Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been categorized as “2 Kings”
2Kings 7:1-2 The background to this incident is that Israel and Aram are fighting with eachother. In the previous chapter, Elisha, through God’s intervention, managed to put an end to the Aramean raids inside Israel, but now the Aramean king Ben-Hadad comes with his entire army and lays siege to the Israelite capital of Samaria. The siege becomes so difficult …
2Kings 6:8-10 The prophet Elisha was no fan of Israel’s wicked king Jehoram (2 Kings 3:1-2), who was the son of the now-dead king Ahab, who was married to Jezebel. Ahab and Jezebel saw the prophet Elijah as an enemy and persecuted God’s people. While Joram is also wicked, he is not quite as bad as Ahab and Jezebel. Elisha …
2Kings 4:1 There were many “prophet disciples” in Israel at this time, including Gilgal (2 Kings 4:38), Bethel (2 Kings 2:3), and Jericho (2 Kings 2:5). The disciples of the prophets were trained in the prophetic profession probably much like a pastor or church leader today. Prophetic disciples learned to be prophets from, for example, Samuel (1 Sam 19:20), Elijah …
2Kings 3:1-3 Jehoram was king of Israel around the years 852-841 BC. Joram was the son of Ahab and Jezebel, some of the most wicked leaders in Israel’s history. When Israel was divided into two kingdoms, Israel in the north and Judah in the south, Jeroboam was the first king of northern Israel. Jeroboam was worried that if the Israelites …
2Kings 2:23-24 The “little boys” were probably teenage boys, judging from the Hebrew words. It is not clear from the basic text that these young people “died”, but rather that they were “torn”. The Canaanite peoples sometimes mourned their dead by cutting and tearing themselves with knives and shaving off their hair (Leviticus 21:5). This ceremonial tradition was forbidden by …
2Kings 2:1-3 In the Old Testament, it was very unusual to speak of “being taken up to heaven”. Only the deaths of Elijah and Hanoch are really described in this way. About Hanoch it says: “After Hanoch had thus walked with God, he was no more, for God took him away. ” (Genesis 5:24) The more normal thing was to …
2Kings 1:1 Moab was a land east of the Dead Sea. King David had defeated the Moabites in his time and Moab had been under Israel’s control ever since (2 Sam 8:2). When Ahab dies, Moab takes the opportunity to rebel and free themselves from Israel’s sovereignty. 2Kings 1:2 King Ahaziah had an accident and was seriously injured when he …