For Teaching

2 Kings 14: What the Passage Says

111 claims across 29 verses, in the order the chapter makes them.

Not a sermon outline. What 2 Kings 14 says, and what its hard words meant. The reading of it is yours.

The Chapter in a Sentence

Amaziah becomes king of Judah, executes the men who killed his father, spares their children in keeping with the law of Moses, and defeats Edom. He then challenges Jehoash of Israel, loses at Beth-shemesh and is captured, and Jerusalem's wall is broken down and the temple and palace treasures carried off; later he is killed by conspirators and his son Azariah succeeds him. The chapter also covers the forty-one-year reign of Jeroboam son of Jehoash in Israel, who did evil in the LORD's sight yet restored Israel's borders as the LORD had spoken through the prophet Jonah son of Amittai.

Claim by Claim

14:1
- In the second year of Joash son of Jehoahaz king of Israel, Amaziah son of Joash began to reign.
- Amaziah was king of Judah.
- Joash son of Jehoahaz was king of Israel.
- Amaziah's father was Joash.
14:2
- Amaziah was twenty-five years old when he began to reign.
- Amaziah reigned twenty-nine years.
- Amaziah reigned in Jerusalem.
- Amaziah's mother was named Jehoaddan.
- Jehoaddan was from Jerusalem.
14:3
- Amaziah did what was right in the sight of the LORD.
- Amaziah did not do so as David his forefather had done.
- Amaziah did according to everything his father Joash had done.
14:4
- The high places were not removed.
- The people continued to sacrifice on the high places.
- The people continued to burn incense on the high places.
14:5
- The kingdom became firmly established in Amaziah's hand.
- As soon as the kingdom was firm in his hand, Amaziah struck down his servants.
- Those servants had struck down the king his father.
14:6
- Amaziah did not put to death the children of the murderers.
- Amaziah acted according to what is written in the book of the law of Moses.
- In that book the LORD commanded that fathers shall not be put to death for children.
- In that book the LORD commanded that children shall not be put to death for fathers.
- In that book the LORD commanded that each man shall be put to death for his own sin.
14:7
- Amaziah struck down ten thousand of Edom.
- The striking down of Edom happened in the Valley of Salt.
- Amaziah captured Sela in the battle.
- Amaziah called the name of Sela Joktheel.
- That name has remained to this day.
14:8
- Amaziah then sent messengers to Jehoash king of Israel.
- Jehoash was the son of Jehoahaz.
- Jehoahaz was the son of Jehu.
- The message said: Come, let us look one another in the face.
14:9
- Jehoash king of Israel sent a reply to Amaziah king of Judah.
- Jehoash said that a thornbush in Lebanon sent word to a cedar in Lebanon.
- The thornbush's message was: Give your daughter to my son as a wife.
- Jehoash said that a wild beast of Lebanon passed by.
- Jehoash said that the wild beast trampled down the thornbush.
14:10
- Jehoash said Amaziah had indeed struck down Edom.
- Jehoash said Amaziah's heart had lifted him up.
- Jehoash told Amaziah to glory in that.
- Jehoash told Amaziah to stay at home.
- Jehoash asked why Amaziah should provoke trouble for his own harm.
- Jehoash warned that Amaziah would fall.
- Jehoash warned that Judah would fall with Amaziah.
14:11
- Amaziah would not listen.
- Jehoash king of Israel went up.
