For Teaching

2 Kings 16: What the Passage Says

76 claims across 20 verses, in the order the chapter makes them.

Not a sermon outline. What 2 Kings 16 says, and what its hard words meant. The reading of it is yours.

The Chapter in a Sentence

Ahaz becomes king of Judah at twenty and rules sixteen years in Jerusalem, worshiping at the high places and making his son pass through the fire instead of doing what was right before the LORD. When Rezin of Syria and Pekah of Israel besiege him, Ahaz sends silver and gold from the temple and the palace to Tiglath-pileser of Assyria and asks for help, and Assyria captures Damascus and kills Rezin. Ahaz then copies an altar he saw in Damascus, has the priest Urijah build it, moves the temple's bronze altar aside himself, and strips and rearranges other temple fittings; he dies and his son Hezekiah becomes king.

Claim by Claim

16:1
- In the seventeenth year of Pekah son of Remaliah, Ahaz son of Jotham began to reign.
- Pekah was the son of Remaliah.
- Ahaz was the son of Jotham.
- Ahaz was king of Judah.
16:2
- Ahaz was twenty years old when he began to reign.
- Ahaz reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem.
- Ahaz did not do what was right in the eyes of the LORD his God.
- David his father did what was right, and Ahaz did not do as David did.
- The LORD was the God of Ahaz.
- David is called the father of Ahaz.
16:3
- Ahaz walked in the way of the kings of Israel.
- Ahaz made his son pass through the fire.
- Ahaz did this according to the abominations of the nations.
- The LORD had dispossessed those nations from before the children of Israel.
16:4
- Ahaz sacrificed at the high places, on the hills, and under every green tree.
- Ahaz burned incense at the high places, on the hills, and under every green tree.
16:5
- Rezin king of Aram and Pekah son of Remaliah king of Israel came up to Jerusalem for war.
- Rezin was king of Aram.
- Pekah son of Remaliah was king of Israel.
- They besieged Ahaz.
- They were not able to overcome him in battle.
16:6
- At that time Rezin king of Aram recovered Elath for Aram.
- Rezin drove the Judeans out of Elath.
- Arameans came to Elath.
- Those who came settled in Elath and have lived there to this day.
16:7
- Ahaz sent messengers to Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria.
- Tiglath-pileser was king of Assyria.
- Ahaz said to him, I am your servant and your son.
- Ahaz asked him to come up and save him from the hand of the king of Aram and from the hand of the king of Israel.
- Ahaz said the king of Aram and the king of Israel were rising up against him.
16:8
- Ahaz took the silver and the gold that was found in the house of the LORD and in the treasuries of the king's house.
- Ahaz sent that silver and gold to the king of Assyria as a payment to buy his favor.
16:9
- The king of Assyria listened to him.
- The king of Assyria went up against Damascus.
- The king of Assyria captured Damascus.
- The king of Assyria carried its people into exile to Kir.
- The king of Assyria put Rezin to death.
16:10
- King Ahaz went to Damascus to meet Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria.
- Ahaz saw the altar that was in Damascus.
- King Ahaz sent to Urijah the priest a likeness of that altar and its pattern, covering all its workmanship.
- Urijah was a priest.
16:11
- Urijah the priest built an altar.
- Urijah built it according to everything king Ahaz had sent from Damascus.
- Urijah made it before king Ahaz came back from Damascus.
16:12
- The king came from Damascus.
- The king saw the altar.
- The king drew near to the altar.
- The king offered up offerings on the altar.
16:13
- He burned his burnt offering and his grain offering.
- He poured out his drink offering.
- He sprinkled the blood of his peace offerings on the altar.
16:14
- The bronze altar stood before the LORD.
- The bronze altar stood at the front of the house, between the new altar and the house of the LORD.
- He moved the bronze altar from that place.
- He put the bronze altar on the north side of the new altar.
16:15
- King Ahaz commanded Urijah the priest.
- Ahaz ordered that the morning burnt offering be burned on the great altar.
- Ahaz ordered that the evening grain offering be burned on the great altar.
- Ahaz ordered that the king's burnt offering and his grain offering be burned on the great altar.
- Ahaz ordered that the burnt offering of all the people of the land, and their grain offering, and their drink offerings, be burned on the great altar.
- Ahaz ordered that all the blood of the burnt offering and all the blood of the sacrifice be sprinkled on the great altar.
- Ahaz said the bronze altar would be his, for him to inquire by; what he meant by that use is not made plain.
16:16
- Urijah the priest did according to everything king Ahaz commanded.
16:17
- King Ahaz cut off the frames of the movable stands.
- Ahaz removed the basin from off the stands.
- Ahaz took down the sea from off the bronze oxen that were under it.
- Ahaz set the sea on a pavement of stones.
16:18
- There was a sabbath structure that had been built in the house.
- There was an outer entryway for the king.
- Ahaz turned the sabbath structure and the king's outer entryway away from the house of the LORD.
- He did this because of the king of Assyria.
16:19
- The rest of the acts of Ahaz, which he did, are written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah.
16:20
- Ahaz slept with his fathers.
- Ahaz was buried with his fathers in the city of David.
- Hezekiah his son reigned in his place.
- Hezekiah was the son of Ahaz.

