2 KINGS
The book of 2 Kings continues the history of the kings of Israel and Judah which had split into two kingdoms after the death of Solomon in 930 B.C. 2 Kings begins with the reign in Israel (known as the Northern Kingdom) of idolatrous king Ahab’s son in 850 B.C.
Note: this Ahaziah is not to be confused with king Ahaziah of Judah who came to power in Judah in 842 B.C.
2 KINGS 1:1-2
1 Moab rebelled against Israel after the death of Ahab.
2 Now Ahaziah fell through the lattice of his upper room in Samaria, and was injured; so he sent messengers and said to them, “Go, inquire of Baal-Zebub, the god of Ekron, whether I shall recover from this injury.”
Ba’al-Zebub was a Philistine god worshiped in the city of Ekron. He is also known as ”the lord of the flies” a bringer of disease and pestilence and has also been called “the dung god” in ancient texts.
He is either a powerful demonic prince or Satan himself, with the Scriptures seeming to identify him as Satan. Jesus had been casting out demons when He was accused of doing so by the power of Satan;
LUKE 11:14-19
14 And He was casting out a demon, and it was mute. So it was, when the demon had gone out, that the mute spoke; and the multitudes marveled.
15 But some of them said, “He casts out demons by Beelzebub, the ruler of the demons.”
16 Others, testing Him, sought from Him a sign from heaven.
17 But He, knowing their thoughts, said to them: “Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and a house divided against a house falls.
18 If Satan also is divided against himself, how will his kingdom stand? Because you say I cast out demons by Beelzebub.
19 And if I cast out demons by Beelzebub, by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore they will be your judges.
Jesus Himself identified Ba’al-Zebub as Satan which makes sense as Satan in his jealousy would not allow any demon to be worshiped, only himself.
2 KINGS 1:3-4
3 But the angel of the Lord said to Elijah the Tishbite, “Arise, go up to meet the messengers of the king of Samaria, and say to them, ‘Is it because there is no God in Israel that you are going to inquire of Baal-Zebub, the god of Ekron?’
4 Now therefore, thus says the Lord: ‘You shall not come down from the bed to which you have gone up, but you shall surely die.’ ” So Elijah departed.
When the “angel of the Lord” is referred to in Scripture, it refers to the pre-incarnate Jesus, whereas angels are referred to as just “an angel.”
2 KINGS 1:5-8
5 And when the messengers returned to him, he said to them, “Why have you come back?”
6 So they said to him, “A man came up to meet us, and said to us, ‘Go, return to the king who sent you, and say to him, “Thus says the Lord: ‘Is it because there is no God in Israel that you are sending to inquire of Baal-Zebub, the god of Ekron? Therefore you shall not come down from the bed to which you have gone up, but you shall surely die.’ ” ’ ”
7 Then he said to them, “What kind of man was it who came up to meet you and told you these words?”
8 So they answered him, “A hairy man wearing a leather belt around his waist.” And he said, “It is Elijah the Tishbite.”
Ahaziah immediately knew who Elijah was, more than likely having heard of him from his father king Ahab and his mother queen Jezebel.
2 KINGS 1:9-10
9 Then the king sent to him a captain of fifty with his fifty men. So he went up to him; and there he was, sitting on the top of a hill. And he spoke to him: “Man of God, the king has said, ‘Come down!’ ”
10 So Elijah answered and said to the captain of fifty, “If I am a man of God, then let fire come down from heaven and consume you and your fifty men.” And fire came down from heaven and consumed him and his fifty.
Elijah apparently understood that foul play awaited him at the hands of the soldiers sent by Ahaziah. God confirmed his suspicions by sending fire to consume the captain and his men.
2 KINGS 1:11-15
11 Then he sent to him another captain of fifty with his fifty men. And he answered and said to him: “Man of God, thus has the king said, ‘Come down quickly!’ ”
12 So Elijah answered and said to them, “If I am a man of God, let fire come down from heaven and consume you and your fifty men.” And the fire of God came down from heaven and consumed him and his fifty.
13 Again, he sent a third captain of fifty with his fifty men. And the third captain of fifty went up, and came and fell on his knees before Elijah, and pleaded with him, and said to him: “Man of God, please let my life and the life of these fifty servants of yours be precious in your sight.
14 Look, fire has come down from heaven and burned up the first two captains of fifties with their fifties. But let my life now be precious in your sight.”
15 And the angel of the Lord said to Elijah, “Go down with him; do not be afraid of him.” So he arose and went down with him to the king.
One would think that Ahaziah would have learned from the destruction of the first group to not seek to harm Elijah, but he sent three groups to bring him. The captain of the third group, obviously frightened by the demise of the first two groups , respectfully and fearfully begged Elijah to spare not only his life but the lives of his men also.
2 KINGS 1:16-18
16 Then he said to him, “Thus says the Lord: ‘Because you have sent messengers to inquire of Baal-Zebub, the god of Ekron, is it because there is no God in Israel to inquire of His word? Therefore you shall not come down from the bed to which you have gone up, but you shall surely die.’ ”
17 So Ahaziah died according to the word of the Lord which Elijah had spoken. Because he had no son, Jehoram became king in his place, in the second year of Jehoram the son of Jehoshaphat, king of Judah.
18 Now the rest of the acts of Ahaziah which he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel?
Ahaziah died in 848 B.C. after reigning only 2 years. He had no son to succeed him, therefore his younger brother Jehoram took the throne. (This Jehoram ruled Israel at the same time that Jehoram of Judah ruled the kingdom of Judah to the south.)
2 KINGS 2:1-7
1 And it came to pass, when the Lord was about to take up Elijah into heaven by a whirlwind, that Elijah went with Elisha from Gilgal.
2 Then Elijah said to Elisha, “Stay here, please, for the Lord has sent me on to Bethel.” But Elisha said, “As the Lord lives, and as your soul lives, I will not leave you!” So they went down to Bethel.
3 Now the sons of the prophets who were at Bethel came out to Elisha, and said to him, “Do you know that the Lord will take away your master from over you today?” And he said, “Yes, I know; keep silent!”
4 Then Elijah said to him, “Elisha, stay here, please, for the Lord has sent me on to Jericho.” But he said, “As the Lord lives, and as your soul lives, I will not leave you!” So they came to Jericho.
5 Now the sons of the prophets who were at Jericho came to Elisha and said to him, “Do you know that the Lord will take away your master from over you today?” So he answered, “Yes, I know; keep silent!”
6 Then Elijah said to him, “Stay here, please, for the Lord has sent me on to the Jordan.” But he said, “As the Lord lives, and as your soul lives, I will not leave you!” So the two of them went on.
7 And fifty men of the sons of the prophets went and stood facing them at a distance, while the two of them stood by the Jordan.
It is unknown as to why Elijah wanted Elisha to remain behind, nor is it clear as to why Elisha ordered the prophets of the Lord to remain silent. He knew that Elijah was to be taken away and was perhaps irritated at being reminded of that fact.
2 KINGS 2:8-14
8 Now Elijah took his mantle, rolled it up, and struck the water; and it was divided this way and that, so that the two of them crossed over on dry ground.
9 And so it was, when they had crossed over, that Elijah said to Elisha, “Ask! What may I do for you, before I am taken away from you?” Elisha said, “Please let a double portion of your spirit be upon me.”
10 So he said, “You have asked a hard thing. Nevertheless, if you see me when I am taken from you, it shall be so for you; but if not, it shall not be so.”
11 Then it happened, as they continued on and talked, that suddenly a chariot of fire appeared with horses of fire, and separated the two of them; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven.
12 And Elisha saw it, and he cried out, “My father, my father, the chariot of Israel and its horsemen!” So he saw him no more. And he took hold of his own clothes and tore them into two pieces.
13 He also took up the mantle of Elijah that had fallen from him, and went back and stood by the bank of the Jordan.
14 Then he took the mantle of Elijah that had fallen from him, and struck the water, and said, “Where is the Lord God of Elijah?” And when he also had struck the water, it was divided this way and that; and Elisha crossed over.
Elijah was one of only two people who never suffered death, the other being Enoch;
GENESIS 5:21-24
21 Enoch lived sixty-five years, and begot Methuselah.
22 After he begot Methuselah, Enoch walked with God three hundred years, and had sons and daughters.
23 So all the days of Enoch were three hundred and sixty-five years.
24 And Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him.
Elisha tore his clothes out of respect and grief at Elijah being taken from him. Tearing of clothes may seem insignificant today, but remember that all clothing was hand-woven and expensive in those days and many people had only two sets of clothes at a time.
The parting of the Jordan showed the 50 watching prophets that Elisha had inherited the power of Elijah and was the new leader of the prophets.
2 KINGS 2:15-18
15 Now when the sons of the prophets who were from Jericho saw him, they said, “The spirit of Elijah rests on Elisha.” And they came to meet him, and bowed to the ground before him.
16 Then they said to him, “Look now, there are fifty strong men with your servants. Please let them go and search for your master, lest perhaps the Spirit of the Lord has taken him up and cast him upon some mountain or into some valley.” And he said, “You shall not send anyone.”
17 But when they urged him till he was ashamed, he said, “Send them!” Therefore they sent fifty men, and they searched for three days but did not find him.
18 And when they came back to him, for he had stayed in Jericho, he said to them, “Did I not say to you, ‘Do not go’?”
At first this seems incomprehensible that the prophets wanted to search for Elijah, but it makes more sense if the prophets hadn’t seen the chariot and horses which took Elijah. They had probably only seen Elijah vanish and wanted to be sure that he had truly been taken to Heaven.
2 KINGS 2:19-22
19 Then the men of the city said to Elisha, “Please notice, the situation of this city is pleasant, as my lord sees; but the water is bad, and the ground barren.”
20 And he said, “Bring me a new bowl, and put salt in it.” So they brought it to him.
21 Then he went out to the source of the water, and cast in the salt there, and said, “Thus says the Lord: ‘I have healed this water; from it there shall be no more death or barrenness.’ ”
22 So the water remains healed to this day, according to the word of Elisha which he spoke.
It is unknown what caused the spring to be poisonous but it brings to mind the waters of a bitter lake that Israel encountered upon leaving Egypt. Scripture records;
EXODUS 15:22-25
22 So Moses brought Israel from the Red Sea; then they went out into the Wilderness of Shur. And they went three days in the wilderness and found no water.
23 Now when they came to Marah, they could not drink the waters of Marah, for they were bitter. Therefore the name of it was called Marah.
24 And the people complained against Moses, saying, “What shall we drink?”
25 So he cried out to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a tree. When he cast it into the waters, the waters were made sweet.
Archaeologists have found what they believe to be the area in question and although the lake has since dried up the water was once laced with iron salts which would have made the water taste bitter. While it is not known what chemical poisoned the Jericho waters what is important that God miraculously cleansed the waters. Even today, the spring waters are bottled and sold to tourists who visit the site.
2 KINGS 2:23-25
23 Then he went up from there to Bethel; and as he was going up the road, some youths came from the city and mocked him, and said to him, “Go up, you baldhead! Go up, you baldhead!”
24 So he turned around and looked at them, and pronounced a curse on them in the name of the Lord. And two female bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the youths.
25 Then he went from there to Mount Carmel, and from there he returned to Samaria.
Elisha wasn’t about to tolerate disrespect from ill-mannered children who should have known better than to mock their elders. The fact that there were at least 42 of them that were mauled shows that it was quite a large group, more than likely a band of teenagers.
2 KINGS 3:1-3
1 Now Jehoram the son of Ahab became king over Israel at Samaria in the eighteenth year of Jehoshaphat king of Judah, and reigned twelve years.
2 And he did evil in the sight of the Lord, but not like his father and mother; for he put away the sacred pillar of Baal that his father had made.
3 Nevertheless he persisted in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who had made Israel sin; he did not depart from them.
Jehoram of Israel (not to be confused with Jehoram of Judah) ruled from 853-841 B.C. and was the younger brother of king Ahaziah who died (more than likely from infection) after falling through a lattice in his palace.
He was an evil king but surprisingly didn’t follow in the footsteps of his father Ahab or his mother Jezebel. He did get rid of the idol of Ba’al, but by description worshiped the golden calves made by king Jeroboam.
2 KINGS 3:4-8
4 Now Mesha king of Moab was a sheepbreeder, and he regularly paid the king of Israel one hundred thousand lambs and the wool of one hundred thousand rams.
5 But it happened, when Ahab died, that the king of Moab rebelled against the king of Israel.
6 So King Jehoram went out of Samaria at that time and mustered all Israel.
7 Then he went and sent to Jehoshaphat king of Judah, saying, “The king of Moab has rebelled against me. Will you go with me to fight against Moab?” And he said, “I will go up; I am as you are, my people as your people, my horses as your horses.”
8 Then he said, “Which way shall we go up?” And he answered, “By way of the Wilderness of Edom.”
Conquering kings tend to get testy when a conquered people stop sending tribute in the form of precious metals, food or goods. Mesha must have thought Jehoram to be too weak or inexperienced to keep Moab under control so he rebelled, an act of war.
There is an inscription on an ancient stone tablet called “the Mesha Stele” describing Mesha as a sheep-breeder and it states that he yearly sent the wool of 100 thousand rams and 100 thousand sheep to Israel as tribute. It also records that he rebelled against the king of Israel (dated about 850 B.C.).
More than likely believing that he was not strong enough to conquer Moab alone, Jehoram called on king Jehoshaphat of Judah to help him. Surprisingly, Jehoshaphat, a Godly man, agreed to help Jehoram and they planned to attack Moab from an unexpected direction, coming up from the south.
2 KINGS 3:9-12
9 So the king of Israel went with the king of Judah and the king of Edom, and they marched on that roundabout route seven days; and there was no water for the army, nor for the animals that followed them.
10 And the king of Israel said, “Alas! For the Lord has called these three kings together to deliver them into the hand of Moab.”
11 But Jehoshaphat said, “Is there no prophet of the Lord here, that we may inquire of the Lord by him?” So one of the servants of the king of Israel answered and said, “Elisha the son of Shaphat is here, who poured water on the hands of Elijah.”
12 And Jehoshaphat said, “The word of the Lord is with him.” So the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat and the king of Edom went down to him.
Oddly enough, the king of Edom volunteered to go with Jehoram and Jehoshaphat to the battle, more than likely for the plunder than from loyalty. The route they took was through the desert by way of the harsh desolate Dead Sea region and as it was summer, the seasonal streams and waterholes had dried up.
When Jehoram stated in despair that the Lord had delivered them into the hand of Mesha, I suspect he was talking about the golden calf god of Israel, not the God of Heaven. Jehoshaphat must have sensed this and asked for a true prophet of the Lord to inquire of.
Pouring water on the hands was performed by servants as a cleansing ritual to ensure that a person’s hands were clean before eating. This was also carried over into New Testament times when the Pharisees confronted Jesus;
MARK 7:1-5
1 Then the Pharisees and some of the scribes came together to Him, having come from Jerusalem.
2 Now when they saw some of His disciples eat bread with defiled, that is, with unwashed hands, they found fault.
3 For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they wash their hands in a special way, holding the tradition of the elders.
4 When they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash. And there are many other things which they have received and hold, like the washing of cups, pitchers, copper vessels, and couches.
5 Then the Pharisees and scribes asked Him, “Why do Your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat bread with unwashed hands?”
Note that this was a tradition, but the hypocritical, hyper-legalistic Pharisees had made it into a commandment, giving Man-made tradition equal force as Biblical commandment.
2 KINGS 3:13-20
13 Then Elisha said to the king of Israel, “What have I to do with you? Go to the prophets of your father and the prophets of your mother.” But the king of Israel said to him, “No, for the Lord has called these three kings together to deliver them into the hand of Moab.”
14 And Elisha said, “As the Lord of hosts lives, before whom I stand, surely were it not that I regard the presence of Jehoshaphat king of Judah, I would not look at you, nor see you.
15 But now bring me a musician. Then it happened, when the musician played, that the hand of the Lord came upon him.
16 And he said, “Thus says the Lord: ‘Make this valley full of ditches.’
17 For thus says the Lord: ‘You shall not see wind, nor shall you see rain; yet that valley shall be filled with water, so that you, your cattle, and your animals may drink.’
18 And this is a simple matter in the sight of the Lord; He will also deliver the Moabites into your hand.
19 Also you shall attack every fortified city and every choice city, and shall cut down every good tree, and stop up every spring of water, and ruin every good piece of land with stones.”
20 Now it happened in the morning, when the grain offering was offered, that suddenly water came by way of Edom, and the land was filled with water.
Elisha was well aware of Jehoram’s idolatry and wanted nothing to do with him. But for the sake of king Jehoshaphat whom he respected, he agreed to inquire of the Lord for him. God performed a miracle and brought a flood of fresh water from the deserts of Edom. Note that Elisha says that this was a simple matter to the Lord!!!
Israel and Judah were to destroy Moab entirely, chopping down fruit trees, stopping up all wells and springs and casting stones into all fruitful fields. It would take Moab several generations to recover, if ever.
2 KINGS 3:21-27
21 And when all the Moabites heard that the kings had come up to fight against them, all who were able to bear arms and older were gathered; and they stood at the border.
22 Then they rose up early in the morning, and the sun was shining on the water; and the Moabites saw the water on the other side as red as blood.
23 And they said, “This is blood; the kings have surely struck swords and have killed one another; now therefore, Moab, to the spoil!”
24 So when they came to the camp of Israel, Israel rose up and attacked the Moabites, so that they fled before them; and they entered their land, killing the Moabites.
25 Then they destroyed the cities, and each man threw a stone on every good piece of land and filled it; and they stopped up all the springs of water and cut down all the good trees. But they left the stones of Kir Haraseth intact. However the slingers surrounded and attacked it.
26 And when the king of Moab saw that the battle was too fierce for him, he took with him seven hundred men who drew swords, to break through to the king of Edom, but they could not.
27 Then he took his eldest son who would have reigned in his place, and offered him as a burnt offering upon the wall; and there was great indignation against Israel. So they departed from him and returned to their own land.
The Moabites rejoiced, thinking that the kings of Israel, Edom and Judah had turned on each other so all Moab had to do was mop up the survivors and loot the camps. Instead, the Moabites were defeated and fled back to their cities.
The attackers leveled their cities with the exception of the royal capital and threw the stones of the cities into the fertile fields. Mesha tried to break the invading coalition by killing the king of Edom, but failed. In desperation he offered his own son as a burnt offering to Chemosh his god on the city wall. The act so appalled the attackers that they returned home in disgust.
2 KINGS 4:1
1 A certain woman of the wives of the sons of the prophets cried out to Elisha, saying, “Your servant my husband is dead, and you know that your servant feared the Lord. And the creditor is coming to take my two sons to be his slaves.”
It was a common practice in ancient times that a creditor could take the children of a debtor to be servants until they had either worked off or paid the debt. God had no problem with this, and had commanded Israel through Moses;
DEUTERONOMY 15:12-15
12 “If your brother, a Hebrew man, or a Hebrew woman, is sold to you and serves you six years, then in the seventh year you shall let him go free from you.
13 And when you send him away free from you, you shall not let him go away empty-handed;
14 you shall supply him liberally from your flock, from your threshing floor, and from your winepress. From what the Lord your God has blessed you with, you shall give to him.
15 You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God redeemed you; therefore I command you this thing today.
After 6 years a servant was to be set free and the master was to provide liberally to the released servant so they could make a new start. This woman’s husband was dead and if her children were taken she would be destitute with no one to take care of her.
2 KINGS 4:2-7
2 So Elisha said to her, “What shall I do for you? Tell me, what do you have in the house?” And she said, “Your maidservant has nothing in the house but a jar of oil.”
3 Then he said, “Go, borrow vessels from everywhere, from all your neighbors—empty vessels; do not gather just a few.
4 And when you have come in, you shall shut the door behind you and your sons; then pour it into all those vessels, and set aside the full ones.”
5 So she went from him and shut the door behind her and her sons, who brought the vessels to her; and she poured it out.
6 Now it came to pass, when the vessels were full, that she said to her son, “Bring me another vessel.”
And he said to her, “There is not another vessel.” So the oil ceased.
7 Then she came and told the man of God. And he said, “Go, sell the oil and pay your debt; and you and your sons live on the rest.”
It is a light thing for God to create something from nothing. After all, He not only spoke creation into existence; He fed a million people of Israel in the desert wilderness with manna for 40 years; He caused a jar of flour to produce for a widow woman and her son when Elijah stayed with her during an entire three and a half-year famine; Jesus twice fed thousands of people with a few loaves and fish. Therefore providing food from nothing would indeed be a very trivial thing for Him to do.
Cooking oil (usually olive oil) was expensive so the woman was able to pay off her debt and survive until she could find employment.
2 KINGS 4:8-17
8 Now it happened one day that Elisha went to Shunem, where there was a notable woman, and she persuaded him to eat some food. So it was, as often as he passed by, he would turn in there to eat some food.
9 And she said to her husband, “Look now, I know that this is a holy man of God, who passes by us regularly.
10 Please, let us make a small upper room on the wall; and let us put a bed for him there, and a table and a chair and a lampstand; so it will be, whenever he comes to us, he can turn in there.”
