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The Lachish reliefs

Books of Scripture

2 Kings

Prophets, empires, exile and survival

25 chapters

2 Kings, the second half of the Hebrew book of Kings (in Greek, 4 Kingdoms; in older Latin Bibles, 4 Kings), runs from Elijah's departure to the burning of Jerusalem: Elisha's miracles for widows, a Shunammite mother and a foreign general; Jehu's bloody revolution; Athaliah and the hidden heir; the Assyrian conquest of Samaria; Hezekiah, Isaiah and Sennacherib; Manasseh; Josiah's rediscovered law book; and Babylon's capture of Jerusalem, ending with a captive king of David's line released in Babylon. Here outside evidence becomes abundant: the Mesha Stele, the Black Obelisk, Sennacherib's prisms and the Lachish reliefs, the Siloam tunnel, the Babylonian Chronicle and Jehoiachin's ration tablets.

Lessons

  1. 1Ahaziah and Elijah's Last Prophecy2 Kings 1 · Moab rebels after Ahab's death. King Ahaziah falls through a lattice in Samaria and sends to ask Baal-zebub, god of Ekron, whether he will recover. Elijah meets the messengers: he will die. Two captains with fifty men each come to arrest Elijah and are consumed by fire; the third begs for his life and Elijah goes with him to the king. Ahaziah dies, and his brother Jehoram reigns.
  2. 2Elijah Taken Up, Elisha Commissioned2 Kings 2 · Elijah walks from Gilgal to Bethel to Jericho to the Jordan, with Elisha refusing to leave him. Elijah strikes the river with his cloak and they cross on dry ground. Elisha asks for a double portion of his spirit. A chariot of fire and horses of fire part them, and Elijah goes up by a whirlwind into heaven. Elisha takes up the cloak, divides the Jordan, heals Jericho's water with salt, and is mocked at Bethel by youths who are mauled by two bears.
  3. 3Moab's Revolt and Mesha's Inscription2 Kings 3 · Mesha king of Moab, who paid Israel a tribute of lambs and wool, rebels. Jehoram of Israel, Jehoshaphat of Judah and the king of Edom march around through Edom and run out of water. Elisha, playing music, promises water and victory: ditches fill with water that looks like blood to the Moabites. Israel ravages Moab. Besieged at Kir-hareseth, Mesha offers his eldest son as a burnt offering on the wall; "great indignation" comes against Israel, and they withdraw.
  4. 4Oil, a Son, Famine and Bread2 Kings 4 · A prophet's widow, whose sons are about to be taken as slaves by a creditor, pours oil into borrowed jars until they are all full. A wealthy woman of Shunem builds a room for Elisha; he promises her a son. Years later the boy dies in her lap; she rides to Elisha at Carmel, and he restores the child to life. During a famine Elisha makes poisonous stew safe and feeds a hundred men with twenty loaves.
  5. 5Naaman and Gehazi2 Kings 5 · Naaman, commander of the army of Aram, has a skin disease. An Israelite girl captured in a raid tells his wife about the prophet in Samaria. Elisha does not even come out, but tells him to wash seven times in the Jordan. Angry at first, Naaman obeys and is healed. He asks for two mule-loads of earth to worship the LORD in Damascus, and pardon when he must bow in the temple of Rimmon. Gehazi runs after him for silver and is struck with Naaman's disease.
  6. 6The Invisible Army and the Siege2 Kings 6 · A borrowed iron axe-head floats. Elisha warns Israel's king of Aram's plans, so the king of Aram sends an army to Dothan to capture him. Elisha's servant panics; Elisha prays and the servant sees the mountain full of horses and chariots of fire. The Arameans are struck blind, led to Samaria, fed and sent home. Later Ben-hadad besieges Samaria; famine drives prices to absurd heights, and two mothers agree to eat their sons. The king blames Elisha. Content warning: siege famine and cannibalism.
  7. 7The Four Outcasts and Deliverance2 Kings 7 · Elisha promises that tomorrow flour and barley will sell cheaply at Samaria's gate. A royal officer scoffs: not even if God opened windows in heaven. Four men with skin disease outside the gate decide to surrender to the Arameans and find the camp empty: God had made the Arameans hear the sound of a great army, and they fled. The four tell the city. The people pour out and plunder the camp; the officer is trampled in the gate.
  8. 8The Shunammite, Hazael and Judah's Kings2 Kings 8 · The Shunammite woman returns after a seven-year famine and asks the king for her house and land; as Gehazi is telling the king about her son, she arrives, and her property is restored. In Damascus, the sick Ben-hadad sends Hazael to ask Elisha whether he will recover. Elisha weeps, foreseeing what Hazael will do to Israel. Hazael smothers Ben-hadad and becomes king. In Judah, Jehoram (married to Ahab's daughter) and then Ahaziah reign; Edom revolts.
