2 Kings Trivia
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49 free 2 Kings trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Sep 2026.
2 Kings is the Bible's most violent history book. It opens with a prophet carried off in a whirlwind and closes with a blinded king in chains, and in between come floating iron, a stew that could kill, a general cured in a muddy river, a coup that leaves a queen's body for the dogs, a woman who rules Judah for six years, and an Assyrian army that melts away outside Jerusalem in a single night. These 49 questions follow the book chapter by chapter: Elisha's miracles and his dealings with kings, Naaman, the siege that drove a city to cannibalism, Jehu's purge, Athaliah and the boy king, Hezekiah and Sennacherib with Isaiah at his side, Manasseh's long reign, Josiah and the book found in the temple, the fall of Samaria and of Jerusalem, and the Babylonian exile. A few step outside the text to the Assyrian and Babylonian records that mention the same kings. It suits a church quiz night, a Bible study working through the historical books, or anyone who remembers the whirlwind and the leper and wants the other twenty-four chapters back. Play on your phone with instant answers and explanations, or print it for a group.
30 of 49 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What did Elisha tell a prophet's widow, whose creditor was coming for her two sons, to borrow from her neighbours?
Empty jars
Empty jars, and not just a few, all filled from her one small jar of olive oil, which stopped flowing when no jar was left; Elisha told her to sell the oil, pay her debts and live on the rest.
Q 02What did the Shunammite woman's dead son do seven times as Elisha lay stretched out over him in the rooftop room?
Sneezed
Sneezed seven times, then opened his eyes: the boy had cried 'My head! My head!' in the fields and died on his mother's lap, and she rode to Mount Carmel and refused to leave Elisha's side.
Q 03What did Elisha throw into the Jordan so that a borrowed iron axe head would float up from where it sank?
A stick
A stick, cut and thrown where the axe head sank, 'made the iron float'; the prophets were by the Jordan cutting poles because their old place had grown too small for them.
Q 04How did a watchman on the tower of Jezreel recognise Jehu's approaching chariot while it was still far off?
By his reckless driving
By his reckless driving: 'he drives like a maniac' in the NIV and 'he driveth furiously' in the King James, a verse that made 'jehu' an English word for a fast driver.
Q 05What did Queen Athaliah cry out on finding the seven-year-old Joash crowned in the temple as the trumpets sounded?
Treason, treason
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.
Q 06What sign did Isaiah give the sick King Hezekiah that he would recover?
The shadow went back ten steps
The shadow went back ten steps on the stairway of Ahaz, at Hezekiah's own choosing, since he said going forward would be 'a simple matter'; God promised to add fifteen years to his life.
Q 07What was the last thing King Zedekiah saw before the Babylonians put out his eyes at Riblah?
His sons being executed
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.
Q 08Where did Pharaoh Necho kill King Josiah, who marched out to stop an Egyptian army bound for the Euphrates?
Megiddo
Megiddo, probably the place behind Revelation's name Armageddon, is where Josiah fell, and his servants carried his body home to Jerusalem in a chariot to be buried in his own tomb.
Q 09What did the healed Naaman ask to carry home so that he could worship Israel's God there?
Two mule-loads of earth
Two mule-loads of earth went home with the Aramean commander, who also asked forgiveness in advance for bowing in the temple of Rimmon whenever his king leaned on his arm.
Q 10Which Philistine city's god Baal-Zebub did King Ahaziah send messengers to consult after falling through a lattice?
Ekron
Ekron's god Baal-Zebub, literally 'lord of the flies', is the name behind Beelzebub, the Gospels' prince of demons; Elijah turned the messengers back, warning that Ahaziah would die in his bed, and he did.
Q 11What did Moab's king do on the city wall as the battle at Kir Hareseth turned against him?
Sacrificed his firstborn son
Sacrificed his firstborn son, 'who was to succeed him as king', and the besiegers withdrew; Mesha's own boast of winning back land from Israel survives on the Mesha Stele, found at Dhiban in Jordan.
