Bible Reading Challenge Blog

We  have another list of miracles that Elisha is able to muster up and some are significant while others are pretty petty.  But they all lead to the same conclusion that Elisha was a man of God and someone that kings, both allies and enemies, feared and understood that God was on his side.  Let’s run down the miracles that he performed.  

There is the strange tale of Elisha’s minions, the Bible calls them his company of prophets, who are unhappy with the living arrangements and they go out to build individual log cabins in which to dwell.  One of the prophets was cutting down a log when his axe head came off.  He bemoaned the loss because it was borrowed and he would have to pay it back.  Elisha was able to make the axe head float.  That is a pretty insignificant miracle, but it does give us insight into the fact that Elisha had a whole lot of students who were under him.  So it definitely is not Elisha and the rest of the world.  He had folks on his side who were studying under him.

Elisha is also able to hear what the king says when he is in his bedchamber.  As a result he tells the king of Israel where the Arameans are going to be so that they can go somewhere else and be safe.  The king of Aram is pretty upset by this and demands that Elisha’s head be brought to him.  As the company of soldiers draw near Elisha is able to make them blind and transport them to Samaria, into the hands of the king of Israel.  Instead of killing this vowed enemy, the king serves them a meal, as God commanded, and is quite the host.  There is peace in the land for some time after this event. 

Once again the king of Aram is on the battle trail and they lay siege to Samaria, which is the capital of Israel.  The Israelites are starving and as a result they start eating their kids.  This scandalizes the king of Israel and he blames God and Elisha for the situation in which they find themselves.  He sends people to go kill Elisha because they (God and Elisha) are not making a difference in the current situation.  When things go poorly, people of bad character blame others for their misfortune.

The purported enemies, well at least certainly not allies, of Israel have a king and a commander who is very powerful and very well known.  This commander’s name is Naaman, but Naaman has a problem.  After they have been out robbing and looting and pillaging the Israelites one of the slaves that they picked up from Israel was serving Naaman’s wife.  Now, Naaman had a problem.  He had leprosy which is a bit of a bummer if you are worshiping other gods.  You can still make things work out, but it is quite a nuisance.  Now, if you are an Israelite, which Naaman was not, it would  disqualify you from worshiping God as you ought to.

This servant told Naaman that she knew that there was a man of God in Israel, that would be Elisha, who could heal him, if he was willing to be healed.  The commander asks the king, the king gives the green light and Naaman goes off to meet this man of God with enough booty to satisfy him.  The man of God doesn’t even meet the commander but just tells him to wash in the Jordan and then he should be good to go.  Naaman was furious.  First of all, how dare he not even meet me.  Secondly, how dare he tell me to wash in a second class river when we have the best rivers in the world.  Remember, pride does come before the fall and if we are so intent on how we look in a certain situation then we are going to miss the opportunities for healing and leading our people in the correct direction.  That is a lesson for all times,  including today.

He eventually listens, he washes, he is healed, and, this is key, he is converted to becoming a follower  of the Lord.  He committed himself, which probably also meant his family, to sacrifice  and worship only to the one true God.  Elisha refused to accept anything  for his time and his work.  Which was unusual for prophets.  In fact, it was so unusual that Elisha’s side kick, Gehazi, raced after Naaman wondering if he might have some of the booty which Elisha refused.  Of course Naaman complied, he was healed after all.

When Gehazi gets back Elisha confronts him and the leprosy of Naaman was then transfered to Gehazi and all of his future generations.  I don’t really understand why Gehazi did what he did, but he certainly did pay for it.  

It is hard to keep up with all of the miracles that happen in this one chapter at the hands of Elisha.  It is interesting how Elijah tends to be the prophet that takes the day and is the most well known, and yet Elisha does indeed seem to have double the Spirit of God that Elijah had.  Let’s list the miracles that happen in this chapter alone:  a widow saves her two children from slavery because Elisha allows oil to continually flow from a vessel to fill up all the empty jars that were brought to the widow.  A barren woman conceives and bears a son.  That son dies and over a long period of time is raised from the dead by Elisha.  Elisha changes a toxic soup to a delectable delicacy.  Elisha feeds hundreds of people with a meal only meant for him.

It is fascinating how far below the radar he flies, and yet he raised someone from the dead.  We don’t know much about Elisha but he is definitely a man of God and one that we would do well to see how his story ends in this book of the Bible.  Follow along with his life with me.  It makes me think of all the untold stories of the heroes who during this time are flying below the radar but making a substantial difference in the lives of people.  

