2 Kings 13: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

Jehoahaz and then his son Jehoash rule Israel, both doing evil in the LORD's sight, while Hazael of Syria grinds Israel's army down to almost nothing. Jehoahaz prays and the LORD sends a deliverer, though the people keep on in the sins of the house of Jeroboam. The dying Elisha has King Jehoash shoot an arrow eastward and strike the ground, and tells him he will beat Syria only three times because he struck only three times. After Elisha's burial, a dead man thrown into his tomb revives on touching his bones, and Jehoash later retakes from Ben-hadad the cities lost by his father.

Claim by Claim

1. 13:1
   • In the twenty-third year of Joash son of Ahaziah king of Judah, Jehoahaz son of Jehu began to reign over Israel.
   • Jehoahaz reigned in Samaria.
   • Jehoahaz reigned seventeen years.
2. 13:2
   • Jehoahaz did what was evil in the sight of the LORD.
   • Jehoahaz followed the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat.
   • Jeroboam son of Nebat had caused Israel to sin.
   • Jehoahaz did not turn away from those sins.
3. 13:3
   • The anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel.
   • The LORD gave Israel into the hand of Hazael king of Syria.
   • The LORD gave Israel into the hand of Benhadad son of Hazael.
   • This lasted all their days.
4. 13:4
   • Jehoahaz entreated the favor of the LORD.
   • The LORD listened to Jehoahaz.
   • The LORD listened because he saw the oppression of Israel.
   • The king of Syria oppressed Israel.
5. 13:5
   • The LORD gave Israel a deliverer.
   • Israel went out from under the hand of Syria.
   • The children of Israel dwelt in their tents as they had before.
6. 13:6
   • The people did not turn away from the sins of the house of Jeroboam.
   • The house of Jeroboam had caused Israel to sin.
   • The people walked in those sins.
   • An Asherah pole also remained standing in Samaria.
7. 13:7
   • The king of Syria left Jehoahaz no army except fifty horsemen, ten chariots, and ten thousand foot soldiers.
   • The king of Syria had destroyed them.
   • The king of Syria had made them like dust for threshing.
8. 13:8
   • The rest of the acts of Jehoahaz, all that he did, and his might are written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel.
9. 13:9
   • Jehoahaz slept with his fathers.
   • They buried Jehoahaz in Samaria.
   • Joash his son reigned in his place.
10. 13:10
    • In the thirty-seventh year of Joash king of Judah, Jehoash son of Jehoahaz began to reign over Israel.
    • Jehoash reigned in Samaria.
    • Jehoash reigned sixteen years.
11. 13:11
    • Jehoash did what was evil in the sight of the LORD.
    • Jehoash did not turn away from any of the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat.
    • Jeroboam son of Nebat had caused Israel to sin.
    • Jehoash walked in those sins.
12. 13:12
    • The rest of the acts of Joash, all that he did, and his might with which he fought against Amaziah king of Judah are written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel.
    • Joash fought against Amaziah king of Judah.
13. 13:13
    • Joash slept with his fathers.
    • Jeroboam sat on the throne of Joash.
    • Joash was buried in Samaria with the kings of Israel.
14. 13:14
    • Elisha fell sick with the illness from which he would die.
    • Joash king of Israel came down to Elisha.
    • Joash wept over Elisha's face.
    • Joash said, My father, my father.
    • Joash called him the chariot of Israel and its horsemen.
15. 13:15
    • Elisha told Joash to take a bow and arrows.
    • Joash took a bow and arrows for himself.
16. 13:16
    • Elisha told the king of Israel to set his hand on the bow.
    • The king set his hand on the bow.
    • Elisha put his own hands on the king's hands.
17. 13:17
    • Elisha said to open the window eastward.
    • The king opened the window.
    • Elisha said, Shoot.
    • The king shot.
    • Elisha said it was an arrow of victory belonging to the LORD.
    • Elisha said it was an arrow of victory over Syria.
    • Elisha said the king would strike the Syrians at Aphek until they were finished.
18. 13:18
    • Elisha said to take the arrows.
    • The king took the arrows.
    • Elisha told the king of Israel to strike the ground.
    • The king struck three times.
    • The king then stopped.
19. 13:19
    • The man of God was angry with the king.
    • The man of God said the king should have struck five or six times.
    • The man of God said that then the king would have struck Syria until it was finished.
    • The man of God said that now the king would strike Syria only three times.
20. 13:20
    • Elisha died.
    • They buried Elisha.
    • Raiding bands of Moab used to come into the land at the coming of the year.
21. 13:21
    • Some men were burying a man.
    • The buriers saw a raiding band.
    • They threw the dead man into Elisha's grave.
    • The man touched the bones of Elisha.
    • The man came to life.
    • The man stood up on his feet.
22. 13:22
    • Hazael king of Syria oppressed Israel all the days of Jehoahaz.
23. 13:23
    • The LORD was gracious to them.
    • The LORD had compassion on them.
    • The LORD turned toward them.
    • The LORD did so because of his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
    • The LORD was unwilling to destroy them.
    • The LORD had not cast them from his presence until now.
24. 13:24
    • Hazael king of Syria died.
    • Benhadad his son reigned in his place.
25. 13:25
    • Jehoash son of Jehoahaz took back from Benhadad son of Hazael the cities taken from Jehoahaz his father.
    • Those cities had been taken from Jehoahaz in war.
    • Joash defeated him three times.
    • Joash recovered the cities of Israel.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

