Second Kings

In the Hebrew Bible, First and Second Kings are one book.  Collectively, they are a history of the Israelite monarchy.   During most of this period, it is dual monarchies because two southern tribes make up the kingdom of Judah, the remaining tribes being Israel.

Second Kings covers a period of about 250 years.  It begins in the reign of Ahaziah.  It ends with the fall of Judah to Babylon.

Fall is an appropriate word.  The book describes the decline of the Israelite monarchy.  It is strongly associated with moral decline and apostasy.  Israel was called out to be God’s people.  Instead, they worshiped the gods of the people who occupied the land before them or of their neighbors.  Sometimes this idol worship was introduced and encouraged by the kings.  Some of the practices associated with these foreign religions included temple prostitution, sodomy, and child sacrifice.

When God established ancient Israel as a nation, he made a covenant with them.  If they followed Him, He would cause them to prosper in the land He gave to them.  If they did not, and especially if they abandoned Him to worship other gods and do evil, he would cut them off from the land and let their enemies overcome them.  That is exactly what happened.

Israel, the northern kingdom, succumbed first.  It fell during the reign of Hoshea.  It became a vassal state to Assyria.  More than that, the Assyrians removed the Israelite population to other lands and resettled Israel with people from across its empire.  Chapter 17 is an indictment against Israel, listing its crimes the judgment of expulsion from the land.

God did not let Israel go easily.  Much of the first half of the book is devoted to the exploits of Elijah and Elisha.  These prophets called people back to God and stood up against the influence of false religions.  Later, Isaiah would warn against the coming captivity to Assyria.

Judah held out longer, in part probably because of fitful reforms by kings such as Hezekiah and Josiah.   None of the kings of Israel committed themselves to god, but some of the kings of Judah turned their hearts to God, restoring the worship of God and sometimes even breaking down the idols of false gods.  Even so, they fell like their brothers to the north.

Babylon was the empire that overtook Judah during the reign of Zedekiah.  Zedekiah himself was appointed by Babylon after it took his nephew Jehoiachin as a prisoner.  Babylon also moved much of the population.  The poor were left to tend the farms, but anyone with status, military skill, training in crafts, or education was moved to Babylon to serve there.  The Israelite monarchy was finally broken and replaced with a Babylonian governor.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

Deuteronomy

First and Second Samuel

First Kings

Second Kings.  The Holy Bible.  New King James Version.  Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1982.

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Isaiah

Isaiah was a prophet in Judah during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah. He was active during the Assyrian occupation of Israel, sometime around 745 to 695 B.C. In particular, he advised Hezekiah, who is known for tearing down idols permitted by previous kings and for turning back the advances of Assyrian King Sennacherib.

Like many prophets, much of Isaiah’s message is a call to repentance and return to God. This call was heightened by the Assyrian takeover of Israel, the northern sister kingdom to Judah. Isaiah’s prophecies, and the interpretation of the writers of 2 Kings and 2 Chronicles, is that the fall of Israel was due to its abandonment of God and embrace of idolatry and other sins. If Judah wanted to avoid that fate, it would need to return to God.

Isaiah had a long career as a prophet, so his writings address many events of his day. These were generally threats of foreign aggression against Judah, particularly from Assyria and its allies. He also warned against alliances with Egypt because if its instability. He predicts the eventual fall of Jerusalem and it rebuilding under another empire.

He is also known for prophecies of the Messiah. These texts are often intermingled with texts referring at one moment the nation of Israel as God’s servant and next to the coming Messiah in the same terms.  It’s necessary to read these passages in the context of the surrounding text to sort out when Isaiah is referring to which entity. Both Matthew and John refer to Isaiah in their gospels.

Note that much of Isaiah is written in the form of poems or songs. Sometimes he is speaking very directly to a particular nation or person about specific issues or events that are present or predicted. At other times, nations or peoples may be stand-ins for concepts or other future peoples with similar roles or viewpoints. Much of this can be sorted out by careful reading of the text and by reference to the historical books of the Old Testament.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

Ezra

Nehemiah

Second Chronicles

Second Kings

Isaiah. The Holy Bible. New King James Version. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1982.

Jonah

Jonah is possibly the most known prophets of the Bible, aside from Moses, because of the oft-retold story a huge sea creature swallowing him. Like Obadiah, the message God delivered through Jonah was not for Israel, but for a foreign place. In Jonah’s case, it was Nineveh, the capital of the rising Assyrian Empire.

Assyria was a rival of Israel—eventually its empire would include the northern kingdom—so Jonah was reluctant to go when God told him to head to Nineveh. Jonah headed the opposite direction, took to see, his ship was nearly lost in a storm, he was tossed overboard and swallowed. He finally gave up and the sea creature spit him out on the shore.

Jonah was a whiner. He whined about God calling to him to a place he didn’t want to go and a people he didn’t like. When the hearts of the citizens of Nineveh were changed and God showed mercy to them, he complained that this was the reason he didn’t want to go—he knew God would show mercy to a repentant people and Jonah would have preferred that they perish.

Jonah is a lot like us: disobedient, petty, vindictive, whiney, selfish. God used him anyway, triumphantly in spite of Jonah’s bad attitude. God has mercy on the repentant sinners and rebukes the haughty prophet who is supposed to be a holy man.

I recommend reading Jonah if you haven’t gotten to it. It says a lot about the character of God and men. It is an interesting short story, too. The “whale” isn’t even the most interesting part of it.

Jonah. The Holy Bible. New King James Version. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1982.