2 Kings 13:3-13

3 So the wrath of the Lord was burning against Israel, and he gave them up into the power of Hazael, king of Aram, and into the power of Ben-hadad, the son of Hazael, again and again.

4 Then Jehoahaz made prayer to the Lord, and the Lord gave ear to him, for he saw how cruelly Israel was crushed by the king of Aram.

5 (And the Lord gave Israel a saviour, so that they became free from the hands of the Aramaeans; and the children of Israel were living in their tents as in the past.

6 But still they did not give up the sin of Jeroboam, which he made Israel do, but went on with it; and there was an image of Asherah in Samaria.)

7 For out of all his army, Jehoahaz had only fifty horsemen and ten carriages and ten thousand footmen; the king of Aram had given them up to destruction, crushing them like dust.

8 Now the rest of the acts of Jehoahaz, and all he did, and his great power, are they not recorded in the book of the history of the kings of Israel?

9 And Jehoahaz went to rest with his fathers, and was put into the earth in Samaria; and Joash his son became king in his place.

10 In the thirty-seventh year of the rule of Joash, king of Judah, Joash, the son of Jehoahaz, became king over Israel in Samaria, ruling for sixteen years.

11 He did evil in the eyes of the Lord, not turning away from the sin of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, which he did and made Israel do, but he went on with it.

12 Now the rest of the acts of Joash, and all he did, and the force with which he went to war against Amaziah, king of Judah, are they not recorded in the book of the history of the kings of Israel?

13 And Joash went to rest with his fathers and Jeroboam took his place as king; and Joash was put into the earth in Samaria with the kings of Israel.

2 Kings 13:3-13 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