2 Kings 16

Ahaz, king of Judah, turns from the LORD to idolatry and even child sacrifice. Under pressure from Aram and Israel he buys help from Assyria with temple treasure, then copies a pagan altar and rearranges the LORD’s house to suit himself. It is a sad picture of a king who trusts foreign power and foreign religion instead of God.

2 Kings 16:1-2

Ahaz becomes king of Judah at twenty and reigns sixteen years. The writer sets him beside David, the standard for Judah’s kings, and says plainly that Ahaz fell short. He did not do what was right in the LORD’s eyes.

BSA: right (“just, upright, pleasing to God”): The measure of a king is whether his life pleases God, not whether his reign looks successful.

See also: 1 Kings 15:11.

2 Kings 16:3

Ahaz follows the northern kings of Israel and imitates the nations God had driven out. Worst of all, he burns his own son in the fire. The land’s old sins return to the very family of David.

BSA: abominations (“detestable practices, idolatrous customs”): God calls these customs detestable because they destroy the lives of the people made in his image.

See also: Deuteronomy 18:10; Leviticus 18:21.

2 Kings 16:4

Ahaz offers sacrifices and incense at the hilltop shrines and under leafy trees, the usual places of Canaanite worship. He gives to false gods the devotion that belonged to the LORD in the temple he had chosen.

BSA: high places (“cultic platforms, elevations”): These were raised sites for worship, often tied to idols, set up in place of the one place God appointed.

See also: Deuteronomy 12:2.

2 Kings 16:5

Rezin of Aram and Pekah of Israel join forces and march on Jerusalem. They surround Ahaz but cannot take the city. God’s promise to David’s house still holds, even with an unfaithful king on the throne.

BSA: besieged (“confined, surrounded”): Ahaz was shut in on every side, which shows how real the pressure on him was.

See also: Isaiah 7:1-9.

2 Kings 16:6

Aram takes back Elath, the Red Sea port Judah held, and drives Judah’s men out. Edomites settle there. Judah’s southern outlet to the sea is lost, and the writer notes it stays that way to his own day.

BSA: Elath (“a city on the Red Sea, Eloth”): This port gave Judah trade and access to the south, so losing it was a serious blow.

2 Kings 16:7

Instead of trusting the LORD, Ahaz appeals to the Assyrian king. He calls himself servant and son, which is humbling language for a son of David. He hands his kingdom’s freedom to a pagan emperor to escape two lesser enemies.

BSA: servant (“slave, bondservant”): Ahaz makes himself a slave of Assyria, though Judah’s true Lord was the LORD.

Hebrew: עַבְדְּךָ (ʿavdekha, H5650) — “your servant, your slave.” This is the language of a vassal giving himself over to an overlord. Ahaz places himself under Assyria’s authority, when God had told him through Isaiah to stay calm and trust.

See also: Isaiah 7:4; Isaiah 7:10-12.

2 Kings 16:8

To pay for the rescue, Ahaz strips silver and gold from the LORD’s house and from the palace treasuries. God’s own house is drained to buy the favor of a pagan king.

BSA: gift (“bribe, present”): The word shows this was a payment to buy help, not a free present.

2 Kings 16:9

Assyria acts. Tiglath-pileser takes Damascus, deports its people to Kir and kills Rezin. Ahaz gets the help he wanted, but he has bound Judah to a power that would later become its own threat.

BSA: captives (“prisoners, exiles”): Deporting whole peoples was Assyria’s way of breaking nations, and it would later fall on Israel too.

See also: Amos 1:5.

2 Kings 16:10-11

Ahaz goes to Damascus to meet his new master and admires a foreign altar there. He sends the pattern home, and Uriah the priest builds a copy exactly as told, finishing before the king returns. The priest follows the king, not God’s instructions.

BSA: plans (“pattern, blueprint”): Moses was given a heavenly pattern for the LORD’s altar, but Ahaz brings in a pattern from a pagan city instead.

See also: Exodus 25:40.

2 Kings 16:12-13

Back in Jerusalem the king himself goes up to the new altar and offers every kind of sacrifice on it. The offerings look correct on the surface, but they are made at a place of human invention, copied from a foreign model.

BSA: peace offerings (“a voluntary sacrifice to show thanks, expressing gratitude”): This offering was meant to express thanks and fellowship with God, yet here it is made on an altar God never gave.

See also: Leviticus 3:1-2.

2 Kings 16:14

The old bronze altar, made for Solomon’s temple and standing before the LORD, is shoved aside to the north to make room. What was God’s centerpiece is pushed to the edge, and Ahaz’s new thing takes the honored place.

BSA: bronze (“copper or metallic”): This was the long-standing altar of the temple, and moving it shows how lightly Ahaz treated what God had set up.

See also: 2 Chronicles 4:1.

2 Kings 16:15-16

Ahaz orders all the regular daily and royal offerings to be made on the new great altar. The old bronze altar he keeps for himself, to seek guidance. Uriah does exactly as commanded. Worship is now run by the king’s orders.

BSA: guidance (“to inquire, to seek wisdom”): Ahaz reserves the old altar for his own private seeking, perhaps through omens, rather than for the LORD’s prescribed worship.

2 Kings 16:17

Ahaz also damages the temple furnishings Solomon had made. He cuts the frames off the movable stands, removes their basins, and takes the great bronze Sea down from its oxen to set on stone. The bronze was likely wanted for the Assyrian tribute.

BSA: Sea (“a large body of water, the bronze tank”): This was the huge bronze water basin for the priests, and Ahaz lowers it from its place of honor.

See also: 1 Kings 7:23-29.

2 Kings 16:18

Out of regard for the Assyrian king, Ahaz removes the Sabbath canopy and closes the royal entrance to the temple. Even the structures tied to the day of rest and the king’s worship are changed to please a foreign ruler.

BSA: Sabbath (“day of rest, seventh day”): The Sabbath marked Israel as God’s covenant people, yet it is set aside here to suit Assyria.

2 Kings 16:19-20

The rest of his story is recorded in the royal annals. Ahaz dies and is buried in the City of David, and his son Hezekiah takes the throne. After a dark reign, God raises up a son who will turn back to him.

BSA: Hezekiah (“a king of Judah, a righteous ruler”): The next king stands in sharp contrast to his father and brings real reform.

See also: 2 Kings 18:3-5.