  9. 9Jehu's Coup and Jezebel2 Kings 9 · Elisha sends a young prophet to Ramoth-gilead to anoint the army commander Jehu king and to commission him to destroy Ahab's house. The officers proclaim him king. Jehu drives furiously to Jezreel, shoots King Joram through the heart and throws his body on Naboth's field; his men mortally wound Ahaziah of Judah. Jezebel, painted and adorned, taunts Jehu from a window; her servants throw her down, and dogs leave only her skull, feet and hands.
  10. 10Jehu's Purge and Assyrian Tribute2 Kings 10 · Jehu has the seventy sons of Ahab in Samaria beheaded and their heads piled at Jezreel's gate. He kills Ahaziah's relatives on the road. With Jehonadab son of Rechab he gathers all Baal's worshipers in Baal's temple and has them killed, and makes the temple a latrine. God promises Jehu's sons the throne for four generations, but Jehu keeps the golden calves. Hazael begins to cut off Israel's territory east of the Jordan.
  11. 11Athaliah and the Hidden Heir2 Kings 11 · When her son Ahaziah dies, Athaliah, Ahab's daughter, kills the royal family of Judah and rules for six years, the only queen to reign alone in Judah or Israel. Jehosheba, Ahaziah's sister, hides the baby Joash in the temple. In the seventh year the priest Jehoiada arms the guards, crowns the boy and anoints him. Athaliah cries "Treason!" and is killed. The people tear down the temple of Baal.
  12. 12Temple Repairs under Joash2 Kings 12 · Joash reigns forty years and does right while Jehoiada instructs him. He orders the priests to use offerings to repair the temple; by his 23rd year nothing has been done. A chest with a hole in its lid is set beside the altar; the money is counted and paid to carpenters and masons, who are trusted without accounts. When Hazael threatens Jerusalem, Joash sends him the temple's sacred treasures. Joash is killed by his servants.
  13. 13Elisha's Death and Israel's Struggle2 Kings 13 · Under Jehoahaz, Aram crushes Israel until only fifty horsemen, ten chariots and ten thousand foot soldiers remain; God gives Israel "a saviour." King Jehoash visits the dying Elisha, who has him shoot an arrow east and strike the ground with arrows; he strikes three times, and Elisha says he should have struck five or six. Elisha dies. A dead man thrown into his tomb touches his bones and lives. Jehoash recovers three times the cities Hazael took.
  14. 14Amaziah, Jeroboam II and Jonah2 Kings 14 · Amaziah of Judah executes his father's murderers but spares their children, as the law of Moses commands. He defeats Edom, then challenges Jehoash of Israel, who answers with a fable of a thistle and a cedar, defeats Judah at Beth-shemesh, breaks Jerusalem's wall and takes the temple treasures. Amaziah is murdered at Lachish. In Israel, Jeroboam II restores the borders from Hamath to the Dead Sea, as the prophet Jonah son of Amittai foretold.
  15. 15Assyria and the Decline of Northern Israel2 Kings 15 · Azariah (Uzziah) of Judah reigns fifty-two years but is struck with a skin disease and lives in isolation while his son Jotham governs. In Israel five kings follow in about fifteen years: Zechariah (murdered), Shallum (one month, murdered), Menahem (who pays Pul of Assyria a thousand talents), Pekahiah (murdered) and Pekah. Tiglath-pileser III takes Galilee and Gilead and deports their people. Hoshea kills Pekah.
  16. 16Ahaz, Damascus and the Foreign Altar2 Kings 16 · Ahaz of Judah makes his son "pass through the fire." Rezin of Damascus and Pekah of Israel besiege Jerusalem. Ahaz sends the temple and palace silver and gold to Tiglath-pileser III: "I am thy servant and thy son." Assyria takes Damascus and kills Rezin. Ahaz meets Tiglath-pileser at Damascus, sends home the pattern of an altar he sees there, has it built in the temple, moves the bronze altar aside, and alters the temple furnishings "because of the king of Assyria."
  17. 17The Fall of Samaria2 Kings 17 · Hoshea, Assyria's vassal, stops paying tribute and seeks help from So king of Egypt. Shalmaneser V imprisons him and besieges Samaria for three years; in Hoshea's ninth year "the king of Assyria" takes the city and deports Israel to Halah, Habor and the cities of the Medes. A long sermon explains why. Assyria settles people from Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath and Sepharvaim in Samaria; a priest is sent back to teach them; they fear the LORD and serve their own gods.
  18. 18Hezekiah and Sennacherib2 Kings 18 · Hezekiah trusts the LORD, removes the high places and breaks the bronze serpent Nehushtan. He rebels against Assyria. In his fourteenth year Sennacherib takes the fortified cities of Judah; Hezekiah pays 300 talents of silver and 30 of gold, stripping the temple doors. Assyrian officials, led by the Rabshakeh, come to Jerusalem's wall and speak to the people in Hebrew: Hezekiah cannot save you, and neither can your God.
