2 Kings 22

2 Kings 22:10

Moreover, Shaphan the scribe told the king saying, "Hilkiah the priest has given me a book."  And Shaphan read it in the presence of the king.

Obviously, the Law had been forgotten long ago.  The book had apparently been misplaced or hidden away and forgotten some time before, probably many generations.  Now it has been found again, and the king is made aware of it for the first time.

This make me wonder, what has the king been doing until now, that he believed in God and followed His commands?  And what have the priests been doing?  It seems that for generations, they have all been acting on oral tradition, which was obviously incomplete.  The Law in its entirety had been lost, and now is suddenly re-found, so how far off-track had the priests' memory or other sources taken them?  How much did they suddenly have to fix?

2 Kings 21

2 Kings 21:9

But they did not listen, and Manasseh seduced them to do evil more than the nations whom the LORD destroyed before the sons of Israel.

Manasseh was obviously one of the worst kings Judah had.  He did everything bad that his predecessors had done, and then some.  God had destroyed the previous inhabitants of the land, in part because of their wicked acts, and now Manasseh is doing worse.  It's no surprise that he's about to be condemned.

However, that's not what caught my attention here.  What I noticed is what Manasseh did to get the people to follow his wicked actions.  He "seduced" them.  He didn't order them, or just put up the idols and they came flocking to them.  He had to attract them somehow.  He did something that enticed them, some kind of blatant or implied reward.  This is always the most dangerous path, to be tempted because there's some kind of perceived benefit.  I know that's how I normally mess up, because I see a benefit that in my mind outweighs the danger.

2 Kings 20

2 Kings 20:19

Then Hezekiah said to Isaiah, "The word of the LORD which you have spoken is good."  For he thought, "Is it not so, if there will be peace and truth in my days?"

Hezekiah has just messed up, and welcomes emissaries from Babylon, and given them the grand tour.  Isaiah comes and says that Babylon will have everything the emissaries have been shown.  However, because of God's promise to Hezekiah, it will not happen in his time, but in that of his descendants.

Hezekiah says that this is fine by him.  After all, it won't affect him any.  His reign is guaranteed for another fifteen years, so who cares if the nation falls after he's dead?  I know I can have this feeling, to a lesser extent.  Who cares what happens to someone else?  It's got nothing to do with me.  Let God sort them out as per His will.  However, I know this attitude is wrong, and I want to change.

2 Kings 19

2 Kings 19:20

Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah saying, "Thus says the LORD the God of Israel, 'Because you have prayed to Me about Sennacherib king of Assyria, I have heard you.'

Assyria is still threatening Judah, continued from the last chapter.  Now, however, Hezekiah has run out of money to try and buy them off.  He has now come to the only place he has left, the Temple and God.  He has received a threat from the king of Assyria, brought the letter to the Temple, and laid it out before God.

Here Hezekiah does what he should have done all along:  asks God for help.  And as he promises He would, God answers.  He recognizes that Hezekiah has done what is right, and now gives the promise of relief.

I know my prayer life isn't what it should be, and I wonder if I'd be unemployed right now if it were better.  I know there's no "magic formula" for this, and God isn't a vending machine.  But if I had been more in tune with God a few months ago, would I have done something different that would have kept my job?  Or is God now moving me to somewhere different, and this is the instrument He planned to use along?  Given I'm uncertain, I obviously need more time in prayer.

2 Kings 18

2 Kings 18:16

At that time Hezekiah cut off the gold from the doors of the temple of the LORD, and from the doorposts which Hezekiah king of Judah had overlaid, and gave it to the king of Assyria.

Once again, the king panics, and does not trust in God to rescue the nation.  Instead, he raids his treasury, and the Temple, to bribe the king into remitting.  This time, though, it doesn't work, which makes the lack of faith even more tragic.