- Jehoash and Amaziah king of Judah looked one another in the face.
- The encounter took place at Beth-shemesh.
- Beth-shemesh belonged to Judah.
14:12
- Judah was defeated before Israel.
- Every man of Judah fled to his tent.
14:13
- Jehoash king of Israel captured Amaziah king of Judah at Beth-shemesh.
- Amaziah was the son of Jehoash.
- That Jehoash was the son of Ahaziah.
- They came to Jerusalem.
- He broke down the wall of Jerusalem from the Gate of Ephraim to the Corner Gate.
- The broken section was four hundred cubits.
14:14
- He took all the gold and silver found in the house of the LORD.
- He took all the vessels found in the house of the LORD.
- He took what was in the treasuries of the king's house.
- He took hostages.
- He returned to Samaria.
14:15
- There were further acts of Jehoash beyond those recorded here.
- Jehoash had might.
- Jehoash fought with Amaziah king of Judah.
- These things are written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel.
14:16
- Jehoash slept with his fathers.
- Jehoash was buried in Samaria with the kings of Israel.
- Jeroboam his son reigned in his place.
14:17
- Amaziah son of Joash king of Judah lived fifteen years after the death of Jehoash son of Jehoahaz king of Israel.
14:18
- There were further acts of Amaziah beyond those recorded here.
- These acts are written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah.
14:19
- Men made a conspiracy against Amaziah in Jerusalem.
- Amaziah fled to Lachish.
- They sent after him to Lachish.
- They killed him there.
14:20
- They carried him on horses.
- He was buried in Jerusalem with his fathers.
- He was buried in the city of David.
14:21
- All the people of Judah took Azariah.
- Azariah was sixteen years old.
- They made Azariah king in place of his father Amaziah.
14:22
- Azariah rebuilt Elath.
- Azariah restored Elath to Judah.
- This happened after the king slept with his fathers.
14:23
- In the fifteenth year of Amaziah son of Joash king of Judah, Jeroboam son of Joash king of Israel began to reign.
- Jeroboam reigned in Samaria.
- Jeroboam reigned forty-one years.
14:24
- Jeroboam did what was evil in the sight of the LORD.
- Jeroboam did not turn from any of the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat.
- Jeroboam son of Nebat had made Israel sin.
14:25
- Jeroboam restored the border of Israel from Lebo-hamath to the Sea of the Arabah.
- This was according to the word of the LORD, the God of Israel.
- The LORD had spoken that word through his servant Jonah son of Amittai.
- Jonah was a prophet.
- Jonah was from Gath-hepher.
14:26
- The LORD saw the affliction of Israel.
- The affliction was very bitter.
- There was none shut up and none left.
- There was no helper for Israel.
14:27
- The LORD had not said that he would blot out the name of Israel from under heaven.
- The LORD saved them by the hand of Jeroboam son of Joash.
14:28
- There were further acts of Jeroboam beyond those recorded here.
- Jeroboam did other deeds.
- Jeroboam had might.
- Jeroboam waged war.
- Jeroboam recovered Damascus and Hamath.
- It is unclear whether Damascus and Hamath are said to have belonged to Judah and were recovered for Israel, or whether they were recovered for Judah in Israel.
- These things are written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel.
14:29
- Jeroboam slept with his fathers, the kings of Israel.
- Zechariah his son reigned in his place.

