The LORD warned Israel and Judah by every prophet and every seer, and 2 Kings is the record of what happened when the warnings were ignored for two centuries.

John N. Oswalt highlights the prophetic value of Old Testament narrative in this detailed commentary: the kings of Israel and Judah persist in ignoring God's word, God remains faithful to that word and brings judgment on north and south alike, and yet the book closes with a flicker of hope that the promise will still be kept.