The Bible Study podcast episode 579. Today, the Bible Study podcast continues the study of the

kings of Israel and Judah with Second Kings 15.

Welcome to the Bible study podcast. I'm your host, Chris Christensen. If you ever get to the part of the story that you think, blah, blah, blah, you know, and then you're wondering how long this thing is going to take to wrap up, I just feel like the people who are writing second kings got to that place here in chapter 15, because they're going to summarize seven different kings in one chapter.

Now, I think we could probably guess. I haven't read this yet, but I think we're going to

probably guess that the summary for all the kings of Israel is going to be they were a bad

king, and they followed in the same pattern. What do you think? Let's find out.

Azariah King of Judah. In the 27th year of Jerobam King of Israel, Azariah, son of Amaziah,

King of Judah began to reign. He was 16 years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem 52 years. His mother's name was Jecoliah, and she was from Jerusalem. He did what was right

in the eyes of the Lord, just as his father Amaziah had done. The high places, however, were not

removed. The people continued to offer sacrifices and burn incense there. The Lord afflicted

the king with leprosy until the day he died, and he lived in a separate house.

Jotham, the king's son, had charge of the palace and governed the people of the land.

As for the other events of Azariah's reign, all he did are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Judah.

Azariah rested with his ancestors and was buried near them in the city of David, and Jotham, his son, succeeded him as king.

Now remember, one of the things I said you want to look for is you want to look for how long kings reign,

and that's going to be a symbol of how stable that government is.

And so we get Azariah, and he's got a good long reign from 16, and then he reigns for 52 years.

So he dies of old age. He has leprosy. That's another story. It doesn't say that he has leprosy because

God gave it to him as a punishment or anything. He just has leprosy, is all that says here.

His son is ruling in his place, so that gives me good hope for his son

as well. Again, a good king, although again, like his father, doesn't take care of those high places.

Just good, but could be better. And then we get to the kings of Israel.

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