Subscribe to BBC on Apple, Spotify , or Amazon
The Fall of Israel and the Lukewarm Kings of Judah
What happens when a nation ignores God’s warnings for generations? This week we find out on the Bible Book Club Podcast as we dive into 2 Kings 15, 2 Kings 16, and 2 Kings 17. The lukewarm faith of King Azariah (also known as King Uzziah) and King Jotham give us a great example of why we must choose The Path to Good or Evil for ourselves. Then King Ahaz shows us what not to do when reaching out for a savior, and we witness the devastating fall of Israel.
2 Kings 15 – Azariah (Uzziah) Takes the Throne
Our story begins in Judah, the Southern Kingdom, where King Azariah (also known as Uzziah) is doing right in the eyes of the Lord during his 52-year reign. Unfortunately, there’s one small problem.
Like his predecessors, King Azariah allows the high places to remain. These are sites that blend God’s commands with pagan influence and leave the door open for spiritual compromise and idolatry. They prove to be a recurrent stumbling block that lands several kings on the bad king list for the Kings of Israel.
Betrayal and Bloodshed: Israel’s Downward Spiral
Meanwhile, evil is escalating in the Northern Kingdom when King Jeroboam’s son Zechariah becomes king of Israel. His reign only lasts six months and he spends his time doing evil in the eyes of the Lord.
It’s a tumultuous time in Israel’s history. If you want the throne, all you have to do is take it. Shallum does just that, conspiring against King Zechariah, attacking him in front of everyone, and stealing the throne.
In 2 Kings 15, Shallum becomes king, officially moving the line of kings to a new family and fulfilling the word of the Lord spoken to Jehu that his descendents would sit on the throne of Israel for four generations.
After just one month, Menahem attacks and kills King Shallum. Then he begins his reign of terror with a disturbing mass murder of all the pregnant women and their unborn children. King Menahem follows this up by extorting and oppressing the people of Israel, forcing them to pay off the king of Assyria so he can maintain control of Israel.
It’s a temporary fix though. Assyria’s power and control is growing and the end is near for the Northern Kingdom of Israel.
King Menahem dies and just two years into his son Pekahiah’s evil reign his chief officer Pekah turns on him, rallying fifty men, and stealing the throne. This marks the fourth assassination in 30 years and this political turmoil is weakening the nation. King Pekah is as evil as the rest of them and Israel is in total chaos. There is no loyalty, no stability, and—most importantly—no faithfulness to God.
2 Kings 16 – King Jotham’s Son Fully Embraces Rebellion
While Israel continues their free fall to the end, in Judah there’s a bad turn of events when King Jotham’s son Ahaz takes his place on the throne. King Ahaz is more evil than we’ve seen for a while in Judah, and he does not do what is right in the eyes of the Lord.
He even goes so far as to sacrifice his own son in the fire, a pagan practice left over from the Canaanites. This is a major turning point. Judah has been sliding toward compromise for generations, but Ahaz fully embraces rebellion.
King Ahaz Turns to the Wrong Savior
In 2 Kings 16, King Ahaz finds himself in a bind when the king of Aram and the King of Israel team up in battle against him. So what’s King Ahaz do? He dials up Israel’s enemy, the King of Assyria, and offers to be the king’s son if the king will save him.
What a blatant example of reaching out to the wrong savior. King Ahaz is a son of David and a child of God. If he asked, God could save him. But rather than trusting the Lord, he made a dangerous choice—he placed Judah under the influence of a foreign power.
He even goes so far as to loot the Lord’s temple of its silver and gold and send it to the king of Assyria to sweeten the deal. The king of Assyria takes King Ahaz up on his offer and conquers Damascus.
But it doesn’t stop there.
After the battle, King Ahaz visits the king of Assyria in Damascus. He sees their pagan altar, and it inspires him to remodel God’s temple to match it.
God Himself dictated every detail of the temple’s elaborate design through Moses, but King Ahaz changes the sacred worship of Israel based on foreign influence—completely disregarding God’s commands.
Never before has a king of Judah been so bold as to think he could literally redesign God’s plan in such a blatant way.
2 Kings 17 – King Hoshea and the End of Israel
While Judah is sliding into spiritual compromise, Israel is in full-blown collapse. King Pekah’s reign comes to an end as it began–with betrayal. Hoshea conspires against him, murders him, and takes the throne of Israel.
King Hoshea does evil in the eyes of the Lord, but “not like the kings of Israel who preceded him” (2 Kings 17:2) which likely means he didn’t promote Baal worship as the other kings had. But he’s still not good and Israel is too far gone.
In an ironic twist, trying to strengthen his nation, King Hoshea reaches out to the king of Egypt, the very country God rescued his ancestors from hundreds of years before. Once again, Israel turns to the wrong place for help when all they need to do is turn back to God.
