2 Kings Figures

Elisha is more than just the Robin to Elijah's Batman. He's a main character (though a little less well known) with a prophetic-style of his own. Still, he does the same kind of miracles that Elija...

God does a lot in 2 Kings, but he tends to personally keep it on the down-low, working through the prophets. Of course, there are big moments of divine intervention, like when God kills 180,000 Ass...

Josiah starts off as a child king, and later becomes a teen king—sounds like a sitcom, right? But it isn't until adulthood that, in the process of ordering some temple repairs, Josiah has a chanc...

Along with Josiah, Hezekiah is the most righteous king out of all the kings in 2 Kings. (Hezekiah's name means "Strengthened by the Lord.") Apparently he and Josiah are really about as righteous as...

Elijah only appears in the first two chapters of 2 Kings, before Elisha takes over as the new mega-prophet. But he manages to pull off two amazing feats in those few pages. First off, he calls down...

Joash is yet another Biblical example of a heroic figure saved from a massacre while a baby. Moses and Jesus manage to play the same divine trick. In this case, Joash's evil, power-hungry granny At...

Jehu is a killing machine. Of course, he's God's killing machine—if that helps. (His name means, roughly, "The Lord is He.") Elisha charges him with going on a rampage, killing all the remaining...

Huldah is a prophetess, married to the keeper of the royal wardrobe, Shallum. After Josiah discovers the "Book of the Law" and starts purifying the country of its illicit religious practices, he as...

Jezebel—Ahab's widow—doesn't have that big of a role to play in 2 Kings. But given how relatively important she was in 1 Kings, she's given a pretty dramatic death scene in the sequel. Just as...

Hazael is a King of Aram, one who (before becoming king) actually makes Elisha cry. When the sick King Ben-Hadad of Aram sends Hazael to ask Elisha if he'll recover, Elisha weeps. He tells Hazael h...

Isaiah doesn't have as much to say in this book as he does in his own, poetic, amazing, and super-long Book of Isaiah. But he plays a really crucial role. (His name means, "The Lord is Salvation.")...

Manasseh is a notorious King of Judah who definitely gets filed in the narrator's "bad king" category. He engages in all manner of prohibited religious practices and basically winds up being the la...

Sennacherib and his mouthpiece, the Rabshakeh, are both classic, big-mouthed bad guys. Apparently, they never heard that "pride comes before the fall." Sennacherib sweeps into Judah, besieging Jeru...

Being the son of Ahab, this guy is in for nothing but bad luck. After he becomes King of Israel, he crashes through the lattice in the upper floors of his palace in the first chapter of 2 Kings. Wo...

Jehoshaphat (whose name means "The Lord has Judged") is another one of the "good kings," a righteous ruler of Judah. When he teams up with the King of Israel, Jehoram, to defeat the Moabites, Elish...

Jehoiakim was originally named Eliakim, but he landed his fancy new name after Pharaoh Neco deposes Jehoahaz and makes Jehoiakim the new King of Judeah. He's yet again a bad king, as far as the nar...

The son of Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin rules in Judah for a measly three months—just long enough to see Judah destroyed, looted, and sent into exile. (He's a bad king, by the way, like his pa.) Nebucha...

King Nebuchadnezzar is the Babylonian ruler who invades Judah, conquers it, and finally sends the entire population into exile, along with King Jehoiachin. He is provoked into doing this by Jehoiak...

Hilkiah is a high priest who discovers the "Book of the Law" (probably a version of Deuteronomy) hidden in the Temple. When he shows it to Josiah, it sparks off Josiah's campaign against the variou...

This guy leads a revolt against Israel and Judah, re-establishing his dominance over Moab, which had been conquered earlier by Omri. He makes good headway at first, but ultimately provokes the Isra...

This devoted woman receives help from Elisha in many ways. In return for building him a room, he blesses her with a son. When the son dies, Elisha goes through great pains to resurrect him from the...

Although the narrator doesn't technically consider Jehoash of Israel a "good" king, Jehoash doesn't do things that are totally bad. At least, he's good enough to lament the death of Elisha, and to...

There isn't too much information about Shalmaneser's personality in 2 Kings, but he does something very important. When the King of Israel, Hoshea, stops paying him tribute, Shalmaneser invades Isr...

The captain of Nebuchadnezzar's bodyguard, Nebuzaradan presides over the sacking of Jerusalem, the exile of the remaining people of Judah (all but the very poorest), and the destruction of Solomon'...

These guys show up in order to lend support to some of the major prophets, like Elisha and Elijah. They're men and women of God, but they're not quite as remarkable as Elisha or Elijah or Moses. Th...

Naaman is a virtuous Aramean military commander who suffers from leprosy. He's converted to the worship of Israel's God when Elisha miraculously cures him. But in order to do this, he needs to get...

Gehazi is Elisha's sometimes-faithful servant. He's usually a positive figure. In the stories he exists for the purpose of saying, "Gee whiz, Elisha! How're we gonna get out of this one??" when the...

King Ben-Hadad II is a ruler of Aram who fights against the Assyrians. He asks Elisha if he'll recover after he gets sick, but his evil messenger Hazael smothers him with a wet piece of cloth in hi...

A son of Ahab, this guy is yet another wicked ruler of Israel. He teams up with Jehoshaphat to defeat the rebellious Moabites—and they win. But Elisha has no respect for him, and later commission...

Not to be confused with the earlier Ahaziah of Israel, Ahaziah of Judah is also a wicked king. The son of one of Ahab's daughters, Athaliah (who is herself another creature of the abyss), Ahaziah i...

A daughter of Ahab, Athaliah uses the death of her son Ahaziah as an excuse to take power for herself. She massacres everyone else in her family and attempts to rule alone, seizing total power for...

