Kings, The Books of

The Books of Kings (originally a single book in the Hebrew canon, divided into 1 and 2 Kings in the Septuagint) cover the history of the Israelite monarchy from the last days of David through the fall of Jerusalem to Babylon in 586 BC and the subsequent release of Jehoiachin from Babylonian prison in 562 BC. Together with Samuel and the book of Judges, they form the Deuteronomistic History—a sustained theological interpretation of Israel's monarchic period through the lens of Deuteronomy's covenant theology.

The evaluative formula applied to each king—whether he did right or evil in the eyes of the LORD, and whether he maintained or abolished the high places—reveals the theological framework: covenant faithfulness to the LORD alone, centralized at the Jerusalem temple, is the standard against which every king is measured. The northern kingdom's kings are uniformly condemned for following the sin of Jeroboam; the southern kings are mixed, with eight receiving positive evaluations and twelve negative. The books were probably compiled in their present form during the Babylonian exile, and their concluding note about Jehoiachin's release suggests a moment of faint hope amid the catastrophe of exile—a hint that God's covenant with David was not entirely extinguished.