However, one thing of interest here is that Hezekiah had apparently made renovations to the Temple.  He had the doorposts overlaid with gold, and then has to remove it to pay the ransom.  This is even more tragic, for this was a good king, who had trusted in God and removed the idols.  He'd been blessed enough to improve upon the temple, and then has to take it all back.

2 Kings 17

2 Kings 17:13

Yet the LORD warned Israel and Judah through all His prophets and every seer, saying, "Turn from your evil ways and keep My commandments, My statutes according to all the law which I commanded your fathers, and which i sent to you through My servants the prophets."

Israel has fallen to the Assyrians.  The inheritance of Abraham has been taken.  Judah is deteriorating, and doesn't have that much longer to exist.  All of this has happened because the people rejected God and His promises.  They turned from him, and He has now fulfilled the promised curses that He warned them of when He first gave them the Law.

However, He didn't just let them go without any reminders of the consequences.  He sent many prophets to them, to tell them what was going to happen, and how they could prevent it.  He did this for decades and centuries, and sometimes they listened.  But it never lasted, and they would eventually ignore them altogether.  At that point, God acted, and Israel paid the price for its disobedience.

2 Kings 16

2 Kings 16:8

Ahaz took the silver and gold that was found in the house of the LORD and in the treasuries of the king's house, and sent a present to the king of Assyria.

Again, a wicked king gets himself into trouble, and gets out of it by doing more wicked.  The last time I remember this happening, the king raided the Temple and his treasury and gave it to the besieging army as tribute.  This time, however, he doesn't even to that.  He instead goes to another king, and uses it to hire that king to attack the first.

Like last time, I wonder what would have happened if Ahaz had done the right thing, and gone to God?  I believe the last time, it was a good king who messed up.  This time, Ahaz wasn't good.  He was one of the worst, in fact.  But still, he was presented with a choice.  He could either turn back to God, repent and beseech His help, or continue down the path he had always taken before.  He chose the latter, and bankrupted himself to do it.

2 Kings 15

2 Kings 15:12

This is the word of the LORD which He spoke to Jehu, saying, "Your sons to the fourth generation shall sit on the throne of Israel."  And so it was.

God kept His promise to Jehu, and left his descendent on the throne to that fourth generation.  However, because the generations after Jehu did not follow God, He kept the last generation's reign to very short six months.  God kept His promise, but he sure was quick the finish it off.

However, that was not the shortest reign in this chapter.  Zechariah's overthrow was the first of three assassinations in this chapter for Israel.  They went through three different royal lines by the time this chapter is over.  Clearly, the evil ways of Israel were starting to catch up with them, and God was not so gracious to these other would-be dynasties.

2 Kings 14

2 Kings 14:10

You have indeed defeated Edom, and your heart has become proud.  Enjoy your glory and stay at home; for why should you provoke trouble so that you, even you, would fall, and Judah with you?"

Amaziah, the king of Judah, was on a streak.  He had defeated the Edomites, their long-time enemies.  He had become very powerful, and apparently was spoiling for a fight.  So he challenges Jehoash, king of Israel, to come out and fight him.  Jehoash, knowing that Judah was not ready for this fight, and not wanting it, told Amaziah to get smart.

Pride is shown here as the base problem.  Amaziah had beaten the bad guys, and was feeling mighty good about it.  But because of his pride, he didn't take proper stock of the situation.  He went looking for trouble, and unfortunately found it.  It's like Amaziah had beaten the neighborhood bully, and then decided to become the bully himself.  But Jehoash, even though he was not righteous, recognized what was going on, and called Amaziah on it.  Would that we each have someone who will also correct us when we are wrong, even if that person is not a believer.

2 Kings 13

2 Kings 13:21

As they were burying a man, behold, they saw a marauding band; and they cast the man into the grave of Elisha.  And when the man touched the bones of Elisha he revived and stood up on his feet.

This is an odd story.  Elisha is dead and long gone, and in a panic situation another body gets thrown onto his.  That body comes back to life.  It appears that God so empowered Elisha that he wanted to show that He was still able to give power after death.

