2 Kingschapter 16
20 verses · Jeremiah, by tradition · 6th century BC · History
So Ahaz sent messengers to Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria, saying, “I am your servant and your son. Come up and save me from the hands of the kings of Aram and Israel, who are rising up against me.”
Introduction
Jeremiah, by tradition, History, 2 Kings Overview.
This chapter was written for exiles who needed to know when Judah first bowed to an empire. It belongs to the reign of Ahaz, and in the same weeks the prophet Isaiah gave the king a very different counsel, recorded in his own book at chapter 7. The compiler measures the king by the worship he allowed and the protection he bought. Listen for the words of a vassal in the king's message, and for the one plain reason the chapter gives for every change made to the temple. Read it beside Isaiah 7 to hear the choice Ahaz refused.
Context
- Who
- Judeans whose king chose an empire's protection over the promise given him
- What
- An account of the reign of Ahaz, who bought Assyria's help against Damascus and Israel and remade the temple's altar to a pattern from Damascus.
- Where
- Jerusalem under threat from Damascus and Samaria, Elath on the Gulf of Aqaba, and Damascus, where Ahaz met Tiglath-pileser and saw the altar.
- When
- About 735 to 715 BC, the reign of Ahaz, with Damascus falling to Assyria in 732 BC.
- Why
- To show the moment Judah became a vassal of Assyria, and how submission to an empire reached into the worship of the LORD.
Historical context
The crisis is straightforward power politics. Rezin of Damascus and Pekah of Israel formed an anti-Assyrian alliance and marched on Jerusalem to force Judah into it, or to replace its king with someone who would join. This is the exact moment of Isaiah's meeting with Ahaz at the conduit of the upper pool and of the sign of the child named Immanuel. The two accounts describe the same week.
Show the rest of the historical context, 4 more paragraphs
Ahaz's message to Tiglath-Pileser is quoted in the language of a vassal treaty: I am your servant and your son, come up and save me. Adopting the formal father-and-son wording of submission and sending the temple and palace silver as a present made Judah a tributary state. The empire came, took Damascus, killed Rezin, and deported its people.
Passing his son through the fire places Ahaz in the worst category the book has. The rite was practised in the valley south of Jerusalem, and the law had named it as the abomination for which the previous inhabitants were driven out.
The altar episode shows how vassalage worked in religion. Summoned to Damascus to pay homage, Ahaz admired an altar there, sent the plans back to the priest, and had a copy built before he returned. He then moved the bronze altar of the LORD aside and used the new one for the daily offerings.
He also stripped the bronze basins off their wheeled stands and took the great Sea off its twelve bronze oxen, and he removed the covered walkway used on the sabbath and the outer royal entrance. The reason the chapter gives is four words, because of the king of Assyria. Whether the metal went for tribute or the privileges were removed from an overlord's sight, the temple was being dismantled piece by piece to pay for protection.
Significance
The first hearers knew how this ended. The empire Ahaz hired came back in his son's reign and shut Jerusalem up like a bird in a cage.
Show the rest of the significance, 1 more paragraph
The chapter is the case study for a lesson the prophets pressed hard. A nation that will not trust God finds a protector, and the protector's price keeps rising until there is nothing left to strip off the temple.
This chapter in Jewish lifeWhat this chapter is in Jewish life and reading.
How it is read
The chapter is read as the record of what one king did to the furniture of the house, and the classical comment on it is almost entirely architectural. Rashi explains why the new altar was standing ready when the king came home, "He built the altar before the king came from Damesek". The Metsudah edition's note gives the reason from the parallel account, that the king had decided to worship the gods of Aram because he took them for the cause of his defeat (Rashi on II Kings 16:11:1, the Metsudah Tanach series of Lakewood, N.J, CC-BY). At the ninth verse the deportation is read without embellishment: the people of Damascus were exiled "to a province named Kir" (Rashi on II Kings 16:9:1).