11 And it happened one day that he came there, and he turned in to the upper room and lay down there.
12 Then he said to Gehazi his servant, “Call this Shunammite woman.” When he had called her, she stood before him.
13 And he said to him, “Say now to her, ‘Look, you have been concerned for us with all this care. What can I do for you? Do you want me to speak on your behalf to the king or to the commander of the army?’ ” She answered, “I dwell among my own people.”
14 So he said, “What then is to be done for her?” And Gehazi answered, “Actually, she has no son, and her husband is old.”
15 So he said, “Call her.” When he had called her, she stood in the doorway.
16 Then he said, “About this time next year you shall embrace a son.” And she said, “No, my lord. Man of God, do not lie to your maidservant!”
17 But the woman conceived, and bore a son when the appointed time had come, of which Elisha had told her.
This indicates just how far Israel had fallen away from the Lord. Shunem was located at the border between Galilee to the north and Samaria to the south. She seems to have never heard of Abraham who was 100 years old and Sara who was 90 years old when she bore him a son. (Genesis 17)
Many houses were built against fortified walls of a city and the Shunammite woman asked her husband to build a room “on the wall” above their own house.
2 KINGS 4:18-28
18 And the child grew. Now it happened one day that he went out to his father, to the reapers.
19 And he said to his father, “My head, my head!” So he said to a servant, “Carry him to his mother.”
20 When he had taken him and brought him to his mother, he sat on her knees till noon, and then died.
21 And she went up and laid him on the bed of the man of God, shut the door upon him, and went out.
22 Then she called to her husband, and said, “Please send me one of the young men and one of the donkeys, that I may run to the man of God and come back.”
23 So he said, “Why are you going to him today? It is neither the New Moon nor the Sabbath.”And she said, “It is well.”
24 Then she saddled a donkey, and said to her servant, “Drive, and go forward; do not slacken the pace for me unless I tell you.”
25 And so she departed, and went to the man of God at Mount Carmel. So it was, when the man of God saw her afar off, that he said to his servant Gehazi, “Look, the Shunammite woman!
26 Please run now to meet her, and say to her, ‘Is it well with you? Is it well with your husband? Is it well with the child?’ ” And she answered, “It is well.”
27 Now when she came to the man of God at the hill, she caught him by the feet, but Gehazi came near to push her away. But the man of God said, “Let her alone; for her soul is in deep distress, and the Lord has hidden it from me, and has not told me.”
28 So she said, “Did I ask a son of my lord? Did I not say, ‘Do not deceive me’?”
It sounds as if the child suffered either a brain hemorrhage or a stroke of some sort. As had happened with Elijah when he stayed with the widow in Sidon, Lebanon, a child of the family died. It is unknown why the Lord allowed this to happen, but He does nothing without a purpose, and we need to trust Him even if we don’t understand that purpose.
Gehazi’s hardened attitude came out when he tried to shove the woman away from Elisha even though her grief was evident.
2 KINGS 4:29-31
29 Then he said to Gehazi, “Get yourself ready, and take my staff in your hand, and be on your way. If you meet anyone, do not greet him; and if anyone greets you, do not answer him; but lay my staff on the face of the child.”
30 And the mother of the child said, “As the Lord lives, and as your soul lives, I will not leave you.” So he arose and followed her.
31 Now Gehazi went on ahead of them, and laid the staff on the face of the child; but there was neither voice nor hearing. Therefore he went back to meet him, and told him, saying, “The child has not awakened.”
God knew Gehazi’s heart and wouldn’t allow Gehazi to perform any miracle, reserving this honor only for Elisha. In this way also, Elisha’s staff wouldn’t be seen as some sort of ‘magic talisman’.
2 KINGS 4:32-37
32 When Elisha came into the house, there was the child, lying dead on his bed.
33 He went in therefore, shut the door behind the two of them, and prayed to the Lord.
34 And he went up and lay on the child, and put his mouth on his mouth, his eyes on his eyes, and his hands on his hands; and he stretched himself out on the child, and the flesh of the child became warm.
35 He returned and walked back and forth in the house, and again went up and stretched himself out on him; then the child sneezed seven times, and the child opened his eyes.
36 And he called Gehazi and said, “Call this Shunammite woman.” So he called her. And when she came in to him, he said, “Pick up your son.”
37 So she went in, fell at his feet, and bowed to the ground; then she picked up her son and went out.
God chooses some of he most interesting ways to perform His miracles, showing that there is no set ritual or “magic formula” to them. Jesus demonstrated this in the New Testament when He performed miracles of healing, using different methods to do so.
The story of resurrection of the child would quickly spread, reaffirming Elisha as a man of God, and would be a testimony to God’s power over life and death, something Ba’al and other demon gods could not do.
2 KINGS 4:38-41
38 And Elisha returned to Gilgal, and there was a famine in the land. Now the sons of the prophets were sitting before him; and he said to his servant, “Put on the large pot, and boil stew for the sons of the prophets.”
39 So one went out into the field to gather herbs, and found a wild vine, and gathered from it a lapful of wild gourds, and came and sliced them into the pot of stew, though they did not know what they were.
40 Then they served it to the men to eat. Now it happened, as they were eating the stew, that they cried out and said, “Man of God, there is death in the pot!” And they could not eat it.
41 So he said, “Then bring some flour.” And he put it into the pot, and said, “Serve it to the people, that they may eat.” And there was nothing harmful in the pot.
While well-meaning, there is danger in eating unknown vegetable matter, in this case wild gourds. Much like poisonous mushrooms which may look edible but are deadly, if you’re not certain, don’t eat them or ask the Lord about them first.
In some cases, the fruit may be good but the plant is deadly, as in tomatoes. The tomato fruit is harmless but the plant itself is poisonous. The same with rhubarb, where the stalks are edible but the leaves are poisonous.
Sometimes poisonous plants have a taste that gives warnings of toxins. I once had a friend make a rhubarb pie and as soon as I tasted it my entire mouth immediately went numb. I immediately stopped eating it and later found that numbness of the mouth was a symptom of oxalic acid poisoning from rhubarb leaves. She may have accidentally had a small amount of leaf matter included when she made the pie.
2 KINGS 4:42-44
42 Then a man came from Baal Shalisha, and brought the man of God bread of the firstfruits, twenty loaves of barley bread, and newly ripened grain in his knapsack. And he said, “Give it to the people, that they may eat.”
43 But his servant said, “What? Shall I set this before one hundred men?” He said again, “Give it to the people, that they may eat; for thus says the Lord: ‘They shall eat and have some left over.’ ”
44 So he set it before them; and they ate and had some left over, according to the word of the Lord.
Creating substance from nothing is a light thing to the Lord. After all, He created the entire Universe from nothing, so multiplying food is no problem for Him. He fed over a million people of Israel with manna when they wandered in the desert for 40 years, and Jesus fed 4,000 people one time and 5,000 people another time from a few loaves and fish. And like Elisha above, there was food left over after the multitudes had eaten.
2 KINGS 5:1-5
1 Now Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Syria, was a great and honorable man in the eyes of his master, because by him the Lord had given victory to Syria. He was also a mighty man of valor, but a leper.
2 And the Syrians had gone out on raids, and had brought back captive a young girl from the land of Israel. She waited on Naaman’s wife.
3 Then she said to her mistress, “If only my master were with the prophet who is in Samaria! For he would heal him of his leprosy.”
4 And Naaman went in and told his master, saying, “Thus and thus said the girl who is from the land of Israel.”
5 Then the king of Syria said, “Go now, and I will send a letter to the king of Israel. So he departed and took with him ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold, and ten changes of clothing.
Leprosy still exists today and is prevalent in poor and overcrowded areas where poor sanitation is practiced. It is caused by bacteria and though contagious, is hard to spread to others. Leprosy is a degenerative nerve disease which can cause swelling, lesions, numbness and white discoloration of skin and tissues.
The result can be open sores allowing infections to set in and lepers must frequently check themselves as they can suffer injuries without feeling them due to destroyed nerves. While curable today, in Biblical times those afflicted with leprosy were forced to live in ‘leper colonies’ and were to shout ‘Unclean!’ before them to warn others to avoid contact with them. In the Old Testament God set down strict rules concerning the conduct of lepers. (Leviticus chapter 13)
Naaman must have been highly regarded and a mighty warrior indeed to be placed by the king of Syria as the commander of his armies despite his condition!! And the respect of the king is also shown in the gifts he sent with Naaman to be given to Elisha!
6,000 gold shekels at ancient gold prices would be roughly about 3 million dollars at today’s prices; 10 talents of silver would be roughly 107,600 dollars at today’s prices. And as clothing was hand-spun, hand-woven and hand-dyed in ancient times, clothing was quite expensive and could be sold for high prices or bartered for goods, adding to the total value.
While it was customary to bring a gift to a prophet for their services, usually it consisted of food or a small amount of money to support the prophet, but the gifts that Naaman brought would have made Elisha an extremely rich man.
The king of Syria also sent a personal letter of recommendation to the king of Israel to support Naaman’s mission and request his help with the matter.
2 KINGS 5:6-14
6 Then he brought the letter to the king of Israel, which said, ‘Now be advised, when this letter comes to you, that I have sent Naaman my servant to you, that you may heal him of his leprosy.’
7 And it happened, when the king of Israel read the letter, that he tore his clothes and said, “Am I God, to kill and make alive, that this man sends a man to me to heal him of his leprosy? Therefore please consider, and see how he seeks a quarrel with me.”
8 So it was, when Elisha the man of God heard that the king of Israel had torn his clothes, that he sent to the king, saying, “Why have you torn your clothes? Please let him come to me, and he shall know that there is a prophet in Israel.”
9 Then Naaman went with his horses and chariot, and he stood at the door of Elisha’s house.
10 And Elisha sent a messenger to him, saying, “Go and wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored to you, and you shall be clean.”
11 But Naaman became furious, and went away and said, “Indeed, I said to myself, ‘He will surely come out to me, and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, and wave his hand over the place, and heal the leprosy.’
12 Are not the Abanah and the Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them and be clean?” So he turned and went away in a rage.
13 And his servants came near and spoke to him, and said, “My father, if the prophet had told you to do something great, would you not have done it? How much more then, when he says to you, ‘Wash, and be clean’?”
14 So he went down and dipped seven times in the Jordan, according to the saying of the man of God; and his flesh was restored like the flesh of a little child, and he was clean.
For some reason the king of Syria thought that the king of Israel could heal Naaman, which could explain the magnitude of the gifts sent with Naaman, gifts from one king to another.
Naaman was furious with Elisha because for one thing, Elisha didn’t come out of his house to heal him, neither did he do as Naaman anticipated he would. Instead Naaman felt that Elisha had mocked him and was furious at having traveled all that distance with high expectations only to be made a fool of by Elisha.
His more level-headed servants convinced him to try it anyway, as after all, the worst that could happen was that he would still be a leper. And as Scripture shows, God delights in using the most unusual ways to perform His miracles!
2 KINGS 5:15-19
15 And he returned to the man of God, he and all his aides, and came and stood before him; and he said, “Indeed, now I know that there is no God in all the earth, except in Israel; now therefore, please take a gift from your servant.”
16 But he said, “As the Lord lives, before whom I stand, I will receive nothing.” And he urged him to take it, but he refused.
17 So Naaman said, “Then, if not, please let your servant be given two mule-loads of earth; for your servant will no longer offer either burnt offering or sacrifice to other gods, but to the Lord.
18 Yet in this thing may the Lord pardon your servant: when my master goes into the temple of Rimmon to worship there, and he leans on my hand, and I bow down in the temple of Rimmon—when I bow down in the temple of Rimmon, may the Lord please pardon your servant in this thing.”
19 Then he said to him, “Go in peace.” So he departed from him a short distance.
Naaman came back a changed man in more than just his body, his spirit was changed also. He requested earth from Israel for an altar to God, for God had said to Moses;
EXODUS 20:24-25
24 An altar of earth you shall make for Me, and you shall sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and your peace offerings, your sheep and your oxen. In every place where I record My name I will come to you, and I will bless you.
25 And if you make Me an altar of stone, you shall not build it of hewn stone; for if you use your tool on it, you have profaned it.
By the description, the king of Syria was old and needed support from Naaman when worshiping in his god’s temple. It put Naaman in a quandary as he wanted to continue his allegiance to his
king but that would require him to accompany the king into the pagan temple, pretending to worship the demon god Rimmon.
The Lord and Elisha understood and told him not to worry, as God knew his heart.
2 KINGS 5:20-27
20 But Gehazi, the servant of Elisha the man of God, said, “Look, my master has spared Naaman this Syrian, while not receiving from his hands what he brought; but as the Lord lives, I will run after him and take something from him.”
21 So Gehazi pursued Naaman. When Naaman saw him running after him, he got down from the chariot to meet him, and said, “Is all well?”
22 And he said, “All is well. My master has sent me, saying, ‘Indeed, just now two young men of the sons of the prophets have come to me from the mountains of Ephraim. Please give them a talent of silver and two changes of garments.’ ”
23 So Naaman said, “Please, take two talents.” And he urged him, and bound two talents of silver in two bags, with two changes of garments, and handed them to two of his servants; and they carried them on ahead of him.
24 When he came to the citadel, he took them from their hand, and stored them away in the house; then he let the men go, and they departed.
25 Now he went in and stood before his master. Elisha said to him, “Where did you go, Gehazi?” And he said, “Your servant did not go anywhere.”
26 Then he said to him, “Did not my heart go with you when the man turned back from his chariot to meet you? Is it time to receive money and to receive clothing, olive groves and vineyards, sheep and oxen, male and female servants?
27 Therefore the leprosy of Naaman shall cling to you and your descendants forever.” And he went out from his presence leprous, as white as snow.
Here we see the true nature of Gehazi. He figured that Naaman was so overjoyed at being healed that he would gladly part with some of the gifts that he had brought. His sin of greed was bad enough, but then he lied to Elisha as to what he had done.
As a result, God punished him and his descendants with Naaman’s leprosy, and even if he kept the silver and clothing it would do him no good as he would be an unclean outcast the rest of his life.
2 KINGS 6:1-7
1 And the sons of the prophets said to Elisha, “See now, the place where we dwell with you is too small for us.
2 Please, let us go to the Jordan, and let every man take a beam from there, and let us make there a place where we may dwell.” So he answered, “Go.”
3 Then one said, “Please consent to go with your servants.” And he answered, “I will go.”
4 So he went with them. And when they came to the Jordan, they cut down trees.
5 But as one was cutting down a tree, the iron ax head fell into the water; and he cried out and said, “Alas, master! For it was borrowed.”
6 So the man of God said, “Where did it fall?” And he showed him the place. So he cut off a stick, and threw it in there; and he made the iron float.
7 Therefore he said, “Pick it up for yourself.” So he reached out his hand and took it.
This may seem inconsequential but during ancient times iron was difficult to refine and iron implements were expensive. Therefore a lost axe head put the borrower in a dilemma as he would need to replace it.
The stick could reasonably be thought to have stuck itself in the hole of the axe head where the handle had been. However Scripture seems to indicate that God caused the heavy iron head to float, a miracle in itself.
2 KINGS 6:8-17
8 Now the king of Syria was making war against Israel; and he consulted with his servants, saying, “My camp will be in such and such a place.”
9 And the man of God sent to the king of Israel, saying, “Beware that you do not pass this place, for the Syrians are coming down there.”
10 Then the king of Israel sent someone to the place of which the man of God had told him. Thus he warned him, and he was watchful there, not just once or twice.
11 Therefore the heart of the king of Syria was greatly troubled by this thing; and he called his servants and said to them, “Will you not show me which of us is for the king of Israel?”
12 And one of his servants said, “None, my lord, O king; but Elisha, the prophet who is in Israel, tells the king of Israel the words that you speak in your bedroom.”
13 So he said, “Go and see where he is, that I may send and get him.” And it was told him, saying, “Surely he is in Dothan.”
14 Therefore he sent horses and chariots and a great army there, and they came by night and surrounded the city.
15 And when the servant of the man of God arose early and went out, there was an army, surrounding the city with horses and chariots. And his servant said to him, “Alas, my master! What shall we do?”
16 So he answered, “Do not fear, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.”
17 And Elisha prayed, and said, “Lord, I pray, open his eyes that he may see.” Then the Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw. And behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.
King David alluded to God’s army when he said;
PSALMS 68:17
17 The chariots of God are twenty thousand, even thousands of angels: the Lord is among them, as in Sinai, in the holy place.
One can understand the frustration of the king of Syria (more than likely Ben-Hadad I (880 - 842 B.C.); he kept laying ambushes for Israel but the king of Israel avoided them all. Therefore the king of Syria logically suspected a spy in his court who gave Israel information as to Syria’s battle plans.
I find it odd that even though there was evidence of God being real in Israel, the Syrians still worshiped their pagan gods instead of seeking the Lord.
2 KINGS 6:18-23
18 So when the Syrians came down to him, Elisha prayed to the Lord, and said, “Strike this people, I pray, with blindness.” And He struck them with blindness according to the word of Elisha.
19 Now Elisha said to them, “This is not the way, nor is this the city. Follow me, and I will bring you to the man whom you seek.” But he led them to Samaria.
20 So it was, when they had come to Samaria, that Elisha said, “Lord, open the eyes of these men, that they may see.” And the Lord opened their eyes, and they saw; and there they were, inside Samaria!
21 Now when the king of Israel saw them, he said to Elisha, “My father, shall I kill them? Shall I kill them?”
22 But he answered, “You shall not kill them. Would you kill those whom you have taken captive with your sword and your bow? Set food and water before them, that they may eat and drink and go to their master.”
23 Then he prepared a great feast for them; and after they ate and drank, he sent them away and they went to their master. So the bands of Syrian raiders came no more into the land of Israel.
This is interesting that even though struck blind, the Syrians obediently followed Elisha into Samaria. One can only imagine the shock and horror of the Syrians when they realized where they were!! Elisha was wise in not allowing the king of Israel to slaughter them, for the Syrians were essentially helpless and if they were slaughtered it would result in total war with Syria and its allies. And by showing them mercy, it stopped the Syrians from sending raiders into Israel.
2 KINGS 6:24-25
24 And it happened after this that Ben-Hadad king of Syria gathered all his army, and went up and besieged Samaria.
25 And there was a great famine in Samaria; and indeed they besieged it until a donkey’s head was sold for eighty shekels of silver, and one-fourth of a kab of dove droppings for five shekels of silver.
It is difficult to estimate the value of a silver shekel as the value was determined by weight and purity of silver content of the coins. Estimates vary from 5 dollars to 80 dollars apiece.
A favored practice in besieging a city is to cut off all outside access to food and water, forcing the surrender of the city due to hunger and thirst.
Taking the lower amount, buying a donkey’s head for food would have cost about 400 dollars! And 2 cups of dove dung (used as cooking fuel) was 25 dollars.
2 KINGS 6:26-33
26 Then, as the king of Israel was passing by on the wall, a woman cried out to him, saying, “Help, my lord, O king!”
27 And he said, “If the Lord does not help you, where can I find help for you? From the threshing floor or from the winepress?”
28 Then the king said to her, “What is troubling you?” And she answered, “This woman said to me, ‘Give your son, that we may eat him today, and we will eat my son tomorrow.’
29 So we boiled my son, and ate him. And I said to her on the next day, ‘Give your son, that we may eat him’; but she has hidden her son.”
30 Now it happened, when the king heard the words of the woman, that he tore his clothes; and as he passed by on the wall, the people looked, and there underneath he had sackcloth on his body.
31 Then he said, “God do so to me and more also, if the head of Elisha the son of Shaphat remains on him today!”
32 But Elisha was sitting in his house, and the elders were sitting with him. And the king sent a man ahead of him, but before the messenger came to him, he said to the elders, “Do you see how this son of a murderer has sent someone to take away my head? Look, when the messenger comes, shut the door, and hold him fast at the door. Is not the sound of his master’s feet behind him?”
33 And while he was still talking with them, there was the messenger, coming down to him; and then the king said, “Surely this calamity is from the Lord; why should I wait for the Lord any longer?”
Moses had prophesied concerning cannibalism due to famines caused by sieges as God’s punishment for Israel’s sins when he said;
DEUTERONOMY 28:52-53
52 “They shall besiege you at all your gates until your high and fortified walls, in which you trust, come down throughout all your land; and they shall besiege you at all your gates throughout all your land which the Lord your God has given you.
53 You shall eat the fruit of your own body, the flesh of your sons and your daughters whom the Lord your God has given you, in the siege and desperate straits in which your enemy shall distress you.
Scripture records that this horrifying punishment happened to both Israel and Judah during their history.
The “son of a murderer” Elisha spoke of was king Jehoram, son of murderous king Ahab and Jezebel. Why king Jehoram blamed Elisha for the siege is a mystery, unless he thought that Elisha had prayed for this to happen.
2 KINGS 7:1-2
1 Then Elisha said, “Hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord: ‘Tomorrow about this time a seah of fine flour shall be sold for a shekel, and two seahs of barley for a shekel, at the gate of Samaria.’ ”
2 So an officer on whose hand the king leaned answered the man of God and said, “Look, if the Lord would make windows in heaven, could this thing be?” And he said, “In fact, you shall see it with your eyes, but you shall not eat of it.”
