Bible Commentaries
2 Reyes 15

Versículos 1-12

“A Leper until the Day of His Death”

2 Reyes 15:1

The reign of Azariah, or Uzziah, in Judah was very splendid. Fifty-two years of almost unbroken prosperity! The story is told in the glowing periods of 2 Crónicas 26:1. Here, too, we learn that his sun suffered an eclipse because he persisted in the sacrilegious endeavor to combine the office of king and priest-the exclusive prerogative of Messiah.

See Zacarías 6:13. As a leper he was excluded from all contact with his fellows, and dwelled in a separate house, while his son Jotham acted as his viceroy.

For more than thirty years preceding its dissolution, the Northern Kingdom was terribly distracted. Anarchy, idolatry, high-handed crime, and immorality of a flagrant description swept like a hurricane over all classes. Rent by these evils, and with no strong men like Hezekiah and Isaiah then in Judah to place their hands on the helm, the kingdom drifted to destruction. The sacred books give but brief and disjointed accounts of the last times of the kingdom of Israel, because God has no pleasure in the process of decay. He has no pleasure in the death of individuals or in the nation that dieth, but rather that “they should turn unto Him and live.”

Versículos 13-22

Buying Temporary Relief

2 Reyes 15:13

El asesino usurpador Salum disfrutó de un reinado muy breve, ocupando el trono solo durante un mes, y luego fue asesinado por Menahem, quien, según Josefo, era el comandante de sus fuerzas. Menahem llevó sus brazos hasta Tiphsah, que aparentemente resistió a este asesino in fraganti. La crueldad despiadada que mostró hacia los desventurados ciudadanos atrajo la atención del monarca asirio y finalmente condujo a esa invasión de Israel que terminó con su destrucción. Dios siempre se ha sentado como Juez de las naciones. Sus juicios y sentencias son exactos. Con qué medida midamos, se nos volverá a medir.

Menahem obtained a temporary respite by the gift of one thousand talents, which secured the alliance of the king of Assyria, turning him from an avenger into a patron. See Oseas 5:13. This was the confederacy to which Isaiah probably refers in his chapter, Isaías 8:1, when he alludes to a confederacy that seemed to bode no good. But on the bosom of this cloud of menace shone, as always, the rainbow of promise which is implied in the name “Immanuel.”

Versículos 23-38

Usurpers and Invaders

2 Reyes 15:23

The dissolution of Israel proceeded rapidly, for nothing could avert the steady advance of the Assyrian. According to the usual policy of Eastern conquerors, the flower of the nation was sent beyond the Euphrates to people the thinly inhabited portions of the Assyrian empire; and when this process was completed, new settlers were brought from Assyria to occupy the depopulated land, 2 Reyes 17:24. The cuneiform inscriptions discovered at Nineveh contain remarkable corroborations of the Bible records. This was the first captivity, or exile, of Israel.

The ten tribes never returned to Palestine to any appreciable degree; but their terrible discipline became the enriching of the world. They planted synagogues on foreign soil, and disseminated in many lands the knowledge of Jehovah and their Scriptures. They were represented at Jerusalem by their descendants on the day of Pentecost; and the Apostle John counted their myriads among the redeemed, Apocalipsis 7:1.