50 Fun Facts About 2 Kings

What did Elisha tell a prophet's widow, whose creditor was coming for her two sons, to borrow from her neighbours?

Empty jars, 'not just a few', were filled from her one small jar of olive oil until the last was full, and the oil stopped flowing the moment there was nothing left to pour into. She sold it to clear the debt.

What did the Shunammite woman's dead son do seven times as Elisha lay stretched out over him in the rooftop room?

Sneezed seven times and opened his eyes: the boy had collapsed among the reapers crying 'My head! My head!', and his mother rode to Mount Carmel to fetch the prophet who had promised her a son she never asked for.

What did Elisha throw into the Jordan so that a borrowed iron axe head would float up from where it sank?

A stick, freshly cut, went into the water and 'made the iron float'; the workman's panic was that the axe was borrowed, and the company of prophets were felling trees to build themselves a bigger meeting place.

How did a watchman on the tower of Jezreel recognise Jehu's approaching chariot while it was still far off?

By his reckless driving — 'he drives like a maniac' in the NIV, 'he driveth furiously' in the King James — and that one verse made 'jehu' a dated English word for a fast coachman.

What did Queen Athaliah cry out on finding the seven-year-old Joash crowned in the temple as the trumpets sounded?

Treason, treason was the cry of the usurper who had murdered the royal family six years earlier; Jehoiada the priest had her dragged out and killed where the horses enter the palace grounds, not in the temple.

What sign did Isaiah give the sick King Hezekiah that he would be healed and visit the temple in three days?

The shadow went back ten steps on the stairway of Ahaz, at Hezekiah's own choosing — he said going forward would be 'a simple matter' — and he recovered to reign fifteen more years.

What was the last thing King Zedekiah saw before the Babylonians put out his eyes at Riblah?

His sons being executed was Zedekiah's final sight; bound in bronze shackles he was marched to Babylon, having been caught in the plains of Jericho after his army scattered and the city wall was breached.

Where did Pharaoh Necho kill King Josiah, who marched out to stop an Egyptian army bound for the Euphrates?

Megiddo, the hill whose name survives as Armageddon in Revelation, is where Judah's great reformer died; Necho was heading north to help Assyria, not to fight Judah, and Josiah's servants drove his body home in a chariot.

What did the healed Naaman ask to carry home to Damascus so that he could worship Israel's God on it?

Two mule-loads of earth travelled home to Damascus with the Aramean commander, who also asked forgiveness in advance for bowing in the temple of Rimmon whenever his king leaned on his arm.

Which Philistine city's god Baal-Zebub did King Ahaziah send messengers to consult after falling through a lattice?

Ekron's god Baal-Zebub, 'lord of the flies', is the name that reached the New Testament as Beelzebub, a major demon; Elijah intercepted the messengers and told the king he would never leave his bed.

What did the king of Moab do on the city wall when the battle at Kir Hareseth turned against him?

Sacrificed his firstborn son, 'who was to succeed him as king', and the besiegers withdrew; Mesha's own boast of throwing off Israel survives on the Mesha Stele, found at Dhiban in Jordan in 1868.

What did Elisha call for before prophesying to three kings whose armies had run dry in the Desert of Edom?

A harpist: 'while the harpist was playing, the hand of the LORD came on Elisha', and he promised a valley full of pools of water by morning, with neither wind nor rain to explain it.

What did Elisha throw into a stew of wild gourds that the company of prophets cried was 'death in the pot'?

Flour thrown into the pot made the poisonous stew of wild gourds safe to eat during a famine at Gilgal, and the next verses have Elisha feed a hundred men on twenty loaves of barley bread.

Which two rivers did Naaman say were better than all the waters of Israel when told to wash in the Jordan?

Abana and Pharpar are the rivers of Damascus, and Naaman stormed off in a rage before his servants talked him round: if the prophet had asked 'some great thing', wouldn't he have done it?

Who was telling Israel's king how Elisha raised a dead boy when the boy's mother walked in to reclaim her land?

Gehazi, the servant whose greed over Naaman's silver had cost him his skin, was mid-story when the Shunammite woman appeared after seven years abroad, and the king restored her land and all its income on the spot.

What did Elisha's servant see filling the hills around Dothan after the prophet prayed for his eyes to be opened?

Horses and chariots of fire ringed the hills — 'those who are with us are more than those who are with them' — and Elisha then had the Aramean raiders struck blind and led them straight into Samaria.

What sold for eighty shekels of silver during the famine in Samaria while Ben-Hadad's army sat outside its walls?

A donkey's head, the least edible part of an unclean animal, fetched eighty shekels while a quarter of a cab of seed pods went for five; the king then learned that a mother had boiled and eaten her son.