The fact that the king leaned on an officer shows that by then he was an old man, approaching the end of his reign (842 B.C.)
A ‘seah’ constitutes about 9 quarts (8.5 liters) of flour. Taking the previous estimate of the shekel value of a silver shekel being 5 dollars, 9 quarts of finely-ground flour would have sold for 5 dollars and 18 quarts of barley for 5 dollars.
2 KINGS 7:3-20
3 Now there were four leprous men at the entrance of the gate; and they said to one another, “Why are we sitting here until we die?
4 If we say, ‘We will enter the city,’ the famine is in the city, and we shall die there. And if we sit here, we die also. Now therefore, come, let us surrender to the army of the Syrians. If they keep us alive, we shall live; and if they kill us, we shall only die.”
5 And they rose at twilight to go to the camp of the Syrians; and when they had come to the outskirts of the Syrian camp, to their surprise no one was there.
6 For the Lord had caused the army of the Syrians to hear the noise of chariots and the noise of horses—the noise of a great army; so they said to one another, “Look, the king of Israel has hired against us the kings of the Hittites and the kings of the Egyptians to attack us!”
7 Therefore they arose and fled at twilight, and left the camp intact—their tents, their horses, and their donkeys—and they fled for their lives.
8 And when these lepers came to the outskirts of the camp, they went into one tent and ate and drank, and carried from it silver and gold and clothing, and went and hid them; then they came back and entered another tent, and carried some from there also, and went and hid it.
9 Then they said to one another, “We are not doing right. This day is a day of good news, and we remain silent. If we wait until morning light, some punishment will come upon us. Now therefore, come, let us go and tell the king’s household.”
10 So they went and called to the gatekeepers of the city, and told them, saying, “We went to the Syrian camp, and surprisingly no one was there, not a human sound—only horses and donkeys tied, and the tents intact.”
11 And the gatekeepers called out, and they told it to the king’s household inside.
12 So the king arose in the night and said to his servants, “Let me now tell you what the Syrians have done to us. They know that we are hungry; therefore they have gone out of the camp to hide themselves in the field, saying, ‘When they come out of the city, we shall catch them alive, and get into the city.’ ”
13 And one of his servants answered and said, “Please, let several men take five of the remaining horses which are left in the city. Look, they may either become like all the multitude of Israel that are left in it; or indeed, I say, they may become like all the multitude of Israel left from those who are consumed; so let us send them and see.”
14 Therefore they took two chariots with horses; and the king sent them in the direction of the Syrian army, saying, “Go and see.”
15 And they went after them to the Jordan; and indeed all the road was full of garments and weapons which the Syrians had thrown away in their haste. So the messengers returned and told the king.
16 Then the people went out and plundered the tents of the Syrians. So a seah of fine flour was sold for a shekel, and two seahs of barley for a shekel, according to the word of the Lord.
17 Now the king had appointed the officer on whose hand he leaned to have charge of the gate. But the people trampled him in the gate, and he died, just as the man of God had said, who spoke when the king came down to him.
18 So it happened just as the man of God had spoken to the king, saying, “Two seahs of barley for a shekel, and a seah of fine flour for a shekel, shall be sold tomorrow about this time in the gate of Samaria.”
19 Then that officer had answered the man of God, and said, “Now look, if the Lord would make windows in heaven, could such a thing be?” And he had said, “In fact, you shall see it with your eyes, but you shall not eat of it.”
20 And so it happened to him, for the people trampled him in the gate, and he died.
One cannot mock God and expect to get away with it, as the king’s officer learned.
It is somewhat surprising that Jehoram didn’t believe Elisha’s prophecy concerning the lifting of the siege, but thought that the Syrians had set a trap.
2 KINGS 8:1-6
1 Then Elisha spoke to the woman whose son he had restored to life, saying, “Arise and go, you and your household, and stay wherever you can; for the Lord has called for a famine, and furthermore, it will come upon the land for seven years.”
2 So the woman arose and did according to the saying of the man of God, and she went with her household and dwelt in the land of the Philistines seven years.
3 It came to pass, at the end of seven years, that the woman returned from the land of the Philistines; and she went to make an appeal to the king for her house and for her land.
4 Then the king talked with Gehazi, the servant of the man of God, saying, “Tell me, please, all the great things Elisha has done.”
5 Now it happened, as he was telling the king how he had restored the dead to life, that there was the woman whose son he had restored to life, appealing to the king for her house and for her land. And Gehazi said, “My lord, O king, this is the woman, and this is her son whom Elisha restored to life.”
6 And when the king asked the woman, she told him. So the king appointed a certain officer for her, saying, “Restore all that was hers, and all the proceeds of the field from the day that she left the land until now.”
Why the Lord struck the land with famine is unknown and Scripture gives no indication as to the cause. Jehoram restoring the woman’s land and goods was an extraordinary kindness on the king’s part and may have been done out of respect for Elisha.
2 KINGS 8:7-15
7 Then Elisha went to Damascus, and Ben-Hadad king of Syria was sick; and it was told him, saying, “The man of God has come here.”
8 And the king said to Hazael, “Take a present in your hand, and go to meet the man of God, and inquire of the Lord by him, saying, ‘Shall I recover from this disease?’ ”
9 So Hazael went to meet him and took a present with him, of every good thing of Damascus, forty camel-loads; and he came and stood before him, and said, “Your son Ben-Hadad king of Syria has sent me to you, saying, ‘Shall I recover from this disease?’ ”
10 And Elisha said to him, “Go, say to him, ‘You shall certainly recover.’ However the Lord has shown me that he will really die.”
11 Then he set his countenance in a stare until he was ashamed; and the man of God wept.
12 And Hazael said, “Why is my lord weeping?” He answered, “Because I know the evil that you will do to the children of Israel: Their strongholds you will set on fire, and their young men you will kill with the sword; and you will dash their children, and rip open their women with child.”
13 So Hazael said, “But what is your servant—a dog, that he should do this gross thing?” And Elisha answered, “The Lord has shown me that you will become king over Syria.”
14 Then he departed from Elisha, and came to his master, who said to him, “What did Elisha say to you?” And he answered, “He told me you would surely recover.”
15 But it happened on the next day that he took a thick cloth and dipped it in water, and spread it over his face so that he died; and Hazael reigned in his place.
In 1 Kings (Chapter 19) God had told Elijah (not Elisha) to anoint Hazael as king over Syria,which he did. And now years later, the prophecy is about to be fulfilled.
At first glance it seems that there is a contradiction in Elisha’s prophecy to Hazael concerning king Ben-Hadad II, concerning the king’s request as to whether he would recover from his disease or not. Elisha tells Hazael that the king would recover, but would die anyway.
Elisha also knew the terror and abominations that Hazael would commit against Israel after he became king. Terror methods used by Assyrians, Babylonians, Syrians and the like included grabbing infants and children by their feet and violently swinging them so that they bashed their victims’ skulls against rocks and buildings, and ripping open the stomachs of pregnant women, killing both the mothers and their unborn children.
The king apparently recovered from his disease while Hazael was gone but Hazael then suffocated the king with a water-soaked cloth and seized the throne for himself, as Elisha had predicted.
2 KINGS 8:16-24
16 Now in the fifth year of Joram the son of Ahab, king of Israel, Jehoshaphat having been king of Judah, Jehoram the son of Jehoshaphat began to reign as king of Judah.
17 He was thirty-two years old when he became king, and he reigned eight years in Jerusalem.
18 And he walked in the way of the kings of Israel, just as the house of Ahab had done, for the daughter of Ahab was his wife; and he did evil in the sight of the Lord.
19 Yet the Lord would not destroy Judah, for the sake of His servant David, as He promised him to give a lamp to him and his sons forever.
20 In his days Edom revolted against Judah’s authority, and made a king over themselves.
21 So Joram went to Zair, and all his chariots with him. Then he rose by night and attacked the Edomites who had surrounded him and the captains of the chariots; and the troops fled to their tents.
22 Thus Edom has been in revolt against Judah’s authority to this day. And Libnah revolted at that time.
23 Now the rest of the acts of Joram, and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah?
24 So Joram rested with his fathers, and was buried with his fathers in the City of David. Then Ahaziah his son reigned in his place.
This can become confusing in several ways as the name ‘Jehoram’ and ‘Joram’ are used interchangeably. There were also two Jehorams reigning at the same time, one in Israel and one in Judah.
The sins of the house of Ahab poisoned Judah also, as Jehoram of Judah married a woman named Athaliah, daughter of king Ahab of Israel. During Jehoram’s short reign (849-842 B.C.) the nation of Edom to the south of Judah and a southern city named Libnah revolted against Judah.
Jehoram marched against the Edomites but lost the battle and the Edomites retained their sovereignty and independence. And in 842 B.C. Jehoram’s son Ahaziah took the throne after his father’s death.
2 KINGS 8:25-29
25 In the twelfth year of Joram the son of Ahab, king of Israel, Ahaziah the son of Jehoram, king of Judah, began to reign.
26 Ahaziah was twenty-two years old when he became king, and he reigned one year in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Athaliah the granddaughter of Omri, king of Israel.
27 And he walked in the way of the house of Ahab, and did evil in the sight of the Lord, like the house of Ahab, for he was the son-in-law of the house of Ahab.
28 Now he went with Joram the son of Ahab to war against Hazael king of Syria at Ramoth Gilead; and the Syrians wounded Joram.
29 Then King Joram went back to Jezreel to recover from the wounds which the Syrians had inflicted on him at Ramah, when he fought against Hazael king of Syria. And Ahaziah the son of Jehoram, king of Judah, went down to see Joram the son of Ahab in Jezreel, because he was sick.
Ahaziah was the son of queen Athaliah, granddaughter of despicable king Omri of Israel and daughter of king Ahab and queen Jezebel. She more than likely greatly influenced her son’s wicked behavior, resulting in his death after ruling only one year.
Both Ahaziah of Judah and Joram of Israel had allied themselves and fought against Hazael, king of Syria. Jehoram of Israel had been wounded and had retreated to Jezreel to recover.
2 KINGS 9:1-13
1 And Elisha the prophet called one of the sons of the prophets, and said to him, “Get yourself ready, take this flask of oil in your hand, and go to Ramoth Gilead.
2 Now when you arrive at that place, look there for Jehu the son of Jehoshaphat, the son of Nimshi, and go in and make him rise up from among his associates, and take him to an inner room.
3 Then take the flask of oil, and pour it on his head, and say, ‘Thus says the Lord: “I have anointed you king over Israel.” ’ Then open the door and flee, and do not delay.”
4 So the young man, the servant of the prophet, went to Ramoth Gilead.
5 And when he arrived, there were the captains of the army sitting; and he said, “I have a message for you, Commander.” Jehu said, “For which one of us?” And he said, “For you, Commander.”
6 Then he arose and went into the house. And he poured the oil on his head, and said to him, “Thus says the Lord God of Israel: ‘I have anointed you king over the people of the Lord, over Israel.
7 You shall strike down the house of Ahab your master, that I may avenge the blood of My servants the prophets, and the blood of all the servants of the Lord, at the hand of Jezebel.
8 For the whole house of Ahab shall perish; and I will cut off from Ahab all the males in Israel, both bond and free.
9 So I will make the house of Ahab like the house of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, and like the house of Baasha the son of Ahijah.
10 The dogs shall eat Jezebel on the plot of ground at Jezreel, and there shall be none to bury her.’ ” And he opened the door and fled.
11 Then Jehu came out to the servants of his master, and one said to him, “Is all well? Why did this madman come to you?” And he said to them, “You know the man and his babble.”
12 And they said, “A lie! Tell us now.” So he said, “Thus and thus he spoke to me, saying, ‘Thus says the Lord: “I have anointed you king over Israel.” ’ ”
13 Then each man hastened to take his garment and put it under him on the top of the steps; and they blew trumpets, saying, “Jehu is king!”
In ancient Israel, pouring oil on the head of a prospective king was a sign that the Spirit of the Lord rested on them, much like when Aaron was anointed by Moses as High Priest of Israel;
LEVITICUS 8:12
12 And he poured some of the anointing oil on Aaron’s head and anointed him, to consecrate him.
In like fashion, the prophet Samuel anointed David as king over Israel;
1 SAMUEL 16:13
13 Then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the midst of his brothers; and the Spirit of the Lord came upon David from that day forward. So Samuel arose and went to Ramah.
God was going to use Jehu to destroy the house of Ahab entirely, destroying all males of Ahab’s lineage as well as all of his male servants. He would also put an end to the wicked queen Jezebel for her murders of the Lord’s prophets and reiterated the prophecy that dogs would eat the corpse of Jezebel.
Jehu played it smart when he spoke of the prophet being a babbler. If the servants of Ahab took offense at the prophet’s words, Jehu would not be accused of treason as he could claim that the prophet was a madman, thus protecting himself.
However the servants knew better than that, believing that the prophet spoke the truth. They then declared Jehu as king, guaranteeing their support for the coup.
2 KINGS 9:14-16
14 So Jehu the son of Jehoshaphat, the son of Nimshi, conspired against Joram. (Now Joram had been defending Ramoth Gilead, he and all Israel, against Hazael king of Syria.
15 But King Joram had returned to Jezreel to recover from the wounds which the Syrians had inflicted on him when he fought with Hazael king of Syria.) And Jehu said, “If you are so minded, let no one leave or escape from the city to go and tell it in Jezreel.”
16 So Jehu rode in a chariot and went to Jezreel, for Joram was laid up there; and Ahaziah king of Judah had come down to see Joram.
Jehu had planned a lightning coup against king Jehoram of Israel and didn’t want anyone in Jezreel to know his selection as king by the prophet. Therefore he went to Jezreel alone to accomplish his goal.
Scripture is meticulous in detail; Jerusalem sat on a high mountain whereas Samaria was located in the northern lowlands, therefore king Ahaziah of Judah would have had to literally “go down” to visit king Jehoram.
2 KINGS 9:17-22
17 Now a watchman stood on the tower in Jezreel, and he saw the company of Jehu as he came, and said, “I see a company of men.” And Joram said, “Get a horseman and send him to meet them, and let him say, ‘Is it peace?’ ”
18 So the horseman went to meet him, and said, “Thus says the king: ‘Is it peace?’ ” And Jehu said, “What have you to do with peace? Turn around and follow me.” So the watchman reported, saying, “The messenger went to them, but is not coming back.”
19 Then he sent out a second horseman who came to them, and said, “Thus says the king: ‘Is it peace?’ ” And Jehu answered, “What have you to do with peace? Turn around and follow me.”
20 So the watchman reported, saying, “He went up to them and is not coming back; and the driving is like the driving of Jehu the son of Nimshi, for he drives furiously!”
21 Then Joram said, “Make ready.” And his chariot was made ready. Then Joram king of Israel and Ahaziah king of Judah went out, each in his chariot; and they went out to meet Jehu, and met him on the property of Naboth the Jezreelite.
22 Now it happened, when Joram saw Jehu, that he said, “Is it peace, Jehu?” So he answered, “What peace, as long as the harlotries of your mother Jezebel and her witchcrafts are so many?”
King Joram was anxious about news from the battlefront and seeing a chariot coming, he sent two messengers to receive the news of the battle. However Jehu told the messengers that they had nothing to do with his errand, and ordered them to follow behind him.
Jehu was apparently known as a “hot-head” as shown by his furious driving habits. Jehoram wrongly figured that Jehu wanted to deliver his news personally and went out to meet him.
2 KINGS 9:23-26
23 Then Joram turned around and fled, and said to Ahaziah, “Treachery, Ahaziah!”
24 Now Jehu drew his bow with full strength and shot Jehoram between his arms; and the arrow came out at his heart, and he sank down in his chariot.
25 Then Jehu said to Bidkar his captain, “Pick him up, and throw him into the tract of the field of Naboth the Jezreelite; for remember, when you and I were riding together behind Ahab his father, that the Lord laid this burden upon him:
26 ‘Surely I saw yesterday the blood of Naboth and the blood of his sons,’ says the Lord, ‘and I will repay you in this plot,’ says the Lord. Now therefore, take and throw him on the plot of ground, according to the word of the Lord.”
Jehu begins the prophesied destruction of the house of Ahab, first by killing Jehoram, the son of Ahab in the plot of land belonging to Naboth whom Jezebel had murdered so that Ahab could seize his property.
2 KINGS 9:27-29
27 But when Ahaziah king of Judah saw this, he fled by the road to Beth Haggan. So Jehu pursued him, and said, “Shoot him also in the chariot.” And they shot him at the Ascent of Gur, which is by Ibleam. Then he fled to Megiddo, and died there.
28 And his servants carried him in the chariot to Jerusalem, and buried him in his tomb with his fathers in the City of David.
29 In the eleventh year of Joram the son of Ahab, Ahaziah had become king over Judah.
Ahaziah was the grandson of Ahab, therefore was killed as part of the destruction of Ahab’s household. He died in 841 B.C., having ruled Judah for 1 year.
2 KINGS 9:30-37
30 Now when Jehu had come to Jezreel, Jezebel heard of it; and she put paint on her eyes and adorned her head, and looked through a window.
31 Then, as Jehu entered at the gate, she said, “Is it peace, Zimri, murderer of your master?”
32 And he looked up at the window, and said, “Who is on my side? Who?” So two or three eunuchs looked out at him.
33 Then he said, “Throw her down.” So they threw her down, and some of her blood spattered on the wall and on the horses; and he trampled her underfoot.
34 And when he had gone in, he ate and drank. Then he said, “Go now, see to this accursed woman, and bury her, for she was a king’s daughter.”
35 So they went to bury her, but they found no more of her than the skull and the feet and the palms of her hands.
36 Therefore they came back and told him. And he said, “This is the word of the Lord, which He spoke by His servant Elijah the Tishbite, saying, ‘On the plot of ground at Jezreel dogs shall eat the flesh of Jezebel;
37 and the corpse of Jezebel shall be as refuse on the surface of the field, in the plot at Jezreel, so that they shall not say, “Here lies Jezebel.” ’ ”
Jezebel knew that her time had come, so she put on her makeup, becoming the symbol of the “painted woman”, a derogatory term used for prostitutes. She sarcastically compared Jehu with Zimri the army commander who had murdered king Elah of Israel some 43 years earlier and who had reigned for 1 week before being overthrown and killed.
Stung by her remarks, Jehu ordered her thrown out of the window and she fell several stories into the street, the impact spattering her blood everywhere. Jehu had his horses trample her as he ran over her, ensuring that she was dead.
Later when he ordered her buried, stray dogs had eaten most of her in fulfillment of Elijah’s prophecy that dogs would consume her in Jezreel. Being consumed by dogs was an abomination as only unclean animals could be consumed by dogs;
EXODUS 22:31
31 “And you shall be holy men to Me: you shall not eat meat torn by beasts in the field; you shall throw it to the dogs.
2 KINGS 10:1-8
1 Now Ahab had seventy sons in Samaria. And Jehu wrote and sent letters to Samaria, to the rulers of Jezreel, to the elders, and to those who reared Ahab’s sons, saying:
2 Now as soon as this letter comes to you, since your master’s sons are with you, and you have chariots and horses, a fortified city also, and weapons,
3 choose the best qualified of your master’s sons, set him on his father’s throne, and fight for your master’s house.
4 But they were exceedingly afraid, and said, “Look, two kings could not stand up to him; how then can we stand?”
5 And he who was in charge of the house, and he who was in charge of the city, the elders also, and those who reared the sons, sent to Jehu, saying, “We are your servants, we will do all you tell us; but we will not make anyone king. Do what is good in your sight.”
6 Then he wrote a second letter to them, saying: “If you are for me and will obey my voice, take the heads of the men, your master’s sons, and come to me at Jezreel by this time tomorrow. Now the king’s sons, seventy persons, were with the great men of the city, who were rearing them.
7 So it was, when the letter came to them, that they took the king’s sons and slaughtered seventy persons, put their heads in baskets and sent them to him at Jezreel.
8 Then a messenger came and told him, saying, “They have brought the heads of the king’s sons.” And he said, “Lay them in two heaps at the entrance of the gate until morning.”
Jehu poses an interesting loyalty test to the keepers of Ahab’s sons; either make one of them king and fight, or submit to his authority. The fact that Ahab had 70 sons shows that he had a number of concubines, a common practice among royalty at that time.
Concubines were wives in every way but would not inherit anything in the case of divorce or death of their husband, neither were they considered royalty themselves. They had a lesser status than an actual wife and such arrangements were usually to provide economic security to the woman. In modern society they are known as “mistresses”.
2 KINGS 10:9-11
9 So it was, in the morning, that he went out and stood, and said to all the people, “You are righteous. Indeed I conspired against my master and killed him; but who killed all these?
10 Know now that nothing shall fall to the earth of the word of the Lord which the Lord spoke concerning the house of Ahab; for the Lord has done what He spoke by His servant Elijah.”
11 So Jehu killed all who remained of the house of Ahab in Jezreel, and all his great men and his close acquaintances and his priests, until he left him none remaining.
Jehu lays his case before the people of Jezreel, freely admitting that he had killed king Jehoram, but also showed that he had not killed the king’s sons but that they were killed by others who supported him.
