Who Wrote 2 Kings: Anonymous Authorship and Its Ending
Short answer: No author is named anywhere in 2 Kings. The book itself identifies its sources as the annals of the kings of Israel and Judah, and its last dated event is the release of Jehoiachin from prison in Babylon, recorded in 2 Kings 25:27-30. That means the final form of the book comes from after that release, during the Babylonian exile or the early return, but the writer never tells us his name. Jewish tradition and many Christian readers have linked it to Jeremiah, and that is possible, but Scripture does not say so. What we can say with confidence is that 2 Kings is anonymous, composite, and finished in exile, shaped by a compiler who drew on older royal records and prophetic narratives.
The book never names its writer
Nothing in 2 Kings introduces an author. Unlike the prophetic books, which open with a superscription naming the prophet, 2 Kings simply begins with the continuation of Elijah and Ahab. The same is true throughout. Not once does the text say who wrote it, where it was written, or when the writer lived. That silence is itself evidence and it should keep us honest. Any answer to the question of who wrote 2 Kings is an inference from the book's contents, not a citation of the book's own claim.
This is not a problem for the doctrine of inspiration. The New Testament treats the historical books as Scripture without ever identifying their human authors. 2 Timothy 3:16 speaks of all Scripture as God-breathed without attaching authorship to every book. God can speak through an unnamed historian as surely as through Isaiah. The absence of a name is a fact the text gives us, and we do no service to the Bible by inventing a name to fill the gap.
So the question is not, who signed 2 Kings, but who compiled it and from what. The answers must come from internal clues: the sources it cites, the perspective it takes, the date of its final event, and the way it overlaps with other Old Testament books. Those clues point strongly in one direction, even if they stop short of a name.
The sources the compiler cites
The writer repeatedly points to written records. The standard formula refers the reader to the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel and the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah. These are royal archives, not the biblical books we call Chronicles. The compiler used them, summarized them, and expected readers to know they existed. That means 2 Kings is not raw eyewitness testimony from a single observer but a careful work built on earlier documents.
That process is normal in Scripture. Luke says he investigated everything carefully from the beginning before writing his account, and the Gospel writers used sources. Deuteronomy 17:18-20 required the king to write himself a copy of the law in a book, which shows Israel already valued written records of God's word at the highest level of national life. A historian in Israel or Judah who compiled royal annals and prophetic stories was doing something the culture already understood and honored.
Recognizing this does not undermine the truth of 2 Kings. It explains features like sudden shifts in style, repeated summary formulas, and the occasional note that the rest of a king's deeds are recorded elsewhere. The compiler selected, arranged, and interpreted his material so that the reader would see the hand of God in Israel's history. Selection and arrangement under God's providence are exactly how Scripture often comes to us.
Evidence that the book was finished in exile
The final paragraphs of 2 Kings anchor the book in time. 2 Kings 25:27-30 describes the release of Jehoiachin from prison in Babylon in the thirty-seventh year of his captivity, during the reign of Evilmerodach. That is the latest event in the book, and it is reported without any correction back to the land. The story ends in Babylon, with a Davidic king still in exile, receiving a daily allowance for the rest of his life.
That ending tells us the book reached its final shape after that release. A writer in Jerusalem before the exile could not have recorded it. The tone is also exilic: the temple is burned, the city is fallen, the kings are gone, and yet the writer keeps pointing to the word of the Lord as the true explanation. The book is a sermon to people who have lost everything and need to know that God had warned them and that God had not abandoned his promise to David.
This fits the traditional setting of Babylonian exile for the final editing of the Former Prophets. It also explains why the writer cares so much about the northern kingdom's fall in 722 BC and Judah's fall in 586 BC. He is writing for a people who experienced both judgments and who need to understand why. The date points to exile, even if the name remains hidden.
What the ending of 2 Kings reveals
The closing scene is deliberately placed. After chapters of defeat, the writer ends with a small act of mercy: Evilmerodach lifted up the head of Jehoiachin king of Judah out of prison, as 2 Kings 25:27 puts it. That phrase, lifting up the head, is a picture of restoration and favor. The king who was taken captive is treated kindly, given a seat above the other kings, and granted a regular allowance. It is a quiet ending, not a triumphant one.
Why end there? Because the Davidic line has not been extinguished. The writer wants the reader to see that God remembered his covenant with David even in Babylon, and that the future of the promise rests with a prisoner who has been shown mercy. Jeremiah 52:31-34 preserves the same event with slightly different wording, which is important for the authorship question. Two accounts of the same event with different details suggest that more than one writer or editor worked with the traditions about the fall of Jerusalem.
The ending also functions as a hinge into the return. The reader knows the story is not finished, but the writer stops with the head lifted up. It is the last historical note in the book, and it dates the final form of 2 Kings to sometime after 561 BC, when Jehoiachin was released. Nothing later than that is recorded, which is a strong clue to when the compiler put down his pen.
The case for Jeremiah and why it falls short
An old tradition, reflected in the Talmud and repeated by many later readers, attributes 2 Kings to Jeremiah. The appeal is understandable. Jeremiah lived through the fall of Jerusalem, and 2 Kings 24:18 names Zedekiah's mother as Hamutal the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah, which is a different Jeremiah but has encouraged the link. Jeremiah 52 is nearly identical to the closing chapters of 2 Kings, which suggests shared material or a common source.
