The Book of 2 Kings is basically the continued story of 1 Kings. This would make sense as the Jews had both books as one. 2 Kings is a book of history and prophecy concerning the Divided Kingdoms, Israel in the north and Judah in the south.
These kingdoms have fallen so far away from God at this point in history that it’s difficult to understand why God would still want anything to do with them because of their idolatrous behaviour.
There are many familiar characters within the book, such as Manasseh, Zedekiah, Jezebel and Nebuchadnezzar, and others, but two of God’s prophets, Elijah and Elisha, have leading roles. There are a few miracles recorded that God does through His prophets to instil some kind of hope for a very lost nation.
In the first seventeen chapters, we read about how the kings of the Northern and Southern Kingdoms led their people into more idolatry, which will eventually lead them into exile. These kings disobeyed God in various ways, and it was during the reign of Hoshea that the Assyrians came and took the Northern Kingdom into captivity.
We also read about how Elijah’s ministry as a prophet of God comes to an end, but Elisha, whom he’s been training for a while, takes his place. Elisha does twice as many miracles as Elijah, as God does His will through Him.
In the final eight chapters, we read that the Southern Kingdom of Judah were almost as bad as the Northern Kingdom of Israel, and they too were going to be judged by God.
Although the Jews who first received the writings considered the book to be from the hand of a prophet. Sadly, no one knows who wrote it, although many have suggested that it was written by the prophet Jeremiah.
Many believe the book was written around 560-538 B.C., which is around the same date as 1 Kings or sometime after 586 B.C., when Jerusalem fell to the Babylonians and when Jehoiachin was raised up out of prison by Awel-Marduk, 2 Kings 25:27-30.
The death of Solomon ended the greatest period in the history of Israel, the United Kingdom. This was followed by the Divided Kingdom, which lasted three hundred and eighty-eight years.
At Solomon’s death, his son Rehoboam ascended the throne. His subjects had long chafed under the heavy taxation of Solomon. Led by Jeroboam, a general of Solomon’s, they asked Rehoboam to lighten their load.
Rehoboam foolishly replied, ‘My father made your yoke heavy, and I will add to your yoke,’ 1 Kings 12:14. The people were so angry with this reply that ten of the twelve tribes revolted against Rehoboam and crowned Jeroboam as their king. Jeroboam’s kingdom became known as the northern kingdom of Israel.
Only the tribes of Judah and Benjamin remained with Rehoboam in the southern kingdom of Judah. The little tribe of Benjamin was so small it was virtually swallowed up by the tribe of Judah. 2 Kings, and the last part of 1 Kings, and 2 Chronicles, tell the complete story of the Divided Kingdom.
The story of the northern kingdom is not a happy one. During its two-hundred and fifty-three years of history, it had one bad ruler after another, not a single one of its nineteen kings actually being ‘good’.
Nine dynasties or families of kings reigned during this time. Several kings were murdered, and their places were taken by usurpers. Jeroboam was so afraid that the people would go back to Jerusalem in Judah to worship and desire Rehoboam for their king that he set up two golden calves at Dan and Bethel for them to worship.
So angered was God at the action that He sent Ahijah to him to predict the downfall of Jeroboam’s house and the doom of Israel. The prophet declared, ‘The Lord shall smite Israel and he shall root up Israel out of this good land and shall scatter them beyond the river,’ 2 Kings 14:15.
After Jeroboam’s death, idolatry became even more rampant than before, and under Ahab, the seventh king, worship of the idol god Baal was introduced. During its first eighty years, the northern kingdom was almost continuously at war with Judah.
The ascension of Ahab to the throne sank Israel to its lowest depths. Ahab married a foreign woman, Jezebel, the daughter of the king of Tyre. She brought along her idols and soon abolished the worship of Jehovah in Israel.
It is doubtful that a more evil, unscrupulous woman is described in the entire Bible, and Ahab was so spineless that he yielded to his wife’s evil designs. God sent the prophet Elijah to cry out against this idolatry.