The longest comment in the chapter is Rashi at the fourteenth verse, and it is the clearest case in these twelve chapters of a commentator showing his working and then saying he is stuck. He rules out two obvious identifications of the copper altar that was moved. It cannot be the one Moses made, because that was hidden away. It cannot be the stone altar of Solomon that carried the name, because that one could not be shifted from one corner to another without being taken apart, and because the fire that came down in Solomon's day did not leave it until a later king pulled it down. Then he writes, "I have no way to explain this altar except as referring to the basin and the bases of copper, which were accessories of the altar". He props that reading up with a rabbinic precedent where copper instruments of music are called by the same name (Rashi on II Kings 16:14:1). The verse after it is read as the demotion of the old altar to occasional use, "At intervals, when it enters my mind to visit it" (Rashi on II Kings 16:15:1). At the seventeenth the frames of the bases are explained from the description of the same work in the earlier book (Rashi on II Kings 16:17:1). At the eighteenth the covert for the sabbath is read plainly as the roof of a tent made for shade, "to sit under it in the courtyard on Shabbos" (Rashi on II Kings 16:18:1).
Three times in this chapter the corpus records a difference between commentators, because Rashi's own edition carries Radak's other reading beside his. At the fourteenth verse Radak is given as reading the move without any move at all: the new altar was simply set closer to the sanctuary than Solomon's, which stayed where it was, to show which one the king thought important. At the seventeenth Radak is given as reading the act as contempt, the basins taken off their bases and set down on a stone floor. At the eighteenth Radak is given as reading the covert not as a shade but as the building where the course of priests who had served that week stayed until the sabbath was out, and that too was taken away. Rashi's own reading and Radak's stand side by side in the corpus, and neither is put above the other here.
Metzudat David, Malbim and Radak comment across the chapter at many more verses, and the corpus carries their refs with the reason that Sefaria holds no English version of them, so they stand here cited and unquoted: Metzudat David on II Kings 16:1:1, 16:2:1, 16:3:1, 16:5:1, 16:6:1, 16:10:1, 16:11:1 and 16:12:1; Radak on II Kings 16:6:1, 16:7:1, 16:9:1, 16:12:1, 16:14:1, 16:15:1 and 16:17:1; and Malbim on II Kings 16:3:1, 16:5:1 and 16:10:1. Three of them stand on the third verse, where the king passed his son through the fire, which is the hardest verse in the chapter and the one the corpus leaves least accessible in English.
What the rabbis say
The corpus carries ten rabbinic locators for this chapter and the text of none, so each is cited and linked here rather than quoted. Four stand at the opening, on the king himself and the verdict passed on him: Bereshit Rabbah 63:1 anchored across the first four verses, and on the second verse Aggadat Bereshit 49:4, Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Vayetzei 14:1, and Seder Olam Rabbah 22:2, the chronological midrash. One stands on the third verse, where the son is passed through the fire, Legends of the Jews 1:1:60, and one on the fifth, where Rezin and Pekah come up against Jerusalem, Otzar Midrashim, Pesikta, Pesikta Chadata 28.
The last four fall on the altar and the end of the reign. On the fifteenth verse, where the king gives the priest his orders for the new altar, Eikhah Rabbah 2:3, the midrash on the book of Lamentations. On the eighteenth, where the covert for the sabbath is turned aside, Jerusalem Talmud Sanhedrin 10:2:6. On the twentieth, where the king sleeps with his fathers, Jerusalem Talmud Nedarim 6:8:8 and Jerusalem Talmud Pesachim 9:1:6. What each of them teaches is a saying of the rabbis, and is reported as theirs wherever this site quotes one. The quotations wait on a fetch that carries the text.
