Table of Contents
2 Kings
2 Kings picks up mid-sentence from 1 Kings and carries the story to the end — from Elijah’s chariot of fire to the burning of the temple, about 300 years. Elisha carries the prophetic work through the rise and fall of the house of Jehu; the northern kingdom, never once given a good king, is carried into Assyria in 722 BC. Judah lasts longer on the strength of a few reformers — Hezekiah, Josiah — but Manasseh’s long apostasy settles it, and in 586 BC Nebuchadnezzar breaks down the walls of Jerusalem and burns the house of God.
Angeli painted the hand-off: Elijah caught up in a whirlwind of fire, Elisha reaching after him for the fallen mantle and the double portion of his spirit. The book that follows asks whether anyone else will pick that mantle up — whether any king or people will hear the prophets God keeps sending. Mostly they will not, and the book records, kingdom by kingdom, what that costs. These studies go through it in order.
List Of Articles
Is It Not Because There Is No God In Israel
Ahaziah falls through a lattice and sends to Ekron to ask whether he will live; Elijah meets the messengers on the road, fire falls twice on captains of fifty, and a third captain kneels
2 Kings 1My Father, My Father, The Chariot Of Israel
from Gilgal to Jordan with the mantle rolled up to part the water, a whirlwind and horses of fire, a double portion asked and given, a healed spring at Jericho, and two she-bears at Bethel
2 Kings 2Ye Shall Not See Wind, Neither Shall Ye See Rain
three kings out of water in the wilderness of Edom, a minstrel called to bring the prophet’s word, a valley dug full of ditches, water red as blood at sunrise, and a king’s son offered on the wall
2 Kings 3And She Answered, It Is Well
a widow’s last pot of oil that fills every borrowed vessel, a Shunammite’s promised son struck down and laid on the prophet’s bed, “there is death in the pot,” and a hundred men fed from twenty loaves
2 Kings 4Wash, And Be Clean
Naaman the Syrian commander, a captive girl’s word, a letter that alarms a king, seven dips in the Jordan he despised, and Gehazi chasing a reward he was never offered
2 Kings 5They That Be With Us Are More Than They That Be With Them
an axe head that swims, a prophet who hears what the king of Syria says in his bedchamber, a hillside full of horses and chariots of fire, and an enemy army led blind into Samaria and sent home fed
2 Kings 6:1-23This Day Is A Day Of Good Tidings
Samaria starved to the point of eating children, a promise of flour by tomorrow, four lepers who reckon the enemy camp their only chance, and a scoffing lord trodden down in the gate
2 Kings 6:24-7:20Is Thy Servant A Dog, That He Should Do This Great Thing?
the Shunammite back from famine to reclaim her land, Elisha weeping as he names Hazael king, a wet cloth pressed over a dying king’s face, and Judah’s throne married into the house of Ahab
2 Kings 8Had Zimri Peace, Who Slew His Master?
a young prophet with a box of oil and a furious commission, driving “like the driving of Jehu,” Joram shot through the heart in Naboth’s field, and Jezebel painted and at the window
2 Kings 9Come With Me, And See My Zeal For The LORD
seventy heads in baskets at the gate of Jezreel, Ahab’s line and friends cut off, Jehonadab taken up into the chariot, Baal’s worshippers gathered for a feast and killed — and the golden calves left standing
2 Kings 10He Was Hid In The House Of The LORD Six Years
Athaliah destroying the royal seed, one infant smuggled out by an aunt, six years hidden in the temple, a boy king crowned with spears and shields, and “Treason, treason!” cried too late
2 Kings 11Let Them Repair The Breaches Of The House
Joash doing right while Jehoiada lives, priests who collect the money but never mend the house, a chest with a hole bored in the lid, and temple gold handed over to buy off Hazael
2 Kings 12The Arrow Of The LORD’s Deliverance
Israel ground down to fifty horsemen, Elisha on his deathbed, a king’s hands laid on the bow, arrows of victory — struck three times and stopped — and a corpse that lives at the touch of dead bones
2 Kings 13Tarry At Home; Why Shouldest Thou Meddle To Thy Hurt?
Amaziah executing his father’s killers strictly by the law, a war with Edom won, a thistle sending to a cedar for a marriage, and the wall of Jerusalem broken down four hundred cubits
2 Kings 14He Walked In The Way Of The Kings Of Israel
a leper king shut in a separate house, five northern kings in twenty years and most of them murdered, Assyria carrying off the first tribes, and Ahaz passing his son through the fire and copying an altar from Damascus
2 Kings 15-16They Feared The LORD, And Served Their Own Gods
Hoshea’s last intrigue with Egypt, three years’ siege and the end of the northern kingdom, a long plain list of why, and resettled nations who added the LORD to their idols after lions came
2 Kings 17In Whom Dost Thou Trust?
Hezekiah breaking the bronze serpent to pieces, forty-six Judean cities gone, Rabshakeh shouting in Hebrew from the wall, a letter spread out before the LORD, and 185,000 dead in the camp by morning
2 Kings 18-19Set Thine House In Order
a death sentence lifted and fifteen years added, a shadow drawn ten steps backward on the stairs of Ahaz, and a proud tour of the treasury for envoys out of Babylon
2 Kings 20I Will Wipe Jerusalem As A Man Wipeth A Dish
Manasseh rebuilding every high place his father tore down, altars to all the host of heaven inside the temple, his own son through the fire, and innocent blood until it filled Jerusalem
2 Kings 21I Have Found The Book Of The Law In The House Of The LORD
a boy king repairing the temple, a lost scroll read aloud, a king who tears his robes, Huldah’s word, a covenant renewed, Topheth and the horses of the sun destroyed, the great Passover — and Megiddo
2 Kings 22-23They Burnt The House Of The LORD
Nebuchadnezzar at the walls, Jehoiachin surrendered with the treasure and the craftsmen, Zedekiah’s revolt, eighteen months of siege, the sons killed before his blinded eyes, and the temple burned
2 Kings 24-25