I've never been one to believe that certain objects are imbued with power of their own.  I've always considered such things to be the domain of fantasy games and novels.  However, in this case, it appears that God specifically left a power on Elisha's dead body, to show that He was in control of all things.  I wonder if anyone else later tried this, since the story obviously got out, and if it failed or succeeded.  I would assume that it failed, and God had made a special change for this particular person.

2 Kings 12

2 Kings 12:18

Jehoash king of Judah took all the sacred things that Jehoshaphat and Jehoram and Ahaziah his fathers, kings of Judah, had dedicated, and his own sacred things and all the gold that was found among the treasuries of the house of the LORD and of the king's house, and sent them to Hazael king of Aram.  Then he went away from Jerusalem.

Jehoash has done well.  He ruled rightly, even to repairing the Temple.  But now, the nation has been invaded.  The army of Aram is besieging Jerusalem.  Jehoash doesn't appear to have an army strong enough to fight them, so he comes up with another solution.  He bribes the king or Aram to leave, by giving him all the gold he can get his hands on, including the dedicated items in the Temple.

We've seen in other situations that God will provide a solution when asked.  If Jehoash had gone to the priests and to God and prayed for deliverance, God surely would have provided one.  But instead, he took matters into his own hands, and robbed from God.  To be fair, he also took all his own gold, not just that in the Temple, but he still took from God.  I guess the modern-day equivalent would be us taking our tithe and using it to pay a bill for an emergency.  I can't condone it, for God will provide a way if we are faithful.

2 Kings 11

2 Kings 11:18

All the people of the land went to the house of Baal, and tore it down; his altars and his images they broke in pieces thoroughly, and killed Mattan the priest of Baal before the altars.  And the priest appointed officers over the house of the LORD.

The usurper queen has just been overthrown, and the true king of Judah restored.  He had been hidden since he was a baby in the temple.  Now that he has been restored to the throne, the next thing the priest does is bring the people back to God.  He makes a covenant with them to serve God, and they respond immediately.  They go and destroy the temple to Baal.

In Israel, the king tricked the followers of Baal into coming to be destroyed.  Here, the people simply rise up and take the temple down.  No one is killed except Baal's priest, it appears.  Last chapter, I was asking why Jehu had to use deceit to destroy Baal's followers.  What would have happened if he had done something like this instead?  Would the people have followed?

2 Kings 10

2 Kings 10:19

Now, summon all the prophets of Baal, all his worshipers and all his priests; let no one be missing, for I have a great sacrifice for Baal; whoever is missing shall not live."  But Jehu did it in cunning, so that he might destroy the worshipers of Baal.

Once again, treachery is used to destroy God's enemies.  In this case, Jehu is planning a massacre, luring all worshipers of Baal into his temple, where they can be isolated and slaughtered.  He tells them that any who do not show up will be killed, when the opposite is true.  And later in the chapter, God seems to express his approval of Jehu's actions.

I've never been comfortable with the way it seems to keep repeating in the Old Testament the pattern that a follower of God uses lies and deception to further His goals.  If Jehu had not lied, would this blasphemy have been impossible to uproot?  Could not God have stirred the hearts of the people if Jehu had declared that any who worship Baal should be put to death?  Why did he have to lie?

2 Kings 9

2 Kings 9:27

When Ahaziah the king of Judah saw this, he fled by the way of the garden house.  And Jehu pursued him and said, "Shoot him too, in the chariot."  So they shot him at the ascent of Gur, which is at Ibleam.  But he fled to Megiddo and died there.

Why did Jehu kill Ahaziah, as well?  I understand him killing Joram, because Joram was the king of Israel, and he'd just been anointed king of Israel by the prophet.  But Ahaziah was king of Judah, a completely separate nation.  So why kill him as well, when he was running away?  He didn't appear to be any threat, and killing him could only antagonize Judah against Israel.

