2 Kings

A daughter of Ahab and Jezebel married into Judah, and the one queen ever to rule it. When her son the king died, she massacred the royal heirs and took the throne for six years, never knowing that the infant Joash had been hidden in the temple by his aunt. When he was revealed and crowned, she was dragged out and killed.

Also called Azariah, fifty-two years of building, farming, and a formidable army, as long as he sought God. But strength bred pride: he forced his way into the temple to burn incense, a priest's task alone, and leprosy broke out on his forehead at the altar. He lived apart until he died, the year Isaiah saw the LORD high and lifted up.

As faithless as any king of Judah. Ahaz burned his own son as an offering, sacrificed on every high hill, and when he saw a pagan altar in Damascus he had one built to match and pushed the LORD's altar aside. Told by Isaiah to ask God for a sign, he refused, and was given the sign of Immanuel anyway. At last he shut the temple doors.

One of Judah's finest, none trusted the LORD like him. He reopened and cleansed the temple, kept a great Passover, and smashed even the bronze serpent of Moses when it became an idol. When Assyria's Sennacherib besieged Jerusalem, Hezekiah spread the enemy's letter before God, and the angel of the LORD struck down the Assyrian camp. Granted fifteen more years, he unwisely paraded his treasure before Babylon's envoys.

The longest reign in Judah and the darkest. Hezekiah's son rebuilt every high place his father had torn down, set altars to Baal and the stars inside the temple, passed his sons through the fire, practiced sorcery, and filled Jerusalem with innocent blood. Hauled to Babylon in hooks, he humbled himself and God restored him, but the guilt of his reign is what finally sealed Judah's exile.

Crowned at eight, and the great reformer. When the lost Book of the Law was found during temple repairs, the young king tore his robes and set about tearing down idols across Judah and even Bethel in the north, fulfilling a prophecy three centuries old. He kept the largest Passover since the judges. No king turned to the LORD so wholly, yet he fell at Megiddo, fighting Pharaoh Neco.

Anointed by Elisha's man to end the house of Ahab, and he did it with terrible speed, cutting down King Joram, hurling Jezebel from her window to the dogs, killing Ahab's seventy sons, and luring the Baal worshipers to slaughter. For that zeal God promised him four generations on the throne. Yet he never left Jeroboam's golden calves, so Scripture's verdict on him is split.

The north's longest and strongest reign, he won back Israel's old borders, just as Jonah had foretold, and the land grew rich. But it was prosperity without righteousness: Amos and Hosea thundered in his day against the crushing of the poor and the rot beneath the gold. He never turned from the sin of Jeroboam, and the verdict stayed evil.

The final king of the northern kingdom. A vassal who gambled on Egypt and withheld tribute from Assyria, he brought down Shalmaneser's army; Samaria endured a three-year siege and then fell. The ten tribes were carried into exile and scattered, the end of Israel as a kingdom, and a warning Judah did not heed.

Jehoshaphat's son, who married Athaliah of Ahab's house and walked in the ways of Israel. He killed all his brothers to secure the throne; Elijah sent him a letter of doom, and he died in agony of an incurable disease, unmourned.

A son of Jehoram and Athaliah who reigned a single year, taking his counsel from Ahab's house. Visiting the wounded king of Israel, he was caught in Jehu's purge and killed.

Hidden from Athaliah's massacre as a baby and crowned at seven by the priest Jehoiada, Joash did right and restored the temple, as long as Jehoiada lived. After the old priest died he fell to idols and even had Jehoiada's son stoned, and was assassinated by his own officials.

He did right, but not wholeheartedly. After defeating Edom he bafflingly carried home its idols to worship, then picked a fight with Israel and was captured as Jerusalem's wall was broken down. He too died by conspiracy.

Uzziah's son, who did what was right and grew strong because he ordered his ways before God. He built the upper gate of the temple and fortified Judah, though the people continued corruptly.

Manasseh's son, who revived his father's idolatry without his father's late repentance. After two years his own officials assassinated him in the palace, and the people made his young son Josiah king.

Chosen by the people after Josiah fell at Megiddo, he reigned only three months before Pharaoh Neco deposed him, fined Judah heavily, and took him captive to Egypt, where he died.

Set on the throne by Egypt and renamed, Jehoiakim taxed the land heavily and did evil. When Jeremiah's warnings were read to him he cut the scroll to pieces and burned it. He submitted to Babylon, then rebelled, and died as Nebuchadnezzar closed in.

He reigned three months before surrendering Jerusalem to Nebuchadnezzar in the first great deportation, carried to Babylon with the craftsmen and treasures. Decades later a new Babylonian king released him from prison and gave him a seat at his table.

The last king of Judah, installed by Babylon and forever wavering. He ignored Jeremiah and rebelled; after a long siege Jerusalem fell, the temple was burned, and Zedekiah was captured. His sons were killed before his eyes, which were then put out, and he was led to Babylon in chains.

