The Divine Bookkeeping Text: 2 Kings 14:15-16
Introduction: God's Filing System
We live in an age that is drowning in information and starving for wisdom. Every tweet, every news cycle, every fleeting outrage is treated as the most important event in human history. We have the memory of a gnat and the historical perspective of a toddler who has just dropped his ice cream cone. Everything is immediate, everything is ultimate, and consequently, nothing has any real weight. We are adrift on a sea of meaningless data.
Into this frantic and forgetful chaos, the Word of God speaks with a quiet, final, and authoritative calm. The Scriptures have a very different way of measuring significance. What our world deems headline news, God often treats as a footnote. And what our world ignores entirely, God records for eternity. The Bible is God's history of the world, and He is a very particular historian. He is not interested in history for history's sake; He is interested in covenant history. He is telling a story, His story, and everything recorded is recorded because it serves the central plot line of that story, which is the story of redemption in His Son, Jesus Christ.
The two verses before us today are a classic example of this divine economy. They are the kind of verses that modern readers, and even many preachers, tend to skip over. They feel like a dry, dusty administrative note, a bit of historical bookkeeping before we get to the next exciting story. We have the end of the reign of Jehoash, king of Israel. We are told of his might, his war with Amaziah of Judah, and then we are directed to another book, "the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel." Then he dies, is buried, and his son takes the throne. It seems straightforward, almost mundane. But we must never forget that this is God-breathed history. There are no throwaway lines in Scripture. This is not just an ancient record; it is a revelation of the character and purposes of the living God. These verses are a window into how God governs the world, how He keeps His records, and what He considers truly important.
This passage teaches us about divine perspective. It shows us that God is meticulously recording the deeds of men, even the deeds of wicked men. It reminds us that human might and worldly accomplishments are fleeting and secondary. And it points us to the ultimate chronicle, the ultimate record book, where the only deeds that truly matter are recorded forever.
The Text
Now the rest of the acts of Jehoash which he did, and his might and how he fought with Amaziah king of Judah, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel?
So Jehoash slept with his fathers and was buried in Samaria with the kings of Israel; and Jeroboam his son became king in his place.
(2 Kings 14:15-16 LSB)
The Official Record and the Real Record (v. 15)
Let us consider the first part of this divine summary.
"Now the rest of the acts of Jehoash which he did, and his might and how he fought with Amaziah king of Judah, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel?" (2 Kings 14:15)
The Holy Spirit, through the author of Kings, gives us a summary of this king's reign. Jehoash was not a good king. Just a few verses earlier, we are told that "he did evil in the sight of the LORD; he did not depart from all the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, which he made Israel sin" (2 Kings 13:11). And yet, God still used him. God granted him military success, even against the southern kingdom of Judah. His reign had "might." He fought wars. He did things. From a worldly perspective, he was a man of consequence.
But notice what the Spirit does here. He gestures toward another record. He says, in effect, "If you want all the political and military details, the blow-by-blow of his campaigns, the sort of thing that would make for a thrilling documentary on the History Channel, you can go look it up in the royal archives. It's all there in the official state records." The Bible is not primarily interested in giving us an exhaustive political history. The "Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel" was likely the official court history, the annals of the kingdom. It was the human record of human achievements.
The inspired writer is making a crucial distinction. He is distinguishing between God's inspired history and man's secular history. The secular history records "might" and "acts" and wars. It is full of sound and fury. But God's history, the book of Kings, is highly selective. It includes Jehoash's might and his war with Amaziah, but only as it serves to illustrate God's larger purpose: showing the consequences of covenant unfaithfulness and the steady, grinding judgment that was falling on the northern kingdom. The war with Amaziah wasn't just a political squabble; it was two covenant-breaking kings, representing two covenant-breaking nations, being used by God to chasten one another.
This points us to a profound truth. God has two sets of books. There is the history that men write, which is all about power, economics, military might, and political maneuvering. And then there is the history that God writes, which is all about sin, righteousness, judgment, and redemption. The world has its chronicles, its encyclopedias, its biographies of "great men." But God has His book. And what is written in God's book is what lasts. The chronicles of the kings of Israel are lost to us. That book has perished. But the book of 2 Kings remains. What God deems worthy of remembrance is what endures. This should chasten us. We spend so much of our lives trying to get our names written in the chronicles of men, seeking promotions, accolades, and recognition. But the only book that matters is the Lamb's Book of Life.
The Great Equalizer (v. 16a)
The narrative then moves to the inevitable conclusion of every human story apart from the Second Coming.
