Its context within the Bible is also significant. Four of the Hebrew Bible’s books—First and Second Samuel and First and Second Kings—describe sequentially the rule of David’s royal dynasty over its entire four-century span. In this official history, Second Kings’ account of the Deliverance of Jerusalem occupies a literary function that, as noted, Ronald Clements describes as “a kind of high-point in the whole story of the monarchy which begins in 1 Samuel 8 and does not conclude until 2 Kings 25.”