Sources: Rashi, Rashi on II Kings 16:9:1, 16:11:1, 16:14:1, 16:15:1, 16:17:1 and 16:18:1, The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J, CC-BY; Radak, Radak, the readings the Metsudah edition carries at II Kings 16:14:1, 16:17:1 and 16:18:1, and his own refs at 16:6:1, 16:7:1, 16:9:1, 16:12:1, 16:14:1, 16:15:1 and 16:17:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; Metzudat David, Metzudat David on II Kings 16:1:1, 16:2:1, 16:3:1, 16:5:1, 16:6:1, 16:10:1, 16:11:1 and 16:12:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; Malbim, Malbim on II Kings 16:3:1, 16:5:1 and 16:10:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; The Sefaria corpus, scripts/data/sources/sefaria/2-kings/16.json, the 10 Talmud and Midrash locators of this chapter.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
A king who made his son to pass through the fire
2 Kings 16:1-2
In the seventeenth year of Pekah: The formula that has measured every king of Judah returns here in its bluntest form yet. Unlike David his father, he did not do what was right in the eyes of the LORD his God. Earlier kings of Judah are commended with some reservation; no such word softens Ahaz anywhere.
2 Kings 16:1
“In the seventeenth year of Pekah the son of Remaliah Ahaz the son of Jotham king of Judah began to reign. Jotham began to reign in the second of Pekah, and he reigned sixteen years, and therefore his last year would fall in the eighteenth of Pekah; but as his first year might be at the beginning of the second of Pekah, his last was towards the end of the seventeenth of Pekah's, as here; see 2Ki 15:32.”
Ahaz was twenty years old: Adam Clarke set out the difficulty: twenty plus sixteen make Ahaz thirty-six at his death, and Hezekiah was twenty-five when he became king at 18:2. That would make Ahaz a father at eleven. John Gill noted that he reigned sixteen years, the same as his father Jotham.
2 Kings 16:2
“Twenty years old was Ahaz when he began to reign, and reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem,.... The same number of years his father did: and did not that which was right in the sight of the Lord God, like David his father; his more remote progenitor, nor even like his more immediate father, from whom he received such good instructions, and of whom he had so good an example; but grace is neither propagated by blood, nor obtained through the force of education.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 16:2
“Twenty years old was Ahaz - Here is another considerable difficulty in the chronology. Ahaz was but twenty years old when he began to reign, and he died after he had reigned sixteen years; consequently his whole age amounted only to thirty-six years. But Hezekiah his son was twenty-five years old when he began to reign; and if this were so, then Ahaz must have been the father of Hezekiah when he was but eleven years of age!”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 Kings 16:3-4
even sacrificed his son in the fire: Ahaz even sacrificed his son in the fire, the Molech rite forbidden at Leviticus 18:21 and 20:2 to 5. The practice now stands on David's own throne. At 2 Kings 3:27 the king of Moab offered his son in the same fire under siege.
under every green tree: Barnes observed that Ahaz was the first king to sacrifice on the high places himself, where earlier kings had allowed the people to do it. Henry pictured him on the hills for the view and under the green trees for the shade. Isaiah 1:29 condemns such trees and gardens.
2 Kings 16:4
“He forsook God's house, was weary of that place where, in his father's time, he had often been detained before the Lord, and performed his devotions on high hills, where he had a better prospect, and under green trees, where he had a more pleasant shade. It was a religion little worth, which was guided by fancy, not by faith.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
I am thy servant and thy son: Assyria hired against Syria
2 Kings 16:5-6
came up to wage war against Jerusalem: Isaiah 7 gives Ahaz the sign of Immanuel in this siege. Rezin drove out the men of Judah, a Hebrew word rendered Jews in older versions and found here first. Following the Septuagint, some read Edom for Aram, and Barnes and Jamieson, Fausset and Brown leave the question open.
2 Kings 16:5
“Then Rezin king of Syria, and Pekah son of Remaliah king of Israel, came up to Jerusalem to war,.... To fight with Ahaz, moved to it by the Lord, to chastise Ahaz for his idolatry, 2Ki 15:37. but could not overcome him; so as to take Jerusalem, and set up another king there, as their scheme was, Isa 7:5 though they had both at other times got great advantages over him, and slew many of his people, and carried them captive, see 2Ch 28:5.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 16:5
“Rezin and Pekah, who had already begun their attacks upon Judaea in the reign of Jotham 2Ki 15:37, regarded the accession of a boy-king, only 16 years of age, as especially favorable to their projects, and proceeded without loss of time to carry them out. The earlier scenes of the war, omitted by the writer of Kings, are given at some length in 2Ch 28:5-15.”
recovered Elath for Aram: Elath had been Judah's since Azariah rebuilt it at 14:22. Albert Barnes counted about seventy years of Judah's rule there before Rezin took it, during the siege or just after it. Its loss closed Judah's port on the Red Sea.
