Today’s passage: 2 Kings 20:1-21

Helpful thoughts:

• Verses 2 and 3 never say that Hezekiah asked God to allow him to live longer.  He may have simply been concerned about the consequences of his death, such as the aggressiveness of the Assyrians or the young age of his son.
  • His prayer could have been an appeal to God to continue to preserve Judah in his absence.
• Hezekiah’s healing and the sign he requested may have been the action that set the ball rolling in Judah’s relationship with Babylon (2 Chronicles 32:31).
• Hezekiah was a godly king, and yet a man who fell short of the glory of God.  His extra fifteen years may have been a blessing in many ways, and it also brought consequences.

Questions to consider:

1. Was Judah safe because Hezekiah was alive?  Who was her Savior and Shield?
2. What would Hezekiah have been like once he physically died and went to heaven?  If he desired to live longer, in what ways could that be a loving request?  In what ways is heaven better? (Philippians 1:21)
3. If you’re reading this and you are a follower of Christ, you have a God-ordained reason to still be here.  What would God have you to be using your energies to do?  Who has he given you to love?  To serve?  To point to Christ?  How will you find true fulfilment in life?

Today’s passage: 2 Kings 19:1-37

Helpful thoughts:

• By God’s grace, King Hezekiah’s thoughts were turned back to the Lord.  Sennacherib had picked a fight with God, the only right thing for Hezekiah to do was to cry out to the Lord and be faithful to His side along with the rest of God’s people.
• The gods of all these other people groups did not defend them because they did not exist.  Hezekiah prayed this way in verses 15-19.  His faith was not in vain because his faith was in the God who is sovereign…and real.
• People who do not believe in God or reject Him as their lord are also guilty of taking all of the blessings of His common grace for granted.  Unbelievers are not in some third category, independent of the spiritual warfare of this world.  They are in direct opposition to God and guilty before Him.  They need to hear the Gospel and be saved.
• The sign which starts in verse 29 is directed to Hezekiah and Israel.
  • The Lord’s protection of Judah from Assyria was to be seen as a guarantee of the future kingdom.

Questions to consider:

1. Why did Hezekiah pray for the protection of Judah?  What was the goal (Verse 19)?  What is the chief goal of God working in our lives still today?
2. Why had Sennacherib won any of his previous battles (Verse 25)?  Did the gods of Assyria give him those victories?  Did he muster up the powerful strength himself?  To Whom did Sennacherib owe his successes?  Even in his opposition, who was in complete control of the king of Assyria (Verses 27-28)?
3. After the death of so many troops, without a single fight, what should Sennacherib have realized?  What did he go home and do (Verse 37a)?  Why do you think he chose to worship Nisroch?  What would we have been hoping for?

Today’s passage: 2 Kings 18:1-37

Helpful thoughts:

• The fall of Samaria occurred just as Judah was going through its greatest reform and repentance under king Hezekiah.  There was a stark contrast of events in these kingdoms.
• Hezekiah had trusted the Lord, but when the empire that defeated Israel retaliated and started moving in on Jerusalem, he simply tried to pay him off.  He didn’t have to do that.
  • God had preserved Jerusalem before, He could certainly do it again.
  • Just like sin itself, Sennacherib couldn’t be satisfied.  He wanted total surrender.
• The Assyrians’ challenge from verses 19 on gives Hezekiah the perfect opportunity to point the world to the Lord.  It also shows they had done their homework.  They knew how to manipulate the truth to intimidate their enemy.
  • The Assyrians made sure to speak in Hebrew to tempt the people of Judah away from their king.

Questions to consider:

1. What gods did these challengers name as the ones who would have rescued Samaria?  What does that teach us about the common knowledge that day of whom the Samaritans worshiped?
2. Why is this challenge so foolish?  Is the Lord just a god of a local area or country?  Who has the upper hand in this tense moment of invasion?  The ones with the riches and giant army or the ones with Almighty God?
3. What does Hezekiah’s moment of weakness or lack of faith remind us of all people in the Bible (Outside of Jesus)?  He was a great King and feared the Lord (Compared to other kings), and he needed a Savior because he too was a sinner.  Who is the hero of the story of the Bible?  Who is your hero?

