2 Kings

What This Book Is

The decline and fall of both kingdoms, from Elisha's ministry to the burning of Jerusalem and the deportation to Babylon.

Overview

This is the hardest history in the Old Testament to read straight through, because you can see where it is going from early on.

It opens with Elijah handing off to Elisha, whose ministry is full of small mercies: a widow's oil, a borrowed axe head, a foreign general healed of leprosy after being told to do something beneath his dignity. Then the narrative settles into its grim alternation between two kingdoms and their kings, with a verdict attached to each.

The northern kingdom falls first. Chapter 17 stops the narrative to explain why, and it is the theological centre of the book: God warned them by every prophet, again and again, and they would not listen. Samaria is taken by Assyria in 722 BC and the population is deported.

Judah lasts longer, and has some genuinely good kings. Hezekiah trusts God against an Assyrian siege. Josiah finds a lost book of the law during temple repairs, tears his clothes when he hears it read, and launches the most thorough reform in the nation's history. But the reform does not outlive him.

The end comes in stages: siege, surrender, deportation, and finally in 586 BC the temple burned and the walls pulled down. The book closes with a small, strange note of hope, an exiled king released from prison in Babylon and given a seat at the table.

Structure

• Chapters 1 to 8: ElishaA double portion, and a ministry full of unglamorous mercies.
• Chapters 9 to 16: Two kingdomsCoups, alliances, and mostly bad kings north and south.
• Chapter 17: The north fallsSamaria taken, and an explanation of why.
• Chapters 18 to 20: HezekiahA siege survived and a prayer answered.
• Chapters 21 to 25: The endJosiah's reform, then siege, burning, and exile.

Themes

Why It Matters

2 Kings is where the Old Testament's great crisis lands. The land promised in Joshua is lost, the temple is destroyed, and the line of David appears to be finished. Everything the prophets say afterward, and much of what the psalms lament, is written in the shadow of this book. Its insistence that God had warned them for centuries is what keeps the disaster from looking arbitrary.

How to Read It

• Read chapter 17 slowly. It is the book explaining itself.
• Read the Josiah reform in chapters 22 and 23 and notice what finding Scripture did to a king.
• Keep Isaiah and Jeremiah in mind; they were preaching during these events.
• Do not skip the last four verses. They are a deliberate flicker of hope.

Key Verse

Did You Know?

• The book of the law found during Josiah's temple repairs is widely thought to have been Deuteronomy or part of it.
• Naaman, an enemy commander, is healed after being told to wash seven times in the Jordan.
• The fall of Jerusalem in 586 BC is corroborated by Babylonian records.

Where to Start Reading

Related in the Field Guide