I only have a guess as to why this occurred, but it's all I have.  I'm guessing that the answer is two-fold.  First, Ahaziah was a wicked king, of the line of Ahab due to intermarriage.  The prophet had commanded that all males of Ahab's line be killed, so Jehu was carrying out what he at least thought was God's word (I say thought because Elisha's instructions didn't include that command).  Second, Judah was allied with Israel at the time, and the kings were together when Jehu came.  He may have considered Ahaziah to be a threat, because he could quickly summon the army of both nations to reclaim the throne for Joram's heir.

2 Kings 8

2 Kings 8:10

Then Elisha said to him, "Go, say to him, 'You will surely recover,' but the LORD has shown me that he will certainly die."

The king had sent a messenger to Elisha, to see if he would recover from his illness.  God showed Elisha two things.  First, that the illness was not fatal, and therefore he should recover.  Second, that he would not die from the illness, but that he would die while he was still sick.

Both were true, but the way this is written, it appears that Elisha is telling the messenger to lie.  God has shown Elisha that the king will die, but Elisha tells the messenger to say he will recover.  As it turns out later, the messenger kills the king, so Elisha was telling the truth.  But where did the two messages come from?  Was God saying to lie to the king, or was that Elisha's doing?

2 Kings 7

2 Kings 7:7

Therefore they arose and fled in the twilight, and left their tents and their horses and their donkeys, even the camp just as it was, and fled for their life.

Their behavior here confuses me a bit.  Here the army is, besieging an enemy city, and they hear the sound of an approaching army.  They think they're about to be attacked, so they run.  But they leave everything behind.  I can understand not waiting to break down camp completely, but they didn't even take their mounts.  Why would they not take along the animals that would allow them to flee faster?

I have to put this down to God's provision.  He scared them so much that they weren't thinking, they just ran.  Because they weren't thinking, they were limited in how fast they could run.  By doing this foolish thing, they supplied the Israelites with everything they needed to restore Samaria from the siege shortages.  God supplied them through an enemy's provisions, despite their unbelief.

2 Kings 6

2 Kings 6:22

He answered, "You shall not kill them.  Would you kill those you have taken captive with your sword and with your bow?  Set bread and water before them, that they may eat and drink and go to their master."

This shows a very different picture of ancient warfare than what I've always imagined.  In my mind, I always thought that anyone captured was probably executed.  Mercy was not a common quality in this time.  If they weren't executed after the battle, then I always thought it was only because they were being held for a victory celebration at the end of the war, or to be kept as slaves, or perhaps as sacrifice to some barbaric god.

However, this suggests that being captured was not effectively the end of their lives.  Apparently, if they were captured, they would be held for some amount of time, but were well treated as captives.  When the king decided, or perhaps merely at the end of the campaign, they would be returned to their people.  It's not clear if there was some kind of parole system like we have today, where they couldn't fight against the same enemy, or return to the same unit, but it definitely shows a more...civilized, for lack of a better word...rule of combat than I'd thought existed.

2 Kings 5

2 Kings 5:18

In this matter may the LORD pardon your servant:  when my master goes into the house of Rimmon to worship there, and he leans on my hand and I bow myself in the house of Rimmon, when I bow myself in the house of Rimmon, the LORD pardon your servant in this matter."

I guess that as the leader of the army, he was required to accompany the king into the temple to this false god.  From the description, I wonder if the king is old, and he has to help the king get around in the temple.  Either this, or he is merely prompted by the king when to bow.

However, Naaman now knows that the only real God is God, and all others are false.  Therefore, he asks God's pardon for this action he is required to take.  To not go with the king would apparently be a betrayal of his oath, which he cannot do.  But he knows that this is not right worship, so he is doing everything he can to minimize his actions, in good conscience.  While today Christians tend to at least say that we should simply refuse, this alternative appears to be an acceptable compromise to God, at least in this circumstance.