2 Kings 14 Bible study: No helper for Israel

"In the second year of Joash, son of Joahaz, king of Israel, Amaziah the son of Joash king of Judah began to reign" (14:1). Two kings called Joash, one in each kingdom, and the chapter keeps them apart by their fathers. Amaziah reigned "twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Jehoaddin of Jerusalem" (14:2). Then the verdict: "He did that which was right in the LORD’s eyes, yet not like David his father. He did according to all that Joash his father had done" (14:3). Two fathers stand in that verse. David is the measure; Joash, who "did that which was right in the LORD’s eyes all his days in which Jehoiada the priest instructed him" (12:2), is the pattern Amaziah actually followed. And the same line follows as for Joash: "However the high places were not taken away. The people still sacrificed and burned incense in the high places" (14:4; compare 12:3).

2 Kings 14:25→leads toMatthew 12:39

Jeroboam restored Israel's border "according to the LORD, the God of Israel’s word, which he spoke by his servant Jonah the son of Amittai, the prophet, who was from Gath Hepher" (14:25). The book of Jonah opens with the same name and father: "Now the LORD’s word came to Jonah the son of Amittai" (Jonah 1:1), and the Hebrew Bible names Amittai nowhere else. When some of the scribes and Pharisees asked Jesus for a sign (Matthew 12:38), he answered, "An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, but no sign will be given to it but the sign of Jonah the prophet" (Matthew 12:39). He went on, "For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the huge fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth" (Matthew 12:40), and "behold, someone greater than Jonah is here" (Matthew 12:41). Luke gives it as "even as Jonah became a sign to the Ninevites, so the Son of Man will also be to this generation" (Luke 11:30). Jesus doesn't cite 2 Kings 14; the link is the man. Jesus calls him "Jonah the prophet", as 14:25 calls Jonah the son of Amittai "the prophet", and sets him beside himself. Jesus doesn't speak of Jonah's word to Jeroboam, and these notes don't say more about the sign than his own words.

עֳנִיonisay o-NEE

Brown-Driver-Briggs: "affliction, poverty". Strong's: "depression, i.e. misery". "For the LORD saw the affliction of Israel" (14:26), the only time 2 Kings uses the word. It is the word of the LORD at the bush, "I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt" (Exodus 3:7), of the people who believed "that he had seen their affliction" (Exodus 4:31), and of what Israel was to say when bringing the firstfruits: "The LORD heard our voice, and saw our affliction" (Deuteronomy 26:7). Leah used it naming Reuben: "the LORD has looked at my affliction" (Genesis 29:32).