2 Kings 13:1-8

1 Ahaziah's son King Joash of Judah was in his twenty-third year as king of Judah when Jehoahaz, son of Jehu, began to rule in Samaria as king of Israel. He ruled for 17 years.

2 He did what the LORD considered evil. He continued to commit the sins that Jeroboam (Nebat's son) led Israel to commit. He never gave up committing those sins.

3 So the LORD became angry with Israel and put it at the mercy of King Hazael of Aram and Hazael's son Benhadad as long as they lived.

4 Then Jehoahaz pleaded with the LORD, and the LORD heard him because he saw how the Aramean king was oppressing Israel.

5 So the LORD gave the Israelites someone to save them, and they were freed from Aram's power. They were able to live in their homes again as they had done before.

6 But they didn't turn away from the sins that Jeroboam and his dynasty led Israel to commit. They continued to commit those sins. In addition, the pole dedicated to the goddess Asherah remained standing in Samaria.

7 Jehoahaz had no army left except for 50 horses, 10 chariots, and 10,000 foot soldiers because the king of Aram had destroyed the rest. He had made them like dust that people trample.

8 Isn't everything else about Jehoahaz--everything he did, his heroic acts--written in the official records of the kings of Israel?

2 Kings 13:1-8 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO 2 KINGS 13

This chapter gives an account of the wicked reign of Jehoahaz son of Jehu king of Israel, and of the low estate he was brought into by the Syrians, 2Ki 13:1-9, and of the reign of his son Joash, 2Ki 13:10-13, and of the sickness and death of Elisha; of the visit Joash made him in his sickness; and of his prediction of the king's success against the Syrians; and of the reviving of a dead man cast into the prophet's sepulchre, 2Ki 13:14-21 and of the success of Joash against the Syrians, according to the prediction of the prophet, 2Ki 13:22-25.

\\of Judah\\ The same year he was so zealous and busy in repairing the temple, 2Ki 12:6,

\\Jehoahaz the son of Jehu began to reign over Israel in Samaria\\; whereas Joash began to reign in the seventh year of Jehu, and Jehu reigned but twenty eight years, 2Ki 10:36, and 2Ki 12:1, this could be but the twenty first of Joash; to reconcile which it must be observed, that it was at the beginning of the seventh year of Jehu that Joash began to reign, and at the beginning of the twenty third of Joash that Jehoahaz began to reign, as the Jewish commentators observe:

\\and reigned seventeen years\\; the two last of which were in common with his son, as Junius, see 2Ki 13:10 17831-941219-2104-2Ki13.2