2 Chronicles 28:5
Wherefore the LORD his God delivered him into the hand of the king of Syria; and they smote him, and carried away a great multitude of them captives, and brought them to Damascus. And he was also delivered into the hand of the king of Israel, who smote him with a great slaughter.
2 Chronicles 28:5 belongs to the historical record of the kings, specifically to the account of the reign of King Ahaz over Judah. It records that the Lord his God delivered him into the hand of the king of Syria and also into the hand of the king of Israel, so that he was smitten, suffered a great slaughter, and had a great multitude carried away captive to Damascus. That delivering into defeat came because Ahaz departed from God, and because Judah sinned by abandoning true worship.
The reign of Ahaz was a time of sin and darkness. The defeat, slaughter, captivity, and great loss described in the verse display the distress that marked those years and the national ruin that followed the forsaking of true worship. Those defeats and that captivity form the setting for the effort of Hezekiah to restore worship in Jerusalem.
The distress recorded here also forms the setting for the prophecy's promise of hope given in that dark period. The events of the kings in this history provide a setting for Scripture's spiritual lessons and belong to God's historical revelation culminating in Christ.