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2 Kings 15 · a question people ask

How can the chapter speak of Jotham's twentieth year, when it says he reigned sixteen years?

In the text

The chapter gives both numbers and doesn't explain how they fit. Hoshea killed Pekah "in the twentieth year of Jotham the son of Uzziah" (15:30), and Jotham "reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem" (15:33). The chapter also says that while his father lived, "Jotham, the king’s son, was over the household, judging the people of the land" (15:5), and it dates the start of Jotham's own reign to "the second year of Pekah the son of Remaliah king of Israel" (15:32). Readers explain the numbers in more than one way. 2 Kings doesn't say which, and no way of adding them up is given here.

The verses

“The LORD struck the king, so that he was a leper to the day of his death, and lived in a separate house. Jotham, the king’s son, was over the household, judging the people of the land.”
2 Kings 15:5 · World English Bible
“Hoshea the son of Elah made a conspiracy against Pekah the son of Remaliah, attacked him, killed him, and reigned in his place, in the twentieth year of Jotham the son of Uzziah.”
2 Kings 15:30 · World English Bible
“In the second year of Pekah the son of Remaliah king of Israel, Jotham the son of Uzziah king of Judah began to reign. He was twenty-five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Jerusha the daughter of Zadok.”
2 Kings 15:32-33 · World English Bible

From Favor's study of 2 Kings 15

2 Kings 15: So it came to pass

2 Kings 15 calls one king of Judah both Azariah and Uzziah, and Matthew's genealogy of Jesus uses Uzziah: "Uzziah became the father of Jotham" (Matthew 1:9). Of the five kings of Israel whose reigns it tells, four are killed by the man who reigns after them, the LORD's word to Jehu is kept, "So it came to pass" (15:12), and the king of Assyria first comes into Kings.

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Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Every answer cites the verses it rests on. What we believe · All Bible questions