Jehu explains that the Lord had decreed this event through the prophet Elijah and that His word would be obeyed. He then destroyed the rest of Ahab’s household including his friends, councilors, servants and pagan priests of Ba’al as the Lord had spoken to Jehu through the prophet;
2 KINGS 9:6-8
6 Then he arose and went into the house. And he poured the oil on his head, and said to him, “Thus says the Lord God of Israel: ‘I have anointed you king over the people of the Lord, over Israel.
7 You shall strike down the house of Ahab your master, that I may avenge the blood of My servants the prophets, and the blood of all the servants of the Lord, at the hand of Jezebel.
8 For the whole house of Ahab shall perish; and I will cut off from Ahab all the males in Israel, both bond and free.
2 KINGS 10:12-17
12 And he arose and departed and went to Samaria. On the way, at Beth Eked of the Shepherds,
13 Jehu met with the brothers of Ahaziah king of Judah, and said, “Who are you?” So they answered, “We are the brothers of Ahaziah; we have come down to greet the sons of the king and the sons of the queen mother.”
14 And he said, “Take them alive!” So they took them alive, and killed them at the well of Beth Eked, forty-two men; and he left none of them.
15 Now when he departed from there, he met Jehonadab the son of Rechab, coming to meet him; and he greeted him and said to him, “Is your heart right, as my heart is toward your heart?” And Jehonadab answered, “It is.” Jehu said, “If it is, give me your hand.” So he gave him his hand, and he took him up to him into the chariot.
16 Then he said, “Come with me, and see my zeal for the Lord.” So they had him ride in his chariot.
17 And when he came to Samaria, he killed all who remained to Ahab in Samaria, till he had destroyed them, according to the word of the Lord which He spoke to Elijah.
Ahaziah was the son of king Jehoram, making Ahab his grandfather. Therefore Jehu killed the brothers of Ahaziah in accordance to God’s commandment.
This Jehonadab (Jonadab), the son of Rechab is also spoken of in the book of the prophet Jeremiah whose descendants God commended for their obedience to the commands of Rechab, the head of their household.
Rechab had commanded that his descendants drink no wine all of their days, and they had obeyed his command. God had said to Jeremiah;
JEREMIAH 35:18-19
18 And Jeremiah said to the house of the Rechabites, “Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: ‘Because you have obeyed the commandment of Jonadab your father, and kept all his precepts and done according to all that he commanded you,
19 therefore thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: “Jonadab the son of Rechab shall not lack a man to stand before Me forever.” ’ ”
2 KINGS 10:18-28
18 Then Jehu gathered all the people together, and said to them, “Ahab served Baal a little, Jehu will serve him much.
19 Now therefore, call to me all the prophets of Baal, all his servants, and all his priests. Let no one be missing, for I have a great sacrifice for Baal. Whoever is missing shall not live.” But Jehu acted deceptively, with the intent of destroying the worshipers of Baal.
20 And Jehu said, “Proclaim a solemn assembly for Baal.” So they proclaimed it.
21 Then Jehu sent throughout all Israel; and all the worshipers of Baal came, so that there was not a man left who did not come. So they came into the temple of Baal, and the temple of Baal was full from one end to the other.
22 And he said to the one in charge of the wardrobe, “Bring out vestments for all the worshipers of Baal.” So he brought out vestments for them.
23 Then Jehu and Jehonadab the son of Rechab went into the temple of Baal, and said to the worshipers of Baal, “Search and see that no servants of the Lord are here with you, but only the worshipers of Baal.”
24 So they went in to offer sacrifices and burnt offerings. Now Jehu had appointed for himself eighty men on the outside, and had said, “If any of the men whom I have brought into your hands escapes, whoever lets him escape, it shall be his life for the life of the other.”
25 Now it happened, as soon as he had made an end of offering the burnt offering, that Jehu said to the guard and to the captains, “Go in and kill them; let no one come out!” And they killed them with the edge of the sword; then the guards and the officers threw them out, and went into the inner room of the temple of Baal.
26 And they brought the sacred pillars out of the temple of Baal and burned them.
27 Then they broke down the sacred pillar of Baal, and tore down the temple of Baal and made it a refuse dump to this day.
28 Thus Jehu destroyed Baal from Israel.
Jehu’s execution of the parasite priests and worshipers of the demon god Ba’al was probably driven in large part by the devotion of Jezebel to the pagan god and in revenge for her relentless murders of the Lord’s prophets. Jehu was determined to rid Israel of all vestiges of Jezebel and Ba’al’s influence in the land.
After destroying the temple of Ba’al Jehu further desecrated the site by making it a “refuse dump”. (The King James Version translates “refuse dump” as being a latrine.)
2 KINGS 10:29-36
29 However Jehu did not turn away from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who had made Israel sin, that is, from the golden calves that were at Bethel and Dan.
30 And the Lord said to Jehu, “Because you have done well in doing what is right in My sight, and have done to the house of Ahab all that was in My heart, your sons shall sit on the throne of Israel to the fourth generation.”
31 But Jehu took no heed to walk in the law of the Lord God of Israel with all his heart; for he did not depart from the sins of Jeroboam, who had made Israel sin.
32 In those days the Lord began to cut off parts of Israel; and Hazael conquered them in all the territory of Israel
33 from the Jordan eastward: all the land of Gilead—Gad, Reuben, and Manasseh—from Aroer, which is by the River Arnon, including Gilead and Bashan.
34 Now the rest of the acts of Jehu, all that he did, and all his might, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel?
35 So Jehu rested with his fathers, and they buried him in Samaria. Then Jehoahaz his son reigned in his place.
36 And the period that Jehu reigned over Israel in Samaria was twenty-eight years.
It seems incomprehensible that Jehu after keeping the commandments of the Lord still followed the sins of Jeroboam. However because of his former obedience, God rewarded him with a long reign (842 - 814 B.C.).
In an interesting aside, a carving in Assyria was recovered that shows king Jehu groveling at the feet of Assyrian king Shalmanezer III (dated to about 827 B.C.) and paying tribute to him, something in which Scripture is silent.
And in fulfillment of Elisha’s prophecy (2 Kings, chapter 8), Syrian king Hazael destroyed much of Israel east of the Jordan River as God’s punishment for their sins of Ba’al worship.
2 KINGS 11:1-3
1 When Athaliah the mother of Ahaziah saw that her son was dead, she arose and destroyed all the royal heirs.
2 But Jehosheba, the daughter of King Joram, sister of Ahaziah, took Joash the son of Ahaziah, and stole him away from among the king’s sons who were being murdered; and they hid him and his nurse in the bedroom, from Athaliah, so that he was not killed.
3 So he was hidden with her in the house of the Lord for six years, while Athaliah reigned over the land.
The sins of the house of Ahab continue with Athaliah (ruled 841- 835 B.C.), daughter of Ahab and Jezebel, and the mother of Ahaziah, murdering all of Ahaziah’s children and seizing the throne for herself.
But little Joash (also called Jehoash) was spared by being hidden from Athaliah’s murderous intentions for 6 years by Jehosheba, wife of Jehoiada the High Priest (and Joash’s aunt).
2 KINGS 11:4-8
4 In the seventh year Jehoiada sent and brought the captains of hundreds—of the bodyguards and the escorts—and brought them into the house of the Lord to him. And he made a covenant with them and took an oath from them in the house of the Lord, and showed them the king’s son.
5 Then he commanded them, saying, “This is what you shall do: One-third of you who come on duty on the Sabbath shall be keeping watch over the king’s house,
6 one-third shall be at the gate of Sur, and one-third at the gate behind the escorts. You shall keep the watch of the house, lest it be broken down.
7 The two contingents of you who go off duty on the Sabbath shall keep the watch of the house of the Lord for the king.
8 But you shall surround the king on all sides, every man with his weapons in his hand; and whoever comes within range, let him be put to death. You are to be with the king as he goes out and as he comes in.”
After 6 years, Jehoiada the priest figured that Joash was old enough to sit on the throne as king of Judah and plotted a coup against Athaliah. Joash was now seven years old and had been kept hidden in the Temple where even Athaliah dared not go.
2 KINGS 11:9-14
9 So the captains of the hundreds did according to all that Jehoiada the priest commanded. Each of them took his men who were to be on duty on the Sabbath, with those who were going off duty on the Sabbath, and came to Jehoiada the priest.
10 And the priest gave the captains of hundreds the spears and shields which had belonged to King David, that were in the temple of the Lord.
11 Then the escorts stood, every man with his weapons in his hand, all around the king, from the right side of the temple to the left side of the temple, by the altar and the house.
12 And he brought out the king’s son, put the crown on him, and gave him the Testimony; they made him king and anointed him, and they clapped their hands and said, “Long live the king!”
13 Now when Athaliah heard the noise of the escorts and the people, she came to the people in the temple of the Lord.
14 When she looked, there was the king standing by a pillar according to custom; and the leaders and the trumpeters were by the king. All the people of the land were rejoicing and blowing trumpets. So Athaliah tore her clothes and cried out, “Treason! Treason!”
It’s ironic that Athaliah, who murdered her own grandsons in order to usurp the throne accused Jehoiada of treason, something she herself had committed 6 years earlier. Joash had been given the crown and a copy of the Book of the Law of Moses as per God’s commandment to Moses;
DEUTERONOMY 17:18-20
18 “Also it shall be, when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write for himself a copy of this law in a book, from the one before the priests, the Levites.
19 And it shall be with him, and he shall read it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the Lord his God and be careful to observe all the words of this law and these statutes,
20 that his heart may not be lifted above his brethren, that he may not turn aside from the commandment to the right hand or to the left, and that he may prolong his days in his kingdom, he and his children in the midst of Israel.
Joash was too young to write the book himself, so the priests had made a copy for him.
2 KINGS 11:15-21
15 And Jehoiada the priest commanded the captains of the hundreds, the officers of the army, and said to them, “Take her outside under guard, and slay with the sword whoever follows her.” For the priest had said, “Do not let her be killed in the house of the Lord.”
16 So they seized her; and she went by way of the horses’ entrance into the king’s house, and there she was killed.
17 Then Jehoiada made a covenant between the Lord, the king, and the people, that they should be the Lord’s people, and also between the king and the people.
18 And all the people of the land went to the temple of Baal, and tore it down. They thoroughly broke in pieces its altars and images, and killed Mattan the priest of Baal before the altars. And the priest appointed officers over the house of the Lord.
19 Then he took the captains of hundreds, the bodyguards, the escorts, and all the people of the land; and they brought the king down from the house of the Lord, and went by way of the gate of the escorts to the king’s house. Then he sat on the throne of the kings.
20 So all the people of the land rejoiced; and the city was quiet, for they had slain Athaliah with the sword in the king’s house.
21 Jehoash was seven years old when he became king.
The execution of Athaliah was justified first because she had illegally usurped the throne of Judah and because she was a murderous woman like her mother, Jezebel. As far back as Noah God had commanded concerning murder;
GENESIS 9:6
6 “Whoever sheds man’s blood, by man his blood shall be shed; for in the image of God He made man.
Scripture indicates that Athaliah followed in the sins of her parents in that there was a temple to Ba’al in Jerusalem. The people zealously tore down the pagan temple, altars and idols and executed the priest of Ba’al in front of the altars he had served, cleansing the land.
2 KINGS 12:1-3
1 In the seventh year of Jehu, Jehoash became king, and he reigned forty years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Zibiah of Beersheba.
2 Jehoash did what was right in the sight of the Lord all the days in which Jehoiada the priest instructed him.
3 But the high places were not taken away; the people still sacrificed and burned incense on the high places.
“High places” were elevated platforms usually placed atop a hill as people felt that the higher the location, the closer to their god (or God) they were.
2 KINGS 12:4-6
4 And Jehoash said to the priests, “All the money of the dedicated gifts that are brought into the house of the Lord—each man’s census money, each man’s assessment money—and all the money that a man purposes in his heart to bring into the house of the Lord,
5 let the priests take it themselves, each from his constituency; and let them repair the damages of the temple, wherever any dilapidation is found.”
6 Now it was so, by the twenty-third year of King Jehoash, that the priests had not repaired the damages of the temple.
God had commanded that when a census was taken that every man was required to pay a half-shekel to the Lord for maintenance of the tabernacle (the tent housing the Ark of the Covenant) and later for Temple maintenance;
EXODUS 30:11-16
11 Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying:
12 “When you take the census of the children of Israel for their number, then every man shall give a ransom for himself to the Lord, when you number them, that there may be no plague among them when you number them.
13 This is what everyone among those who are numbered shall give: half a shekel according to the shekel of the sanctuary (a shekel is twenty gerahs). The half-shekel shall be an offering to the Lord.
14 Everyone included among those who are numbered, from twenty years old and above, shall give an offering to the Lord.
15 The rich shall not give more and the poor shall not give less than half a shekel, when you give an offering to the Lord, to make atonement for yourselves.
16 And you shall take the atonement money of the children of Israel, and shall appoint it for the service of the tabernacle of meeting, that it may be a memorial for the children of Israel before the Lord, to make atonement for yourselves.”
It is not known why the priests hadn’t performed the required repairs to the Temple, but they risked the wrath of the Lord for not doing so. The reason for the repairs is given in 2 Chronicles;
2 CHRONICLES 24:6-7
6 So the king called Jehoiada the chief priest, and said to him, “Why have you not required the Levites to bring in from Judah and from Jerusalem the collection, according to the commandment of Moses the servant of the Lord and of the assembly of Israel, for the tabernacle of witness?”
7 For the sons of Athaliah, that wicked woman, had broken into the house of God, and had also presented all the dedicated things of the house of the Lord to the Baals.
Athaliah’s sons (one of whom was king Ahaziah, killed by Jehu) had taken the gold, silver and bronze items dedicated to the Lord and had placed them as devoted offerings to Ba’al, an abomination before the Lord.
2 KINGS 12:7-16
7 So King Jehoash called Jehoiada the priest and the other priests, and said to them, “Why have you not repaired the damages of the temple? Now therefore, do not take more money from your constituency, but deliver it for repairing the damages of the temple.”
8 And the priests agreed that they would neither receive more money from the people, nor repair the damages of the temple.
9 Then Jehoiada the priest took a chest, bored a hole in its lid, and set it beside the altar, on the right side as one comes into the house of the Lord; and the priests who kept the door put there all the money brought into the house of the Lord.
10 So it was, whenever they saw that there was much money in the chest, that the king’s scribe and the high priest came up and put it in bags, and counted the money that was found in the house of the Lord.
11 Then they gave the money, which had been apportioned, into the hands of those who did the work, who had the oversight of the house of the Lord; and they paid it out to the carpenters and builders who worked on the house of the Lord,
12 and to masons and stonecutters, and for buying timber and hewn stone, to repair the damage of the house of the Lord, and for all that was paid out to repair the temple.
13 However there were not made for the house of the Lord basins of silver, trimmers, sprinkling-bowls, trumpets, any articles of gold or articles of silver, from the money brought into the house of the Lord.
14 But they gave that to the workmen, and they repaired the house of the Lord with it.
15 Moreover they did not require an account from the men into whose hand they delivered the money to be paid to workmen, for they dealt faithfully.
16 The money from the trespass offerings and the money from the sin offerings was not brought into the house of the Lord. It belonged to the priests.
At first glance in verse 8 it appears that the priests had no intention of repairing the Temple, but it actually meant that they would not do the work themselves as would normally happen with minor repairs. Instead they would hire professionals as it indicates that the damages were extensive.
God had commanded that the priests and Levites who served in the Temple have no other job or occupation but that assigned to them for tabernacle or Temple service. Money from tithes and offerings were to be used by the priests to purchase clothing and other supplies as needed.
But Joash commanded that all the money with the exception of the sin and trespass offerings which were to be kept by the priests were to be used for Temple repairs.
2 KINGS 12:17-18
17 Hazael king of Syria went up and fought against Gath, and took it; then Hazael set his face to go up to Jerusalem.
18 And Jehoash king of Judah took all the sacred things that his fathers, Jehoshaphat and Jehoram and Ahaziah, kings of Judah, had dedicated, and his own sacred things, and all the gold found in the treasuries of the house of the Lord and in the king’s house, and sent them to Hazael king of Syria. Then he went away from Jerusalem.
Usually when kings went to war, it was to obtain treasure, territory, or both. Hazael had destroyed Gath, a Philistine royal city to the southwest of Jerusalem and thought to either take Jerusalem or force its people to pay tribute.
Joash didn’t inquire of the Lord but instead stripped the Temple and his own house of gold and silver and offered it to Hazael in hopes of avoiding war. The book of 2 Chronicles (chapter 24) states that Joash departed from worshiping the Lord, and worshiped Ba’als. Therefore God sent Hazael against him as punishment;
2 CHRONICLES 24:23-24
23 So it happened in the spring of the year that the army of Syria came up against him; and they came to Judah and Jerusalem, and destroyed all the leaders of the people from among the people, and sent all their spoil to the king of Damascus.
24 For the army of the Syrians came with a small company of men; but the Lord delivered a very great army into their hand, because they had forsaken the Lord God of their fathers. So they executed judgment against Joash.
2 KINGS 12:19-21
19 Now the rest of the acts of Joash, and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah?
20 And his servants arose and formed a conspiracy, and killed Joash in the house of the Millo, which goes down to Silla.
21 For Jozachar the son of Shimeath and Jehozabad the son of Shomer, his servants, struck him. So he died, and they buried him with his fathers in the City of David. Then Amaziah his son reigned in his place.
2 Chronicles (chapter 24) states that Joash was murdered because he had killed the sons of Jehoiada the priest when they rebuked him for leaving the Lord and turning to Ba’al worship.
2 KINGS 13:1-9
1 In the twenty-third year of Joash the son of Ahaziah, king of Judah, Jehoahaz the son of Jehu became king over Israel in Samaria, and reigned seventeen years.
2 And he did evil in the sight of the Lord, and followed the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who had made Israel sin. He did not depart from them.
3 Then the anger of the Lord was aroused against Israel, and He delivered them into the hand of Hazael king of Syria, and into the hand of Ben-Hadad the son of Hazael, all their days.
4 So Jehoahaz pleaded with the Lord, and the Lord listened to him; for He saw the oppression of Israel, because the king of Syria oppressed them.
5 Then the Lord gave Israel a deliverer, so that they escaped from under the hand of the Syrians; and the children of Israel dwelt in their tents as before.
6 Nevertheless they did not depart from the sins of the house of Jeroboam, who had made Israel sin, but walked in them; and the wooden image also remained in Samaria.
7 For He left of the army of Jehoahaz only fifty horsemen, ten chariots, and ten thousand foot soldiers; for the king of Syria had destroyed them and made them like the dust at threshing.
8 Now the rest of the acts of Jehoahaz, all that he did, and his might, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel?
9 So Jehoahaz rested with his fathers, and they buried him in Samaria. Then Joash his son reigned in his place.
It’s hard to believe that after petitioning the Lord for deliverance from their oppressors and receiving that deliverance, that Israel would still worship Ba’al and idols. However while God delivered them, He also left them greatly reduced militarily.
2 KINGS 13:10-13
10 In the thirty-seventh year of Joash king of Judah, Jehoash the son of Jehoahaz became king over Israel in Samaria, and reigned sixteen years.
11 And he did evil in the sight of the Lord. He did not depart from all the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel sin, but walked in them.
12 Now the rest of the acts of Joash, all that he did, and his might with which he fought against Amaziah king of Judah, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel?
13 So Joash rested with his fathers. Then Jeroboam sat on his throne. And Joash was buried in Samaria with the kings of Israel.
This can get confusing, in that there were two kings named Joash / Jehoash reigning at the same time, one in Israel and one in Judah. Then Joash of Israel was followed by another Jeroboam (Jeroboam II) as king of Israel.
2 KINGS 13:14-21
14 Elisha had become sick with the illness of which he would die. Then Joash the king of Israel came down to him, and wept over his face, and said, “O my father, my father, the chariots of Israel and their horsemen!”
15 And Elisha said to him, “Take a bow and some arrows.” So he took himself a bow and some arrows.
16 Then he said to the king of Israel, “Put your hand on the bow.” So he put his hand on it, and Elisha put his hands on the king’s hands.
17 And he said, “Open the east window”; and he opened it. Then Elisha said, “Shoot”; and he shot. And he said, “The arrow of the Lord’s deliverance and the arrow of deliverance from Syria; for you must strike the Syrians at Aphek till you have destroyed them.”
18 Then he said, “Take the arrows”; so he took them. And he said to the king of Israel, “Strike the ground”; so he struck three times, and stopped.
19 And the man of God was angry with him, and said, “You should have struck five or six times; then you would have struck Syria till you had destroyed it! But now you will strike Syria only three times.”
20 Then Elisha died, and they buried him. And the raiding bands from Moab invaded the land in the spring of the year.
21 So it was, as they were burying a man, that suddenly they spied a band of raiders; and they put the man in the tomb of Elisha; and when the man was let down and touched the bones of Elisha, he revived and stood on his feet.
The ancients knew the difference between a dead man and one who was merely unconscious. The Lord performed one more miracle through Elisha, resurrecting a dead man who touched the body of Elisha after he had been buried.
