2 Kings 16:1-6

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.

2 Kings 16:1-6 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.

Cross References

• 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

Footnotes

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