The Expositor's Bible: The Second Book of Kings

some have supposed that Gedaliah's rule lasted four years. All is uncertain, and the latter passage is of doubtful authenticity; but it is at least possible that the vengeful at...

As a matter of convenience, we follow our English Bible in calling the prophet by the name Ho_sea_, and the nineteenth, last, and best king of Israel Ho_shea_. The names, howeve...

In spite of the humble submission of Hezekiah, it is a surprise to learn from Isaiah that Sennacherib--after he had accepted the huge fine and fixed the tribute, and departed to...

A long period had elapsed since Elijah had received the triple commission which was to mark the close of his career. Two of those Divine behests had now been accomplished. He ha...

With the death of Zachariah begins the acute agony of Israel's dissolution. Four kings were murdered in forty years. Indeed, within two centuries, at least nine kings--Nadab, El...

It is from the Prophets--Zephaniah, Jeremiah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Ezekiel--that we catch almost our sole glimpses of the vast world-movements of the nations which must have loomed...

A part of the misery inflicted by the Syrians on Israel was caused by the forays in which their light-armed bands, very much like the borderers on the marches of Wales or Scotla...

"We see dimly in the Present what is small and what is great, Slow of faith how weak an arm may turn the iron helm of Fate: But the soul is still oracular: amid the market's din...

Ahaziah, the eldest son and successor of Ahab, has been called "the most shadowy of the Israelitish kings."[1] He seems to have been in all respects one of the most weak, faithl...

"Jéhu, sur les hauts lieux, enfin osant offrir Un téméraire encens que Dieu ne peut souffrir, N'a pour servir sa cause et venger ses injures Ni le cœur assez droit, ni les mains...

"There is no strange handwriting on the wall, Through all the midnight hum no threatening call, Nor on the marble floor the stealthy fall Of fatal footsteps. All is safe.--Thou...

In the chaos of uncertainties which surrounds the chronology of King Hezekiah's reign, it is impossible to fix a precise date to the sickness which almost brought him to the gra...

"Par cette fin terrible, et due à ses forfaits, Apprenez, Roi des Juifs, et n'oubliez jamais, Que les rois dans le ciel ont un juge sevère, L'innocence un vengeur, et les orphel...

"For when we in our wickedness grow hard, Oh misery on't! the wise gods seal our eyes; In our own filth drop our clear judgments; make us Adore our errors; laugh at us while we...

had promised? Where did they see the Divine Prince whom he had foretold, or the lion lying down with the lamb, and the child laying his hand on the cockatrice's den?

"When, sudden--how think ye the end? Did I say 'without friend'? Say rather from marge to blue marge The whole sky grew his targe, With the sun's self for visible boss, While an...

"Quand ce grand Dieu a choisi quelqu'un pour être l'instrument de ses desseins rien n'arrête le cours, où il enchaine, où il aveugle, où il dompte tout ce qui est capable de rés...

Israel had scarcely ever sunk to so low a nadir of degradation as she did in the reign of the son of Jehu. We have already mentioned that some assign to his reign the ghastly st...

The next anecdote of Elisha brings us once more into contact with the Lady of Shunem. Famines, or dearths, were unhappily of very frequent occurrence in a country which is so wh...

Ahaziah, as Elijah had warned him, never recovered from the injuries received in his fall through the lattice, and after his brief and luckless reign died without a child. He wa...

"'Tis truly no good plan when princes play The vulture among carrion; but when They play the carrion among vultures--that Is ten times worse." LESSING, _Nathan the Wise_, Act I....

"For Ezekias had done the thing that pleased the Lord, and was strong in the ways of David his father, as Esay the prophet, who was great and faithful in his vision, had command...

If we are to understand the reign of Josiah as a whole, we must preface it by some allusion to the great epoch-marking circumstances of his age, which explain the references of...

We are now in the full tide of Elisha's miracles, and as regards many of them we can do little more than illustrate the text as it stands. The record of them clearly comes from...

Elisha, unlike his master Elijah, was, during a great part of his long career, intimately mixed up with the political and military fortunes of his country. The king of Israel wh...

Josiah survived by thirteen years the reformation and covenant which are the chief events of his reign. He lived in prosperity and peace. He did justice and judgment; the poor a...

"Count me o'er earth's chosen heroes--they were souls that stood alone, While the men they agonised for hurled the contumelious stone; Stood serene, and down the future saw the...

The fate of Amaziah ("Jehovah is strong"), son of Joash of Judah, resembles in some respects that of his father. Both began to reign prosperously: the happiness of both ended in...