Another son of Ahab, who put away the Baal pillar yet clung to Jeroboam's calves. His reign ran alongside Elisha's wonders and wars with Aram; he was killed by an arrow from Jehu, his body thrown onto Naboth's field.

He wept over the dying Elisha, who told him to strike the ground with arrows, and for striking only three times, won only three victories over Aram. He also crushed Amaziah of Judah and broke down Jerusalem's wall.

Jeroboam II's son and the fourth generation of Jehu's house, just as God had promised, and no more. After six months he was struck down in front of the people by Shallum, ending the dynasty.

He murdered Zechariah and seized the throne for a single month before Menahem marched on Samaria and killed him in turn, the north spiraling now from coup to coup.

He took the throne with savage violence and held it ten years. When Assyria's Pul came against the land, Menahem paid a thousand talents of silver, exacted from Israel's wealthy, to keep his crown, binding the north to Assyria.

Menahem's son, who reigned two years before one of his own captains, Pekah, conspired with fifty men of Gilead and killed him in the palace stronghold.

He joined Aram to pressure Judah's Ahaz, the crisis behind Isaiah's Immanuel sign, but it backfired: Assyria's Tiglath-Pileser stripped away Israel's northern territories and deported their people. Pekah was then assassinated by Hoshea.

A Sidonian princess married to King Ahab, who brought the state sponsorship of Baal into Israel, hunted the prophets of the LORD, and arranged Naboth's judicial murder over a vineyard. Her name became a byword, used as such even in Revelation.

A foreign general with leprosy who came to Israel expecting a spectacle and was told to wash seven times in the Jordan. He nearly went home offended. Jesus cited his healing in Nazareth as evidence that God's mercy has always reached past Israel's borders.

The prophet who confronted Ahab and Jezebel head on: three years of drought at his word, fire on the altar at Carmel, and then a collapse into despair under a broom tree. He did not die but was taken up in a whirlwind, which is why later Jewish expectation looked for his return before the day of the LORD.

Elijah's successor, who asked for a double portion of his master's spirit and got it. His ministry runs through ordinary households as much as royal courts: a widow's oil, a borrowed axe head, a foreign general's skin, a poisoned pot of stew.

The Babylonian king who destroyed Jerusalem and its temple and carried Judah into exile. Daniel records his dreams, his furnace, his descent into madness, and his eventual acknowledgment of the God of heaven.

An Aramean official who smothered his own king and took the throne, exactly as Elisha had wept and foretold. He then spent decades grinding down Israel, and 2 Kings says he did to them what Elisha had seen him do.

The Assyrian king who took every fortified city of Judah and then failed at Jerusalem. His field commander's speech under the wall is a masterpiece of psychological warfare, delivered in Hebrew on purpose so the men on the wall could hear it. His army was struck down in the night and he went home, and was later murdered by his own sons.

When the lost book of the law was found in the temple, the high priest and the king's officials went to her for a ruling on it. She confirmed the judgment and promised Josiah he would be spared seeing it. Jeremiah and Zephaniah were both active at the time, and the delegation went to her.

He and his wife hid the infant Joash in the temple for six years while Athaliah ruled, then produced him at seven, crowned him, and had the queen dragged out. He guided the boy king for as long as he lived, and the reforms did not survive his funeral.

The stewards, counselors, recorders, bodyguards, and hangers-on who fill the books of Samuel and Kings. Barzillai the Gileadite fed David's army in exile and then refused to come to the palace because at eighty he could no longer taste what he ate.

The rulers outside Israel who invade, extract tribute, or grant permission. Shishak of Egypt stripped the temple in Rehoboam's fifth year and left a relief at Karnak listing the towns he took. Necho killed Josiah at Megiddo. Tiglath-pileser III began the Assyrian deportations.

A family that kept a vow made by their ancestor Jonadab: no wine, no houses, no sowing, no vineyards, live in tents. They kept it for generations, and when Jeremiah set jars of wine in front of them in the temple and told them to drink, they refused.

Named almost every time his son is, in the recurring formula about the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin. The phrase appears more than twenty times and functions as the standard by which the northern kings are measured.

A name borne by several foreign rulers, mostly Aramean kings of Damascus. Ben-hadad besieged Samaria; Hazael, whom Elisha wept over on foreseeing what he would do, seized the throne by smothering his master with a wet cloth and became Israel's most destructive enemy.

Not personal names but Assyrian titles, roughly chief cupbearer, commander, and chief officer. The Rabshakeh is the one who stood outside Jerusalem's wall and made a speech.

The high priest who found the book of the law during Josiah's temple repairs, and the scribe Shaphan who read it to the king. Josiah tore his clothes. Shaphan's son Ahikam later protected Jeremiah from being killed.

Ahikam's son, appointed by Babylon to govern the few people left in Judah after Jerusalem fell. He told them to settle down, gather the harvest, and serve the king of Babylon, and it was working.

The towering prophet of Judah, called in the year King Uzziah died amid a vision of the thrice-holy LORD. He counseled kings against Assyria and saw far ahead, the virgin's son Immanuel, and the suffering servant pierced for our transgressions.