2 Kings 16

This chapter appears near the end of the section of 2 Kings that alternates between the kings of the southern kingdom of Judah and the northern kingdom of Israel. 2 Kings 15 records that in the days of Jotham, Rezin king of Aram and Pekah king of Israel began to attack Judah (15:37). This chapter continues the account of that war in the reign of Jotham's son Ahaz. The following chapter, 2 Kings 17, recounts the fall of Samaria.

Outline

• Verses 1–4 In the seventeenth year of Pekah, Ahaz becomes king at the age of twenty and reigns sixteen years. He makes his son pass through the fire, and he sacrifices and burns incense in the high places (cultic sites built on elevated ground) and under every green tree.
• Verses 5–6 Rezin and Pekah besiege Jerusalem but cannot overcome it. Rezin recovers Elath and drives out the people of Judah.
• Verses 7–9 Ahaz sends the silver and gold from the treasuries of the temple and the palace to Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria and asks to be rescued. The Assyrian king captures Damascus, carries its people away to Kir, and kills Rezin.
• Verses 10–16 Ahaz goes to Damascus and sends back the design of the altar there, and Urijah the priest builds an altar according to it. Ahaz offers sacrifices on the new altar, moves the original bronze altar of burnt offering to the north side, and orders that all offerings be made on the new great altar.
• Verses 17–18 Ahaz removes the side panels from the stands of the lavers (basins holding water for washing), takes the bronze sea down from the bronze oxen, and alters the temple's covered way (a porch structure) on account of the king of Assyria.
• Verses 19–20 Ahaz dies and is buried in the city of David, and his son Hezekiah becomes king.

Key Verses

• 2 Kings 16:3 "and made his son to pass through the fire" — shows that the king himself adopted a pagan practice forbidden by the Law.
• 2 Kings 16:7 "I am thy servant and thy son" — reveals Ahaz's choice to rely on Assyria rather than on God.
• 2 Kings 16:10 "and saw an altar that was at Damascus: and king Ahaz sent to Urijah the priest the fashion of the altar, and the pattern of it" — marks the point at which political submission begins to bring about changes in temple worship.

People and Places

• Ahaz: Son of Jotham and king of Judah.
• Rezin: King of Aram.
• Pekah: Son of Remaliah and king of the northern kingdom of Israel.
• Tiglath-pileser: King of Assyria, whom scholars identify as Tiglath-pileser III.
• Urijah: The priest who built the altar as Ahaz commanded. Many identify him with the priest Uriah mentioned in Isaiah 8:2.
• Elath: A port city on the Gulf of Aqaba, an arm of the Red Sea.
• Damascus: The capital of Aram.
• Kir: The place to which the people of Damascus were deported.

Points for Reflection

• Some interpreters understand making a son "pass through the fire" as actual human sacrifice, while others see it as a rite of dedication. The parallel passage, 2 Chronicles 28, says that he "burnt his children in the fire."
• The word "Syrians" (Arameans) at the end of verse 6 is read as "Edomites" according to the marginal reading of the Hebrew text and many scholars.
• Scholars differ on whether the new altar was Assyrian or Aramean in style. In verse 15, the phrase used in the older Korean Bible ("나의 물을 일") derives from an archaic Korean verb meaning "to ask," and the New Korean Revised Version renders it "a matter to inquire of the Lord"; the KJV reads "for me to enquire by."
• Isaiah 7 tells how, in the same wartime situation, the prophet Isaiah delivered to Ahaz the sign of Immanuel. In the New Testament, Matthew 1:22–23 applies this prophecy to the birth of Jesus, and Ahaz is named in the genealogy in Matthew 1:9.
• The Assyrian conquest of Damascus is generally dated to around 732 BC.