Who discovered that the Aramean army besieging Samaria had fled, leaving tents, horses and food behind?

Four men with leprosy, sitting at the city gate with nothing to lose, walked into a deserted camp: the LORD had made the Arameans hear the sound of a great army bearing down on them.

What became of the royal officer who scoffed that not even 'the floodgates of the heavens' could end Samaria's famine?

Trampled to death at the gate by the crowd rushing out for cheap grain, exactly as Elisha had said: 'You will see it with your own eyes, but you will not eat any of it!'

How did Hazael kill the sick King Ben-Hadad of Aram the day after Elisha told him he would be the next king?

Smothered him with a wet cloth: Hazael 'took a thick cloth, soaked it in water' and held it over the king's face, the day after Elisha had stared at him and begun to weep over what he would do to Israel.

Where was Jehu, then an army commander, anointed king in a back room by a young prophet whom Elisha had sent?

Ramoth Gilead, the border fortress Israel was holding against Hazael's Aram, is where Jehu's fellow officers laid their cloaks under him on the bare stairs, blew a trumpet and shouted 'Jehu is king!'

On whose plot of ground did Jehu have King Joram's arrow-pierced body thrown, calling it payment for an old crime?

Naboth the Jezreelite's vineyard got Ahab's son: Jehu reminded his chariot officer Bidkar that they had both been riding behind Ahab when the LORD pronounced doom on him for Naboth's blood on that very field.

What did Jehu turn the temple of Baal in Samaria into after luring its worshippers inside and slaughtering them?

A latrine, 'to this day', the writer adds — yet Jehu kept the golden calves at Bethel and Dan, so the book marks him down for not turning from 'the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat'.

Whom did Jehu help up into his chariot, saying 'come with me and see my zeal for the LORD'?

Jehonadab son of Rekab founded a clan that still refused wine, houses and vineyards more than two centuries later, when Jeremiah held the Rekabites up to Judah as a model of obedience.

What did Jehoiada the priest set beside the altar, with a hole bored in its lid, to fund King Joash's temple repairs?

A chest with a bored lid became the collection box after the priests had let the temple go unrepaired into the twenty-third year of Joash's reign; the king's secretary and the senior priest counted the silver together.

Where was King Joash of Judah murdered by his own officials after he had bought off Hazael with the temple's gold?

Beth Millo, 'on the road down to Silla', is where the king crowned at seven fell to Jozabad and Jehozabad; his son Amaziah executed them but spared their children, as the Law of Moses required.

Why did the dying Elisha grow angry with King Jehoash of Israel after telling him to strike the ground with his arrows?

He struck only three times, so Elisha said he would beat Aram three times instead of finishing it; the king had wept over the prophet with Elisha's own old cry, 'the chariots and horsemen of Israel!'

What happened to a corpse hastily thrown into Elisha's tomb when Moabite raiders interrupted a burial?

The man came back to life 'and stood up on his feet' when his body touched Elisha's bones, a posthumous miracle that by one traditional count gave Elisha exactly twice as many miracles as Elijah.

With what fable did Jehoash of Israel warn Amaziah of Judah to stay home, before routing him at Beth Shemesh?

A thistle proposing to a cedar, then crushed underfoot by a passing wild beast, was Jehoash's picture of Amaziah's pride after beating Edom; he then broke down 400 cubits of Jerusalem's wall and emptied the temple.

Which prophet from Gath Hepher does 2 Kings 14 credit with foretelling Jeroboam II's restored borders?

Jonah son of Amittai, the reluctant prophet of the great fish, gets his only Old Testament mention outside his own book here, as a patriot foretelling Israel's expansion 'from Lebo Hamath to the Dead Sea'.

Zechariah's six-month reign ended Jehu's line, fulfilling a promise that Jehu's sons would rule to which generation?

The fourth generation — Jehoahaz, Jehoash, Jeroboam II and Zechariah — was the reward for wiping out Ahab's house, and Shallum ended it by assassinating Zechariah in front of the people.

How did King Menahem of Israel raise the thousand talents of silver he paid Pul of Assyria to shore up his throne?

A levy on every wealthy man of fifty shekels each bought the Assyrian off, and 'Pul' is Tiglath-Pileser III under the name the Babylonian king lists gave him.

What did King Ahaz of Judah send Uriah the priest a detailed sketch of after meeting Tiglath-Pileser in Damascus?

An altar seen in Damascus was copied and set up in the temple court, where Ahaz pushed the old bronze altar aside; he is also the king who burned his own son as an offering.

How long did Shalmaneser of Assyria besiege Samaria before it fell in the ninth year of Hoshea, Israel's last king?

