2 Kings 16:1-9

Ahaz Reigns over Judah

1 In the seventeenth * year of Pekah the son of Remaliah, ¹Ahaz the son of Jotham, king of Judah, became king.

2 ²Ahaz was twenty years old when he became king, and he reigned sixteen * years in Jerusalem; and he did not do what was right in the sight of the LORD his God, as his father David had done.

3 But he walked in the way of the kings of Israel, ³and even made his son pass through the fire, ⁴according to the abominations of the nations whom the LORD had driven out from before the sons of Israel.

4 He ⁵sacrificed and burned incense on the high places and on the hills and under every green tree.

5 Then ⁶Rezin king of Aram and Pekah son of Remaliah, king of Israel, came up to Jerusalem to wage war; and they besieged * Ahaz, ⁷but could not overcome him.

6 At that time Rezin king of Aram recovered ⁸Elath for Aram, and cleared the Judeans out of Elath entirely; and the Arameans came to Elath and have lived there to this day.

Ahaz Seeks Help of Aram

7 ⁹So Ahaz sent messengers to ¹⁰Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria, saying, "I am your servant and your son; come up and deliver me from the hand of the king of Aram and from the hand of the king of Israel, who are rising up against me."

8 ¹¹Ahaz took the silver and gold that was found in the house of the LORD and in the treasuries of the king's house, and sent a present to the king of Assyria.

9 ¹²So the king of Assyria listened to him; and the king of Assyria went up against Damascus and ¹³captured it, and carried the people of it away into exile to ¹⁴Kir, and put Rezin to death.

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2 Kings 16:1-9 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO 2 KINGS 16

This chapter contains the reign of Ahaz only, relates his idolatry, 2Ki 16:1-4 his hiring the king of Assyria with the treasure of the temple, and his own, to assist him against the kings of Israel and Syria, who besieged him, 2Ki 16:5-9, his seeing the altar of an idol at Damascus, the fashion of which he took, and ordered one like it to be built at Jerusalem, 2Ki 16:10-16, his defacing and removing some things in the temple, 2Ki 16:17,18, and the chapter is concluded with his death and burial, 2Ki 16:19,20.

Taken from John Gill's Exposition of the Bible

Cross References 14

1. 2 Chronicles 28:1
2. 2 Chronicles 28:1-4
3. Leviticus 18:21; 2 Kings 17:17; 2 Kings 21:6
4. Deuteronomy 12:31; 2 Kings 21:2, 11
5. Deuteronomy 12:2; 2 Kings 14:4
6. 2 Kings 15:37; Isaiah 7:1
7. 2 Chronicles 28:5, 6
8. 2 Kings 14:22; 2 Chronicles 26:2
9. 2 Chronicles 28:16
10. 2 Kings 15:29
11. 2 Kings 12:17, 18; 2 Kings 18:15
12. 2 Chronicles 28:21
13. Amos 1:3-5
14. Isaiah 22:6; Amos 9:7

Footnotes 6

[a]. Or "dispossessed"
[b]. Lit "fight"
[c]. Heb "Eloth"
[d]. So with some ancient versions; Heb "Edomites"
[e]. Lit "palm"
[f]. Lit "palm"