Bible Strands
2 Kings 15:37
(In those days the LORD began to send Rezin king of Aram and Pekah son of Remaliah against Judah.)
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The narrator records this event during the reign of King Jotham of Judah, immediately before Jotham’s death and Ahaz’s accession. The statement functions as a chronological marker explaining the military pressures Judah faced at that specific moment.
The words — The verb הֵחֵל (he.Chel) translates literally as "he began," denoting the initiation of a divine action. It governs the infinitive לְ/הַשְׁלִ֙יחַ֙ (le./hash.Li.ach), meaning "to send," which identifies Yahweh as the agent dispatching the foreign armies.
The thread — The deployment of Rezin and Pekah against Judah reappears in 2 Kings 16:5 and Isaiah 7:1, where the same kings actively besiege Jerusalem. This motif of God using hostile nations as instruments of discipline aligns with the covenant warnings outlined in Deuteronomy 28:48.
Why it lands — The text requires the reader to acknowledge that geopolitical conflict is recorded as a direct outworking of Yahweh’s sovereign initiative. It demands a sober assessment of Judah’s standing before God when divine judgment is executed through historical events.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
In those days the Lord began to send against Judah Rezin the king of Syria, and Pekah the son of Remaliah.
Cross-references
- 2 Kings 16:5 Then Rezin king of Aram and Pekah son of Remaliah king of Israel came up to wage war against Jerusalem. They besieged Ahaz but could not overcome him.
- Isaiah 7:1 Now in the days that Ahaz son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah, was king of Judah, Rezin king of Aram marched up to wage war against Jerusalem. He was accompanied by Pekah son of Remaliah the king of Israel, but he could not overpower the city.
- Deuteronomy 28:48 you will serve your enemies the LORD will send against you in famine, thirst, nakedness, and destitution. He will place an iron yoke on your neck until He has destroyed you.
- 1 Samuel 3:12 On that day I will carry out against Eli everything I have spoken about his house, from beginning to end.
- 2 Kings 10:32 In those days the LORD began to reduce the size of Israel. Hazael defeated the Israelites throughout their territory
- 2 Chronicles 28:6 For in one day Pekah son of Remaliah killed 120,000 valiant men in Judah. This happened because they had forsaken the LORD, the God of their fathers.
- Psalms 78:49 He unleashed His fury against them, wrath, indignation, and calamity—a band of destroying angels.
- Isaiah 7:8 For the head of Aram is Damascus, and the head of Damascus is Rezin. Within sixty-five years Ephraim will be shattered as a people.
- Isaiah 10:5 Woe to Assyria, the rod of My anger; the staff in their hands is My wrath.
- Isaiah 38:1 In those days Hezekiah became mortally ill. The prophet Isaiah son of Amoz came to him and said, “This is what the LORD says: ‘Put your house in order, for you are about to die; you will not recover.’”