2 Kings 16:6
“Either during the siege, or on breaking up from before Jeruasalem, Rezin made an expedition to the lied Sea coast, and became master of the city which had belonged to Judaea about 70 years (marginal reference). Most moderns render this verse, “Rezin recovered (or restored) Elath to Edom ... and the Edomites came to Elath.” On the resemblance of the words Aram and Edom in the original, see 2Sa 8:12 note.”
2 Kings 16:7-9
Ahaz answered the siege by making himself a vassal of Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria, in the covenant language “I am your servant and your son”. He paid with the silver and gold found in the house of the LORD, as Asa had done against Baasha at 1 Kings 15:18.
2 Kings 16:7
“Ahaz was threatened on all sides, on the north by Rezin and Pekah; on the southeast by Edom 2Ch 28:17; and on the southwest by the Philistines 2Ch 28:18. To these external dangers was added the still greater peril of disaffection at home. A large party in Judah was “weary” of the house of David Isa 7:13, ready to join the confederacy Isa 8:6, Isa 8:12, and to accept for king “the son of Tabeal.” Ahaz saw no hope of safety unless he could obtain a powerful protector; and, Egypt being particularly weak at this time, he turned to Assyria.”
as a gift to the king of Assyria: Gill observed that this silver and gold had been gathered under Uzziah and Jotham, since Jehoash of Israel had taken the rest at 14:14. The Hebrew word for gift, shohad, usually means a bribe. Exodus 23:8 forbids a judge to take it.
2 Kings 16:8
“And Ahaz took the silver and gold that was found in the house of the Lord,.... Which Uzziah and Jotham had put there; for all that was found there in the times of Amaziah was taken away by Jehoash king of Israel, 2Ki 14:14. and in the treasures of the king's house; whatever gold and silver he had of his own: and sent it for a present to the king of Assyria; to obtain his help and assistance.”
2 more voices on this verse
2 Kings 16:8
“Compare the marginal reference and 1Ki 15:18. Political necessity was always held to justify the devotion of the temple treasure to secular purposes.”
2 Kings 16:8
“I know not what authority he had thus to dispose of the public stock; but it is common for those that have brought themselves into straits by one sin to help themselves out by another; and those that have alienated themselves from God will make no difficulty of alienating any of his rights.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
took its people to Kir: Amos 1:5 had foretold that Aram would go into exile to Kir, and Amos 9:7 names Kir as the land the Arameans first came from. Aram went back to where it began. Adam Clarke set beside this verse 2 Chronicles 28:20, where the same Assyrian king afflicted Ahaz.
2 Kings 16:9
“The submission of Judah, which Ahaz proffered, would be of the utmost importance in connection with any projects that might be entertained of Egyptian conquests. Naturally, Damascus was the first object of attack. It was the head of the confederacy, and it lay nearest to an army descending upon Lower Syria, as all Asiatic armies would descend, from the north. It appears from an inscription of Tiglath-pileser’s, that Rezin met him in the field, was defeated, and slain. An attack upon Pekah followed.”
A pattern sent from Damascus, and the temple rearranged
2 Kings 16:10-11
a model of the altar and complete plans for its construction: At Damascus, Ahaz admires a pagan altar and sends its exact pattern home. Uriah the priest builds it before the king even returns, with no recorded word of protest. Henry sets this eagerly copied foreign design against the pattern God himself gave Moses for the tabernacle.
