20140626 Thursday, June 26 2014
2 Kings 21: The Seven Kings Of Judah On The Samaritan Frontier

by Wayne Blank
See also 1 Year Holy Bible Reading Plan

"The king of Assyria brought men from Babylon, and from Cuthah, and from Ava, and from Hamath, and from Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of the children of Israel: and they possessed Samaria, and dwelt in the cities thereof"

The people of Israel had the LORD (Who was and is Jesus Christ - see Genesis 1: In The Beginning Was The Word and The Kingdom Of The LORD God) as their King right from His creation of Israel as a nation (see I Will There Make Of Thee A Great Nation), through the time of Moses (see Israel In History and Prophecy: Moses), Joshua (see Israel In History and Prophecy: Joshua), the Judges (see Israel In History and Prophecy: The Judges) and Samuel (see Israel In History and Prophecy: Samuel).

The people of Israel then demanded a king from among themselves (see Our King May Judge Us). The English word "king" means the head of a kin i.e. the leader of a family - hence the true meaning of the word "patriotism," which means father-ism; the Hebrew word of the Scriptures means the same. Saul was elected the first human king of Israel (see King Saul of Israel and The Election Of Kings).

The united kingdom of Israel had only four kings: Saul (before the civil war; see Saul's Impeachment and The War Between The Houses of David and Saul), then David (see King David's Empire), Solomon (see Solomon's Gift Of Wisdom and Solomon's Regime) and Rehoboam (see Rehoboam's Answer). As a judgment upon King Solomon's idolatry (see What Caused Solomon's Idolatry?), the LORD divided the united kingdom of Israel into two thereafter-separate kingdoms - "Israel" and "Judah" (see The First Kings Of Israel and Judah). As listed below (with a detailed study for each king), Israel and Judah each had their own sovereign kings.

Israel had nineteen kings by the time that the LORD had their kingdom destroyed in 721 BC (see Israel In History and Prophecy: The Lost Ten Tribes). Hezekiah was the king of Judah when Israel was taken away into exile - he was the last king of Judah to know a reigning king of Israel (see also Old Boys Versus Greenhorns).

King Manasseh of Judah (not to be confused with the Israelite patriarch Manasseh who lived centuries earlier; the tribe of Manasseh was one of the "lost ten tribes"; see Why East And West Manasseh?), the successor of King Hezekiah, was the first of seven kings of Judah to reign after the Kingdom of Israel ceased to exist. Thereafter, rather than Israel on their northern border, those kings of Judah had a Samaritan frontier that was controlled by Assyrian forces and re-settled by people from Babylon (see The Origin Of The Samaritans).

Year
B.C.
(approx)Kings of
JudahKings of
IsraelNotes9331 Rehoboam1 Jeroboam IDivision after Solomon9152 Abijah    9123 Asa    911  2 Nadab  910  3 Baasha  887  4 Elah  886  5 Zimri  886  6 Omri  875  7 Ahab  8744 Jehoshaphat    855  8 Ahaziah  854  9 Joram  8505 Jehoram    8436 Ahaziah10 Jehu  8437 Athaliah  The only female ruler8438 Joash    820  11 Jehoahaz  806  12 Joash  8039 Amaziah    790  13 Jeroboam II  78710 Uzziah / Azariah    74911 Jotham    748  14 Zachariah  748  15 Shallum  748  16 Menahem  74112 Ahaz    738  17 Pekahiah  738  18 Pekah  730  19 Hoshea  72613 Hezekiah    721    End of the northern kingdom.69714 Manasseh    64115 Amon    63916 Josiah    60817 Shallum / Jehoahaz    60818 Jehoiakim    59719 Jehoiachin    59720 Zedekiah
    586    End of the southern kingdom.

The degenerate ("unrestrained by convention or morality" i.e. liberal) reign of King Manasseh of Judah was that of a typical self-destructive liberal fool who will quickly commit a great amount of irreparable damage to a once-great nation (see Forward, Not Froward). Although Judah would also yet know a few righteous kings (e.g. Josiah), Manasseh's perverted behavior was the reason that the Kingdom of Judah itself would eventually be taken into exile by Babylon (Israel was gone by 721 BC, while Judah lasted until 586 BC).