Today’s passage: 2 Kings 17:1-41

Helpful thoughts:

• Israel has fallen.
  • We are told why in verses 7-23.
  • It was not an economic downturn.  It was not poor military strategy.  It was her rejection God.
• The king of Assyria exiled much of the people of Israel and settled the area with people from other lands.  The new peoples intermarried with those of Israel who remained and became a new people group, the Samaritans.
  • They treated God like the rest of their false gods.  They did enough to think they had assuaged His anger, and blended their worship.
  • Verse 33 seems to contain their perspective (Or at least their fear of consequence), while verse 34 speaks the whole truth.
    • “The feared the Lord…they do not fear the Lord.”
• This new people group, after all Israel had been through, after having become a half-Jewish, half-Gentile group, was still given the opportunity to follow the Lord.  They were not rejected from receiving the commands, but they rejected God just as Israel had since the days of Jeroboam I.
  • The book of 2 Kings was written during the Babylonian Exile of Judah.  When the writer says, “to this day” that is the day to which he refers.
  • These are the Samaritans we read about in the Gospels during the days of Christ.
  • There are still around 800 Samaritans living in Northern Israel today.  They still have a variant version of Judaism they practice.  They do not believe the Messiah has come.

Questions to consider:

1. If the Israelites had felt that God was being unfaithful to Him, why would they have been wrong?  How had God remained entirely faithful?
2. Why should it not surprise us that God expected this new people to continue worshiping Him?  Is there anyone on the face of the earth who would not be blessed to worship God?
3. What is the result of truly fearing the Lord?  How does a right fear draw us to Christ?

Today’s passage: 2 Kings 16:1-20

Helpful thoughts:

• The king of Judah burned his son to death in worship of Molech, the god of the Moabites.
  • The phrase at the end of verse 3 refers back to God’s command from Deuteronomy 18:9-12.
  • No king of Judah was said to have worshiped the false gods at the high places since Solomon.
• Urijah was the High Priest in the Temple.  So, just to review:
  • The King of Judah sent the silver and gold from the Temple of the LORD to get help from the Assyrians.
  • The King of Judah went to the king of Assyria and desired to worship the same way Tiglath-Pilesar did.
  • The King of Judah asked the High Priest of the Lord to make the Temple conform to the standards of the Assyrians (Which required the Temple be made UN-like the way God commanded) and the High Priest did it.
  • The Temple for the LORD in Jerusalem was now being used to worship like the Assyrians.  The worship of the Lord became the secondary form of worship in the temple.  And, some of the instruments had been repurposed for pagan practices.

Questions to consider:

1. Who is the King to whom Ahaz should have plead for rescue in verse 7?
2. Why should the actions of Ahaz be so shocking?  What did he do beyond simply remodeling the Temple?
3. In verse 18, we are told that Ahaz had the king’s entrance to the Temple removed on account of the king of Assyria.  This means he was hoping to prevent the King of Assyria from getting to the Temple from the throne should he take it.  Ahaz wanted to be able to hide in the Temple!  What is the irony of this action?  What had Ahaz just done to the Temple?  Whom did Ahaz truly fear and what did his misplaced fear result in?

Today’s passage: 2 Kings 15:1-38

Helpful thoughts:

• King Azariah and King Uzziah are the same person.
  • He is also referred to in Isaiah 1, Amos 1 and Zechariah 14.
• Another “dynasty” of kings in Israel comes to an end, near the height of their power and after just four generations.
  • God’s prophecy proved true.  God’s power is greater than the greatest of our earthly kings.
• Within the next generation, Israel would have four new kings.  All of them came to power by killing the previous and stooping to dastardly levels of evil that are hard to even consider against their own people.  By the end of this chapter, they are nearly entirely under Assyrian control.

