Theopedia

Books of Kings

“For the LORD removed Israel out of his sight, as he had said by all his servants the prophets.”

— 2 Kings 17:23

Overview

1 and 2 Kings originally formed a single work, continuing without a break the narrative begun in Samuel from the death of David to the Babylonian exile. In the Hebrew canon it belongs to the Former Prophets, alongside Joshua, Judges, and Samuel, a grouping that carries the whole narrative from the conquest of Canaan to the exile.1 The division into two books goes back to the Greek translators of the Septuagint, which titled the pair the Third and Fourth of the Kingdoms; this division was followed by the Latin Vulgate and finally admitted into printed Hebrew texts by Daniel Bomberg in the sixteenth century.2 The book narrates Solomon’s accession and reign, the building of the temple, the kingdom’s division under Rehoboam and Jeroboam, the ministries of Elijah and Elisha, the Assyrian conquest of the northern kingdom in 722 BC, and the Babylonian conquest of Judah in 586 BC.

Author and Date

The book names no author.3 Jewish tradition ascribed it to Jeremiah, partly because the closing chapter of Jeremiah largely repeats the material of 2 Kings 24:18-25:30, though the prophet and the book’s compiler may simply have drawn on the same underlying sources rather than being the same hand.3 The narrative itself points to a compiler working from official records: at the close of each king’s reign the text repeatedly directs the reader to further sources, “the book of the acts of Solomon” (1 Kings 11:41), “the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah,” and “the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel,” archival material distinct from the biblical books of Chronicles.4 The extended narratives of Elijah and Elisha, in particular, read as prophetic composition rather than the plain record of a royal scribe.5

Whoever compiled the book wrote after the events of 1 and 2 Kings had concluded: the book’s own final datable notice, the release of the exiled king Jehoiachin in the thirty-seventh year of his captivity (2 Kings 25:27), places the writer during the Babylonian exile itself, since no word is given of the exile’s approaching end.3 The probable date of composition is accordingly placed in the first half of the Babylonian captivity.5

Historical and Literary Context

The book covers three successive periods: Solomon’s reign over the united kingdom, the coexistence of the divided kingdoms of Israel and Judah, and the kingdom of Judah alone after Israel’s fall to Assyria.4 Solomon’s reign is marked first by his request for wisdom to govern the people (1 Kings 3:9) and by the construction of the temple on Mount Moriah, an event the book treats as a turning point in the history of God’s dealings with Israel, replacing the wilderness tabernacle with a fixed sanctuary of lasting splendor.4 Solomon’s later years, however, are marked by his multiplication of foreign wives, who turned his heart to other gods (1 Kings 11:1-4), sin the book presents as the direct cause of the kingdom’s division after his death.4

That division, recorded in 1 Kings 12, produced two hostile kingdoms under Rehoboam and Jeroboam. Jeroboam, the first king of the northern kingdom, established rival worship at Bethel and Dan as a matter of state policy to secure his throne, a sin every subsequent king of Israel is said to have repeated.4 Against this backdrop the book narrates the ministry of Elijah, whose conflict with Ahab and Jezebel over the worship of Baal, including the confrontation on Mount Carmel (1 Kings 18), occupies the closing chapters of 1 Kings and continues into the ministry of his successor Elisha in 2 Kings.6 The northern kingdom’s history, established in idolatry as a matter of state policy by Jeroboam and continued by every dynasty that followed him, ended after roughly two hundred fifty years when Assyria conquered Samaria and deported its population (2 Kings 17:6).7

In the south, Judah experienced an alternation of faithful and idolatrous kings even as Assyrian pressure mounted.7 It was during the reign of the reforming king Hezekiah that the northern kingdom fell, opening the book’s third period, the history of Judah alone.7 Hezekiah’s own reforms were vigorous, but the nation relapsed into idolatry after his death, and the later reforms of Josiah, the last faithful king, could not reverse the kingdom’s decline.7 Judah was in turn overthrown by Nebuchadnezzar’s Babylon, and its people carried into exile, an event generally placed near 586 BC.7 The Latter Prophets, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Isaiah among them, largely deliver their oracles during the period this book narrates, supplying the theological commentary that Kings itself states more simply in its own historical report.1

Structure

1 Kings

  1. Solomon’s reign and the temple (1 Kings 1-11): David’s last days and Solomon’s accession, Solomon’s request for wisdom, the building and dedication of the temple, Solomon’s wealth and wisdom, and his apostasy through foreign alliances and idolatry.
  2. The kingdom divided (1 Kings 12-16): Rehoboam’s folly and Jeroboam’s rebellion, the establishment of rival worship in the north, and the successive dynasties and kings of Israel and Judah down to Ahab.
  3. Elijah’s ministry (1 Kings 17-22): Elijah’s confrontation with Ahab and the prophets of Baal, his flight to Horeb, the call of Elisha, and Ahab’s wars and death, continuing without a narrative break into 2 Kings.

2 Kings

  1. The ministry of Elisha and the divided kingdom (chs. 1-17): Elijah’s ascension and Elisha’s succession to his prophetic office, Elisha’s miracles among Israel’s kings and ordinary people, and the worsening apostasy of the northern kingdom under successive dynasties, ending in the Assyrian conquest of Samaria and deportation of Israel (2 Kings 17).
  2. Judah’s kings under Assyrian and then Babylonian pressure (chs. 18-25): the reforms of Hezekiah and his deliverance from Sennacherib, the apostasy of Manasseh, the reforms of Josiah, and the succession of weak kings under whom Judah fell first under Egyptian, then Babylonian, domination.
  3. The fall of Jerusalem and its aftermath (2 Kings 24-25): Nebuchadnezzar’s successive deportations, the destruction of the temple and the city, and the closing notice of Jehoiachin’s release from a Babylonian prison.