In ancient times when a person died they were placed in a tomb carved out of limestone rock and were left there for a year. After a year the body had decomposed and the bones would then be removed and placed in a limestone ossuary (bone box) for final burial. Thus the man was placed in Elisha’s tomb before Elisha’s bones had been removed and re-buried.
2 KINGS 13:22-25
22 And Hazael king of Syria oppressed Israel all the days of Jehoahaz.
23 But the Lord was gracious to them, had compassion on them, and regarded them, because of His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and would not yet destroy them or cast them from His presence.
24 Now Hazael king of Syria died. Then Ben-Hadad his son reigned in his place.
25 And Jehoash the son of Jehoahaz recaptured from the hand of Ben-Hadad, the son of Hazael, the cities which he had taken out of the hand of Jehoahaz his father by war. Three times Joash defeated him and recaptured the cities of Israel.
In fulfillment of Elisha’s prophecy, Jehoash defeated Syria 3 times in battle. Note that in verse 23 it says the Lord “would not yet destroy them or cast them from His presence” which He would finally do approximately 80 years later in 701 B.C.
2 KINGS 14:1-6
1 In the second year of Joash the son of Jehoahaz, king of Israel, Amaziah the son of Joash, king of Judah, became king.
2 He was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Jehoaddan of Jerusalem.
3 And he did what was right in the sight of the Lord, yet not like his father David; he did everything as his father Joash had done.
4 However the high places were not taken away, and the people still sacrificed and burned incense on the high places.
5 Now it happened, as soon as the kingdom was established in his hand, that he executed his servants who had murdered his father the king.
6 But the children of the murderers he did not execute, according to what is written in the Book of the Law of Moses, in which the Lord commanded, saying, “Fathers shall not be put to death for their children, nor shall children be put to death for their fathers; but a person shall be put to death for his own sin.”
Killing the families of murderers, especially of those who had committed regicide (murder of royalty) was done a lot in ancient times. This was usually done as a graphic warning to anyone contemplating murdering their king. The Lord understood that it would not be right to put the innocent to death because of their familial association with the murderer. In the cases of kings Jeroboam I and Ahab of the Northern Kingdom of Israel, God destroyed their families as well, for their descendants were as bad if not worse than their fathers.
2 KINGS 14:7
7 He killed ten thousand Edomites in the Valley of Salt, and took Sela by war, and called its name Joktheel to this day.
The Valley of Salt was the southern end of the Jordan Valley where the Dead Sea was located. It was once a lush, well-watered area during the time of Abraham and Lot and was where the cities of Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim were located. (Genesis chapter 13)
Because of their blatant sins (homosexuality being the main cause), God rained fire and brimstone (flaming sulfur) on all four cities, destroying them in a firestorm and blasting the whole area with salt as a curse. (Genesis chapter 19)
The result was that the Valley floor dropped in an earthquake, cutting off the Jordan River’s outlet to the Gulf of Aqaba to the south, and formed the Dead Sea. The area had been a salt-encrusted wasteland ever since and in ancient times was a source of salt.
2 KINGS 14:8-16
8 Then Amaziah sent messengers to Jehoash the son of Jehoahaz, the son of Jehu, king of Israel, saying, “Come, let us face one another in battle.”
9 And Jehoash king of Israel sent to Amaziah king of Judah, saying, “The thistle that was in Lebanon sent to the cedar that was in Lebanon, saying, ‘Give your daughter to my son as wife’; and a wild beast that was in Lebanon passed by and trampled the thistle.
10 You have indeed defeated Edom, and your heart has lifted you up. Glory in that, and stay at home; for why should you meddle with trouble so that you fall—you and Judah with you?”
11 But Amaziah would not heed. Therefore Jehoash king of Israel went out; so he and Amaziah king of Judah faced one another at Beth Shemesh, which belongs to Judah.
12 And Judah was defeated by Israel, and every man fled to his tent.
13 Then Jehoash king of Israel captured Amaziah king of Judah, the son of Jehoash, the son of Ahaziah, at Beth Shemesh; and he went to Jerusalem, and broke down the wall of Jerusalem from the Gate of Ephraim to the Corner Gate—four hundred cubits.
14 And he took all the gold and silver, all the articles that were found in the house of the Lord and in the treasuries of the king’s house, and hostages, and returned to Samaria.
15 Now the rest of the acts of Jehoash which he did—his might, and how he fought with Amaziah king of Judah—are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel?
16 So Jehoash rested with his fathers, and was buried in Samaria with the kings of Israel. Then Jeroboam his son reigned in his place.
Pompous arrogance has destroyed many kings in the past, and Amaziah was no different. An ancient legend relates the story of Croesus, a legendary wealthy king of Lydia (present-day Turkey) who wished to attack the Persian Empire and consulted with the prophetic Oracle of Delphi (Greece) to determine if he would be successful.
The Oracle cryptically stated that he “would destroy a great empire”. Elated, he attacked the Persians and was defeated. The empire he destroyed was his own.
Actually Jehoash was quite mild in his victory over Amaziah. He broke down 600 feet (183 meters) of Jerusalem’s walls and plundered the treasures of the Temple and the king’s house. He also took hostages (more than likely family members to guarantee Amaziah’s future good behavior) but spared Amaziah’s life, preferring to humble him instead.
2 KINGS 14:17-22
17 Amaziah the son of Joash, king of Judah, lived fifteen years after the death of Jehoash the son of Jehoahaz, king of Israel.
18 Now the rest of the acts of Amaziah, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah?
19 And they formed a conspiracy against him in Jerusalem, and he fled to Lachish; but they sent after him to Lachish and killed him there.
20 Then they brought him on horses, and he was buried at Jerusalem with his fathers in the City of David.
21 And all the people of Judah took Azariah, who was sixteen years old, and made him king instead of his father Amaziah.
22 He built Elath and restored it to Judah, after the king rested with his fathers.
The book of 2 Chronicles (chapter 25) says that after he defeated the Edomites, Amaziah brought the idols of the Edomites with him and worshiped them, angering the Lord and resulting in his death by assassination.
2 KINGS 14:23-24
23 In the fifteenth year of Amaziah the son of Joash, king of Judah, Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel, became king in Samaria, and reigned forty-one years.
24 And he did evil in the sight of the Lord; he did not depart from all the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who had made Israel sin.
This would be Jeroboam II who ruled from 793 - 753 B.C. Like his ancestor Jeroboam I, the son of Nebat before him, he continued in the sins of Ba’al worship and the worship of the golden calves that Jeroboam I had set up.
2 KINGS 14:25-29
25 He restored the territory of Israel from the entrance of Hamath to the Sea of the Arabah, according to the word of the Lord God of Israel, which He had spoken through His servant Jonah the son of Amittai, the prophet who was from Gath Hepher.
26 For the Lord saw that the affliction of Israel was very bitter; and whether bond or free, there was no helper for Israel.
27 And the Lord did not say that He would blot out the name of Israel from under heaven; but He saved them by the hand of Jeroboam the son of Joash.
28 Now the rest of the acts of Jeroboam, and all that he did—his might, how he made war, and how he recaptured for Israel, from Damascus and Hamath, what had belonged to Judah—are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel?
29 So Jeroboam rested with his fathers, the kings of Israel. Then Zechariah his son reigned in his place.
Scholars haven’t been able to pinpoint Jonah’s prophecy spoken of in verse 25 above, although there have been cases where a prophet is recorded as having said something that does not appear in the book written by him.
The book of Matthew in the New Testament is a prime example of this, in which Matthew records that after Judas Iscariot betrayed Jesus to the Pharisees for 30 pieces of silver;
MATTHEW 27:3-9
3 Then Judas, His betrayer, seeing that He had been condemned, was remorseful and brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders,
4 saying, “I have sinned by betraying innocent blood.” And they said, “What is that to us? You see to it!”
5 Then he threw down the pieces of silver in the temple and departed, and went and hanged himself.
6 But the chief priests took the silver pieces and said, “It is not lawful to put them into the treasury, because they are the price of blood.”
7 And they consulted together and bought with them the potter’s field, to bury strangers in.
8 Therefore that field has been called the Field of Blood to this day.
9 Then was fulfilled what was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet, saying, “And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the value of Him who was priced, whom they of the children of Israel priced,
10 and gave them for the potter’s field, as the Lord directed me.”;
This event is actually found written in the book of Zechariah;
ZECHARIAH 11:12-13
12 Then I said to them, “If it is agreeable to you, give me my wages; and if not, refrain.” So they weighed out for my wages thirty pieces of silver.
13 And the Lord said to me, “Throw it to the potter”—that princely price they set on me. So I took the thirty pieces of silver and threw them into the house of the Lord for the potter.
While it seems that there is a conflict or error in the Matthew account, note carefully that Matthew says the quote was spoken (not written) by the prophet Jeremiah. So the reference to Jonah having spoken something but not recorded in his book could have happened.
God, for the sake of Israel, allowed Jeroboam II to recover the lands east of the Jordan River that Hazael and his son Ben-Hadad III had taken from Israel in battle.
2 KINGS 15:1-7
1 In the twenty-seventh year of Jeroboam king of Israel, Azariah the son of Amaziah, king of Judah, became king.
2 He was sixteen years old when he became king, and he reigned fifty-two years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Jecholiah of Jerusalem.
3 And he did what was right in the sight of the Lord, according to all that his father Amaziah had done,
4 except that the high places were not removed; the people still sacrificed and burned incense on the high places.
5 Then the Lord struck the king, so that he was a leper until the day of his death; so he dwelt in an isolated house. And Jotham the king’s son was over the royal house, judging the people of the land.
6 Now the rest of the acts of Azariah, and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah?
7 So Azariah rested with his fathers, and they buried him with his fathers in the City of David. Then Jotham his son reigned in his place.
Azariah was a good king, except that 2 Chronicles (chapter 26) records that he became so prideful that he tried to burn incense to the Lord in the Temple which was lawful only for the priests of the lineage of Aaron to do.
As a result when he was confronted and rebuked by the High Priest over the issue, he became furious and immediately leprosy broke out on his forehead and he was driven from the Temple and died in isolation as a leper.
He ruled from 792-731 B.C.
2 KINGS 15:8-12
8 In the thirty-eighth year of Azariah king of Judah, Zechariah the son of Jeroboam reigned over Israel in Samaria six months.
9 And he did evil in the sight of the Lord, as his fathers had done; he did not depart from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who had made Israel sin.
10 Then Shallum the son of Jabesh conspired against him, and struck and killed him in front of the people; and he reigned in his place.
11 Now the rest of the acts of Zechariah, indeed they are written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel.
12 This was the word of the Lord which He spoke to Jehu, saying, “Your sons shall sit on the throne of Israel to the fourth generation.” And so it was.
Zechariah, son of Jeroboam II ruled and died in 741 B.C., openly assassinated before all Israel which seems to indicate that a plotted coup had been performed. Little is known about Shallum. And with Zechariah’s death, the house of Jehu came to an end as had been prophesied.
2 KINGS 15:13-16
13 Shallum the son of Jabesh became king in the thirty-ninth year of Uzziah king of Judah; and he reigned a full month in Samaria.
14 For Menahem the son of Gadi went up from Tirzah, came to Samaria, and struck Shallum the son of Jabesh in Samaria and killed him; and he reigned in his place.
15 Now the rest of the acts of Shallum, and the conspiracy which he led, indeed they are written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel.
16 Then from Tirzah, Menahem attacked Tiphsah, all who were there, and its territory. Because they did not surrender, therefore he attacked it. All the women there who were with child he ripped open.
The assassin Shallum was in turn assassinated by Menahem, who was, according to Jewish historian Josephus, a general in king Zechariah’s army. A cruel, merciless man, he besieged the city of Tiphsah after they refused his rule, savagely ripping open the stomachs of pregnant women in a grisly terror tactic frequently used by the brutal Assyrians , Syrians and Babylonians.
2 KINGS 15:17-22
17 In the thirty-ninth year of Azariah king of Judah, Menahem the son of Gadi became king over Israel, and reigned ten years in Samaria.
18 And he did evil in the sight of the Lord; he did not depart all his days from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who had made Israel sin.
19 Pul king of Assyria came against the land; and Menahem gave Pul a thousand talents of silver, that his hand might be with him to strengthen the kingdom under his control.
20 And Menahem exacted the money from Israel, from all the very wealthy, from each man fifty shekels of silver, to give to the king of Assyria. So the king of Assyria turned back, and did not stay there in the land.
21 Now the rest of the acts of Menahem, and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel?
22 So Menahem rested with his fathers. Then Pekahiah his son reigned in his place.
Menahem reigned from 745-736 B.C. and was as sinful as the kings of Israel before him. Tiglath-Pileser III of Assyria (745-727 B.C.) invaded Israel and Menahem bought him off by giving him approximately 30 tons of silver, according to the weight of a talent at the time.
By doing this he also allied himself with the Assyrians so that if Israel was attacked, the king of Assyria would send troops to aid him.
Oddly enough, Menahem is not mentioned in our present copies of the chronicles of the kings of Israel.
2 KINGS 15:23-26
23 In the fiftieth year of Azariah king of Judah, Pekahiah the son of Menahem became king over Israel in Samaria, and reigned two years.
24 And he did evil in the sight of the Lord; he did not depart from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who had made Israel sin.
25 Then Pekah the son of Remaliah, an officer of his, conspired against him and killed him in Samaria, in the citadel of the king’s house, along with Argob and Arieh; and with him were fifty men of Gilead. He killed him and reigned in his place.
26 Now the rest of the acts of Pekahiah, and all that he did, indeed they are written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel.
Pekahiah reigned from 738-736 B.C. and like those before him, he followed in the idolatrous practices of Ba’al and golden calf worship. He was in turn assassinated by Pekah, a captain of his own army who seized the throne for himself.
2 KINGS 15:27-31
27 In the fifty-second year of Azariah king of Judah, Pekah the son of Remaliah became king over Israel in Samaria, and reigned twenty years.
28 And he did evil in the sight of the Lord; he did not depart from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who had made Israel sin.
29 In the days of Pekah king of Israel, Tiglath-Pileser king of Assyria came and took Ijon, Abel Beth Maachah, Janoah, Kedesh, Hazor, Gilead, and Galilee, all the land of Naphtali; and he carried them captive to Assyria.
30 Then Hoshea the son of Elah led a conspiracy against Pekah the son of Remaliah, and struck and killed him; so he reigned in his place in the twentieth year of Jotham the son of Uzziah.
31 Now the rest of the acts of Pekah, and all that he did, indeed they are written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel.
Pekah reigned in Israel from 752-732 B.C. An evil king like those before him, he is mentioned in Assyrian chronicles as a ruler of Israel.
In 732 B.C. Pekah allied himself with Rezin, king of Syria and together they planned on overthrowing king Ahaz of Judah and setting up a puppet regime in Jerusalem in a coalition against Tiglath-Pileser III of Assyria who had exacted 1,000 talents of silver from Menahem earlier.
King Ahaz of Judah had called for help from Tiglath-Pileser of Assyria against Pekah of Israel and Rezin of Damascus, against the admonition of the prophet Isaiah who told him to rely on the Lord for deliverance. Ahaz took treasures from his house and the Temple and gave them to the king of Assyria, seeking his help against the Edomites and Philistines who had attacked and taken towns in Judah.
Tiglath-Pileser swept in and demolished Damascus, annexed Syria, executed king Rezin of Syria; he also attacked much of northern Israel and deported a number of its people to Assyria as slaves. And while he took Ahaz’ tribute, he did not help Ahaz with his problems.
Ironically, Hoshea, a captain of Pekah’s own army killed Pekah when Tiglath-Pileser attacked Israel and the Assyrian king made him king over what was left of Israel in 732 B.C. This event is recorded in the chronicles of Tiglath-Pileser III who bragged about making Hoshea a vassal king.
Hoshea would be the last king of Israel before the nation’s total destruction by the Assyrians in 721 B.C.
2 KINGS 15:32-38
32 In the second year of Pekah the son of Remaliah, king of Israel, Jotham the son of Uzziah, king of Judah, began to reign.
33 He was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Jerusha the daughter of Zadok.
34 And he did what was right in the sight of the Lord; he did according to all that his father Uzziah had done.
35 However the high places were not removed; the people still sacrificed and burned incense on the high places. He built the Upper Gate of the house of the Lord.
36 Now the rest of the acts of Jotham, and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah?
37 In those days the Lord began to send Rezin king of Syria and Pekah the son of Remaliah against Judah.
38 So Jotham rested with his fathers, and was buried with his fathers in the City of David his father. Then Ahaz his son reigned in his place.
Jotham reigned from 750-735 B.C. although the first 14 years were as co-ruler with his father Uzziah (Azariah) who had been struck by the Lord with leprosy because he took it upon himself to burn incense in the Temple which only lawful for the priests to do.
Jotham was a good king, following in the laws of the Lord and the Lord used him to defeat the Ammonites, long-time enemies of Judah.
2 KINGS 16:1-4
1 In the seventeenth year of Pekah the son of Remaliah, Ahaz the son of Jotham, king of Judah, began to reign.
2 Ahaz was twenty years old when he became king, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem; and he did not do what was right in the sight of the Lord his God, as his father David had done.
3 But he walked in the way of the kings of Israel; indeed he made his son pass through the fire, according to the abominations of the nations whom the Lord had cast out from before the children of Israel.
4 And he sacrificed and burned incense on the high places, on the hills, and under every green tree.
Ahaz ruled from 744 to 728 B.C. and committed the abomination of burning his son as a sacrifice to the pagan Ammonite god Molech in which infants were thrown alive into the belly of a bronze idol which contained a furnace. Large drums were beaten during the ceremony to drown out the screams of the victims.
God had commanded concerning such practices;
LEVITICUS 20:1-5
1 Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying,
2 “Again, you shall say to the children of Israel: ‘Whoever of the children of Israel, or of the strangers who dwell in Israel, who gives any of his descendants to Molech, he shall surely be put to death. The people of the land shall stone him with stones.
3 I will set My face against that man, and will cut him off from his people, because he has given some of his descendants to Molech, to defile My sanctuary and profane My holy name.
4 And if the people of the land should in any way hide their eyes from the man, when he gives some of his descendants to Molech, and they do not kill him,
5 then I will set My face against that man and against his family; and I will cut him off from his people, and all who prostitute themselves with him to commit harlotry with Molech.
Green trees and wooden pillars were used as idols to Ashtoreth, a pagan goddess worshiped by the Canaanites and surrounding nations.
2 KINGS 16:5-9
5 Then Rezin king of Syria and Pekah the son of Remaliah, king of Israel, came up to Jerusalem to make war; and they besieged Ahaz but could not overcome him.
6 At that time Rezin king of Syria captured Elath for Syria, and drove the men of Judah from Elath. Then the Edomites went to Elath, and dwell there to this day.
7 So Ahaz sent messengers to Tiglath-Pileser king of Assyria, saying, “I am your servant and your son. Come up and save me from the hand of the king of Syria and from the hand of the king of Israel, who rise up against me.”
8 And Ahaz took the silver and gold that was found in the house of the Lord, and in the treasuries of the king’s house, and sent it as a present to the king of Assyria.
9 So the king of Assyria heeded him; for the king of Assyria went up against Damascus and took it, carried its people captive to Kir, and killed Rezin.
Tiglath-Pileser’s exploits against Syria and Israel were recorded in chapter 15 above. And it was during the reign of Ahaz that in 721 B.C.the Norhern Kingdom of Israel was completely destroyed and its people deported as slaves to Assyria and lands east.
2 KINGS 16:10-16
10 Now King Ahaz went to Damascus to meet Tiglath-Pileser king of Assyria, and saw an altar that was at Damascus; and King Ahaz sent to Urijah the priest the design of the altar and its pattern, according to all its workmanship.
11 Then Urijah the priest built an altar according to all that King Ahaz had sent from Damascus. So Urijah the priest made it before King Ahaz came back from Damascus.
12 And when the king came back from Damascus, the king saw the altar; and the king approached the altar and made offerings on it.
13 So he burned his burnt offering and his grain offering; and he poured his drink offering and sprinkled the blood of his peace offerings on the altar.
14 He also brought the bronze altar which was before the Lord, from the front of the temple—from between the new altar and the house of the Lord—and put it on the north side of the new altar.
15 Then King Ahaz commanded Urijah the priest, saying, “On the great new altar burn the morning burnt offering, the evening grain offering, the king’s burnt sacrifice, and his grain offering, with the burnt offering of all the people of the land, their grain offering, and their drink offerings; and sprinkle on it all the blood of the burnt offering and all the blood of the sacrifice. And the bronze altar shall be for me to inquire by.”
16 Thus did Urijah the priest, according to all that King Ahaz commanded.
King Ahaz had a copy of a pagan altar from Syria made and replaced the altar of sacrifice created by Solomon 300 years earlier.
2 KINGS 16:17-20
17 And King Ahaz cut off the panels of the carts, and removed the lavers from them; and he took down the Sea from the bronze oxen that were under it, and put it on a pavement of stones.
18 Also he removed the Sabbath pavilion which they had built in the temple, and he removed the king’s outer entrance from the house of the Lord, on account of the king of Assyria.