Jehonadab is an ally of Jehu who helps him take down Ahab's house. He isn't overwhelmingly significant in the text itself, but the story of his alliance with Jehu is interpreted allegorically by th...

The daughter of King Jehoram of Judah and granddaughter of Jehoshaphat, she nobly saves Joash of Judah from his grandmother Athaliah's attempted massacre. Joash ends up becoming a great king, prote...

The son of the good king, Jehoshaphat, Jehoram goes wrong when he marries Ahab's wicked daughter, Athaliah. He has to deal with various challenges during his reign—like the revolt of Edom—which...

Jehoiada is a righteous priest who helps protect the infant Joash of Judah from his grandmother Athaliah's massacre of her own relatives. He appoints an armed guard to look after Joash. Eventually,...

The son of Jehu, Jehoahaz keeps leading the people of Israel in the wrong direction, letting them continue with the sins of Jeroboam. But when the Arameans are attacking Israel, Jehoahaz asks God t...

Amaziah is a righteous king of Judah—he kills the conspirators who murdered his father, but refuses to kill their children as well, noting that the laws of Moses say that children shouldn't be pu...

The son of Jehoash of Israel, Jeroboam II keeps following the sins of the first Jeroboam (worshipping golden calves), thus making him yet another bad king. Nonetheless, he manages to pull off some...

The son of Amaziah, Uzziah (also called Azariah) is another righteous king of Judah—though he also continues to let the high places exist. He's afflicted with leprosy and stays sequestered away f...

The son of Jeroboam II, Zechariah becomes king of Israel during the time when Uzziah is reigning in Judah. He follows along with the sins of the first Jeroboam, but his reign only lasts six months...

After killing King Zechariah, Shallum becomes King of Israel—for a total of one month. A rival named Menahem son of Gadi kills him and takes the throne for himself. (And… that's everything 2 Ki...

After killing Shallum, Menahem son of Gadi becomes the new king of Israel for ten years, continuing to follow the sins of Jeroboam and do evil. He sacks towns and murders pregnant women—stuff lik...

Again, there's not much to say here. Pul is an Assyrian king who threatens to invade Israel, but retreats after Menahem's bribes him. His role here is short and sour.

The son of Menahem, Pekahiah succeeds his dad and rules as king for two years. He's yet another evil king who follows the sins of Jeroboam—until his captain, Pekah, conspires with a group of Gile...

After killing Pekahiah, Pekah rules in Israel for twenty years. Yet once more (not to repeat it over and over again, but we need to) he turns out to be a bad king, who follows the sins of Jeroboam....

This Assyrian king invades Israel and carries off a good number of the people to Assyria. He also later helps King Ahaz of Judah defeat his enemies—Pekah of Israel and Rezin of Aram—conquering...

Jotham, the son of Uzziah, succeeds him as King of Judah—after having basically been the acting-king for most of Uzziah's reign. Like his father, Jotham is a good king, though yet again he doesn'...

Ahaz, the son of Jotham, breaks Judah's string of pretty good kings. He engages in all sorts of abominable religious practices, like making his son "pass through fire" (apparently, the same as sacr...

Uriah is a priest Ahaz commissions with making certain alterations to the Temple—and that's all anyone has to say about Uriah (or, about this particular Uriah).

After killing Pekah, Hoshea becomes the new king of the northern kingdom of Israel—and the last. He still does evil in the eyes of God, but apparently isn't as bad as his predecessors. Nonetheles...

These guys aren't super-important. They're just the emissaries sent by Hezekiah to talk to Sennacherib and the Rabshakeh, who say some intimidating things. The trio freak out, tear their clothes, a...

King Merodoch-Baladan is a ruler of Babylon who sends envoys to Hezekiah's court. Isaiah tells Hezekiah that one day Babylon will rule Judah and send everyone into exile, but Hezekiah is relaxed, b...

King Amon is the wicked son of a wicked dad, King Manasseh, and rules Judah just as evilly. (However, he's also the father of the really good king, Josiah.) He is killed by a conspiracy, but the pe...

A pretty minor character, Shaphan is the secretary of Josiah. He runs messages to Hilkiah for Josiah and reads him the "Book of the Law" after Hilkiah finds it. He also goes with Josiah when they a...

Pharaoh Neco is the ruler of Egypt who kills Josiah in battle. He later imprisons Josiah's son, Jehoahaz, appointing a new king for Judah—Eliakim, who he renames Jehoiakim—and making him pay tr...

The son of Josiah, King Jehoahaz of Judah returns to evil religious practices, but he only reigns for three months. Pharaoh Neco takes Jehoahaz prisoner and drags him off to Egypt, where he remains...

Bidkar is Jehu's captain. He's just mentioned one time, when he's instructed to throw Joram of Israel's corpse in the field of Naboth the Jezreelite to fulfill one of Elijah's prophecies.

Zedekiah is the puppet king who Nebuchadnezzar appoints to rule in Judah after he takes Jehoiachin into captivity. Again, he's a king who "does what was evil in the sight of the Lord." But he rebel...

After Nebuchadnezzar puts Zedekiah's eyes out and imprisons him in Babylon, Gedaliah becomes the new governor of Judah. He tells everyone to be calm and obey the Babylonians, but a group of people...

Not to be confused with Abraham's son from Genesis, this is a different Ishmael. He rebels against Babylonian rule, killing the governor the Babylonians have appointed over Judah. After that, howev...

This Babylonian King isn't a very important character, so we'll keep this short. Basically, he lets King Jehoiachin out of captivity. They become pals, and Jehoiachin eats at his table. So it turns...