"Behold yon sterile spot Where now the wandering Arab's tent Flaps in the desert blast; There once old Salem's haughty fane Reared high to heaven its thousand golden domes, And...

Isaiah was one of those men whom God provides for the need of kingdoms. He was not only a prophet, but a statesman, a reformer, a poet, a man of invincible faith and unequalled...

Before we watch the last "glimmerings and decays" of the Northern Kingdom, we must once more revert to the fortunes of the House of David. Judah partook of the better fortunes o...

The narrative now reverts to the kingdom of Judah, of which the historian, mainly occupied with the great deeds of the prophet in Israel, takes at this period but little notice.

priest Shemaiah the Nehelamite, because as a priest he had sent a letter to the chief priest Zephaniah and all the priests, urging them as the successors of Jehoiada to follow t...

The date of the assumption of Elijah is wholly uncertain, and it becomes still more so because of the confusion of chronological order which results from the composite character...

If we had only the history of the kings to depend upon, we should scarcely form an adequate conception either of the greatness of Jeroboam II. or of the condition of society whi...

"There are times when ancient truths become modern falsehoods, when the signs of God's dispensations are made so clear by the course of natural events as to supersede the revela...

"Shall the throne of wickedness have fellowship with Thee, That frameth mischief by statute? They gather themselves in troops against the soul of the righteous, And condemn the...

But the work of Jehu was not yet over. He was established at Jezreel; he was lord of the palace and seraglio of his master; the army of Israel was with him. But who could be sur...

[646] Such pardon from a king of Assyria was rare, but not unparalleled. Pharaoh Necho I. was taken in chains to Nineveh, and afterwards set free (Schrader, _K. A. T._, p. 371).

It was under the disastrous circumstances which attended his father's death at Megiddo that Jehoahaz began to reign. There is some confusion about the four sons of Josiah, whom...

worldly and sacerdotal advisers of the king? It was the simple command "Trust in the Lord." It was the threefold message "God is high; God is near; God is Love."[510] Had he not...

reign, and this reduces us to the absurdity of supposing that Hezekiah was born when his father was only eleven years old.[436] We might infer from Isa. iii. 4 that Ahaz was not...

At this point we enter into the cycle of supernatural stories, which gathered round the name of Elisha in the prophetic communities. Some of them are full of charm and tendernes...

"No, rather steel thy melting heart To act the martyr's sternest part, To watch with firm, unshrinking eye Thy darling visions as they die, Till all bright hopes and hues of day...

trusted in an alliance with Egypt. From first to last Isaiah warned Ahaz, and warned Hezekiah, that no reliance was to be placed on Egyptian promises--that Egypt was but like th...

Thus Micah sees in imagination the terrible march of the invader by Gath, Akko, Beth-le-Aphrah, Maroth, Lachish, and Adullam. He plays with bitter anguish on the name of each to...

hero Jehoiada had anything to say against the _bamoth_. But it appears from 2 Kings xxiii. 9 that the _bamoth_ had regular priests of their own, who "eat the priestly portions"...

[639] 2 Kings xxi. 13. LXX., ἀλάβαστρος, _al._ πυξίον. The Vulgate also takes it to mean the obliteration of writing on a tablet: "Delebo Jerusalem sicut deleri solent tabulæ; e...

Sad parting from the exiles--The wail at Ramah--Gedaliah's appointment as satrap perhaps due to Jeremiah--Desolation of Jerusalem--The seat of government removed to Mizpah--A re...

[304] Some have conjectured that Amaziah of Judah became more or less the vassal of Joash of Israel, and that the vassalage continued till after the death of Jeroboam II. (1) Fo...

"Rimmon, whose delightful seat Was fair Damascus, on the fertile banks Of Abbana and Pharphar, lucid streams. He also against the House of God was bold: A leper once he lost, an...

The name Manasseh--His tender age--Influence of evil counsellors--Heathenising party--Their dislike of Hezekiah's reformation and of the exclusive worship of Jehovah--Tendency t...

Embassy of the Turtan, the Rabsaris, and the Rabshakeh--Misery and licence in the city--The conference--Oration of the Rabshakeh--Its effect on the king's ministers and on the p...

Eliakim--His change of name--Ignored by Ezekiel--Evil influences--Æsthetic selfishness and oppressive greed--Denunciation by Habakkuk--Denunciation by Jeremiah--Murder of Urijah...

The name Hoshea--The king and the prophet--Occasional gleams of hope and promise--A humiliating reign--Death of Tiglath-Pileser--Hoshea revolts to Sabaco of Egypt--Seized by Sha...

Growth of Josiah's character--Repairs of the Temple--Hilkiah finds the Book of the Law--Intense effect produced on mind of the king--His message to the prophetess Huldah--Great...