19 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?
20 So Ahaz rested with his fathers, and was buried with his fathers in the City of David. Then Hezekiah his son reigned in his place.
Ahaz stripped the Temple of its silver and gold, and took much of the bronze items created by Solomon including the large bronze bowls used by the priests to cleanse themselves before offering sacrifices, the carts which supported the bowls and the 12 bronze bulls supporting the huge bronze “sea”, also created by Solomon and used by the priests for cleansing.
He took all of these and more to give to the king of Assyria.
2 KINGS 17:1-6
1 In the twelfth year of Ahaz king of Judah, Hoshea the son of Elah became king of Israel in Samaria, and he reigned nine years.
2 And he did evil in the sight of the Lord, but not as the kings of Israel who were before him.
3 Shalmaneser king of Assyria came up against him; and Hoshea became his vassal, and paid him tribute money.
4 And the king of Assyria uncovered a conspiracy by Hoshea; for he had sent messengers to So, king of Egypt, and brought no tribute to the king of Assyria, as he had done year by year. Therefore the king of Assyria shut him up, and bound him in prison.
5 Now the king of Assyria went throughout all the land, and went up to Samaria and besieged it for three years.
6 In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria took Samaria and carried Israel away to Assyria, and placed them in Halah and by the Habor, the River of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.
Hoshea ruled from 732 -721 B.C. and was the last king of the Northern Kingdom of Israel. God had pleaded for 210 years for the Northern Kingdom to return before He brought about the prophecy given to Amos;
AMOS 5:24-27
24 “Did you offer Me sacrifices and offerings In the wilderness forty years, O house of Israel?
26 You also carried Sikkuth your king and Chiun, your idols, the star of your gods, which you made for yourselves.
27 Therefore I will send you into captivity beyond Damascus,” says the Lord, whose name is the God of hosts.
NOTE: ‘Sikkuth’ was an Assyrian warrior-god and ‘Chiun’ was the Babylonian name for the planet Saturn (considered a star-god by the Babylonians).
God had also warned king Solomon concerning Israel’s behavior before they split onto 2 kingdoms in 930 B.C.;
1 KINGS 9:6-7
6 But if you or your sons at all turn from following Me, and do not keep My commandments and My statutes which I have set before you, but go and serve other gods and worship them,
7 then I will cut off Israel from the land which I have given them; and this house which I have consecrated for My name I will cast out of My sight. Israel will be a proverb and a byword among all peoples.
When Tiglath-Pileser III died in 727 B.C. he was succeeded by his son Shalmanezer V. Egypt and Lebanon took the opportunity to revolt against Assyrian domination and Hoshea appealed to Pharaoh So (Osorkon V, ruled 730 - 715 B.C.) for assistance.
Tiglath-Pileser captured Hoshea in battle and imprisoned him in Assyria where he died in 723 B.C. His son Shalmanezer V then laid siege to Samaria, but died in 722 B.C. before he could take the city and was in turn succeeded by his son Sargon II who completed the destruction and deportation of the Northern Kingdom of Israel to Assyria in 721 B.C.
2 KINGS 17:7-23
7 For so it was that the children of Israel had sinned against the Lord their God, who had brought them up out of the land of Egypt, from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt; and they had feared other gods,
8 and had walked in the statutes of the nations whom the Lord had cast out from before the children of Israel, and of the kings of Israel, which they had made.
9 Also the children of Israel secretly did against the Lord their God things that were not right, and they built for themselves high places in all their cities, from watchtower to fortified city.
10 They set up for themselves sacred pillars and wooden images on every high hill and under every green tree.
11 There they burned incense on all the high places, like the nations whom the Lord had carried away before them; and they did wicked things to provoke the Lord to anger,
12 for they served idols, of which the Lord had said to them, “You shall not do this thing.”
13 Yet the Lord testified against Israel and against Judah, by all of His prophets, every seer, saying, “Turn from your evil ways, and keep My commandments and My statutes, according to all the law which I commanded your fathers, and which I sent to you by My servants the prophets.”
14 Nevertheless they would not hear, but stiffened their necks, like the necks of their fathers, who did not believe in the Lord their God.
15 And they rejected His statutes and His covenant that He had made with their fathers, and His testimonies which He had testified against them; they followed idols, became idolaters, and went after the nations who were all around them, concerning whom the Lord had charged them that they should not do like them.
16 So they left all the commandments of the Lord their God, made for themselves a molded image and two calves, made a wooden image and worshiped all the host of heaven, and served Baal.
17 And they caused their sons and daughters to pass through the fire, practiced witchcraft and soothsaying, and sold themselves to do evil in the sight of the Lord, to provoke Him to anger.
18 Therefore the Lord was very angry with Israel, and removed them from His sight; there was none left but the tribe of Judah alone.
19 Also Judah did not keep the commandments of the Lord their God, but walked in the statutes of Israel which they made.
20 And the Lord rejected all the descendants of Israel, afflicted them, and delivered them into the hand of plunderers, until He had cast them from His sight.
21 For He tore Israel from the house of David, and they made Jeroboam the son of Nebat king. Then Jeroboam drove Israel from following the Lord, and made them commit a great sin.
22 For the children of Israel walked in all the sins of Jeroboam which he did; they did not depart from them,
23 until the Lord removed Israel out of His sight, as He had said by all His servants the prophets. So Israel was carried away from their own land to Assyria, as it is to this day.
This a long indictment against Israel, listing the reasons why God finally destroyed them for their wickedness as He had forewarned them.
2 KINGS 17:24-33
24 Then the king of Assyria brought people from Babylon, Cuthah, Ava, Hamath, and from Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of the children of Israel; and they took possession of Samaria and dwelt in its cities.
25 And it was so, at the beginning of their dwelling there, that they did not fear the Lord; therefore the Lord sent lions among them, which killed some of them.
26 So they spoke to the king of Assyria, saying, “The nations whom you have removed and placed in the cities of Samaria do not know the rituals of the God of the land; therefore He has sent lions among them, and indeed, they are killing them because they do not know the rituals of the God of the land.”
27 Then the king of Assyria commanded, saying, “Send there one of the priests whom you brought from there; let him go and dwell there, and let him teach them the rituals of the God of the land.”
28 Then one of the priests whom they had carried away from Samaria came and dwelt in Bethel, and taught them how they should fear the Lord.
29 However every nation continued to make gods of its own, and put them in the shrines on the high places which the Samaritans had made, every nation in the cities where they dwelt.
30 The men of Babylon made Succoth Benoth, the men of Cuth made Nergal, the men of Hamath made Ashima,
31 and the Avites made Nibhaz and Tartak; and the Sepharvites burned their children in fire to Adrammelech and Anammelech, the gods of Sepharvaim.
32 So they feared the Lord, and from every class they appointed for themselves priests of the high places, who sacrificed for them in the shrines of the high places.
33 They feared the Lord, yet served their own gods—according to the rituals of the nations from among whom they were carried away.
The people that the king of Assyria (Esarhaddon, who reigned from 681- 669 B.C.) sent to Samaria were from Assyria and lands around the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in present-day Iraq. These people intermarried with the remnant of the Jews left by Sargon II after the destruction of Samaria.
Their descendants were considered to be “mongrel Jews” by the ethnic Jews of Judah because of their intermarriage with pagans and foreigners and would become the despised Samaritans spoken of in the Gospels.
One has to wonder if the priest that taught them to worship the Lord was a true priest of the Lord or not, considering the pagan practices that the Northern Kingdom of Israel followed before their destruction by the Assyrians.
But by description, these people merely added the Lord to their pantheon of pagan gods, as was a common practice at the time and is still practiced in some countries today.
2 KINGS 17:34-41
34 To this day they continue practicing the former rituals; they do not fear the Lord, nor do they follow their statutes or their ordinances, or the law and commandment which the Lord had commanded the children of Jacob, whom He named Israel,
35 with whom the Lord had made a covenant and charged them, saying: “You shall not fear other gods, nor bow down to them nor serve them nor sacrifice to them;
36 but the Lord, who brought you up from the land of Egypt with great power and an outstretched arm, Him you shall fear, Him you shall worship, and to Him you shall offer sacrifice.
37 And the statutes, the ordinances, the law, and the commandment which He wrote for you, you shall be careful to observe forever; you shall not fear other gods.
38 And the covenant that I have made with you, you shall not forget, nor shall you fear other gods.
39 But the Lord your God you shall fear; and He will deliver you from the hand of all your enemies.”
40 However they did not obey, but they followed their former rituals.
41 So these nations feared the Lord, yet served their carved images; also their children and their children’s children have continued doing as their fathers did, even to this day.
These Samaritans would later greatly trouble the Jews of Judah upon their return from captivity in Babylon when the Jews began to rebuild Jerusalem and the Temple. As recorded in the book of Ezra;
EZRA 4:1-5
1 Now when the adversaries of Judah and Benjamin heard that the descendants of the captivity were building the temple of the Lord God of Israel,
2 they came to Zerubbabel and the heads of the fathers’ houses, and said to them, “Let us build with you, for we seek your God as you do; and we have sacrificed to Him since the days of Esarhaddon king of Assyria, who brought us here.”
3 But Zerubbabel and Jeshua and the rest of the heads of the fathers’ houses of Israel said to them, “You may do nothing with us to build a house for our God; but we alone will build to the Lord God of Israel, as King Cyrus the king of Persia has commanded us.”
4 Then the people of the land tried to discourage the people of Judah. They troubled them in building,
5 and hired counselors against them to frustrate their purpose all the days of Cyrus king of Persia, even until the reign of Darius king of Persia.
The full story of the opposition by the Samaritans to the Jews is recorded in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah.
2 KINGS 18:1-8
1 Now it came to pass in the third year of Hoshea the son of Elah, king of Israel, that Hezekiah the son of Ahaz, king of Judah, began to reign.
2 He was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Abi the daughter of Zechariah.
3 And he did what was right in the sight of the Lord, according to all that his father David had done.
4 He removed the high places and broke the sacred pillars, cut down the wooden image and broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made; for until those days the children of Israel burned incense to it, and called it Nehushtan.
5 He trusted in the Lord God of Israel, so that after him was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor who were before him.
6 For he held fast to the Lord; he did not depart from following Him, but kept His commandments, which the Lord had commanded Moses.
7 The Lord was with him; he prospered wherever he went. And he rebelled against the king of Assyria and did not serve him.
8 He subdued the Philistines, as far as Gaza and its territory, from watchtower to fortified city.
King Hezekiah (ruled from 716 - 687 B.C.) was the greatest king after king David and was the greatest king to rule Judah because he served the Lord all his life. He was also quite courageous in rebelling against the powerful Assyrian empire.
He also took away the pagan altars, broke the sacred pillars dedicated to the goddess Asherah, destroyed the wooden images of Ba’al and broke apart the bronze serpent that Moses had made on the wilderness (Numbers chapter 21) because it had become an object of worship.
Nehushtan: (Hebrew) ‘A thing of brass”
2 KINGS 18:9-12
9 Now it came to pass in the fourth year of King Hezekiah, which was the seventh year of Hoshea the son of Elah, king of Israel, that Shalmaneser king of Assyria came up against Samaria and besieged it.
10 And at the end of three years they took it. In the sixth year of Hezekiah, that is, the ninth year of Hoshea king of Israel, Samaria was taken.
11 Then the king of Assyria carried Israel away captive to Assyria, and put them in Halah and by the Habor, the River of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes,
12 because they did not obey the voice of the Lord their God, but transgressed His covenant and all that Moses the servant of the Lord had commanded; and they would neither hear nor do them.
As spoken of previously, this happened in 701 B.C. after over 200 years of warnings from God to repent. Finally as promised, in His wrath He destroyed the Northern Kingdom of Israel and deported them to Assyria and lands east as slaves.
2 KINGS 18:13-16
13 And in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and took them.
14 Then Hezekiah king of Judah sent to the king of Assyria at Lachish, saying, “I have done wrong; turn away from me; whatever you impose on me I will pay.” And the king of Assyria assessed Hezekiah king of Judah three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold.
15 So Hezekiah gave him all the silver that was found in the house of the Lord and in the treasuries of the king’s house.
16 At that time Hezekiah stripped the gold from the doors of the temple of the Lord, and from the pillars which Hezekiah king of Judah had overlaid, and gave it to the king of Assyria.
In 701 B.C. Sennacherib of Assyria started campaigning westward to subdue provinces that had started rebelling against his rule. By description, the Assyrians apparently swept southward east of the Jordan River then crossed westward as Lachish was a heavily-fortified city south of Jerusalem. Lachish must have finally fallen, as Scripture says that Sennacherib had taken all of the other fortified cities of Judah.
Hezekiah, in order to spare Jerusalem stripped the silver and gold from the Temple and his own treasures and sent them as tribute.
2 KINGS 18:17-25
17 Then the king of Assyria sent the Tartan, the Rabsaris, and the Rabshakeh from Lachish, with a great army against Jerusalem, to King Hezekiah. And they went up and came to Jerusalem. When they had come up, they went and stood by the aqueduct from the upper pool, which was on the highway to the Fuller’s Field.
18 And when they had called to the king, Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, Shebna the scribe, and Joah the son of Asaph, the recorder, came out to them.
19 Then the Rabshakeh said to them, “Say now to Hezekiah, ‘Thus says the great king, the king of Assyria: “What confidence is this in which you trust?
20 You speak of having plans and power for war; but they are mere words. And in whom do you trust, that you rebel against me?
21 Now look! You are trusting in the staff of this broken reed, Egypt, on which if a man leans, it will go into his hand and pierce it. So is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who trust in him.
22 But if you say to me, ‘We trust in the Lord our God,’ is it not He whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah has taken away, and said to Judah and Jerusalem, ‘You shall worship before this altar in Jerusalem’?” ’
23 Now therefore, I urge you, give a pledge to my master the king of Assyria, and I will give you two thousand horses—if you are able on your part to put riders on them!
24 How then will you repel one captain of the least of my master’s servants, and put your trust in Egypt for chariots and horsemen?
25 Have I now come up without the Lord against this place to destroy it? The Lord said to me, ‘Go up against this land, and destroy it.’ ”
Apparently Sennacherib wanted to make Jerusalem a lesson to anyone who considered rebelling against him. He came against Jerusalem to besiege it and sent the Commander-in Chief (Tartan), a high-ranking officer (Rabsaris, possibly a General) and a high-ranking court official (Rabshakeh) to intimidate the people of Jerusalem.
They stood by a water aqueduct by the ‘Fuller’s Field’ to deliver their message. (A Fuller’s Field was where cloth merchants would take unprocessed fresh wool from sheep to wash and beat the fibers until they were soft and would use the clay from the field to scrub the lanolin oils from the wool).
The Rabshakeh mocked Hezekiah, warning him to not rely on weak, treacherous Egypt to save him, and mistakenly believed that the Lord was angry because Hezekiah had torn down the pagan altars throughout Judah.
He then recommends that Hezekiah promise fealty to Sennacherib, and offers horses for the people to ride on while being deported to Assyria and lied, saying that God had commanded him to destroy Judah.
2 KINGS 18:26-37
26 Then Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, Shebna, and Joah said to the Rabshakeh, “Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, for we understand it; and do not speak to us in Hebrew in the hearing of the people who are on the wall.”
27 But the Rabshakeh said to them, “Has my master sent me to your master and to you to speak these words, and not to the men who sit on the wall, who will eat and drink their own waste with you?”
28 Then the Rabshakeh stood and called out with a loud voice in Hebrew, and spoke, saying, “Hear the word of the great king, the king of Assyria!
29 Thus says the king: ‘Do not let Hezekiah deceive you, for he shall not be able to deliver you from his hand;
30 nor let Hezekiah make you trust in the Lord, saying, “The Lord will surely deliver us; this city shall not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.” ’
31 Do not listen to Hezekiah; for thus says the king of Assyria: ‘Make peace with me by a present and come out to me; and every one of you eat from his own vine and every one from his own fig tree, and every one of you drink the waters of his own cistern;
32 until I come and take you away to a land like your own land, a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land of olive groves and honey, that you may live and not die. But do not listen to Hezekiah, lest he persuade you, saying, “The Lord will deliver us.”
33 Has any of the gods of the nations at all delivered its land from the hand of the king of Assyria?
34 Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim and Hena and Ivah? Indeed, have they delivered Samaria from my hand?
35 Who among all the gods of the lands have delivered their countries from my hand, that the Lord should deliver Jerusalem from my hand?’ ”
36 But the people held their peace and answered him not a word; for the king’s commandment was, “Do not answer him.”
37 Then Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, Shebna the scribe, and Joah the son of Asaph, the recorder, came to Hezekiah with their clothes torn, and told him the words of the Rabshakeh.
The Rabshakeh tried to get the people of Jerusalem to revolt against king Hezekiah, promising them that they could remain in Jerusalem until they could be deported to Assyria and resettled as guests.
The people knew better as the Assyrians were renowned for their cruelty and barbarity to captives and knew that they would be deported as slaves to Assyrian lands and would never return to Judah.
The Rabshakeh also sought to weaken their faith in the Lord and in Hezekiah by saying that the gods and kings of other nations couldn’t save them, so what made the Lord and Hezekiah any different? Thus he equated the Lord as being no better and as powerless as the pagan gods of the other nations.
2 KINGS 19:1-7
1 And so it was, when King Hezekiah heard it, that he tore his clothes, covered himself with sackcloth, and went into the house of the Lord.
2 Then he sent Eliakim, who was over the household, Shebna the scribe, and the elders of the priests, covered with sackcloth, to Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz.
3 And they said to him, “Thus says Hezekiah: ‘This day is a day of trouble, and rebuke, and blasphemy; for the children have come to birth, but there is no strength to bring them forth.
4 It may be that the Lord your God will hear all the words of the Rabshakeh, whom his master the king of Assyria has sent to reproach the living God, and will rebuke the words which the Lord your God has heard. Therefore lift up your prayer for the remnant that is left.’ ”
5 So the servants of King Hezekiah came to Isaiah.
6 And Isaiah said to them, “Thus you shall say to your master, ‘Thus says the Lord: “Do not be afraid of the words which you have heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed Me.
7 Surely I will send a spirit upon him, and he shall hear a rumor and return to his own land; and I will cause him to fall by the sword in his own land.” ’ ”
Hezekiah did the right thing in going before the Lord with his prayers. He also asked the prophet Isaiah to pray for the remnant of the nation that they might be saved from destruction. God then reassures Hezekiah through Isaiah that Sennacherib would retreat without harming Jerusalem.
2 KINGS 19:8-13
8 Then the Rabshakeh returned and found the king of Assyria warring against Libnah, for he heard that he had departed from Lachish.
9 And the king heard concerning Tirhakah king of Ethiopia, “Look, he has come out to make war with you.” So he again sent messengers to Hezekiah, saying,
10 “Thus you shall speak to Hezekiah king of Judah, saying: ‘Do not let your God in whom you trust deceive you, saying, “Jerusalem shall not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.”
11 Look! You have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands by utterly destroying them; and shall you be delivered?
12 Have the gods of the nations delivered those whom my fathers have destroyed, Gozan and Haran and Rezeph, and the people of Eden who were in Telassar?
13 Where is the king of Hamath, the king of Arpad, and the king of the city of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivah?’ ”
Sennacherib had finished destroying Lachish, the last fortified city of Judah outside of Jerusalem. He had left a portion of his army to keep Hezekiah caged while he attacked the independent city of Libnah which had revolted during the reign of king Jehoram of Judah and had set up its own king.
As God had promised, Sennacherib heard a rumor that Tirhakah, the Nubian Pharaoh of Egypt had come to fight him, so he sent to Hezekiah to not rejoice in this, that he would be back to finish destroying Jerusalem.
History shows that Tirhakah fought Sennacherib’s army to a standstill at a city called Eltekeh in western Judah and he kept the Assyrians out of Egypt for a number of years.
2 KINGS 19:14-19
14 And Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers, and read it; and Hezekiah went up to the house of the Lord, and spread it before the Lord.
15 Then Hezekiah prayed before the Lord, and said: “O Lord God of Israel, the One who dwells between the cherubim, You are God, You alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth.
16 Incline Your ear, O Lord, and hear; open Your eyes, O Lord, and see; and hear the words of Sennacherib, which he has sent to reproach the living God.
17 Truly, Lord, the kings of Assyria have laid waste the nations and their lands,
18 and have cast their gods into the fire; for they were not gods, but the work of men’s hands—wood and stone. Therefore they destroyed them.
19 Now therefore, O Lord our God, I pray, save us from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that You are the Lord God, You alone.”
Hezekiah appeals to the Lord, humbling himself and confessing that the salvation of Jerusalem will come from God alone. He also confesses that the gods of other lands are lifeless idols that could not save, but that God is the true and living God who can save and that Hezekiah trusts in Him.
2 KINGS 19:20-26
20 Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah, saying, “Thus says the Lord God of Israel: ‘Because you have prayed to Me against Sennacherib king of Assyria, I have heard.’
21 This is the word which the Lord has spoken concerning him: ‘The virgin, the daughter of Zion, has despised you, laughed you to scorn; the daughter of Jerusalem has shaken her head behind your back!
