Lesson
The Kings of Judah
From Rehoboam to Josiah, with the short and middle reigns told together and Hezekiah and Josiah told at length. The siege of 701 is on Sennacherib's own prism.
October 7, 2026
Judah keeps David's house. That is the difference from the north, and it is not a guarantee of goodness. The book judges these kings by whether they did what was right in the eyes of the LORD, and often adds, yet the high places were not taken away. A few take the high places away. They are the long chapters.
The early and middle reigns
Rehoboam, about 930 to 913, answers the north with threats, loses ten tribes, and in his fifth year loses the temple gold to Shishak. Abijah, about 913 to 910, fights Jeroboam and gives a speech about the true priesthood. The reign is short. Asa, about 910 to 869, does what is right, removes his mother's image, and later, when Baasha fortifies Ramah, he buys Ben-hadad of Syria with temple silver instead of trusting the LORD. A seer rebukes him. In his disease he seeks physicians and not the LORD. Jehoshaphat, about 872 to 848, walks in Asa's earlier way, sends teachers with the book of the law, and then joins Ahab at Ramoth-gilead and nearly dies there. A prophet tells him that in joining the wicked he has loved those who hate the LORD.
Jehoram, about 853 to 841, kills his brothers and walks in the way of the kings of Israel, because his wife is Ahab's daughter. Ahaziah, 841, goes with Joram against Hazael and is killed in Jehu's purge. Athaliah, the mother, kills the royal seed and reigns about six years. Jehosheba hides the infant Joash in the temple. In the seventh year Jehoiada the priest brings him out, crowns him, and Athaliah is killed at the horse gate.
Joash, about 835 to 796, repairs the temple while Jehoiada lives, and after the priest dies he listens to the princes, and the people abandon the house. Zechariah son of Jehoiada is stoned in the court. Servants kill Joash. Amaziah, about 796 to 767, does what is right, yet not with a whole heart. He beats Edom, brings back their gods, and then challenges Jehoash of Israel and is beaten. Uzziah, also called Azariah, about 792 to 740, is strong, builds, and then enters the temple to burn incense. The priests withstand him. Leprosy breaks out on his forehead, and he lives apart until he dies. Jotham, about 750 to 732, does what is right and does not enter the temple. The people still act corruptly. These are the middle kings. The book gives them each a verdict and a few scenes. It does not give them each an epic. This lesson follows the book.
Ahaz, about 735 to 715, does not do what is right. Rezin and Pekah besiege Jerusalem and cannot take it. Isaiah tells Ahaz to ask a sign and not to fear the two smoldering stumps. Ahaz refuses the sign and gets one anyway: the virgin will conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. He sends treasure to Tiglath-pileser, who comes and takes Damascus. Ahaz copies an altar he saw in Damascus and sets it in the temple court. Tiglath-pileser's annals know a king of Judah who paid him. The usual name they give him is Jehoahaz, which can be Ahaz with a divine element the Assyrian scribe heard.
Hezekiah
Hezekiah, about 715 to 686, does what is right as David did. He removes the high places, breaks the pillars, cuts down the Asherah, and breaks in pieces the bronze serpent Moses had made, because Israel was burning incense to it. He calls it Nehushtan, a piece of bronze. He keeps , and he invites the remnant of the north. Some laugh. Some come.
In his fourteenth year, Sennacherib takes the fortified cities of Judah. Hezekiah strips the temple doors of gold and sends it. The Rabshakeh stands by the conduit of the upper pool and shouts in Hebrew so the men on the wall will hear. Do not let Hezekiah make you trust in the LORD. What god of any nation has delivered his land? Hezekiah spreads the letter before the LORD. Isaiah sends word. The king of Assyria shall not come into this city or shoot an arrow there. That night the angel of the LORD strikes the Assyrian camp. Sennacherib departs and later is killed by his sons while worshiping in the house of Nisroch.
The same years hold his sickness. Isaiah tells him to set his house in order. He prays. He is given fifteen years and a sign in the shadow. Then envoys come from Babylon about the wonder, and he shows them the treasure. Isaiah says the days are coming when it will all be carried to Babylon. Hezekiah thinks, why not, if there will be peace in my days. The deliverance of 701 and the prophecy of Babylon are both in his reign. The prism is the scroll.
Manasseh, Amon, Josiah
Manasseh, about 697 to 642, the longest reign, undoes his father. He rebuilds the high places, raises altars to the host of heaven in the temple courts, makes his son pass through the fire, and sheds very much innocent blood. Kings says he did evil and does not tell a . Chronicles says the commanders of the army of the king of Assyria took him with hooks to Babylon, that he humbled himself, that God heard him and brought him back, and that he then took down the foreign gods. Both chapters are in the Bible. A repentance late, after a long cruelty, is not a contradiction of the cruelty. Amon, about 642 to 640, does not humble himself. His servants kill him in his house. The people kill the servants and make Josiah king.
Josiah is eight years old. In his eighteenth year, about 622, the book of the law is found in the house during the repairs. Shaphan reads it to the king. Josiah tears his clothes. He sends to Huldah the prophetess. She says the disaster written in the book is coming, and that because Josiah's heart was tender, it will not come in his days. He reads the book in the hearing of the people, makes a , and pulls down the high places, including the altar at Bethel that Jeroboam built. He keeps a Passover unlike any since the days of the judges. Then he goes out against Pharaoh Necho, who is marching to the Euphrates and tells him not to oppose the god who has sent him. Josiah does not turn aside. Archers shoot him at Megiddo. He dies in Jerusalem. The people lament. Jeremiah laments. Necho's campaign toward Haran in 609 BC is the outside year. The death is the text. The last four kings and the burning of the city are the next lesson, because they are one fall, not four small biographies.
Sennacherib's prism boasts that he shut Hezekiah up in Jerusalem and took tribute. It never says he took the city. The Bible says his army died and "He returned to Nineveh and stayed there" ().
This lesson's home is Timeline.