Major Themes

Covenant fidelity is the standard by which every king is judged. The book’s account of the kingdom’s decline is not merely political narrative but a sustained argument that outward power and splendor are no substitute for faithfulness to the LORD; Solomon’s own kingdom reached its height of magnificence only after it had already passed the height of its true strength, because his foreign marriages “corrupted his religion and that of the nation.”4 The same standard governs the book’s treatment of Jeroboam and his successors, whose state-sponsored idolatry is named repeatedly as the reason for the north’s instability.4

The temple is the place of God’s name and presence, without confining him to it. At the temple’s dedication the priests could not stand to minister “because of the cloud, for the glory of the LORD filled the house of the LORD” (1 Kings 8:10-11), yet Solomon’s own prayer immediately qualifies what this presence means: “will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you; how much less this house that I have built!” (1 Kings 8:27).8 The temple functions in the narrative as the place where God has set his name and hears his people’s prayers, not as a structure that limits or houses him.8

Solomon’s wisdom, given by God, is real but not ultimately redemptive. Solomon received wisdom directly from the LORD to govern his people (1 Kings 3:9-12) and was celebrated for it even by foreign visitors such as the queen of Sheba, yet the same book records that this wisdom did not keep him from disobeying the law’s own instruction for kings by multiplying wives who turned his heart from the LORD (1 Kings 11:1-4; Deut. 17:17).9 A greater son of David would later be identified, in the Gospels, as the one exceeding Solomon in wisdom (Matt. 12:42).9

The prophetic word is fulfilled in the history it narrates. The book repeatedly presents Israel’s kings acting under prophetic warning and Israel’s history unfolding as that warning is realized: the northern kingdom falls “for the LORD removed Israel out of his sight, as he had said by all his servants the prophets” (2 Kings 17:23).5

Covenant curses are realized in exile. Israel’s persistent disobedience “brings to a conclusion the covenantal curses” set out in Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28:15-68.1 2 Kings narrates that conclusion in historical form: first the Assyrian deportation of the northern kingdom, then the Babylonian exile of Judah, both read by the book’s own theology as covenantal judgment rather than mere political misfortune (2 Kings 17:7-23).

A remnant of hope closes the book. 2 Kings does not end with the destruction of Jerusalem itself but with a notice, dated to the thirty-seventh year of the exile, that the Babylonian king Evil-merodach released the captive Davidic king Jehoiachin from prison, spoke kindly to him, and gave him a seat above the other captive kings in Babylon (2 Kings 25:27-30).10 Read in the context of God’s covenant with David, this closing notice has been taken to signal that the Davidic line, though humbled, had not been extinguished, and that a future remained open for it beyond the judgment the book has just narrated at length.10

Related Doctrines

References

  1. Oren Rhea Martin, “The Land Promise in God’s Redemptive Plan: Part 1, The Old Testament,” in “Bound for the Kingdom: The Land Promise in God’s Redemptive Plan” (PhD diss., The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2013), 179: “Theologically the prophets proclaim the word of Yahweh in the context of the covenant, primarily as defined by Deuteronomy, and Israel’s disobedience ‘brings to a conclusion the covenantal curses’ (e.g., Lev 26; Deut 28:15-68).” ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  2. Elijah Porter Barrows, Companion to the Bible (New York: American Tract Society, 1867), 252: “These two books, like the two of Samuel, originally constituted a single work. The division was first made by the Greek translators, was followed by the Vulgate, and was finally admitted by Daniel Bomberg into the printed Hebrew text.” ↩

  3. Barrows, 255: “The author of the books of Kings is unknown. Jewish tradition ascribes them to Jeremiah, perhaps on the ground that the last chapter of Jeremiah is mostly a repetition of 2 Kings from chap. 24:18 to the end of the book. But Jeremiah and the author of these books may both have made use of common documents. We only know that the writer lived after the accession of Evil-merodach to the throne of Babylon (2 Kings 25:27), and during the full pressure of the Babylonish captivity, since he nowhere gives any intimation of its approaching close.” ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  4. Barrows, 253-254. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7

  5. Barrows, 249-250. ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  6. Craig A. Carter, Contemplating God with the Great Tradition: Recovering Trinitarian Classical Theism (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2021), chap. 8: “The Elijah Cycle in 1 Kings 17-22 describes the fierce war waged by the prophet Elijah against the importation of Baal worship into Israel by the Omri dynasty, especially by Ahab’s queen Jezebel.” ↩

  7. Barrows, 252-253. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5

  8. Matthew Barrett, None Greater: The Undomesticated Attributes of God (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2019), chap. 9, “Is God Bound by Space? Omnipresence”: “Solomon then stands before the altar with Israel present, lifts up his hands to heaven, and exclaims that there is no God like his God… Notice Solomon’s logic: not even heaven itself can contain God, so how much less can this house.” ↩ ↩2

  9. Micah John McCormick, “Messiah’s Obedience for Eternal Life Fulfilled,” in “The Active Obedience of Jesus Christ” (PhD diss., The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2010), 229: “Solomon had a certain kind of wisdom, but he did not demonstrate the moral fortitude necessary to live wisely. He was unwilling to obey God’s instructions to the king (Deut 17; 2 Kgs 11:2).” ↩ ↩2

  10. Martin, “The Beginning and the End: Situating the Land Promise in Redemptive History,” in “Bound for the Kingdom,” 95: “the book of 2 Kings ends with Judah in exile and gives an account of the last member of the Davidic dynasty, Jehoiachin. The narrative of Kings opens with the hopeful beginning of Solomon’s reign and ends with a glimpse of hope for the future.” ↩ ↩2