22 ‘Whom have you reproached and blasphemed? Against whom have you raised your voice, and lifted up your eyes on high? Against the Holy One of Israel.
23 By your messengers you have reproached the Lord, and said: “By the multitude of my chariots I have come up to the height of the mountains, to the limits of Lebanon; I will cut down its tall cedars and its choice cypress trees; I will enter the extremity of its borders, to its fruitful forest.
24 I have dug and drunk strange water, and with the soles of my feet I have dried up all the brooks of defense.”
25 ‘Did you not hear long ago how I made it, from ancient times that I formed it? Now I have brought it to pass, that you should be for crushing fortified cities into heaps of ruins.
26 Therefore their inhabitants had little power; they were dismayed and confounded; they were as the grass of the field and the green herb, as the grass on the housetops and grain blighted before it is grown.
God mocks Sennacherib for glorying in his own strength, when He, God, decreed long ago that Sennacherib would be used by God for this very purpose, to punish the nations for their sins. As He told the prophet Isaiah;
ISAIAH 10:5-12
5 “Woe to Assyria, the rod of My anger and the staff in whose hand is My indignation.
6 I will send him against an ungodly nation, and against the people of My wrath I will give him charge, to seize the spoil, to take the prey, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets.
7 Yet he does not mean so, nor does his heart think so; but it is in his heart to destroy, and cut off not a few nations.
8 For he says, ‘Are not my princes altogether kings?
9 Is not Calno like Carchemish? Is not Hamath like Arpad? Is not Samaria like Damascus?
10 As my hand has found the kingdoms of the idols, whose carved images excelled those of Jerusalem and Samaria,
11 As I have done to Samaria and her idols, shall I not do also to Jerusalem and her idols?’
12 Therefore it shall come to pass, when the Lord has performed all His work on Mount Zion and on Jerusalem, that He will say, “I will punish the fruit of the arrogant heart of the king of Assyria, and the glory of his haughty looks.”
2 KINGS 19:27-31
27 ‘But I know your dwelling place, your going out and your coming in, and your rage against Me.
28 Because your rage against Me and your tumult have come up to My ears, therefore I will put My hook in your nose and My bridle in your lips, and I will turn you back by the way which you came.
29 ‘This shall be a sign to you: ‘You shall eat this year such as grows of itself, and in the second year what springs from the same; also in the third year sow and reap, plant vineyards and eat the fruit of them.
30 And the remnant who have escaped of the house of Judah shall again take root downward, and bear fruit upward.
31 For out of Jerusalem shall go a remnant, and those who escape from Mount Zion. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.’
God tells Sennacherib that he will retreat without capturing Jerusalem, and tells the Jews He will provide for them so that this year and next they will eat of the harvests of the field without sowing seed and that in the third year they will be able to sow a new set of crops.
2 KINGS 19:32-37
32 “Therefore thus says the Lord concerning the king of Assyria: ‘He shall not come into this city, nor shoot an arrow there, nor come before it with shield, nor build a siege mound against it.
33 By the way that he came, by the same shall he return; and he shall not come into this city,’ says the Lord
34 ‘For I will defend this city, to save it for My own sake and for My servant David’s sake.’
35 And it came to pass on a certain night that the angel of the Lord went out, and killed in the camp of the Assyrians one hundred and eighty-five thousand; and when people arose early in the morning, there were the corpses—all dead.
36 So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed and went away, returned home, and remained at Nineveh.
37 Now it came to pass, as he was worshiping in the temple of Nisroch his god, that his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer struck him down with the sword; and they escaped into the land of Ararat. Then Esarhaddon his son reigned in his place.
Assyrian records do not (of course) mention this event. However Assyrian annals quote Sennacherib as saying, “ "And Hezekiah of Judah who had not submitted to my yoke...him I shut up in Jerusalem his royal city like a caged bird. Earthworks I threw up against him, and anyone coming out of his city gate I made pay for his crime. His cities which I had plundered I had cut off from his land." ”
In a fascinating note, Sennacherib lists the all of cities he destroyed and mentions besieging Jerusalem, but never mentions having taken the city. If he had destroyed Jerusalem he certainly would have listed it among the others!
There has been much speculation as to what killed the Assyrian soldiers, and Greek historian Herodotus wrote that the Assyrians were plagued with mice (or rats) while battling Tirhakah, which he said ate the Assyrians’ bowstrings.
Rodents are well-known carriers of diseases, especially bubonic plague, with which God afflicted the Philistines when they had captured the Ark of the Covenant (1 Samuel, chapter 5). And seeing that the town of Eltekeh where the battle occurred adjoined Philistine territory, it may have been a massive plague that destroyed the Assyrians.
Sennacherib was assassinated in 681 B.C. and while Assyrian records do not mention the assassination, Babylonian records also record that he was assassinated by his two oldest sons as he prayed in a temple because he had chosen his youngest son Esarhaddon to be king instead of one of them. And history shows that his youngest son Esarhaddon reigned in his place.
2 KINGS 20:1-7
1 In those days Hezekiah was sick and near death. And Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz, went to him and said to him, “Thus says the Lord: ‘Set your house in order, for you shall die, and not live.’ ”
2 Then he turned his face toward the wall, and prayed to the Lord, saying,
3 “Remember now, O Lord, I pray, how I have walked before You in truth and with a loyal heart, and have done what was good in Your sight.” And Hezekiah wept bitterly.
4 And it happened, before Isaiah had gone out into the middle court, that the word of the Lord came to him, saying,
5 “Return and tell Hezekiah the leader of My people, ‘Thus says the Lord, the God of David your father: “I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears; surely I will heal you. On the third day you shall go up to the house of the Lord.
6 And I will add to your days fifteen years. I will deliver you and this city from the hand of the king of Assyria; and I will defend this city for My own sake, and for the sake of My servant David.” ’ ”
7 Then Isaiah said, “Take a lump of figs.” So they took and laid it on the boil, and he recovered.
While the nature of Hezekiah’s illness seems to have been an infected boil, it apparently happened during Sennacherib’s siege of Jerusalem. God may have been testing Hezekiah’s faith by telling Isaiah to have him set his affairs in order, then having him return with news that God would heal Hezekiah and grant him 15 more years of life.
2 KINGS 20:8-11
8 And Hezekiah said to Isaiah, “What is the sign that the Lord will heal me, and that I shall go up to the house of the Lord the third day?”
9 Then Isaiah said, “This is the sign to you from the Lord, that the Lord will do the thing which He has spoken: shall the shadow go forward ten degrees or go backward ten degrees?”
10 And Hezekiah answered, “It is an easy thing for the shadow to go down ten degrees; no, but let the shadow go backward ten degrees.”
11 So Isaiah the prophet cried out to the Lord, and He brought the shadow ten degrees backward, by which it had gone down on the sundial of Ahaz.
This shows the incredible power of God in that He caused the Earth to rotate backward 10 degrees!!
The Earth rotates from west to east on its axis, causing the Sun to rise in the east and set in the west. The angular rotational velocity is approximately 1,000 miles per hour (1610 km/hr) at the equator, and if the Earth were to suddenly stop rotating, everything on Earth would be thrown eastward at up to 1,000 miles per hour. That would include the oceans, creating tsunamis that would scour entire continents down to bedrock. The friction between the stationary crust and the still-spinning core would create earthquakes and volcanic eruptions on a unimaginable scale.
Yet God not only stopped the Earth’s rotation, He also rotated it backwards, stopped it again and restarted its normal rotation again!
2 KINGS 20:12-19
12 At that time Berodach-Baladan the son of Baladan, king of Babylon, sent letters and a present to Hezekiah, for he heard that Hezekiah had been sick.
13 And Hezekiah was attentive to them, and showed them all the house of his treasures—the silver and gold, the spices and precious ointment, and all his armory—all that was found among his treasures. There was nothing in his house or in all his dominion that Hezekiah did not show them.
14 Then Isaiah the prophet went to King Hezekiah, and said to him, “What did these men say, and from where did they come to you?” So Hezekiah said, “They came from a far country, from Babylon.”
15 And he said, “What have they seen in your house?” So Hezekiah answered, “They have seen all that is in my house; there is nothing among my treasures that I have not shown them.”
16 Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, “Hear the word of the Lord:
17 ‘Behold, the days are coming when all that is in your house, and what your fathers have accumulated until this day, shall be carried to Babylon; nothing shall be left,’ says the Lord.
18 ‘And they shall take away some of your sons who will descend from you, whom you will beget; and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.’ ”
19 So Hezekiah said to Isaiah, “The word of the Lord which you have spoken is good!” For he said, “Will there not be peace and truth at least in my days?”
Ah, pride has destroyed many a man and nation, and Hezekiah’s pride would lead to future disaster.
This event occurred in 653 B.C. and 67 years later in 586 B.C., Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II would destroy Jerusalem and its population, either killing the inhabitants or deporting them as slaves to Babylon for 70 years because of Judah’s sins.
2 KINGS 20:20-21
20 Now the rest of the acts of Hezekiah—all his might, and how he made a pool and a tunnel and brought water into the city—are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah?
21 So Hezekiah rested with his fathers. Then Manasseh his son reigned in his place,
In 2015 the royal seal (called a “bulla) of king Hezekiah was found in Jerusalem. The seal says,
"Belonging to Hezekiah, son of Ahaz, king of Judah," These seals were pressed into wax or clay leaving an impression that anyone could read. It was usually used to seal documents (scrolls) to prevent tampering. If the seal was broken before the recipient received the document it would indicate someone had already read the contents.
Also in the same strata a mere 10 feet (3 meters) from Hezekiah’s seal another seal with the words “ Yesha’yahu” (Hebrew for “Isaiah”) and the letters “NAV” which appear to spell the word “Navi” (Hebrew for ‘prophet’). However the last letter is missing as the seal is broken, so naturally skeptics dispute the find.
When he knew that the Assyrians under king Sennacherib were planning on besieging Jerusalem, king Hezekiah was worried that the Assyrians would use the abundant waters of the Gihon spring to support their troops and deprive the city of water. He then commissioned that access to the spring be blocked and a tunnel be carved which would bring the water into the city under the walls thereby keeping it out of Assyrian reach.
In a remarkable feat of engineering, the Jews cut the 1740 foot (533 meter) tunnel through solid rock with work crews starting at both ends underground and meeting in the middle. Even more remarkable is that between the two ends there is only a 12 inch (30 cm) elevation difference!! Inside the tunnel was found an inscription by one of the workers describing the work being done by two teams starting at opposite ends of the tunnel.
2 KINGS 21:1-9
1 Manasseh was twelve years old when he became king, and he reigned fifty-five years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Hephzibah.
2 And he did evil in the sight of the Lord, according to the abominations of the nations whom the Lord had cast out before the children of Israel.
3 For he rebuilt the high places which Hezekiah his father had destroyed; he raised up altars for Baal, and made a wooden image, as Ahab king of Israel had done; and he worshiped all the host of heaven and served them.
4 He also built altars in the house of the Lord, of which the Lord had said, “In Jerusalem I will put My name.”
5 And he built altars for all the host of heaven in the two courts of the house of the Lord.
6 Also he made his son pass through the fire, practiced soothsaying, used witchcraft, and consulted spiritists and mediums. He did much evil in the sight of the Lord, to provoke Him to anger.
7 He even set a carved image of Asherah that he had made, in the house of which the Lord had said to David and to Solomon his son, “In this house and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, I will put My name forever;
8 and I will not make the feet of Israel wander anymore from the land which I gave their fathers—only if they are careful to do according to all that I have commanded them, and according to all the law that My servant Moses commanded them.”
9 But they paid no attention, and Manasseh seduced them to do more evil than the nations whom the Lord had destroyed before the children of Israel.
Manasseh (ruled from 697 - 642 B.C.) is considered to be the worst king in all of Israel’s history. He even went so far as to build altars to pagan gods in the Temple courts and even placed an idol of the pagan female goddess Asherah inside the temple itself.
He sacrificed his infant son by throwing him alive into a furnace built into the belly of a bronze statue of Molech, practiced witchcraft and consulted with demon spirits which God had condemned in the Law of Moses.
2 KINGS 21:10-18
10 And the Lord spoke by His servants the prophets, saying,
11 “Because Manasseh king of Judah has done these abominations (he has acted more wickedly than all the Amorites who were before him, and has also made Judah sin with his idols),
12 therefore thus says the Lord God of Israel: ‘Behold, I am bringing such calamity upon Jerusalem and Judah, that whoever hears of it, both his ears will tingle.
13 And I will stretch over Jerusalem the measuring line of Samaria and the plummet of the house of Ahab; I will wipe Jerusalem as one wipes a dish, wiping it and turning it upside down.
14 So I will forsake the remnant of My inheritance and deliver them into the hand of their enemies; and they shall become victims of plunder to all their enemies,
15 because they have done evil in My sight, and have provoked Me to anger since the day their fathers came out of Egypt, even to this day.’ ”
16 Moreover Manasseh shed very much innocent blood, till he had filled Jerusalem from one end to another, besides his sin by which he made Judah sin, in doing evil in the sight of the Lord.
17 Now the rest of the acts of Manasseh—all that he did, and the sin that he committed—are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah?
18 So Manasseh rested with his fathers, and was buried in the garden of his own house, in the garden of Uzza. Then his son Amon reigned in his place.
Because of the sins of Manasseh, 56 years after his death God in 586 B.C. fulfilled His word and destroyed Jerusalem completely by a brutal siege from the king of Babylon, which horrifying events are recorded in the books of Isaiah and Jeremiah.
2 KINGS 21:19-26
19 Amon was twenty-two years old when he became king, and he reigned two years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Meshullemeth the daughter of Haruz of Jotbah.
20 And he did evil in the sight of the Lord, as his father Manasseh had done.
21 So he walked in all the ways that his father had walked; and he served the idols that his father had served, and worshiped them.
22 He forsook the Lord God of his fathers, and did not walk in the way of the Lord.
23 Then the servants of Amon conspired against him, and killed the king in his own house.
24 But the people of the land executed all those who had conspired against King Amon. Then the people of the land made his son Josiah king in his place.
25 Now the rest of the acts of Amon which he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah?
26 And he was buried in his tomb in the garden of Uzza. Then Josiah his son reigned in his place.
Amon ruled from 642 - 640 B.C. and was just like his father, following in his sins.
2 KINGS 22:1-11
1 Josiah was eight years old when he became king, and he reigned thirty-one years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Jedidah the daughter of Adaiah of Bozkath.
2 And he did what was right in the sight of the Lord, and walked in all the ways of his father David; he did not turn aside to the right hand or to the left.
3 Now it came to pass, in the eighteenth year of King Josiah, that the king sent Shaphan the scribe, the son of Azaliah, the son of Meshullam, to the house of the Lord, saying:
4 “Go up to Hilkiah the high priest, that he may count the money which has been brought into the house of the Lord, which the doorkeepers have gathered from the people.
5 And let them deliver it into the hand of those doing the work, who are the overseers in the house of the Lord; let them give it to those who are in the house of the Lord doing the work, to repair the damages of the house—
6 to carpenters and builders and masons—and to buy timber and hewn stone to repair the house.
7 However there need be no accounting made with them of the money delivered into their hand, because they deal faithfully.”
8 Then Hilkiah the high priest said to Shaphan the scribe, “I have found the Book of the Law in the house of the Lord.” And Hilkiah gave the book to Shaphan, and he read it.
9 So Shaphan the scribe went to the king, bringing the king word, saying, “Your servants have gathered the money that was found in the house, and have delivered it into the hand of those who do the work, who oversee the house of the Lord.”
10 Then Shaphan the scribe showed the king, saying, “Hilkiah the priest has given me a book.” And Shaphan read it before the king.
11 Now it happened, when the king heard the words of the Book of the Law, that he tore his clothes.
Josiah (ruled 640 - 609 B.C.) at 8 years old was the second youngest king in Israel’s history, with king Joash of Judah being the youngest (ruled 838 - 796 B.C.) crowned at 7 years of age.
The Temple had been allowed to fall into disrepair during the reign of Manasseh and Amon. Josiah, being a Godly king, would have removed any pagan idols and altars from the Temple and cleaned the rooms, identifying damages as they became visible.
Like king Jehoash before him Josiah ordered that the Temple tax and freewill offering monies be collected and given to workmen to repair the Temple.
Josiah had followed the practices of kings David and Hezekiah before him, but finding the book of the Law (most scholars feel it was the book of Deuteronomy) revealed God’s commandments and dire warnings for disobedience to the king and his people. The young king was shocked and terrified by what was read to him.
2 KINGS 22:12-20
12 Then the king commanded Hilkiah the priest, Ahikam the son of Shaphan, Achbor the son of Michaiah, Shaphan the scribe, and Asaiah a servant of the king, saying,
13 “Go, inquire of the Lord for me, for the people and for all Judah, concerning the words of this book that has been found; for great is the wrath of the Lord that is aroused against us, because our fathers have not obeyed the words of this book, to do according to all that is written concerning us.”
14 So Hilkiah the priest, Ahikam, Achbor, Shaphan, and Asaiah went to Huldah the prophetess, the wife of Shallum the son of Tikvah, the son of Harhas, keeper of the wardrobe. (She dwelt in Jerusalem in the Second Quarter.) And they spoke with her.
15 Then she said to them, “Thus says the Lord God of Israel, ‘Tell the man who sent you to Me,
16 “Thus says the Lord: ‘Behold, I will bring calamity on this place and on its inhabitants—all the words of the book which the king of Judah has read—
17 because they have forsaken Me and burned incense to other gods, that they might provoke Me to anger with all the works of their hands. Therefore My wrath shall be aroused against this place and shall not be quenched.’ ” ’
18 But as for the king of Judah, who sent you to inquire of the Lord, in this manner you shall speak to him, ‘Thus says the Lord God of Israel: “Concerning the words which you have heard—
19 because your heart was tender, and you humbled yourself before the Lord when you heard what I spoke against this place and against its inhabitants, that they would become a desolation and a curse, and you tore your clothes and wept before Me, I also have heard you,” says the Lord.
20 “Surely, therefore, I will gather you to your fathers, and you shall be gathered to your grave in peace; and your eyes shall not see all the calamity which I will bring on this place.” ’ ” So they brought back word to the king.
Josiah is assured by God that the curses given by Moses in the Law will indeed come to pass but will happen after Josiah’s death because he sought the Lord and obeyed His commandments from a sincere, humble heart.
2 KINGS 23:1-9
1 Now the king sent them to gather all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem to him.
2 The king went up to the house of the Lord with all the men of Judah, and with him all the inhabitants of Jerusalem—the priests and the prophets and all the people, both small and great. And he read in their hearing all the words of the Book of the Covenant which had been found in the house of the Lord.
3 Then the king stood by a pillar and made a covenant before the Lord, to follow the Lord and to keep His commandments and His testimonies and His statutes, with all his heart and all his soul, to perform the words of this covenant that were written in this book. And all the people took a stand for the covenant.
4 And the king commanded Hilkiah the high priest, the priests of the second order, and the doorkeepers, to bring out of the temple of the Lord all the articles that were made for Baal, for Asherah, and for all the host of heaven; and he burned them outside Jerusalem in the fields of Kidron, and carried their ashes to Bethel.
5 Then he removed the idolatrous priests whom the kings of Judah had ordained to burn incense on the high places in the cities of Judah and in the places all around Jerusalem, and those who burned incense to Baal, to the sun, to the moon, to the constellations, and to all the host of heaven.
6 And he brought out the wooden image from the house of the Lord, to the Brook Kidron outside Jerusalem, burned it at the Brook Kidron and ground it to ashes, and threw its ashes on the graves of the common people.
7 Then he tore down the ritual booths of the perverted persons that were in the house of the Lord, where the women wove hangings for the wooden image.
8 And he brought all the priests from the cities of Judah, and defiled the high places where the priests had burned incense, from Geba to Beersheba; also he broke down the high places at the gates which were at the entrance of the Gate of Joshua the governor of the city, which were to the left of the city gate.
9 Nevertheless the priests of the high places did not come up to the altar of the Lord in Jerusalem, but they ate unleavened bread among their brethren.
King Josiah after he and the people re-dedicated themselves to the Lord, literally “cleaned house”, removing the idols dedicated to Ba’al and Asherah from the Temple. After burning them, he took the ashes and threw them onto the ruins of the pagan altars set up by idolatrous king Jeroboam of the destroyed Northern Kingdom of Israel.
He tore down the ritual houses of the “perverted persons” (the King James version reads “sodomites” (homosexuals)) that were in the Temple and destroyed all of the pagan “high places (altars) throughout the city.
2 KINGS 23:10-14
10 And he defiled Topheth, which is in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, that no man might make his son or his daughter pass through the fire to Molech.
11 Then he removed the horses that the kings of Judah had dedicated to the sun, at the entrance to the house of the Lord, by the chamber of Nathan-Melech, the officer who was in the court; and he burned the chariots of the sun with fire.
12 The altars that were on the roof, the upper chamber of Ahaz, which the kings of Judah had made, and the altars which Manasseh had made in the two courts of the house of the Lord, the king broke down and pulverized there, and threw their dust into the Brook Kidron.