Elijah conducted a contest with the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel, and when they were proved false, he had them slain. This intensified Jezebel’s determination to kill Elijah, but she never succeeded in her attempt.
Perhaps the best of all the kings of Israel was Jehu, who succeeded Ahab’s son as king. With a ruthless determination, he had Jezebel killed, and Baal worship abolished.
But his zeal ran out, and he never did away with the golden calves set up by Jeroboam. Of most of the kings who followed Jehu, it is said they ‘departed not from the sins of Jeroboam.’
Israel’s political strength reached its greatest height since Solomon under Jeroboam II, but idolatry again grew worse. God carried out His promise made by Ahijah to punish and scatter Israel.
In 722 B.C., the powerful Assyrian king carried the people of Israel into Assyria. They never returned. From this point, the story of the Jews is that of the Kingdom of Judah.
Judah was smaller and weaker than Israel. Yet, through its three-hundred and eighty-eight years of history, it remained much closer to God. Several kings were very good, and on the whole, the bad were not as evil as those of Israel. All were of the family of David.
Judah began to decline under Rehoboam, but during the reigns of good kings Asa and Jehoshaphat, a great revival swept the land. In the following years, Judah borrowed the religion of Baal from Israel.
It remained for King Hezekiah to completely root out idolatry. He and his great-grandson Josiah were the two best kings to rule Judah. But Hezekiah’s son, Manasseh, was as evil as Hezekiah was good.
In his fifty-five-year reign, he introduced every form of idol worship he could think of and even burned his own children with fire as a religious rite. This caused God to promise through the prophets that Judah would be sorely punished for its idolatry.
After Josiah became king, he set out to bring the people back to God. When the lost book of the law was found in the temple, Josiah instituted such a religious revival as his people had never seen.
Following Josiah’s death, Judah descended rapidly. All the remaining kings were bad and weak. Judah was soon made a ‘satellite’ of Babylon, and when the kings dared to rebel, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon in 606 B.C. carried most of the people into captivity as the Assyrians had done with Israel over one-hundred years before.
Zedekiah, the last king of Judah, governed a few that remained, but in 587 B.C., he too and most of the rest were also carried into Babylon. This punishment of God taught the Jews a lesson. Never again did they return to idolatry.
After the death of Ahab, 1 Kings 22:29-36 / 2 Chronicles 18:28-34, Moab rebelled against Israel, 2 Kings 1:1 / Judges 3:12-14. The Moabites were descendants of Lot, Genesis 19:37, and there was a time when King David overpowered them, 2 Kings 3:4, and wiped out two-thirds of their army, 2 Samuel 8:2. The other third under the reign of Solomon regained their freedom again, but lost it later under the reign of Omri.
Coffman, in his commentary, highlights an important point, which is as follows.
‘Later in 2 Kings 3:4-27, there is a fuller report of this rebellion of Moab, but apparently this brief mention of it occurs here as a preliminary to the explanation of why Ahaziah was unable to suppress the rebellion due to his injury.’
Ahaziah reigned in the north from around 853 to 852 B.C. and, after falling through the framework of his upper room and injuring himself, sent messengers to consult Baal-Zebub, the god of Ekron, 2 Kings 1:2.
Notice that Ahaziah didn’t seek to consult God but Baal-Zebub, 2 Kings 1:2, which means ‘Baal of flies’. This tells us just how far from God Israel has now come. In the New Testament, Beelzebub is a common name for Satan himself, or the prince of devils, Matthew 10:25.
God, knowing what was going on, intervened by sending the angel of the LORD, 2 Kings 1:3. Who is this angel of the LORD? This is a Christophany, which suggests that this is a preincarnate appearance of Christ, Genesis 12:7 / Genesis 21:17-16. Remember the word ‘angel’ in Hebrew is ‘malak’, and it simply means messenger. Christ is God, not an angel, which becomes clearer in Genesis 16:13.
Haynes Jr, in his commentary, says the following.