"So Jehoash slept with his fathers and was buried in Samaria with the kings of Israel..." (2 Kings 14:16a)
After all his might, after all his wars, after all his acts, what happens? He dies. "He slept with his fathers." This is the great equalizer. This is the final, non-negotiable reality for every king, every president, every CEO, and every one of us. Death comes for all. The might of Jehoash could not keep the undertaker from his door. His victories on the battlefield could not win him one extra breath when his appointed time came.
This phrase, "slept with his fathers," is a standard formula in the historical books, but we should not let its familiarity dull its edge. It is a reminder of the brevity and vanity of human glory. James tells us that our life is a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away (James 4:14). The psalmist says that man in his pomp is like the beasts that perish (Psalm 49:12). Jehoash had his moment on the stage. He strutted and fretted, won some battles, and maintained the institutionalized idolatry of his kingdom. And then his part was over. The curtain fell.
He was "buried in Samaria with the kings of Israel." He received a royal burial. He had all the pomp and circumstance that a state funeral could afford. But this earthly honor is recorded with a kind of flat, historical detachment. It is a statement of fact, not a commendation. He was buried with the other apostate kings of the northern kingdom, a dynasty of rebels. His final resting place was a monument to the very covenant-breaking that defined his life. He joined his fathers in death, just as he had joined them in their sin.
The Unending Cycle (v. 16b)
The account of Jehoash ends, but the story of Israel's sin continues without missing a beat.
"...and Jeroboam his son became king in his place." (2 Kings 14:16b)
One king dies, another rises. The political machine keeps churning. The transfer of power was seamless. But this was not a transfer to something new and better. This was simply the next link in a chain of rebellion. This new king, Jeroboam II, would be the most powerful and prosperous king in the history of the northern kingdom. From a worldly perspective, his reign was a massive success. But from God's perspective, what did he do? "He did evil in the sight of the LORD; he did not depart from all the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat" (2 Kings 14:24). The name was the same, and the sin was the same.
This is the tragic rhythm of fallen human history. Men do not learn. Nations do not learn. The faces change, but the rebellion against God remains. We see this in our own day. We swap out one set of corrupt politicians for another, hoping for a different result, all while refusing to deal with the root of the problem, which is our national rejection of the Lordship of Jesus Christ. We get new kings, but the same old sins. We are just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
The story of the kings of Israel is a relentless drumbeat of this truth: without a fundamental heart change, without regeneration, political and military solutions are utterly futile. You can have a new king, a new administration, a new policy, but if the heart of the people remains in rebellion, you are just putting lipstick on a pig. The problem is not the king; the problem is the sin that the king represents and enables. And that sin just gets passed down from one generation to the next, like a cursed heirloom.
The King Who Did Not Sleep
So where is the good news in this somber record of sin, death, and futility? The good news is found by looking at the kind of king that Jehoash was not. This passage, in its very dryness, creates a profound longing for a different kind of king and a different kind of kingdom.
Jehoash had might, but he was ultimately weak, for he died. We need a King who has conquered death. Jehoash fought wars with other men, but he was defeated by the final enemy. We need a King who has met death head-on and disarmed it. Jehoash's acts were written in a book that perished. We need a King whose deeds are written in an eternal book, the very Word of God. Jehoash slept with his fathers. We need a King who, though He slept for three days in a tomb, awoke, and now never sleeps.
The entire narrative of the kings of Israel and Judah is a chronicle of failure. It is meant to show us, over and over again, that the sons of David and the usurpers in the north were all, in their own way, profound disappointments. They were shadows, placeholders, and very often, wicked rebels. They were all pointing to our need for the true King.
Jesus Christ is the King whose acts are not merely summarized; they are the centerpiece of all history. His might is not the fleeting might of armies, but the creative power that spoke the universe into existence and the resurrecting power that emptied His own tomb. He fought the ultimate battle, not against Amaziah king of Judah, but against sin, death, and the devil, and He won the decisive victory.
And when He died, He did not simply "sleep with his fathers." He died a cursed death on a cross, bearing the sins of His people. He was buried, but not in a royal tomb in a city of rebels. He was laid in a borrowed tomb, from which He would rise in glory. And a new king did not take His place, because His reign will have no end. He is the final King. His throne is forever. The cycle of sin and death is broken in Him.
This little administrative note in 2 Kings is therefore a signpost. It points out the dead end of human politics and worldly might. It tells us that all the chronicles of men will eventually turn to dust. But it also, by way of contrast, points us to the King whose kingdom cannot be shaken, and whose biography is the Gospel itself. Our hope is not in the next election, but in the resurrected King, Jesus. It is His chronicle that matters, and by His grace, our names are written in it.