  19. 19Isaiah and Jerusalem's Deliverance2 Kings 19 · Hezekiah goes into the temple in sackcloth and sends to Isaiah, who answers: do not be afraid. Sennacherib sends a letter; Hezekiah spreads it before the LORD and prays. Isaiah delivers a long oracle against Assyria's pride: the king of Assyria shall not enter the city. That night the angel of the LORD strikes 185,000 in the Assyrian camp. Sennacherib returns to Nineveh and is later killed by two of his sons while worshiping his god.
  20. 20Hezekiah's Illness and the Siloam Tunnel2 Kings 20 · Hezekiah falls mortally ill; Isaiah tells him to set his house in order. He turns to the wall, weeps and prays; God adds fifteen years. A lump of figs is laid on his boil, and as a sign the shadow goes back ten steps on the stairway of Ahaz. Envoys come from Merodach-baladan of Babylon; Hezekiah shows them all his treasures, and Isaiah foretells that everything will be carried to Babylon. Hezekiah's water conduit is noted.
  21. 21Manasseh, Amon and Judgment2 Kings 21 · Manasseh reigns fifty-five years, the longest of any king of Judah. He rebuilds the high places, sets up altars for Baal and the host of heaven in the temple courts, makes his son pass through fire, practices divination, places an Asherah image in the temple, and sheds "very much innocent blood." The prophets announce that Jerusalem will be wiped like a dish. His son Amon reigns two years and is assassinated; the people of the land make Josiah king.
  22. 22The Rediscovered Law and Huldah2 Kings 22 · Josiah, made king at eight, orders temple repairs in his eighteenth year. The high priest Hilkiah tells the scribe Shaphan: "I have found the book of the law in the house of the LORD." Shaphan reads it to the king, who tears his clothes. Josiah sends officials to the prophetess Huldah, who confirms that disaster will come on Jerusalem, but says that because Josiah humbled himself he will be gathered to his grave in peace.
  23. 23Josiah's Reform and Death2 Kings 23 · Josiah reads the book of the covenant to all the people and makes a covenant. He removes the vessels of Baal, Asherah and the host of heaven from the temple, defiles Topheth, removes the horses of the sun, destroys the high places from Geba to Beersheba and Solomon's shrines, breaks down the altar at Bethel and burns bones on it, and keeps a Passover unlike any since the judges. In 609 BC Pharaoh Necho goes up toward the Euphrates; Josiah goes to meet him and is killed at Megiddo.
  24. 24Babylon's First Capture of Jerusalem2 Kings 24 · Jehoiakim becomes Nebuchadnezzar's vassal for three years, then rebels; raiders from Babylon, Aram, Moab and Ammon attack Judah. His son Jehoiachin, eighteen, reigns three months. Nebuchadnezzar besieges Jerusalem; Jehoiachin surrenders with his mother and officials, and is taken to Babylon with the temple treasures, the elite, soldiers and craftsmen. Nebuchadnezzar makes Mattaniah king, renaming him Zedekiah, who later rebels.
  25. 25Jerusalem Destroyed; Jehoiachin's Hope2 Kings 25 · Nebuchadnezzar besieges Jerusalem; famine sets in; the wall is breached. Zedekiah flees, is caught near Jericho, sees his sons killed at Riblah, and is blinded and taken to Babylon. Nebuzaradan burns the temple, the palace and the houses, breaks down the walls, carries off the bronze and deports the people, leaving the poor as vinedressers. Gedaliah, the appointed governor, is assassinated, and many flee to Egypt. Thirty-seven years into his exile, Jehoiachin is released from prison and eats at the king of Babylon's table.
  26. 26Evidence Case: The Assyrian Archive2 Kings 9–21 · From 853 to about 667 BC, Assyrian kings named at least eight kings of Israel and Judah in their inscriptions. These records confirm names, dates and the basic course of events, and they show the same history from the empire's side, with its own propaganda.
  27. 27Evidence Case: Lachish, Siloam and the Destruction of Jerusalem2 Kings 18–25 · Few periods of biblical history are as well documented in the ground as Judah's last century and a half: the siege of Lachish in 701 BC, Hezekiah's water tunnel and wall, the royal lmlk jars, the seals of officials, and the burnt city of 586 BC. Each find needs its own date and context.
  28. 28Evidence Case: The Two Exiles2 Kings 15–25 · Israel was deported by Assyria (732 and 722–720 BC) and Judah by Babylon (597, 587/586 and 582 BC). The two empires used deportation differently, and the two peoples' fates differed. Neither land was emptied.
  29. 29Ethics and Prophecy: Power, Violence and Unexpected Witnesses2 Kings 1–25 · 2 Kings contains some of the Bible's most disturbing scenes: fire on soldiers, bears and youths, child sacrifice, siege cannibalism, Jehu's massacres, atrocities in war, executions of priests. It also gives voice to unexpected witnesses: a captive girl, four outcasts, a Shunammite landowner, Huldah. This lesson gathers both.

