Books of Kings

The Assyrian Empire is reduced to a rump state in Anatolia. Seeing an opportunity to return to its former glory, Egypt launches a lightning mission to rescue Assyria.

In a move that has mystified biblical commentators, Josiah of Judah—despite having seemingly no stake in the fight—ambushes and attacks the Egyptian forces at Megiddo. The event proves to be Josiah’s Waterloo, making the word “Megiddo” a byword for disaster.

What was Josiah thinking?

As Assyria disintegrates, Manasseh’s grandson Josiah declares a holy war against idolatry and invades Samaria. Ian and Caleb explain why the enigmatic “Book of the Law” brought to Josiah is thought to be Deuteronomy.

Manasseh of Judah offers the most legendary story of personal transformation in the Old Testament. A loyal Assyrian vassal and fanatical pagan who burned his own children as a human sacrifice, Manasseh ultimately returned to the God of Hezekiah and led a Yahwist revival.

2 Kings 19 records the most astonishing miracle in the Books of Kings. In 701 BC, an “angel of the Lord” descended upon Jerusalem and slaughtered 185,000 Assyrian soldiers, lifting Sennacherib’s siege of the city. 

Incredibly, the angel’s destruction of Sennacherib’s army is perhaps the most well-documented miracle in the Old Testament, with the Deuteronomist’s account finding support or corroboration in Egyptian, Babylonian, and Assyrian sources.

Had the Assyrians succeeded in taking Jerusalem, the entire Kingdom of Judah—and, with it, all worship of the God of Jacob—would have been erased from the pages of history.

Ian and Caleb pretend to do an episode about the religious renaissance under Hezekiah. Actually, it is an episode about the Bronze Serpent of Moses, the Rod of Asclepius, and Imhotep. They also discuss the origins of the Samaritan culture.

Assyrian hordes eradicate Aram and swarm across the Levant, consuming almost all of Israel and its eight tribes. While most Israelites are led off to assimilation or death, some—like the ancestors of Anna the Prophetess—escape south to the Kingdom of Judah.    

In Judah, Ahaz escalates his pro-Assyrian religious reforms, effectively banning Yahwism and erecting altars to Baal in the streets of Jerusalem.  

Ian and Caleb discuss the mythology of the “ten lost tribes,” and Ian engages with emails and DMs from listeners on the order of the biblical cannon.

Ahaz, one of the most tyrannical of the Davidic kings, aligns Judah with Assyria and begins an aggressive program to force cosmopolitanism down the throats of the Judahites. A new prophet, Isaiah, appears on the political stage and delivers the famous and controversial prophecy of “Immanuel.”

Caleb introduces the career and reforms of Tiglath-Pileser III and Ian gives an introduction to the history and theology of the Book of Isaiah.

Israel implodes after the death of Jeroboam II, its Second Golden Age empire crumbling into apocalyptic civil war.

Under Tiglath-Pileser III, Assyria rises from the ashes to form a revolutionary new world empire. Despite the memorable warnings of the prophet Hosea, Israel’s elite is drawn once again into Assyria’s orbit.  

Ian explains his controversial position that reading the Bible in cover-to-cover order is not a good introduction to the Old Testament canon.  

With Israel flourishing, Uzziah carves out his own Judahite military empire. In 760 BC, as the prophet Amos begins to condemn the elite of Samaria, an epochal earthquake rocks the Levant, levelling whole cities to the ground.

Meanwhile, pioneered by the prophecies of Isaiah, the concept of global messianic monotheism begins to take recognizable shape. 

Ian and Caleb discuss the growing mountain of evidence for the biblical account of Uzziah’s reign, Judahite ballistic siege weaponry, the literary qualities of Amos, and an apologetic of geopolitical prophecy.

With Assyria facing apocalyptic chaos and Aram outflanked, a Second Golden Age of Israel and Judah began in the 8th century BC. Ian and Caleb introduce the military empires of Jeroboam II and Uzziah, the Book of Jonah and the dawn of canonical prophetic literature, and the art of Jehuide Israel and Judah.