13 Then the king defiled the high places that were east of Jerusalem, which were on the south of the Mount of Corruption, which Solomon king of Israel had built for Ashtoreth the abomination of the Sidonians, for Chemosh the abomination of the Moabites, and for Milcom the abomination of the people of Ammon.
14 And he broke in pieces the sacred pillars and cut down the wooden images, and filled their places with the bones of men.
The Valley of Topheth (Tophet) was a valley where rubbish and refuse was continually burned outside of Jerusalem, and was also a place dedicated to human sacrifices made to Molech and Ba’al. The fires also were used to cremate victims of the pagan gods and those who were burned alive (usually infants) in furnaces built into the idols.
The Mount of Corruption is one of the three peaks of the mountain range which contains the Mount of Olives and Mount Scopus. It received its name from the pagan temples king Solomon had built there;
1 KINGS 11:4-8
4 For it was so, when Solomon was old, that his wives turned his heart after other gods; and his heart was not loyal to the Lord his God, as was the heart of his father David.
5 For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and after Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites.
6 Solomon did evil in the sight of the Lord, and did not fully follow the Lord, as did his father David.
7 Then Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the abomination of Moab, on the hill that is east of Jerusalem, and for Molech the abomination of the people of Ammon.
8 And he did likewise for all his foreign wives, who burned incense and sacrificed to their gods.
King Josiah destroyed the altars there and scattered human bones across the site to defile it.
2 KINGS 23:15-18
15 Moreover the altar that was at Bethel, and the high place which Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel sin, had made, both that altar and the high place he broke down; and he burned the high place and crushed it to powder, and burned the wooden image.
16 As Josiah turned, he saw the tombs that were there on the mountain. And he sent and took the bones out of the tombs and burned them on the altar, and defiled it according to the word of the Lord which the man of God proclaimed, who proclaimed these words.
17 Then he said, “What gravestone is this that I see?” So the men of the city told him, “It is the tomb of the man of God who came from Judah and proclaimed these things which you have done against the altar of Bethel.”
18 And he said, “Let him alone; let no one move his bones.” So they let his bones alone, with the bones of the prophet who came from Samaria.
Bethel was one of the two places where king Jeroboam of the Northern Kingdom of Israel had installed one of two golden calf idols (the other was in the far north in the territory of the tribe of Dan) for the people to worship.
It had been prophesied 300 years earlier (1 Kings chapter 13) that Josiah would burn the bones of the priests of Ba’al on the altar that Jeroboam built. Josiah respected the prophet’s grave site and left him undisturbed.
2 KINGS 23:19-25
19 Now Josiah also took away all the shrines of the high places that were in the cities of Samaria, which the kings of Israel had made to provoke the Lord to anger; and he did to them according to all the deeds he had done in Bethel.
20 He executed all the priests of the high places who were there, on the altars, and burned men’s bones on them; and he returned to Jerusalem.
21 Then the king commanded all the people, saying, “Keep the Passover to the Lord your God, as it is written in this Book of the Covenant.”
22 Such a Passover surely had never been held since the days of the judges who judged Israel, nor in all the days of the kings of Israel and the kings of Judah.
23 But in the eighteenth year of King Josiah this Passover was held before the Lord in Jerusalem.
24 Moreover Josiah put away those who consulted mediums and spiritists, the household gods and idols, all the abominations that were seen in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem, that he might perform the words of the law which were written in the book that Hilkiah the priest found in the house of the Lord.
25 Now before him there was no king like him, who turned to the Lord with all his heart, with all his soul, and with all his might, according to all the Law of Moses; nor after him did any arise like him.
Josiah executed the pagan priests as commanded by God in the Law of Moses;
DEUTERONOMY 13:6-11
6 “If your brother, the son of your mother, your son or your daughter, the wife of your bosom, or your friend who is as your own soul, secretly entices you, saying, ‘Let us go and serve other gods,’ which you have not known, neither you nor your fathers,
7 of the gods of the people which are all around you, near to you or far off from you, from one end of the earth to the other end of the earth,
8 you shall not consent to him or listen to him, nor shall your eye pity him, nor shall you spare him or conceal him;
9 but you shall surely kill him; your hand shall be first against him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people.
10 And you shall stone him with stones until he dies, because he sought to entice you away from the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage.
11 So all Israel shall hear and fear, and not again do such wickedness as this among you.
2 KINGS 23:26-27
26 Nevertheless the Lord did not turn from the fierceness of His great wrath, with which His anger was aroused against Judah, because of all the provocations with which Manasseh had provoked Him.
27 And the Lord said, “I will also remove Judah from My sight, as I have removed Israel, and will cast off this city Jerusalem which I have chosen, and the house of which I said, ‘My name shall be there.’ ”
God had promised Josiah that even though he had set about reforming Judah and had turned them back to the Lord, the sins of Manasseh were too great to ignore. As an object lesson and in fulfillment of the dire warnings He had given to Moses, He would punish Judah as He had punished the Northern Kingdom of Israel and would cast them out of His sight.
2 KINGS 23:28-30
28 Now the rest of the acts of Josiah, and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah?
29 In his days Pharaoh Necho king of Egypt went to the aid of the king of Assyria, to the River Euphrates; and King Josiah went against him. And Pharaoh Necho killed him at Megiddo when he confronted him.
30 Then his servants moved his body in a chariot from Megiddo, brought him to Jerusalem, and buried him in his own tomb. And the people of the land took Jehoahaz the son of Josiah, anointed him, and made him king in his father’s place.
In 609 B.C. Pharaoh Necho II sent an expedition northward to try to contain Babylonian expansion southward into Syria. King Josiah sided with Babylon and met him at the valley of Megiddo where Josiah was killed.
Pharaoh Necho continued northward to Carchemish on the Euphrates River in Assyria where in an epic battle with Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II Necho was soundly defeated, ending his quest to expand Egyptian power into Assyria and establishing Babylon as the regional superpower.
2 KINGS 23:31-34
31 Jehoahaz was twenty-three years old when he became king, and he reigned three months in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Hamutal the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah.
32 And he did evil in the sight of the Lord, according to all that his fathers had done.
33 Now Pharaoh Necho put him in prison at Riblah in the land of Hamath, that he might not reign in Jerusalem; and he imposed on the land a tribute of one hundred talents of silver and a talent of gold.
34 Then Pharaoh Necho made Eliakim the son of Josiah king in place of his father Josiah, and changed his name to Jehoiakim. And Pharaoh took Jehoahaz and went to Egypt, and he died there.
Jehoahaz was actually the youngest son of king Josiah. Pharaoh Necho II after his defeat at Carchemish deposed Jehoahaz for unknown reasons and installed Jehoahaz’ older brother Eliakim on the throne.
2 KINGS 23:35-37
35 So Jehoiakim gave the silver and gold to Pharaoh; but he taxed the land to give money according to the command of Pharaoh; he exacted the silver and gold from the people of the land, from every one according to his assessment, to give it to Pharaoh Necho.
36 Jehoiakim was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Zebudah the daughter of Pedaiah of Rumah.
37 And he did evil in the sight of the Lord, according to all that his fathers had done.
Jehoiakim (ruled 609 - 598 B.C.) continued performing the evil that the kings of Judah had performed before him. He is described in Rabbinical literature as “a godless tyrant who committed atrocious sins and crimes. He is portrayed as living in incestuous relations with his mother, daughter-in-law, and stepmother, and was in the habit of murdering men, whose wives he then violated and whose property he seized. He also had tattooed his body.”
2 KINGS 24:1-7
1 In his days Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up, and Jehoiakim became his vassal for three years. Then he turned and rebelled against him.
2 And the Lord sent against him raiding bands of Chaldeans, bands of Syrians, bands of Moabites, and bands of the people of Ammon; He sent them against Judah to destroy it, according to the word of the Lord which He had spoken by His servants the prophets.
3 Surely at the commandment of the Lord this came upon Judah, to remove them from His sight because of the sins of Manasseh, according to all that he had done,
4 and also because of the innocent blood that he had shed; for he had filled Jerusalem with innocent blood, which the Lord would not pardon.
5 Now the rest of the acts of Jehoiakim, and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah?
6 So Jehoiakim rested with his fathers. Then Jehoiachin his son reigned in his place.
7 And the king of Egypt did not come out of his land anymore, for the king of Babylon had taken all that belonged to the king of Egypt from the Brook of Egypt to the River Euphrates.
In 605 B.C. after defeating Pharaoh Necho II at the battle of Carchemish, Nebuchadnezzar besieged Jerusalem. Jehoiakim changed his allegiance from Egypt to Babylon for three years.
In 601 B.C. Nebuchadnezzar invaded Egypt but was thrown back by Pharaoh Necho II, weakening Babylon’s control over the region. Jehoiakim rebelled and again allied himself with Egypt and was subsequently harassed by the Babylonians (Chaldeans), Syrians, Ammonites and Moabites who were allies of Babylon.
The “Brook of Egypt” is a seasonal stream in the Sinai Peninsula midway between Edom and Egypt. The stream dries up during the summer and flows again in the winter.
Even though he defeated king Nebuchadnezzar’s invasion of Egypt in 601 B.C., Pharaoh Necho II did not ever again venture out of Egypt.
According to Jewish historian Josephus, king Jehoiakim was killed by Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar during his second siege of Jerusalem. God had prophesied through Jeremiah;
JEREMIAH 36:30-31
30 Therefore thus says the Lord concerning Jehoiakim king of Judah: “He shall have no one to sit on the throne of David, and his dead body shall be cast out to the heat of the day and the frost of the night.
31 I will punish him, his family, and his servants for their iniquity; and I will bring on them, on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and on the men of Judah all the doom that I have pronounced against them; but they did not heed.” ’ ”
Josephus records that after killing Jehoiakim, Nebuchadnezzar ordered his body thrown over the wall of Jerusalem and did not allow him to be buried, in accordance with the word of the Lord.
2 KINGS 24:8-16
8 Jehoiachin was eighteen years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem three months. His mother’s name was Nehushta the daughter of Elnathan of Jerusalem.
9 And he did evil in the sight of the Lord, according to all that his father had done.
10 At that time the servants of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up against Jerusalem, and the city was besieged.
11 And Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came against the city, as his servants were besieging it.
12 Then Jehoiachin king of Judah, his mother, his servants, his princes, and his officers went out to the king of Babylon; and the king of Babylon, in the eighth year of his reign, took him prisoner.
13 And he carried out from there all the treasures of the house of the Lord and the treasures of the king’s house, and he cut in pieces all the articles of gold which Solomon king of Israel had made in the temple of the Lord, as the Lord had said.
14 Also he carried into captivity all Jerusalem: all the captains and all the mighty men of valor, ten thousand captives, and all the craftsmen and smiths. None remained except the poorest people of the land.
15 And he carried Jehoiachin captive to Babylon. The king’s mother, the king’s wives, his officers, and the mighty of the land he carried into captivity from Jerusalem to Babylon.
16 All the valiant men, seven thousand, and craftsmen and smiths, one thousand, all who were strong and fit for war, these the king of Babylon brought captive to Babylon.
In March of 597 B.C. king Jehoiachin (also known as “Coniah”), his family and all of the “upper class” (nobility and craftsmen) were deported to Babylon as captives in order to enrich the Babylonian culture. The nobility would be castrated and would serve as eunuchs in Nebuchadnezzar’s court while the skilled craftsmen would add their skills to Babylonian industry. He left the poor to take care of Judah as vassals.
Thus the word of the Lord was fulfilled in that king Jehoiakim’s son did not inherit the throne of Judah. And Babylonian records speak of Jehoiachin and his 5 sons receiving food rations while captive in Babylon.
2 Kings 24:17-20
17 Then the king of Babylon made Mattaniah, Jehoiachin’s uncle, king in his place, and changed his name to Zedekiah.
18 Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he became king, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Hamutal the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah.
19 He also did evil in the sight of the Lord, according to all that Jehoiakim had done.
20 For because of the anger of the Lord this happened in Jerusalem and Judah, that He finally cast them out from His presence. Then Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon.
Zedekiah (reigned 597 - 586 B.C.) became king at the command of king Nebuchadnezzar, but he revolted in 589 B.C., making an alliance with Pharaoh Hophra (also called Apries) of Egypt against the warnings of the prophet Jeremiah.
2 KINGS 25:1-3
1 Now it came to pass in the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, on the tenth day of the month, that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and all his army came against Jerusalem and encamped against it; and they built a siege wall against it all around.
2 So the city was besieged until the eleventh year of King Zedekiah.
3 By the ninth day of the fourth month the famine had become so severe in the city that there was no food for the people of the land.
Nebuchadnezzar came back in December of 589 B.C. and besieged the city so that no one could come in or out. Starvation and disease rapidly set in and the terrible curses given by Moses for disobedience came true;
DEUTERONOMY 28:52-57
52 “They shall besiege you at all your gates until your high and fortified walls, in which you trust, come down throughout all your land; and they shall besiege you at all your gates throughout all your land which the Lord your God has given you.
53 You shall eat the fruit of your own body, the flesh of your sons and your daughters whom the Lord your God has given you, in the siege and desperate straits in which your enemy shall distress you.
54 The sensitive and very refined man among you will be hostile toward his brother, toward the wife of his bosom, and toward the rest of his children whom he leaves behind,
55 so that he will not give any of them the flesh of his children whom he will eat, because he has nothing left in the siege and desperate straits in which your enemy shall distress you at all your gates.
56 The tender and delicate woman among you, who would not venture to set the sole of her foot on the ground because of her delicateness and sensitivity, will refuse to the husband of her bosom, and to her son and her daughter,
57 her placenta which comes out from between her feet and her children whom she bears; for she will eat them secretly for lack of everything in the siege and desperate straits in which your enemy shall distress you at all your gates.
The books of Jeremiah and Lamentations detail eyewitness accounts of the horrifying conditions in the city before the city fell to the Babylonians after a 13 month siege.
2 KINGS 25:4-7
4 Then the city wall was broken through, and all the men of war fled at night by way of the gate between two walls, which was by the king’s garden, even though the Chaldeans were still encamped all around against the city. And the king went by way of the plain.
5 But the army of the Chaldeans pursued the king, and they overtook him in the plains of Jericho. All his army was scattered from him.
6 So they took the king and brought him up to the king of Babylon at Riblah, and they pronounced judgment on him.
7 Then they killed the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes, put out the eyes of Zedekiah, bound him with bronze fetters, and took him to Babylon.
Parts of Jerusalem had double walls so that if an enemy breached the outer wall, they could be trapped in the gap between the two walls and destroyed.
An interesting prophecy concerning Zedekiah was made by the prophet Ezekiel, who said;
EZEKIEL 12:13-14
13 I will also spread My net over him, and he shall be caught in My snare. I will bring him to Babylon, to the land of the Chaldeans; yet he shall not see it, though he shall die there.
14 I will scatter to every wind all who are around him to help him, and all his troops; and I will draw out the sword after them.
It seemed a contradiction that Zedekiah would be taken to Babylon, but not see the city. Yet as Scripture shows, Zedekiah was blinded so that the murders of his sons would be the last thing he saw, and thus the last king of Judah was taken to Babylon.
2 KINGS 25:8-17
8 And in the fifth month, on the seventh day of the month (which was the nineteenth year of King Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon), Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard, a servant of the king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem.
9 He burned the house of the Lord and the king’s house; all the houses of Jerusalem, that is, all the houses of the great, he burned with fire.
10 And all the army of the Chaldeans who were with the captain of the guard broke down the walls of Jerusalem all around.
11 Then Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard carried away captive the rest of the people who remained in the city and the defectors who had deserted to the king of Babylon, with the rest of the multitude.
12 But the captain of the guard left some of the poor of the land as vinedressers and farmers.
13 The bronze pillars that were in the house of the Lord, and the carts and the bronze Sea that were in the house of the Lord, the Chaldeans broke in pieces, and carried their bronze to Babylon.
14 They also took away the pots, the shovels, the trimmers, the spoons, and all the bronze utensils with which the priests ministered.
15 The firepans and the basins, the things of solid gold and solid silver, the captain of the guard took away.
16 The two pillars, one Sea, and the carts, which Solomon had made for the house of the Lord, the bronze of all these articles was beyond measure.
17 The height of one pillar was eighteen cubits, and the capital on it was of bronze. The height of the capital was three cubits, and the network and pomegranates all around the capital were all of bronze. The second pillar was the same, with a network.
Solomon’s Temple which had stood for nearly 400 years was stripped of its treasures and burned to the ground. The gold, silver and bronze implements used for Temple worship were broken up and carried to Babylon.
Bronze, an alloy of copper and tin, was highly valued in ancient times as it was used in weapons (swords, axes, arrowheads, chariots), tools (axes, saws, hammers) as sculptures, coins, etc. in fact when the Jews returned from Babylon after being captive for 70 years there, among the Temple treasures they brought back were;
EZRA 8:27
27 ...twenty gold basins worth a thousand drachmas, and two vessels of fine polished bronze, precious as gold.
This also fulfilled Isaiah’s prophecy spoken of in;
2 KINGS 20:16-18
16 Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, “Hear the word of the Lord:
17 ‘Behold, the days are coming when all that is in your house, and what your fathers have accumulated until this day, shall be carried to Babylon; nothing shall be left,’ says the Lord.
18 ‘And they shall take away some of your sons who will descend from you, whom you will beget; and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.’ ”
2 KINGS 25:18-21
18 And the captain of the guard took Seraiah the chief priest, Zephaniah the second priest, and the three doorkeepers.
19 He also took out of the city an officer who had charge of the men of war, five men of the king’s close associates who were found in the city, the chief recruiting officer of the army, who mustered the people of the land, and sixty men of the people of the land who were found in the city.
20 So Nebuzaradan, captain of the guard, took these and brought them to the king of Babylon at Riblah.
21 Then the king of Babylon struck them and put them to death at Riblah in the land of Hamath. Thus Judah was carried away captive from its own land.
These people were a cross-section of the people of the land and were executed as a symbol of Nebuchadnezzar’s justice in which all of them, great and small, suffered the same fate. I suspect that God ensured that the Chief Priest, his deputy and the three doorkeepers of the Temple were killed by God in His wrath because they had defiled their offices with their pagan ways.
2 KINGS 25:22-26
22 Then he made Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, governor over the people who remained in the land of Judah, whom Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had left.
23 Now when all the captains of the armies, they and their men, heard that the king of Babylon had made Gedaliah governor, they came to Gedaliah at Mizpah—Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, Johanan the son of Careah, Seraiah the son of Tanhumeth the Netophathite, and Jaazaniah the son of a Maachathite, they and their men.
24 And Gedaliah took an oath before them and their men, and said to them, “Do not be afraid of the servants of the Chaldeans. Dwell in the land and serve the king of Babylon, and it shall be well with you.”
25 But it happened in the seventh month that Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, the son of Elishama, of the royal family, came with ten men and struck and killed Gedaliah, the Jews, as well as the Chaldeans who were with him at Mizpah.
26 And all the people, small and great, and the captains of the armies, arose and went to Egypt; for they were afraid of the Chaldeans.
This treacherous event is recorded in more detail in the book of Jeremiah (chapters 40 and 41). Apparently Ishmael and those with him figured that Gedaliah had committed treason by telling the people to serve king Nebuchadnezzar. So they killed him and the Babylonian guards left behind and fled to Egypt to avoid retaliation.
But it would do them no good, for as God had told the prophet Jeremiah;
JEREMIAH 42:13-18
13 “But if you say, ‘We will not dwell in this land,’ disobeying the voice of the Lord your God,
14 saying, ‘No, but we will go to the land of Egypt where we shall see no war, nor hear the sound of the trumpet, nor be hungry for bread, and there we will dwell’—
15 Then hear now the word of the Lord, O remnant of Judah! Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: ‘If you wholly set your faces to enter Egypt, and go to dwell there,
16 then it shall be that the sword which you feared shall overtake you there in the land of Egypt; the famine of which you were afraid shall follow close after you there in Egypt; and there you shall die.
17 So shall it be with all the men who set their faces to go to Egypt to dwell there. They shall die by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence. And none of them shall remain or escape from the disaster that I will bring upon them.’
18 “For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: ‘As My anger and My fury have been poured out on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so will My fury be poured out on you when you enter Egypt. And you shall be an oath, an astonishment, a curse, and a reproach; and you shall see this place no more.’
In 567 B.C. king Nebuchadnezzar swept through Egypt in fulfillment of God’s word to Jeremiah.
2 KINGS 25:27-30
27 Now it came to pass in the thirty-seventh year of the captivity of Jehoiachin king of Judah, in the twelfth month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, that Evil-Merodach king of Babylon, in the year that he began to reign, released Jehoiachin king of Judah from prison.
28 He spoke kindly to him, and gave him a more prominent seat than those of the kings who were with him in Babylon.
29 So Jehoiachin changed from his prison garments, and he ate bread regularly before the king all the days of his life.
30 And as for his provisions, there was a regular ration given him by the king, a portion for each day, all the days of his life.
Evil-Merodach (Amel-Marduk, reigned 562 - 560 B.C.) , son of Nebuchadnezzar II, released Zedekiah, now 69 years old, who became an honored guest of the Babylonian king until Zedekiah’s death (date unknown).
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