How 2 Kings came to us

Who wrote it, how it was copied, and how it reached the Bible you hold. These lessons follow the book through history.

  1. ★How 2 Kings Came to Us2 Kings is the second half of the Hebrew book of Kings. It ends with an event of about 561 BC, so its final form is no earlier than that. It names lost royal chronicles as sources, shares long passages with Isaiah and Jeremiah, and is retold in Chronicles. Qumran preserves only small papyrus fragments; the main Greek manuscripts carry a revision toward the Hebrew (kaige) throughout 2 Kings.
  2. 3Prophets, Priests, and ScribesAs Israel became a kingdom, royal scribes kept records, prophets' words were written down, and a lost book of the law was found in the Temple.
  3. 6The SeptuagintJews in Egypt translated their Scriptures into Greek, creating the Bible of the early church and of the New Testament writers.
  4. 7The Dead Sea ScrollsA shepherd's discovery in 1947 gave us Bible manuscripts a thousand years older than any known before, and showed how faithfully the text was kept.
  5. 8Hebrew, Greek, and SamaritanThree ancient lines of copying, Hebrew, Greek, and Samaritan, let us compare the text and see where it was preserved and where it changed.
  6. 13Scribes, Jerome, and the MasoretesJerome gave the West its Latin Bible; Jewish scholars called the Masoretes guarded the Hebrew text letter by letter.

Journey of a Passage