Shallum, an usurping murderer--Rapid disappearance of kings--Distracted epoch--The prophet Zechariah and the three shepherds--Zechariah's prophecies--The cruel shepherd, Menahem...

The murderess-daughter of Jezebel--Fierce ambition--Jehosheba--The rescued child--Reared in the Temple--The high priest's plot--The coronation of the boy-king--Athaliah enters t...

Misery of Jehoram's reign--Thwarted invasion of Moab--Aggression of Benhadad--At Ramoth-Gilead--The young prophet--The two kings absent from the camp--The dangerous commission--...

Amos describes the condition of Israel--Growth of usury and vice--Humble origin of Amos--His burdens--Degenerations of the "calf-worship"--Uncompromising denunciation--Collision...

His oath to the King of Assyria--Ezekiel's prophecies--The exiles and the remnant--Weakness of Zedekiah--Continuance of idolatry as described by Ezekiel--The king breaks his oat...

Dates--Importance of the reign--Hezekiah's age--His character--His reformation--Partial suppression of the _bamoth_--Removal of the _matstseboth_ and _Asherim_--Destruction of t...

Jehoram (B.C. 851-843)--Ahaziah (B.C. 843-842)--Jehoram ben-Jehoshaphat of Judah--Perplexing uncertainty of minute chronological details--The blight of the Jezebel-alliance--The...

Pathos of Jeremiah's lot--The sad epoch in which he lived--Religious changes--Arrest of Jeremiah--Progress of the siege--Zedekiah sends for the prophet--His hardships alleviated...

Wane of Assyria--Uzziah a wise and good king--His other name Azariah--Expansion of the story of his conquests in the Chronicles--Training of his army--Defeated by the Assyrians...

Israel at its nadir--Calf-worship--Oppression of Hazael--Disappearance of Elisha--Repentance of Jehoahaz--Joash of Israel visits the death-bed of Elisha--"The arrow of the Lord'...

The House of David--Amaziah brings to justice the murderers of his father, but spares their children--Grounds for this--Different views taken of him by the historian and the chr...

Wading through blood to a throne--The ride to Samaria--The brethren of Ahaziah of Judah--The corpse-choked tank of the shepherds--The Bedawy ascetic--The scene of slaughter in t...

Prosperity and happiness of Josiah--Accession of the great Pharaoh Necho II.--His excursion against Carchemish--Josiah determines to bar his path--Warnings of Pharaoh Necho--Dis...

Greatness of Sargon--His campaigns--Defeat of Egypt at the battle of Raphia--Ashdod--Defeat of Merodach-Baladan--Grandeur of Sennacherib--His invasion of Judæa--Earlier collisio...

A weak, shadowy, and faithless king--1. Relations between Judah and Israel--2. Alliance with Jehoshaphat--3. Revolt of Moab--Mesha and the Moabite Stone--4. The fall from the la...

Horrible straits of the besieged Samaritans--Stress of famine--The King of Israel--The miserable women--Sackcloth under the purple--The king's fury and despair--He threatens Eli...

Nebuzaradan and the Babylonians--The final captivity--Dreadful fate of Zedekiah--Prophecies of Ezekiel and Jeremiah--Sack of the city--Massacre of the chief inhabitants--Burning...

Death of Ahaziah--Jehoram Ben-Ahab of Israel--Good beginnings--Attempts to recover Moab--Alliance with Judah and Edom--The invasion--An army perishing of thirst--Elisha--Music--...

The story of Hezekiah's illness misplaced--At the point of death--Isaiah's message--The king's agony of mind--The prayer--The reprieve--The sun-dial of Ahaz--The king's gratitud...

Four sons of Josiah--Shallum chosen by the people of the land--Elegy of Ezekiel--Change of name from Shallum to Jehoahaz--Conquests of Pharaoh Necho II.--Jehoahaz summoned to Ri...

The lady of Shunem leaves her estate--Her return--Gehazi talks with the king--Entrance of the Shunammite--Her estates restored--Elisha visits Damascus--A royal present--Benhadad...

Their chronological vagueness--Difference between Elisha and Elijah--Contrasts and resemblances--Social life in Israel--1. The widow and the oil--2. The lady of Shunem--Her hosp...

Syrian marauders--They are baffled--Anger of Benhadad--The vision at Dothan--Meaning of the promises--How fulfilled to God's saints on earth--Some are delivered, some are not--E...

Moloch-worship--Sacrifice of children--Ahaz appeals to Assyria for help--Ruin of Damascus and death of Rezin--Ahaz does homage to Tiglath-Pileser at Damascus--Records of Tiglath...