2 Kings 16:10
“Ahaz went to Damascus - He had received so much help on the defeat of Rezin, that he went to Damascus to meet the king of Assyria, and render him thanks. Ahaz sent to Urijah the priest the fashion of the altar - This was some idolatrous altar, the shape and workmanship of which pleased Ahaz so well that he determined to have one like it at Jerusalem. For this he had no Divine authority, and the compliance of Urijah was both mean and sinful.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 16:10
“The pattern God showed to Moses in the mount or to David by the Spirit was not comparable to this pattern sent from Damascus. The hearts of idolaters walked after their eyes, which are therefore said to go a whoring after their idols; but the true worshippers worship the true God by faith.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Uriah the priest built the altar: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown identify him with the Uriah whom Isaiah took as a reliable witness at Isaiah 8:2. Matthew Henry suspected he built the altar to keep the king's sacrifices, and their income, in his own hands. The same man now serves the king's design.
2 Kings 16:11
"Let us oblige him in this," thinks Urijah, "and then he will bring all his sacrifices to us; for by this craft we get our living." But, whatever pretence he had, it was a most base wicked thing for him that was a priest, a chief priest, to make this altar, in compliance with an idolatrous prince, for hereby, 1.
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
2 Kings 16:12-13
he approached it and presented offerings on it: Ahaz installed the altar and then offered on it in person. He offered his burnt offering and his grain offering, poured out his drink offering, and sprinkled the blood of his peace offerings on the altar. That is the full round of Levitical sacrifice, performed on a design from Damascus.
2 Kings 16:12
“His sacrifices were not offered to the God of Israel, but to the gods of Damascus (as we find 2 Chron. xxviii. 23 ), and, when he borrowed the Syrians' altar, no marvel that he borrowed their gods.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
sprinkled the blood of his peace offerings: 2 Chronicles 28:23 adds that Ahaz sacrificed to the gods of Damascus, reasoning that they had helped the kings of Aram. Matthew Henry read the borrowed altar and the borrowed gods as one step. The altar brought its gods with it.
2 Kings 16:13
“And he burnt his burnt offering, and his meat offering,.... Which went together according to the law of God, and was imitated by the Heathens: and poured his drink offering; a libation of wine, as probably it was, like what they used according to the Levitical law: and sprinkled the blood of his peace offerings upon the altar; as used according to the same law; for all sorts of sacrifices were offered by idolaters, as by the people of God, in imitation of them.”
the bronze altar that stood before the LORD: Ahaz took the bronze altar from the front of the temple, where it had stood since Solomon's day, and put it on the north side. The new altar took its place, and the LORD's altar was moved aside and kept. The move shows where the king now looked.
2 Kings 16:14
“Put it on the north side - He seems to have intended to conform every thing in the Lord’s house as much as possible to the idolatrous temples which he saw at Damascus, and to model the Divine worship in the same way: in a word to honor and worship the gods of Syria, and not the God of heaven. All the alterations specified here were in contempt of the true God. Thus he provoked to anger the Lord God of his fathers, 2Ch 28:25.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 16:14
“He thinks his new altar is much more stately, and much more sightly, and disgraces that; and therefore "let that be laid aside as a vessel in which there is no pleasure." His superstitious invention, at first, jostled with God's sacred institution, but at length jostled it out.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
2 Kings 16:15-16
He kept the LORD's old altar for himself. “But I will use the bronze altar to seek guidance”, which some read as a private oracle and Barnes as setting the question aside. The Hebrew allows either sense, and Uriah the priest did just as King Ahaz had commanded.
2 Kings 16:15
“Having thrust it out from the use for which it was instituted, which was to sanctify the gifts offered upon it, he pretends to advance it above its institution, which it is common for superstitious people to do. The altar was never designed for an oracle, yet Ahaz will have it for that use. The Romish church seemingly magnifies Christ's sacraments, yet wretchedly corrupts them.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
2 more voices on this verse
2 Kings 16:15
“The words "the bronze altar shall be for me to inquire by," that is, in order to consult [God]: [the king] says these words in a purely formal manner, and not seriously.”