Words Worth Explaining

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

14:1: Since Solomon's death the old kingdom had been two separate states: 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 events in one kingdom by counting the regnal years of the other. Note also that the king of Israel here (Jehoash) and the father of the king of Judah (Joash) bear the same Hebrew name, which English spells two ways; the text uses both forms for both men, which is why the two kingdoms can look confusingly alike in these chapters.
14:2: The records of Judah's kings regularly name the king's mother. The queen mother held a recognized official position at court, ranking above the king's wives.
14:3: "Right in the LORD's sight" is the writer's standing verdict on each king, and it turns almost entirely on how worship was conducted rather than on the king's wider policy. David is called Amaziah's father in the Hebrew in the older sense of ancestor; David lived some six generations earlier.
14:4: High places were open-air shrines, usually on a hilltop, where people offered sacrifices in their own districts instead of traveling to the temple in Jerusalem. The writer of Kings counts leaving them standing as a defect even in a king he otherwise approves of.
14:5: Amaziah's father Joash had been assassinated by members of his own court (2 Kings 12:20–21). A new king commonly waited until his hold on power was secure before settling accounts of this kind.
14:6: The words quoted are from Deuteronomy 24:16. Executing a condemned man's whole family was ordinary practice in the ancient Near East, which is why the writer singles out Amaziah's refusal to do it.
14:7: Edom was the kingdom south-east of the Dead Sea, long a rival of Judah and at times its subject. The Valley of Salt lay in the arid country south of the Dead Sea. Sela means "rock" in Hebrew and was probably a cliff stronghold in Edomite territory. Renaming a captured city was a standard way of asserting ownership of it.
14:8: The Hebrew is literally "let us look one another in the face." It is a formal challenge to meet in battle, not an invitation to negotiate.
14:9: A short fable like this was a recognized way of delivering an insult. The thistle is a worthless roadside weed; the cedar of Lebanon was the most prized timber in the region and a standing image of greatness. Asking for a king's daughter in marriage was a bid for alliance between equals, so the thistle's request is absurd, and it is then crushed by an animal that never even noticed it was there. Jehoash is casting Amaziah as the thistle.
14:11: Beth-shemesh lay in the low hill country about fifteen miles west of Jerusalem, near the frontier of Judah's territory.
14:12: "Every man fled to his tents" is the standard Hebrew phrase for an army breaking apart and the soldiers scattering to their homes.
14:13: The Hebrew gives the breach as four hundred cubits; a cubit was about eighteen inches, roughly the length of a forearm. Pulling down a long stretch of wall left Jerusalem open to any future attacker, a lasting humiliation rather than a conquest, since Jehoash did not occupy the city.
14:14: The house of the LORD is the temple in Jerusalem, whose gold and silver served in effect as a national treasury. Hostages were leading men or royal sons held as a guarantee that the defeated kingdom would not retaliate. Samaria was the capital of the northern kingdom.
14:15: These were official court annals kept separately by each kingdom. They are not the biblical books of Chronicles, and no copy of them survives; the writer is citing a source his readers could in principle consult.
14:16: "Slept with his fathers" is the set phrase for a king dying of natural causes and being laid in the ancestral tomb. The writer does not use it of kings who were assassinated or killed in battle.
14:19: Lachish was a heavily fortified city about thirty miles south-west of Jerusalem, the strongest place in Judah after the capital itself.
14:20: The City of David was the oldest quarter of Jerusalem, the narrow ridge David had captured, and the burial place of the kings of Judah.
14:21: This king is called Uzziah elsewhere in the Bible, including in the accounts of his reign in 2 Chronicles 26 and in the opening of Isaiah. Kings of this period often went by two names.
14:22: Elath stood at the head of the Gulf of Aqaba on the Red Sea, a port that gave Judah access to southern trade routes. The note runs ahead of the story: this was something Azariah did later in his reign.
14:23: This is a second Jeroboam, son of Jehoash of Israel, ruling roughly a century and a half after the Jeroboam son of Nebat named in the next verse. Historians call him Jeroboam II.
14:24: Jeroboam son of Nebat was the first king of the breakaway northern kingdom. He set up rival shrines with golden calves at Bethel and Dan so his people would not travel to Jerusalem to worship (1 Kings 12). The writer of Kings measures every later northern king against him, and the phrase recurs as a fixed formula.
14:25: Lebo-hamath marked the traditional far-northern limit of Israel's territory, in the region of the city-state of Hamath in Syria; the Sea of the Arabah is the Dead Sea. Between them lies the fullest extent Israel ever claimed. Jonah son of Amittai is the prophet of the book of Jonah; this is the only other place in the Bible he is mentioned.
14:26: The Hebrew here is literally "neither shut up nor left," a fixed idiom whose precise sense is uncertain. Translators render it "slave or free," "bond or free," or simply "no one at all"; in every case it is a way of saying the whole population without exception.
14:27: To blot out a name "from under heaven" means to destroy a people so completely that even the memory of them is gone, the strongest phrase available for total annihilation.
14:28: Damascus was the capital of Aram (Syria), Israel's chief northern rival for generations; Hamath lay further north still. The Hebrew of the clause about Judah is obscure and has never been satisfactorily explained: it may mean these cities were taken for Israel from Judah, or that they were recovered as Judah had once held them, or the text may be damaged. Translations differ, and the rendering above preserves the difficulty rather than smoothing it out.
14:29: This Zechariah is a king of the northern kingdom. He is not the prophet Zechariah whose book appears later in the Bible.

Read 2 Kings 14