We find a new king in Israel, the north, whose name is Jehoram who was slightly better than his dad in that he tore down the high places of Baal which were put in place by his father.  So he is slightly better, but still clung to the sin of going to foreign gods instead of worshiping the one Lord.  Moab comes into the picture as the king senses a weakness and becomes antagonistic against Israel and this new king.

So the new king gathers up any allies which he may have which includes the king of Judah, so the southern kingdom, and the king of Edom.  They seek out counsel not from the foreign gods, but actually from the Lord and wonder if there might be a prophet who could give them counsel as to whether they should attack or not.  They find Elisha.

Elisha is not very excited to see the king of Israel, the new one, and asks him why he doesn’t seek out the gods of his father?  He has a great answer and says that the Lord has summoned them so he is asking of the Lord’s prophets for advice.  Did you see what Elisha did next?  He asks for a musician.  He needs the presence of music, at least in this case, in order to feel the presence of God.  Yes, I said feel the presence of God.  That is pretty unique in this situation.  David used to play the harp for Saul and it would drive the evil spirits away.  Here Elisha uses music to discern the will of God.

He says that the battle will be favorable, and it was.  The king of Moab finds himself up against the wall, literally, and as a result he decides that maybe if he goes to the extreme then his gods will win the battle.  He sacrifices his eldest son and the Israelites are horrified by this action and retreat back to their cities.  In effect, the king of Moab saves his life by sacrificing his son.  It is the exact opposite of what we see in the sacrifice of our Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave of his life in order to save all of humanity.  

As we read this chapter we see a classic transition of power from Elijah on to Elisha who receives double the Spirit of Elijah.  And then there is a disturbing ending which causes us to catch our breath and think: Hmm, now that is weird.

Elijah is in his last days and wants to hand on his mantle, literally, to Elisha.  He does and he is carried away by chariots of fire, which again is an image that we are somewhat familiar with, at least in regards to the movie.  Once the mantle is passed on then Elisha begins his ministry in Jericho and transforms the city from a place of deadness, to a place of life.  He changes the water of the city so that it is able to be consumed and as a result it brings life.  Jericho is one of the oldest cities in the world and it continues to remain a viable city.  It is located in the midst of Palestinian territory and a place that is difficult to understand when you go there.  There is much conflict and much confusion as it finds itself really in hostile territory.  But it perseveres.

Then we find ourselves in the end of this chapter wishing this part wasn’t present, especially for those of us who are follicly challenged.  Elisha must have been bald because a band of boys came out and started to make fun of him saying: “Go away, baldhead!”  He cursed them in the name of God, yes, in the name of God, and two bears came out and killed 42 of those kids.  Not a great ending to the chapter.  It is a repetition of what we found in the earlier chapter: the moral of the story is: Don’t mess with the person of God… or don’t mess with God.

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.

The final chapter of I Kings brings us to the defeat of both the northern kingdom and the southern kingdom in a battle.  It  seems that consistently the northern kingdom does evil and the southern kingdom does what is right in the sight of the Lord.  I guess that makes sense since in the south we find Jerusalem and we find the temple.  There, you would think, is the desire and the pull to do what is God’s wish for the nation.

This chapter gives us the alliance between the north and the south as they look to take out the king of Aram.  The chapter begins with the statement that there had been peace between the north and Aram for years.  But the south asks for help in going against the king of Aram.  They agree and all of their prophets tell them that all will go well and that God was on their side.  Well, all of the prophets except for one.

The prophet was Micaiah, whom the northern king Ahab said he hated.  He complained because he said Micaiah was always saying not nice things about him.  Again, it seems like he is complaining and whining just like he was in the previous chapters.  Micaiah says that God is setting them up for failure by having the other prophets say that God was going to bring victory, while in fact God was setting a trap.  

No king likes what Micaiah has to say so they put him in prison until after the battle when he would be tried as a traitor.  The battle begins with the northern king disguising himself and the southern king going into battle as a king.  The soldiers of Aram target the one who looks like a king and Jehoshaphat runs away.  They realize he was not really that much to be afraid of, but in the process the northern king is wounded and killed.  

The chapter ends with the northern kingdom changing over its ruler and the southern kingdom continuing with Jehoshaphat who followed God’s commands and the northern king who did not.  Pretty common trend.  The north bad the south good.