Three years of siege ended the northern kingdom in 722 BC; Hoshea had stopped paying tribute and sent envoys to 'So king of Egypt', a gamble that cost him his throne and his people their homeland.

What plagued the settlers Assyria moved into Samaria until an exiled priest was sent back to teach them the LORD's ways?

Lions killed some of the newcomers from Babylon, Kuthah and Hamath, so a deported priest was returned to Bethel to teach them 'how to worship the LORD' — the Bible's own origin story for the Samaritans.

Which language did Hezekiah's officials ask the Assyrian envoy to speak so the men on the wall could not follow?

Aramaic, the diplomatic tongue, was refused: the commander shouted on in Hebrew that the besieged would 'eat their own excrement and drink their own urine', then offered them a land of grain and new wine if they surrendered.

What did Hezekiah do with Sennacherib's threatening letter, before Isaiah sent word that the city was safe?

Spread it out in the temple before the LORD and prayed over it, and Isaiah's answer was that the Assyrian would 'not enter this city or shoot an arrow here' — and that night the camp was struck.

How did Sennacherib die after returning to Nineveh from his failed campaign against Hezekiah's Jerusalem?

Slain by his sons at prayer — Adrammelek and Sharezer cut him down in the temple of Nisrok — and a third son, Esarhaddon, took the throne; Assyria's own records confirm the killing in 681 BC.

Whose envoys did Hezekiah show every treasure in his storehouses, prompting Isaiah to foretell the exile to Babylon?

Marduk-Baladan's get-well embassy from Babylon was shown silver, gold, spices, oil and the armory; Hezekiah's reply to the prophecy was relief that there would be 'peace and security in my lifetime'.

What does 2 Kings 21 say King Manasseh filled Jerusalem with 'from end to end' during his fifty-five-year reign?

Innocent blood 'from end to end' is the verdict on Manasseh, whom later tradition blamed for having the prophet Isaiah sawn in two; the LORD vowed to wipe Jerusalem 'as one wipes a dish'.

Who killed the officials who assassinated King Amon of Judah in his palace after a reign of only two years?

The people of the land executed the plotters and put Amon's eight-year-old son Josiah on the throne, the start of Judah's last great reign and of the reforms that followed.

Who found the Book of the Law in the temple during Josiah's repairs and handed it to Shaphan the secretary?

Hilkiah the high priest's find — which most scholars take for an early form of Deuteronomy — sent Josiah tearing his robes, because the book's curses described exactly what Judah was doing.

Which site in the Valley of Ben Hinnom did Josiah desecrate so no one could burn a child there to Molek?

Topheth, the child-sacrifice hearth in the valley whose name became Gehenna, was defiled along with the horses dedicated to the sun and the shrine at Bethel that a man of God had cursed three centuries earlier.

Which festival did Josiah order kept from the rediscovered book, in a way not seen since the days of the judges?

Passover had not been kept like that 'in the days of the judges who led Israel nor in the days of the kings', the writer says, and it fell in the eighteenth year of Josiah — the year the book came to light.

What new name did Pharaoh Necho give Eliakim son of Josiah on making him king of Judah in his brother's place?

Jehoiakim was the renamed Eliakim, who taxed the land to pay Egypt a hundred talents of silver, while his brother Jehoahaz died a prisoner in Egypt after a three-month reign.

Which Babylonian king freed Jehoiachin after thirty-seven years in prison and seated him above the other captive kings?

Awel-Marduk, Nebuchadnezzar's son, is the book's last word of hope; cuneiform ration tablets dug up near Babylon's Ishtar Gate list food for 'Yaukin', king of Judah, and his five sons.

Which commander of Nebuchadnezzar's imperial guard set fire to Jerusalem's temple, palace and every important building?

Nebuzaradan torched the city 'on the seventh day of the fifth month', broke up the bronze pillars and the Sea for scrap, and marched the chief priest Seraiah to Riblah to be executed.

Whom did Nebuchadnezzar appoint over the people left in Judah, a governor later assassinated at Mizpah?

Gedaliah son of Ahikam was killed by Ishmael, a man 'of royal blood', and the Fast of Gedaliah still marks it on the third of Tishrei, the day after Rosh Hashanah ends.

Which British Museum monument shows Jehu bowing to Shalmaneser III, the earliest known depiction of a biblical figure?

The Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III captions the kneeling figure's gift as the tribute of 'Jehu, son of Omri' — the Assyrian label for Israel's ruling house — paying tribute, a scene the book of Kings never mentions.

How does Sennacherib's own prism say he shut Hezekiah up in Jerusalem, a boast that never claims the city fell?

Like a bird in a cage is the Assyrian version: 46 of Hezekiah's walled cities taken, a heavier tribute imposed, and no capture of Jerusalem — which squares with the book's account of a withdrawal.