Day 107 – January 18, 2024: II Kings 6-10 and Psalm 140

It is easy to get a bit lost in which king is which. The way to keep track of it all is again to hear who is the king of Israel, which would be the north, and who is the king of Judah, which is the south. Remember Samaria is the capital of Israel, but we did hear about the golden calves that still existed in Bethel and Dan which used to be the two capitals before Samaria was appointed capital of the north. In these Scriptures we see a bit of an alliance between the North and the South, so much so that both of their kings, Joram of Israel and Ahaziah of Judah, were killed on the same battlefield by Jehu who then became king of Israel.

We also see the death of Jezebel who is thrown down from her window by two of her servants. It was a pretty brutal death. The sheer violence of all that happens in this chapter remind us of a different time when things were done quite differently. That is, at least, what we would like to think. The sheer violence that we see in Gaza, the sheer violence that we see Ukraine, the sheer violence that we see promulgated by our policies and institutions which keep the poor poor is not foreign to what we see in the Old Testament. Lest we find ourselves feeling better by calling others savages, it is fairly important to see our own savage tendencies which may be hidden, but exist nevertheless.