:29) and took down the molten sea, Kg2 16:17. These the priests used for washing; against them therefore he seems to have had a particular spite. It is one of the greatest prejudices that can be done to religion to obstruct the purifying of the priests, the Lord's ministers. 2. He removed the covert for the sabbath, erected either in honour of the sabbath or for the conveniency of the priests, when, on the sabbath, they officiated in greater numbers than on other days. Whatever it was, it should seem that in removing it he intended to put a contempt upon the sabbath, and so to open as wide an inlet as any to all manner of impiety. 3. The king's entry, which led to the house of the Lord, for the convenience of the royal family (perhaps that ascent which Solomon had made, and which the queen of Sheba admired, Kg1 10:5), he turned another way, to show that he did not intend to frequent the house of the Lord any more. This he did for the king of Assyria, to oblige him, who perhaps returned his visit, and found fault with this entry, as an inconvenience and disparagement to his palace. When those that have had a ready passage to the house of the Lord, to please their neighbours, turn it another way, they are going down the hill apace towards their ruin.
II. Ahaz resigning his life in the midst of his days, at thirty-six years of age (Kg2 16:19) and leaving his kingdom to a better man, Hezekiah his son (Kg2 16:20), who proved as much a friend to the temple as he had been an enemy to it. Perhaps this very son he had made to pass through the fire, and thereby dedicated him to Moloch; but God, by his grace, snatched him as a brand out of the burning.

Put it on the north side - He seems to have intended to conform every thing in the Lord's house as much as possible to the idolatrous temples which he saw at Damascus, and to model the Divine worship in the same way: in a word to honor and worship the gods of Syria, and not the God of heaven. All the alterations specified here were in contempt of the true God. Thus he provoked to anger the Lord God of his fathers, Ch2 28:25.

Now the rest of the acts of Ahaz which he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah? Some others are written in the canonical book of Chronicles, Ch2 28:1 and were, it is highly probable, in the annals of the kings of Judah, now lost.
2 Kings 16:20

HE SPOILS THE TEMPLE. (Kg2 16:17-19)

cut off the borders of the bases, &c.--It is thought that he did this to use the elaborate sculpture in adorning his palace.