March 31, 2020: Day 59 – II Kings 1

We begin a new book of the Bible and it is, as the title suggests,  a continuation of the last book which we looked at.  II Kings continues to cover not so much the kings, which it definitely does, but the prophets who spoke to these kings.  So we have to start the first chapter with our friend Elijah who speaks to the kings who come after those that we saw in I Kings.

We already saw this map and included it earlier, but it is important to see the geography of  where we find ourselves so that when we read that Elijah was a Tishbite, we see where Tish is located and we can see how he traveled.  We can clearly see the two kingdoms, Judah and Israel, both who were supposed to be people of God, laid out in a north and south division.  We see the hostile nations surrounding the two kingdoms each with their own gods:  Edom, Moab, Ammon, Philistia etc. 

In this first chapter we see some physical characteristics of Elijah.  Look at vs.7-8 and who does that sound like?  “A hairy man with a leather belt around his waist.”  That is John the Baptist who is described in Mark 1:6 “Now John was clothed with camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey.”  Yeah, they sound pretty much identical.

The king of Israel, Ahaziah, had fallen and couldn’t get up.  He wanted to know if he was going to get better or not so he sent people to ask the priests of a foreign god, Baal-zebub (sound familiar?) if  he was going to get better.  Elijah stops them on the way and tells them to turn around.  They do, the king then sends 3 squadrons of soldiers to capture Elijah.  The first two who come are destroyed by fire and the third grovels and Elijah goes with him to the king.  

It is a simple chapter, once he goes to  the king he tells him he is going to die. He dies and his brother takes his place.  The moral of the story, don’t mess with the man from God, actually, don’t mess with God…He is a jealous  God.