Q 12What did Elisha call for before prophesying to three kings whose armies had run dry in the Desert of Edom?
A harpist
A harpist: while the harpist played, 'the hand of the LORD came on Elisha', and the next morning water flowed in from Edom and filled the valley, though no one saw wind or rain.
Q 13What did Elisha throw into a stew of wild gourds that the company of prophets cried was 'death in the pot'?
Q 21Where was Jehu, then an army commander, anointed king in a back room by a young prophet whom Elisha had sent?
Ramoth Gilead
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!'
Q 22On whose plot of ground did Jehu have King Joram's arrow-pierced body thrown, calling it payment for an old crime?
Naboth the Jezreelite
Naboth the Jezreelite's plot got Ahab's son: Jehu reminded his chariot officer Bidkar that they had ridden behind Ahab when the LORD vowed to repay Naboth's blood on that very ground.
Q 23What did Jehu turn the temple of Baal in Samaria into after luring its worshippers inside and slaughtering them?
Flour
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.
Q 14Which two rivers did Naaman say were better than all the waters of Israel when told to wash in the Jordan?
Abana and Pharpar
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?
Q 15Who was telling Israel's king how Elisha raised a dead boy when the boy's mother walked in to reclaim her land?
Gehazi
Gehazi, Elisha's servant, was telling that very story when the Shunammite woman walked in after seven years abroad, and the king gave her back her land and all its income from the years away.
Q 16What did Elisha's servant see filling the hills around Dothan once his eyes were opened?
Horses and chariots of fire
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.
Q 17What sold for eighty shekels of silver during the famine in Samaria while Ben-Hadad's army sat outside its walls?
A donkey's head
A donkey's head fetched eighty shekels as the siege dragged on, and when a mother told the king she had cooked and eaten her son, he tore his robes to reveal sackcloth underneath.
Q 18Who discovered that the Aramean army besieging Samaria had fled, leaving tents, horses and food behind?
Four men with leprosy
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.
Q 19What became of the royal officer who doubted Elisha's promise to end Samaria's famine?
Trampled to death at the gate
Trampled to death at the gate he had been put in charge of, as crowds poured out to plunder the Aramean camp; Elisha had told him he would see the cheap food but never eat any.
Q 20How did Hazael kill the sick King Ben-Hadad after Elisha said Hazael would rule Aram?
Smothered him with a wet cloth
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.
A latrine
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'.
Q 24Whom did Jehu help up into his chariot, saying 'come with me and see my zeal for the LORD'?
Jehonadab son of Rekab
Jehonadab son of Rekab laid down rules his descendants were still keeping in Jeremiah's day, refusing wine, houses and vineyards, and Jeremiah held them up to Judah as a model of obedience.
Q 25What did Jehoiada the priest set beside the altar, with a hole bored in its lid, to fund King Joash's temple repairs?
A chest
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.
Q 26Where was King Joash of Judah murdered by his own officials after he had bought off Hazael with the temple's gold?
Beth Millo
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.
Q 27Why did the dying Elisha grow angry after King Jehoash of Israel struck the ground with arrows?
He struck only three times
He struck only three times, and Elisha said five or six strikes would have wiped out Aram; now Jehoash would defeat it just three times.
Q 28What happened to a corpse thrown into Elisha's tomb when raiders interrupted a burial?
The man came back to life
The man came back to life and stood up the moment his body touched Elisha's bones, a wonder from the prophet who had asked Elijah for a double portion of his spirit.
Q 29With what fable did Jehoash of Israel warn Amaziah of Judah to stay home?
A thistle proposing to a cedar
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.
Q 30Which prophet does 2 Kings 14 credit with foretelling Jeroboam II's restored borders?
Jonah son of Amittai
Jonah son of Amittai, the prophet who ran from God's call to Nineveh and was swallowed by a huge fish, turns up here promising Israel's expansion 'from Lebo Hamath to the Dead Sea'.