Ishodad of Merv · written before 850 · Books of Sessions 2 Kings 16:15patristic
2 Kings 16:15
The brasen altar shall be for me to inquire by - The bulk of modern commentators translate - “As for the Brasen altar, it will be for me to inquire (or consider) what I shall do with it.”
did just as King Ahaz had commanded: Barnes set Uriah beside an earlier priest, Azariah, who with eighty priests withstood King Uzziah at the incense altar in 2 Chronicles 26:17 to 20. Uriah complied at every point. John Gill summed the pair up as like king, like priest.
2 Kings 16:16
“The writer condemns the obsequiousness of Urijah, whose conduct was the more inexcusable after the noble example of his predecessor Azariah 2Ch 26:17-20.”
2 Kings 16:17-18
cut off the frames of the movable stands: King Ahaz also cut off the frames of the movable stands and removed the bronze basin from each of them. He took down the Sea, which Barnes took as reuse, since the stands and the Sea were still there at 25:13 to 16.
2 Kings 16:17
“These the priests used for washing; against them therefore he seems to have had a particular spite. It is one of the greatest prejudices that can be done to religion to obstruct the purifying of the priests, the Lord's ministers.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
the Sabbath canopy: Clarke found many guesses about the Hebrew musak. Barnes took the Sabbath canopy for a covered seat where the king and his house sat on the Sabbath. He read the royal entryway as the king's own way into the house of the LORD, as at Ezekiel 46:1 to 2.
2 Kings 16:18
“And the covert for the Sabbath - There are a great number of conjectures concerning this covert, or, as it is in the Hebrew, the מוסך musach, of the Sabbath.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 Kings 16:19-20
the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah?: The chapter closes with the formula pointing to the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah. Ahaz rested with his fathers and was buried in the City of David. 2 Chronicles 28:27 adds that he was kept out of the tombs of the kings, a mark of disgrace.
2 Kings 16:19
“Now the rest of the acts of Ahaz which he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah? Some others are written in the canonical book of Chronicles, 2Ch 28:1 and were, it is highly probable, in the annals of the kings of Judah, now lost.”
3 more voices on this verse
2 Kings 16:19
“The rest of the acts of Ahaz - Such as are described in Isa 7:10-13; 2Ch 28:23-25; 2Ch 29:3, 2Ch 29:7.”
2 Kings 16:19
“4 And he sacrificed and burnt incense in the high places, and on the hills, and under every green tree. We have here a general character of the reign of Ahaz. Few and evil were his days--few, for he died at thirty-six--evil, for we are here told, 1.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
2 Kings 16:19
“Inquire by - That shall be reserved for my proper use, to inquire by; at which I may seek God, or inquire of his will, by sacrifices joined with prayer, when I shall see fit. Having thrust it out from the use for which it was instituted, which was to sanctify the gifts offered upon it, he pretends to advance it above its institution, which it is common for superstitious people to do.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
his son Hezekiah reigned: Matthew Henry counted Ahaz dead at thirty-six, twenty years plus sixteen by verse 2. Hezekiah reopened the doors of the house of the LORD in the first month of his reign, at 2 Chronicles 29:3. His father had shut them, at 2 Chronicles 28:24.
2 Kings 16:20
“And Ahaz slept with his fathers, and was buried with his fathers in the city of David,.... But not in the sepulchres of the kings of Israel, as David and Solomon, he being such a wicked prince, 2Ch 28:27. and Hezekiah his son reigned in his stead; of whom much is said in the following part of this history.”
How this psalm is built
The form: Regnal narrative carrying one extended report of cultic change, as Kings classes it.