13:1

Since Solomon's death the Israelites had lived in two rival kingdoms: Israel in the north, with its capital at Samaria, and Judah in the south, with its capital at Jerusalem. Each had its own line of kings, and the writer dates the reigns of one kingdom by counting years into the reign of the king next door. Note also that both kingdoms have a king called Joash at this point in the story; they are two different men.

13:2

"The sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat" is a set phrase running through these books. Jeroboam was the first king of the breakaway northern kingdom, and he set up golden calf images at Bethel and Dan so his people would not travel south to worship at the temple in Jerusalem. To say a king "did not turn away from" those sins is shorthand for keeping that rival worship going.

13:3

"Syria" here translates Aram, a kingdom centered on Damascus, north-east of Israel. It was Israel's nearest and most persistent military rival, not the modern country of the same name.

13:5

The word translated "rescuer" (older versions have "saviour") means a military deliverer, someone who breaks an enemy's grip. The text never says who he was; commentators have guessed at an Assyrian king whose pressure on Syria gave Israel breathing room, or at one of Jehoahaz's successors. The writer leaves it open.

13:6

Asherah was a Canaanite mother goddess. The object named here was a wooden pole or stylised tree set upright beside an altar as her symbol. Leaving it standing in the capital marks the reform as incomplete.

13:7

Threshing was done by dragging a weighted sledge over cut grain on a hard floor, crushing the stalks to chaff that the wind carried off. The image is of an army pulverised to nothing. The figures show how total the collapse was: fifty horsemen and ten chariots is a bodyguard, not an army, chariots were the expensive striking arm of an ancient kingdom, and a strong state fielded hundreds.

13:8

This is a royal record kept by the northern kingdom's own court, now lost. It is not the biblical books of Chronicles, which cover the southern kingdom and were written much later.

13:9

"Slept with his fathers" (here, "died and was buried with his ancestors") is the standard formula for a king who died of natural causes rather than by assassination or in battle. Burial "with" the ancestors also has a literal side: families were laid in a shared tomb.

13:10

Jehoash and Joash are two forms of the same name, and the writer uses them interchangeably for this one king of Israel, the son of Jehoahaz. Confusingly, the king of Judah he is dated against is also called Joash. They are different men in different kingdoms.

13:12

Amaziah ruled Judah, the southern kingdom. Israel and Judah came from the same family, but they still went to war with each other.

13:13

This Jeroboam is Jeroboam II, the son of Joash, and a much later figure than the Jeroboam son of Nebat named in verses 2, 6 and 11. Kings were often named after earlier rulers, and the writer expects readers to keep them apart.

13:14

These are the exact words Elisha himself shouted when Elijah was taken from him (2 Kings 2:12). The phrase treats the prophet as a piece of national defense: chariots and horsemen were a kingdom's decisive weapon, and to call one man "the chariots and horsemen of Israel" is to say his loss leaves the country militarily naked.

13:17

Prophets often delivered a message as a physical act rather than only in words, the act was understood to set the outcome in motion, not merely to picture it. Shooting an arrow out of a window was a recognized gesture of declaring war. The east window faces the land across the Jordan that Israel had lost to Syria. Aphek, east of the Sea of Galilee, was the site of earlier Israelite victories over Syria (1 Kings 20).

13:18

The second act works the same way as the first: the number of blows fixes the number of victories. Elisha does not tell the king this in advance, which is why the king stops early and why the anger in the next verse lands on him.

13:19

"Man of God" is a standard title for a prophet throughout these books; it is not a separate role from Elisha's.

13:20

The Hebrew says the raids came "at the coming in of the year", the turn into spring. That was campaigning season: the winter rains were over, the roads passable, and the barley harvest standing in the fields ready to be carried off. Moab lay east of the Dead Sea, across the Jordan from Judah.

13:21

A tomb of this kind was a chamber cut into rock, entered from the side, where bodies were laid out on shelves; this is why a corpse could be dropped in quickly and why the bones of an earlier burial were lying exposed. The haste matters for another reason too: contact with a dead body made a person ritually unclean for seven days, so this was not a casual thing to do.

13:23

A covenant was a binding, formally sworn agreement. The one referred to is God's promise to Abraham and his descendants of land and offspring. "Cast them from his presence" means driving them out of the land into exile, which is what eventually happens to the northern kingdom, and the phrase "not yet" points ahead to it.

13:25

Three victories, exactly the number the arrows fixed in verses 18 and 19. The reader is meant to see the tally close.