Questions to consider:

1. Is financial prosperity an automatic sign of God’s blessing and pleasure?  Does God simply see us doing “good” and then give us money and power?  What does this tale from Israel teach us about this?
2. How do you think the new kings felt when they first sat on their thrones “unopposed?”  How certain was their security?  Who was truly in control and on the throne?
3. As Israel is declining and getting ready to cease to exist as a country, what should we see happening from the grand scale of things?  What is God doing?  Why has this happened?  Where does it fit into the larger narrative of Scripture?

Today’s passage: 2 Kings 14:1-29

Helpful thoughts:

• This chapter contains yet another civil war where the king of Israel defeats the king of Judah, destroys part of Jerusalem and plunders the Temple.  Such a sad reality.
• Azariah began to reign when his father was a hostage in Samaria.  They remained coregents until the death of Amaziah.
  • Elath is a strategic location…one that could easily be forgotten about given the geography of the nation.
• During Jeroboam II’s reign, Israel and Judah combined covered the same land area that had been ruled over during Solomon’s reign.
  • The prophet Jonah is the same Jonah who had the pleasure of riding through the sea in the belly of a big fish. (Jonah 1:1-3)

Questions to consider:

1. Why didn’t Judah capture Israel?  Why did Israel grow and flourish?  Who was (and still is) in control?
2. Are you starting to feel a bit of monotony reading through the accounts of these kings?  What are we learning about Israel/Judah and their ability to keep God’s Law and follow Him on their own?  What is the monotony teaching us?
3. What does the world look to in order to make things “better?”  Who do we truly need?  To whom does the world need us to point them?

Today’s passage: 2 Kings 13:1-25

Helpful thoughts:

• The name of the “savior” or “deliverer” is not given in verse 5.  What Israel needed to know was that their Lord was to be their true deliverer.
• Joash and Jehoash refer to the same king.  And, there was a Joash reigning as king in Israel and in Judah at the same time.
  • Israel’s king Joash was the grandson of Jehu, who had eliminated the line of Ahab.
  • Israel’s king Joash walked in the ways of Jereboam, the first king of Israel, and then named his son Jereboam as well.
• When the man touched Elisha’s bones and resurrected, it was a sign to Israel that the promises and prophecies of God through Elisha were still as valid as when Elisha was alive.
  • They saw Elisha as their father and their defense, or at least he was the personification of it.  But again, the Lord was their savior, not Elisha.

Questions to consider:

1. What would allow a people to believe they are trusting in the Lord and loving his prophet while at the same time, worshiping against God’s will and sharing their worship with other gods?  How does that happen?  What is needed to bring repentance?
2. When were the times when Israel cried out to God (Just like they did during the period of the judges)?  Why would the king have been scared to see Elisha die…just before it was the time of year for wars?
3. The church is given to us for fellowship and mutual edification.  We grow together as a community.  But, who do we gather to worship?  Who is our King?  Who is our Savior?  Who will make our church victorious?

Today’s passage: 2 Kings 12:1-21

Helpful thoughts:

• Joash/Jehoash became king at the age of seven.
  • Jehoiada the High Priest lived to be 130!
  • After Jehoiada’s death, Joash turned sharply toward idolatry, even killing Jehoiada’s son.
• Joash seems to have been responsible for refurbishing the Temple and then depleting it.
• Though this young king had survived the coup of his grandmother Athaliah, he would not make it to fifty years old.  He was later killed by his own servants.
  • Much more information about Joash’s reign can be found in 2 Chronicles 22:10-24:27.

Questions to consider:

1. Why is verse 3 so important?  When we pursue righteousness, how much righteousness should we pursue?  Is it right to be satisfied with being mostly good?  How did the Apostle Paul deal with this struggle (Romans 7:21-25)?  If our church is the people, how important to the whole are our individual pursuits of godliness?
2. In 2 Chronicles 24:4-5, we see why the Temple refurbishing didn’t get started as planned.  In our passage in 2 Kings 12, we are told they did receive the money but would not use it for the Temple.  How could these actions by the Levites and Priests have hurt the cause of their ministry?  Why must the church today be honest and accountable with finances and maintain a good work ethic?
3. What can Joash’s change in allegiances remind us of?  Do we really need to be with people who will faithfully encourage us to pursue Christ?  How does God’s gift of the local church help us to stay focused on Jesus?