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2 Kings 23 · a question people ask

2 Kings says there was no one like Hezekiah (18:5), and no king like Josiah (23:25). Which was it?

In the text

The book says both, each in its own words, and doesn't compare them. Of Hezekiah: "He trusted in the LORD, the God of Israel, so that after him was no one like him among all the kings of Judah, nor among them that were before him" (18:5). Of Josiah: "There was no king like him before him, who turned to the LORD with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his might, according to all the law of Moses; and there was none like him who arose after him" (23:25). Each verse says what it praises: of Hezekiah, "He trusted in the LORD" (18:5); of Josiah, that he "turned to the LORD with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his might" (23:25). The book sets the two down as it tells them and says no more about how they fit, and these notes don't either.

The verses

“He trusted in the LORD, the God of Israel, so that after him was no one like him among all the kings of Judah, nor among them that were before him.”
2 Kings 18:5 · World English Bible
“There was no king like him before him, who turned to the LORD with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his might, according to all the law of Moses; and there was none like him who arose after him.”
2 Kings 23:25 · World English Bible

From Favor's study of 2 Kings 23

2 Kings 23: No king like him

One Hebrew verb, shuv, stands in two verses side by side: Josiah "turned to the LORD with all his heart" (23:25), and "the LORD didn’t turn from the fierceness of his great wrath" (23:26), because of Manasseh. And after Joshua 5, in the order of the books, the word Passover doesn't come again until the Passover he kept "as it is written in this book of the covenant" (23:21).

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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