Somehow Ahab gets away with…, well…, murder.  We find ourselves with King Ahab who sees a vineyard near his palace and thinks it would make a great private garden for himself.  He approaches the owner of the vineyard and asks if he would sell it or if he could give him another vineyard so that he could have the land for himself.  The man says no.  Ahab is sad, he seems actually like a child.  His wife, Jezebel, comes in and sees him upset and says: wait a minute, I thought you were the king of Israel.  As king you have absolute and total power and no one can tell you what they can and cannot do.  You, as the king, tell people what they are able to do.

Consistently we see that Ahab’s wife, Jezebel, is the driving force behind the bad decisions that Ahab makes.  It is Jezebel who threatens the life of Elijah in the earlier chapters.  It is Jezebel who tells Ahab to kill the person who would not sell the field and take it from them.  This story reminds me of King David who sinned against Bathsheba and sent her husband, Uriah, into a hopeless battle so that he would be killed.  It seems like a similar scenario.

After Ahab gets the land Elijah pays him a visit and tells him that he, his wife, his family will  die in the same way that the man who owned the vineyard died.  The Scripture tells us that there was no one as evil as Ahab in the history of Israel.  You would think that his future is before him, and not a positive future at that.  But instead that is not what happens.

Somehow Ahab  has a change of heart and his posture of confidence and defiance before the Lord changes to one of humility and sorrow.  He  puts  on sackcloth and God speaks to Elijah and says: give him a break.  All those bad things that I said would happen to him, well, let’s just push it off a generation.  That will happen to his children and not to him.  The chapter ends there.

God remains faithful to His people even when His people are not faithful to him.  So it is with king Ahab.  Ahab was never faithful to God, and now he is faced with sure destruction at the hands of a king who has allied himself with 30 other kings.  But God has other plans.  A prophet of Israel told Ahab that he would conquer and destroy the king who had plotted against him and threatened to come and take over his riches and his wives and children.  So they go into battle with a plan that was put forward by God and they win the battle.

The prophet tells the king to finish off the kings who had retreated.  The prophet warns Ahab that in the spring the king will gather his forces again and then it could spell trouble.  Ahab lets him go.  The spring comes and the enemy kings gather their forces again, but this time they had made made fun of God saying that He can only help His people if they fight from the mountains.  So they assembled on the plains and God still sent the people of Israel into battle and they won.

But Ahab again spared the enemy king because the king promised that he would restore the fortunes of Ahab and be an obedient servant to him.  Ahab buys it, but the prophet of the Lord was not happy.  He meets Ahab on the road and warns him that because he did not take care of the other king in a way that God wanted him to, that is kill him, then this king would one day take him and his family as his own.

Needless to say this chapter ends with King Ahab a bit upset because of this message, he was actually “resentful and sullen”.  We always think we know best even when it is fairly clear that our best is not in the best interest of the Lord or of His people.

This is also a pretty dense chapter, a lot takes place here.  Ahab does get home before the rain and tells his wife, Jezebel,  all that happened.  Jezebel is furious and puts an even larger bounty on Elijah’s head saying that by tomorrow he will have the same fate as the prophets that he had killed after his God won the battle of the gods.  This terrified Elijah, which is surprising to me because you would think that when your God just brought fire down from heaven that maybe a threat from a queen would be no big deal.  Well, not so much.  He was terrified and he ran away into the wilderness.  

God provides food and water for him and then he spends 40 days and nights in the mount of God.  Does that sound familiar?  Remember Exodus 34:28 where Moses spent 40 days and nights with God and came back down with the 10 Commandments?  Remember the 40 days and nights that it rained upon the earth while Noah was in the ark?  Remember the 40 days and nights that Jesus was in the wilderness while being tempted by the devil?  None of that happens by chance.  And each of those times a new normal is instituted which changed the course of human history.  This is another one of those times.

We also find in this Scripture the still small  voice which speaks to Elijah and gives him the plan forward: you are to anoint two new kings, one for the north and one for the south, and you are to anoint a prophet to take your place.  The whole prophet anointing a king is not that unusual, but a prophet anointing another prophet to take his place is highly unusual.  But that is what happens.  We are now introduced to Elijah’s successor, Elisha.  But before he takes on the mantle he stays home with mom and dad for one last meal.  You would think that is a bit of an inauspicious start, but he ends up pretty well in the end.