The king of Assyria is outraged when he hears King Hoshea has reached out to Egypt for an ally, so he attacks and captures Samaria. Those who don’t die are deported to Assyria.
It is the final collapse of Israel.
Bible Bender – The Ten Tribes Are Lost Forever
The Assyrian deportation of the Northern Kingdom in 722 BC irreparably devastates Israel. The ten tribes of Reuben, Simeon, Zebulun, Issachar, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Ephraim, and Manasseh never recover. They completely cease to exist.
The Israelites are scattered across the Assyrian Empire, forever displaced. Families are permanently separated and forced to intermarry and assimilate. The ten tribes of Israel are truly lost forever.
Jeremiah prophesied about this in Jeremiah 31:15 predicting Rachel would weep for her children and refuse to be comforted, because they were no more. It was Rachel’s sons who formed the tribes of Manasseh and Ephraim, but the Assyrians wiped them from the earth. As Elisha performed a miracle from beyond the grave in our last episode, from beyond the grave Rachel mourns for her sons.
The Israelites Get What they Choose
The Israelites repeatedly choose to sin against God and refuse to trust Him or turn to Him. After generation upon generation of second chances, the Lord gives them what they choose.
God removed the Israelites from His presence.
In 2 Kings 17, just like Adam and Eve, the Israelites lose the Promised Land and are cut off from God’s presence.
As humans, we inherently crave God’s presence. But we can get distracted by the visible world right in front of us–like Adam, Eve, and the Israelites did. Instead of reaching for God, we reach out for what is tangible, convinced it will fill that craving within us for God.
We think we can control it, buy it, touch it, and gain tangible pleasure from it. So we sin. We take the visible, tangible thing and exchange it for the presence of God. It’s a deceptive path we must all be aware tempts us.
The Promised Land Changes Hands
After emptying Samaria, the king of Assyria brings foreigners from all over to inhabit the land and replace the Israelites. Of course, these people don’t worship the Lord and so He sends lions to terrorize them.
The king of Assyria gets a message that the people of Samaria are being attacked because they don’t know what the god of that country requires. So he orders an Israelite priest to return to Samaria and teach them how to worship God.
In those days, it was normal for people to worship a variety of gods, so the foreigners add the Lord to their list of many gods they serve. Adding insult to injury, they use the high places all those kings of Israel let stand for so many years as their shrines.
They burn their children in fire right alongside worshiping the Lord and, instead of using the Lord’s chosen priests for their worship, they appoint all sorts of their own people to officiate for them as priests.
The Promised Land in the north appears to hold no promise for anyone.
A Chilling Message
The final fall of Israel raises an important question for us. Are we valuing our faith and living it out wholeheartedly every day?
God gave Israel many chances and reminders to make adjustments. He made The Path to Good or Evil very clear. But they ignored Him.
Can we learn from their mistakes and make adjustments in our own life, turning to God and trusting Him before it’s too late?
🎧 Ready to dive deeper? Click here to listen to the Bible Book Club Podcast now!
Show Notes:
Bible Verse Links
- Scene 1: Azariah (2 Kings 15:1-7)
- Scene 2: Zechariah Is Crowned King of Israel (2 Kings 15:8-12)
- Scene 3: Shallum Is Crowned King of Israel (2 Kings 15:13-16)
- Scene 4: Menahem Is Crowned King of Israel (2 Kings 15:17-22)
- Scene 5: Pekahiah Is Crowned King of Israel (2 Kings 15:23-26)
- Scene 6: Pekah Is Crowned King of Israel (2 Kings 15:27-31)
- Scene 7: Jotham Is Crowned King of Judah (2 Kings 15:32-38)
- Scene 8: Ahaz Is Crowned King of Judah (2 Kings 16:1-4)
- Scene 9: Ahaz Chooses Assyria as Allies (2 Kings 16:5-20)
- Scene 10: Hoshea, the Last King of Israel (2 Kings 17:1-6)
- Scene 11: Israel’s Sin Leads to Exile from the Promise Land (2 Kings 17:7-41) (Jeremiah 31:15)
Kings of Israel
The Path to Good or Evil
Themes of this podcast episode: Choosing our own path to good has never seemed so important as it does when we listen to the fall of Israel in 2 Kings 15, 2 Kings 16, and 2 Kings 17. In this episode, we see the story unfold.
- Lukewarm faith continues to lead to destruction as King Azariah (Uzziah) and King Jotham remind us.
- Reaching out to the wrong savior leads us down a dangerous path, as we explore the story of King Ahaz and the harm he brought to Judah.
- The unraveling of Israel is a sobering reminder that rebellion against God has consequences. God is patient, but when the day comes He will give us what we choose.