But the case is circumstantial. The Jeremiah of Libnah in 2 Kings 24:18 is explicitly identified by his town, and he is not the prophet from Anathoth. Jeremiah did prophesy in Egypt after the fall of Jerusalem, according to Jeremiah 43 and 44, while 2 Kings ends in Babylon with Jehoiachin, which sits awkwardly with Jeremiah as the final author. The tradition is ancient and worth knowing, but it is tradition, not Scripture, and it should not be taught as certain.
Other candidates have been proposed, including Baruch the scribe and various prophetic circles, but these are guesses. The honest position is that the author is unknown. What we can say is that 2 Kings was compiled from royal records and prophetic accounts, that the final edition comes from the exile, and that the writer wanted his people to see the word of the Lord standing behind both the fall of Samaria and the fall of Jerusalem.
Why the anonymity should shape how we read
Anonymity is not an accident to be overcome. It pushes the reader away from the human author and toward the message. The book is not the memoir of a famous prophet; it is a theological history of two kingdoms measured against the covenant. The compiler cares about whether kings did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, and he evaluates them by that standard, not by their wealth or military success.
Consider the northern kingdom's decline. 2 Kings 8:20-22 reports that Edom revolted from under the hand of Judah during Jehoram's reign, a small political loss that signaled deeper decay. 2 Kings 18:1-8 introduces Hezekiah as a rare bright spot, a king who trusted the Lord and kept his commandments in the third year of Hoshea son of Elah king of Israel. These notes are not neutral. They are the compiler's verdicts, and they assume the reader knows the law.
Deuteronomy 17:18-20 is the backdrop for all of this. The king was to write himself a copy of the law and read it all his days, so that his heart would not be lifted up above his brothers. When kings ignored the law, the book calls it out. The anonymity of the author keeps our attention on that standard and on the God who gave it, rather than on the scribe who applied it.
How 2 Kings relates to 1 Kings and the wider history
Second Kings is the continuation of 1 Kings and originally stood with it as a single work, often called the Former Prophets along with Joshua, Judges, and Samuel. The division into two books comes from later scroll and codex practice, not from a change of author or theme. Reading 2 Kings without 1 Kings is like reading the second half of a sentence. The divided kingdom, the ministry of Elijah, and the sins of Jeroboam all begin earlier and carry forward.
The larger history runs from conquest to exile. Joshua tells how Israel entered the land, Judges shows the chaos of the pre-monarchy period, Samuel and Kings trace the rise and fall of the monarchy. 2 Kings brings the story to the deportation, and the ending with Jehoiachin keeps a thread of hope alive. That thread leads to the return under Cyrus and ultimately to the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew 1, where Jehoiachin appears in the line of the Messiah.
The book also overlaps with Chronicles, Isaiah, and Jeremiah. The Chronicler retells much of the same material from a priestly and temple-centered perspective, and Isaiah and Jeremiah preserve oracles from the same period. These overlaps do not contradict 2 Kings; they show that Israel's history was remembered and interpreted from several angles by writers who shared a common conviction that God rules the nations.
Biblical fidelity check
The passage establishes real historical events: Zedekiah's reign, the fall of Jerusalem, and the release of Jehoiachin in Babylon. It also establishes the theological verdict of the compiler, that the exile came because of covenant unfaithfulness and that God remembered his promise to David. The passage does not establish who wrote 2 Kings, and it does not claim Jeremiah or anyone else as author. It also does not give us the exact date of final composition, only the earliest date, since the last event recorded is 561 BC.
A common misreading says that because 2 Kings is anonymous it cannot be trusted or is somehow less than Scripture. That is wrong. Inspiration does not depend on a named author. Hebrews has no named author either, and the church has always received it as Scripture. Another misreading assumes Jeremiah must have written it because Jeremiah 52 resembles 2 Kings 25. Similarity points to shared sources or a common tradition, not to identical authorship. Faithful Christians have differed on this question for centuries, and we should hold our conclusions with appropriate humility.
Other passages that speak to 2 Kings 24:18-25:30
Several related studies help set this ending in context. 1 Kings 1: David Acts as Adonijah Rebels shows the beginning of the succession struggles that shaped the Davidic line. 1 Kings 10: Solomon's Wisdom and Wealth Tested traces the zenith of the monarchy that later kings squandered. 1 Kings 11: Solomon's Heart Turns and Kingdom Divides explains the division that 2 Kings assumes throughout. And 1 Kings 12: Rehoboam's Folly and Jeroboam's Idols shows the idolatry that the compiler of 2 Kings judges in nearly every northern king.
Frequently asked questions
Did Jeremiah write 2 Kings?
We cannot say for certain. An ancient Jewish tradition links the book to Jeremiah, and Jeremiah 52 closely parallels the closing chapters. But the text never names an author, and the Jeremiah of Libnah mentioned in 2 Kings 24:18 is a different man from the prophet. Jeremiah also ministered in Egypt after Jerusalem fell, while 2 Kings ends in Babylon. The tradition is worth knowing but should not be presented as settled fact.
When was 2 Kings written?
The final form cannot be earlier than the release of Jehoiachin, recorded in 2 Kings 25:27-30 and dated to the thirty-seventh year of his captivity, around 561 BC. The book was likely completed during the Babylonian exile or shortly after, using older royal records and prophetic narratives. The sources it cites, the annals of the kings of Israel and Judah, were earlier documents the compiler summarized.
Does the anonymity of 2 Kings undermine its authority?
No. Inspiration rests on God as the ultimate author, not on a human byline. Several biblical books are anonymous, including Hebrews and many Psalms. The church has always recognized 2 Kings as Scripture because of its content, its use by Jesus and the apostles, and its consistent witness to the covenant. An unknown human author does not weaken the book's authority or its truthfulness.