"21:1 Manasseh was twelve years old when he began to reign, and reigned fifty and five years in Jerusalem. And his mother's name was Hephzibah. 21:2 And he did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD, after the abominations of the heathen, whom the LORD cast out before the children of Israel. 21:3 For he built up again the high places which Hezekiah his father had destroyed; and he reared up altars for Baal, and made a grove, as did Ahab king of Israel; and worshipped all the host of heaven, and served them. 21:4 And he built altars in the house of the LORD, of which the LORD said, In Jerusalem will I put my name. 21:5 And he built altars for all the host of heaven in the two courts of the house of the LORD. 21:6 And he made his son pass through the fire, and observed times, and used enchantments, and dealt with familiar spirits and wizards: he wrought much wickedness in the sight of the LORD, to provoke him to anger.

21:7 And he set a graven image of the grove that he had made in the house, of which the LORD said to David, and to Solomon his son, In this house, and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all tribes of Israel, will I put my name for ever: 21:8 Neither will I make the feet of Israel move any more out of the land which I gave their fathers; only if they will observe to do according to all that I have commanded them, and according to all the law that my servant Moses commanded them. 21:9 But they hearkened not: and Manasseh seduced them to do more evil than did the nations whom the LORD destroyed before the children of Israel.

21:10 And the LORD spake by his servants the prophets, saying, 21:11 Because Manasseh king of Judah hath done these abominations, and hath done wickedly above all that the Amorites did, which were before him, and hath made Judah also to sin with his idols: 21:12 Therefore thus saith the LORD God of Israel, Behold, I am bringing such evil upon Jerusalem and Judah, that whosoever heareth of it, both his ears shall tingle. 21:13 And I will stretch over Jerusalem the line of Samaria, and the plummet of the house of Ahab: and I will wipe Jerusalem as a man wipeth a dish, wiping it, and turning it upside down. 21:14 And I will forsake the remnant of mine inheritance, and deliver them into the hand of their enemies; and they shall become a prey and a spoil to all their enemies; 21:15 Because they have done that which was evil in my sight, and have provoked me to anger, since the day their fathers came forth out of Egypt, even unto this day.

21:16 Moreover Manasseh shed innocent blood very much, till he had filled Jerusalem from one end to another; beside his sin wherewith he made Judah to sin, in doing that which was evil in the sight of the LORD.

21:17 Now the rest of the acts of Manasseh, and all that he did, and his sin that he sinned, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah? 21:18 And Manasseh slept with his fathers, and was buried in the garden of his own house, in the garden of Uzza: and Amon his son reigned in his stead." (2 Kings 21:1-18 KJV)

Manasseh was succeeded by Amon who "did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD, as his father Manasseh did." When the people of Judah could tolerate Amon's "progressive" mis-leadership no more, "the people of the land made Josiah his son king in his stead."

"21:19 Amon was twenty and two years old when he began to reign, and he reigned two years in Jerusalem. And his mother's name was Meshullemeth, the daughter of Haruz of Jotbah. 21:20 And he did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD, as his father Manasseh did. 21:21 And he walked in all the way that his father walked in, and served the idols that his father served, and worshipped them: 21:22 And he forsook the LORD God of his fathers, and walked not in the way of the LORD.

21:23 And the servants of Amon conspired against him, and slew the king in his own house. 21:24 And the people of the land slew all them that had conspired against king Amon; and the people of the land made Josiah his son king in his stead.

21:25 Now the rest of the acts of Amon which he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah? 21:26 And he was buried in his sepulchre in the garden of Uzza: and Josiah his son reigned in his stead." (2 Kings 21:19-26 KJV)

Fact Finder: Why didn't "the lost ten tribes" people of the Kingdom of Israel ever know Judaism?
See Israel Never Knew Purim, Hanukkah Or Judaism