The patterns in this chapter
| Device | What it does | Where to see it |
|---|---|---|
| I am thy servant and thy son | Ahaz sends Tiglath-pileser a sentence built out of covenant language. The words name the relation a vassal owes an overlord, and they are offered to Assyria in the same crisis in which Isaiah offers him a sign from the Lord. The message is short and the chapter gives it in full, because the wording is the point. | 2 Kings 16:7 |
| The fashion of the altar and the pattern of it | Ahaz sends home from Damascus a specification rather than a report. Matthew Henry sets the eagerly copied foreign design against the pattern God gave Moses for the tabernacle. Urijah the priest builds it before the king returns, and the chapter records no word of protest from him.Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710, on 2 Kings 16:10. | 2 Kings 16:10, 2 Kings 16:11 |
| The whole round of offerings made on a Syrian design | The chapter lists what Ahaz offered on the new altar in the order the law gives, burnt offering, meat offering, drink offering and the blood of the peace offerings. John Gill notes the irony in the forms themselves, since offering and libation and sprinkled blood are patterns the nations had long borrowed from Israel's worship.John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament, 1748 to 1763, on 2 Kings 16:13. | 2 Kings 16:13 |
| The Lord's altar moved to the north side | The bronze altar that had stood before the house since Solomon's day is carried off centre and set to the north, and the new altar takes the place it held. Adam Clarke reads the relocation as deliberate, an attempt to conform worship at Jerusalem to what Ahaz had seen at Damascus. The old altar stands undamaged, and its displacement is the statement.Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible, 1832, on 2 Kings 16:14. | 2 Kings 16:14, 2 Kings 16:15 |
The historical value
11 more paragraphs on the patterns
Verse 6 carries the first occurrence anywhere in Scripture of the word rendered Jews, and it stands in the record of a border town changing hands rather than in a moment of triumph. Albert Barnes notes that the city had belonged to Judah about seventy years.
The same verse carries a textual question the commentators name and leave open. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown report that the Septuagint reads the Edomites where the Hebrew is commonly read as the Syrians, and say that the most judicious commentators and travellers prefer the Greek reading, naming Robinson. Albert Barnes reports that most moderns render the verse as Rezin restoring Elath to Edom. This row states the question and follows the commentators in leaving it unsettled.
The appeal to Assyria is datable history. Tiglath-pileser takes Damascus and kills Rezin, which ends the Aramean kingdom as an independent power and leaves Judah a tributary of Assyria for the rest of the century. The policy Ahaz begins here is the policy Hezekiah breaks at 18:7.
The furniture stripped in this chapter can be traced forward. Albert Barnes reads the removal of the bases, the laver and the sea as conversion to other uses rather than destruction. The bronze is still standing to be inventoried when the Babylonians carry it off at 25:13 to 16.
The debated concept
The chapter's own interpretive crux is the closing phrase of verse 15, which Ahaz attaches to the displaced bronze altar. The commentators read it two ways. Some take it as the king reserving the old altar for a private oracle of his own. Albert Barnes takes it as the king setting aside the question of what to do with it for later. The Hebrew allows either sense, and this row names both readings and settles neither.
The rite at verse 3 is the second question. Albert Barnes reads the passing through the fire as the Ammonite and Moabite worship named at 2 Kings 3:27, the same fire the king of Moab used on his own son. The chapter names the act and the law it breaks, and leaves the mechanics unstated.
The prophecy this chapter stands under
The siege of verse 5 is the occasion of Isaiah 7. Isaiah is sent to this king at the conduit of the upper pool, and the sign of Immanuel at Isaiah 7:14 is given against this campaign. Matthew 1:23 quotes that sign for the birth of Christ, so the New Testament's first Isaiah quotation is anchored to a war this chapter narrates in two verses. Ahaz refuses the sign offered to him and sends to Assyria instead, which is the choice the whole chapter turns on.
How the next chapters answer it
Hezekiah spends much of chapters 18 and 23 undoing what this chapter records. The doors Ahaz altered, the altar he installed and the bronze he stripped stand behind the reform the book praises at 18:4. The parallel account records the restoration of the temple vessels at 2 Chronicles 29.
Keep studying
Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The form and classifications
the compiler of Kings, the accession formula at 2 Kings 16:1 to 4 and the altar report at 2 Kings 16:10 to 18; the compiler of Kings, read with the prophet's own dating, 2 Kings 16:5, read with Isaiah 7:1 to 2 and the site's own guide to this book, the book's own guide module, src/components/book/guides/2-kings/Book2KingsGuide.tsx.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes; Jamieson Fausset and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Gill; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament; Keil, The Books of the Kings and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.