Words Worth Explaining

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

16:1: At this time the Israelites were split into two kingdoms: Israel in the north, with its own line of kings, and Judah in the south, ruled from Jerusalem by descendants of David. Kings dates a new reign in one kingdom by the regnal year of the king ruling the other, which is why Ahaz's accession is fixed by Pekah's seventeenth year.
16:2: "David his father" in the Hebrew means ancestor, not parent; David had died roughly 250 years earlier. Judah's kings were routinely measured against him as the founder of their dynasty.
16:3: "Made his son pass through the fire" is the Hebrew phrase, and what exactly it describes is disputed: most take it as burning a child as a sacrifice, while some read it as a fire rite the child survived. The Hebrew leaves it open, so the rendering keeps the original wording. "Abominations" (here "hateful practices") translates a word for practices regarded as ritually detestable.
16:4: "High places" were open-air worship sites, often on hilltops or raised platforms, with an altar and sometimes a sacred pole or standing stone. They were ordinary places of worship across the region; Kings judges Judah's kings by whether they used them. "Under every green tree" points to shrines set at large, leafy trees, which were also treated as sacred spots.
16:5: "Syria" here translates Aram, the Aramean kingdom centered on Damascus, not the modern country of the same name. Rezin of Damascus and Pekah of Israel were allies; a besieging army camped around a city to starve it out rather than storm it.
16:6: Elath was a port at the northern tip of the Gulf of Aqaba, on the Red Sea, controlling southern trade routes. The Hebrew consonants for "Aram" (Syria) and "Edom" are nearly identical, and ancient manuscripts differ here: some say Syrians settled in Elath, others Edomites. "To this day" means as of the time the account was written, not the reader's day.
16:7: "I am your servant and your son" is formal diplomatic language, not family talk. It is how a smaller ruler formally submitted to a great king, accepting vassal status: protection in exchange for loyalty and payment.
16:8: The "gift" is tribute, a payment that both bought Assyrian help and acknowledged Assyrian overlordship. The temple and palace treasuries held the state's reserves of precious metal, so stripping them was the standard way a king raised a large sum quickly.
16:9: Damascus was the Aramean (Syrian) capital. Deporting a conquered population to a distant region was standard Assyrian policy, designed to break local resistance. Kir was the region the Arameans were said to have come from originally; its exact location is unknown.
16:10: Urijah was the chief priest of the temple in Jerusalem. Ahaz's trip to Damascus was a vassal's visit to his overlord after the city fell. The altar he copied was a large outdoor altar for animal sacrifice, not a small table.
16:11: Uriah was the chief priest at the Jerusalem temple; the King James spells his name Urijah. In the King James phrase "made it against king Ahaz came from Damascus," "against" carries its 1611 sense of "in time for," so it means he had it finished before the king got back.
16:13: These are the standard categories of Israelite sacrifice. A burnt offering was an animal burned whole on the altar. A grain offering (the KJV's "meat offering", using "meat" in its older sense of food generally) was flour, oil and incense. A drink offering was wine poured out at the altar. A peace or fellowship offering was an animal whose blood and fat went to the altar while the worshipers ate the rest as a shared meal.
16:14: The bronze altar was the original altar of Solomon's temple, standing directly in front of the building's entrance, the prime position in the courtyard. Moving it to the north side put the new Damascus-style altar in its place.
16:15: The morning and evening offerings were the fixed daily sacrifices of the temple. "For me to enquire by" (here "seeking guidance") renders a Hebrew phrase whose sense is uncertain; it most likely refers to seeking an oracle or omen, but the text does not say how, and some read the clause instead as "I will consider what to do with it."
16:17: These were the bronze fittings Solomon had made for the temple courtyard: ten wheeled stands with decorated side panels, each carrying a basin for rinsing sacrificial meat, and the "Sea", a huge bronze water tank roughly fifteen feet across resting on twelve bronze bulls. Cutting them up yielded a great deal of bronze, which was valuable metal.
16:18: What the "covert for the sabbath" was is unknown; it appears to have been some kind of covered structure or canopy in the temple precinct used on the Sabbath. The king's outer entry was a private royal approach to the temple. Both were removed or closed "because of the king of Assyria", the text does not explain whether the materials were handed over as tribute or the royal privileges were withdrawn as a show of submission.
16:19: This refers to the official royal annals of Judah, a court record now lost. It is not the biblical books of Chronicles, which were written much later.
16:20: "Slept with his fathers" is a stock Hebrew phrase for dying a natural death, distinct from being killed. The City of David was the oldest, southern part of Jerusalem, where the kings of Judah were buried.

Read 2 Kings 16