‘A study of these passages reveals that the Angel of the Lord appeared in human form, Genesis 18:2 / Genesis 22:1-18 / Hebrews 13:2, and performed normal human functions, Genesis 32:24 / Numbers 22:23 / Numbers 22:31, yet he was an awe-inspiring figure, Genesis 32:30 / Judges 6:22 / Judges 13:22, exhibiting divine attributes and prerogatives including predicting the future, Genesis 16:10-12, forgiving sin, Exodus 23:21, and receiving worship, Exodus 3:5 / Judges 13:9-20.’
The angel of the LORD, Genesis 22:15-16, asks them why they were going to consult Baal-Zebub, 2 Kings 1:3. The angel of the LORD asks them the question, ‘Is there no God in Israel?’ 2 Kings 1:3.
Ahaziah is told he won’t leave the bed he is lying on, and he will certainly die, 2 Kings 1:4. It’s very clear that Elijah is somewhat ridiculing Ahaziah here, and it’s very clear that God wants to bring judgment upon Ahaziah because of his idolatry.
Israel was so far away from God and His will that they totally ignored God’s commandments, and as a result, they will eventually be taken away into captivity as a punishment.
After Ahaziah’s messengers return to him and inform him of what Elijah had said, 2 Kings 1:5-6, Ahaziah asks them, ‘What kind of man was he?’ 2 Kings 1:7. The clothes which Elijah was wearing were his common clothes, 2 Kings 1:8. His clothes represent the moral and spiritual condition of Israel; they were rough and coarse.
He wore a garment of hair-cloth, and a leather belt, 2 Kings 1:8, which was common clothing for God’s prophets, Matthew 3:4 / Hebrews 11:37, but false prophets wore them too, Zechariah 13:4. If we learn anything from this type of clothing, it’s this: they weren’t comfortable to wear, and they weren’t supposed to be.
There were three captains who came along with their soldiers and approached Elijah. The first two captains invite Elijah to go to the king, but he declines, 2 Kings 1:9 / 2 Kings 1:11, and their arrogance toward Elijah resulted in them and their soldiers being killed by God, 2 Kings 1:10 / 2 Kings 1:12.
Clarke, in his commentary, says the following.
‘It is impossible that such a man as Ahaziah, in such circumstances, could have had any friendly designs in sending a captain and fifty soldiers for the prophet and the manner in which they are treated shows plainly that they went with a hostile intent.’
It wasn’t until the last captain, who showed Elijah some respect, probably because of what happened to the first two captains and their soldiers, that he accepted the invite and the captain and his soldiers were spared, 2 Kings 1:13-15.
One possible reason for the first two captains’ deaths and their soldiers was to remind Israel that God still had true prophets among them. In other words, Ahaziah needed to know and be reminded that God was only working through His prophets and not the false prophets of Baal.
Elijah tells Ahaziah what the angel of the LORD told him earlier: he would not leave his bed, and he would die, 2 Kings 1:16 / 2 Kings 1:4. Ahaziah died just as Elijah said he would, in his bed, 2 Kings 1:7, and he left Israel in a state of apostasy, which would eventually lead them into Assyrian captivity. Because Ahaziah had no son, Joram succeeded him, 2 Kings 1:17. Some translations have the name Jehoram, but this is the same person.
Coffman, in his commentary, says the following.
‘This is an example of chronological inconsistencies in Kings. A glance at 1 Kings 22:51 / 2 Kings 8:16 / 2 Kings 3:14 shows what the problem is.’ Rawlinson cleared it up by supposing that Jehoshaphat had associated his son Jehoram with him on the throne upon the occasion of his going to war at Ramoth-Gilead. It is strange that both Israel and Judah should have had a king named Jehoram. This happened because Ahab and Jehoshaphat had brought the families together by marriage, and after that, it was natural for the same name to have later appeared in the royal families of both kingdoms. Jehoram was another son of Ahab and thus a brother of Ahaziah, 2 Kings 8:16. It was his body that Jehu cast upon the plot of ground for which Ahab had murdered Naboth, 2 Kings 9:25.’
The other events of Ahaziah’s reign, and what he did, are written in the book of the annals of the kings of Israel, 2 Kings 1:18 / 1 Kings 22:39.