2 Kings Chapters 1-2 Commentary

Second Kings Chapters 1-2 Chapter 1 1:1 The Moabites were the descendants of Lot’s grandson Moab (Genesis 19:3038). Their land was immediately east of the Dead Sea and shared an indefinite border with Israel to the north at approximately the point where the Jordan River enters the Dead Sea. Moab had been a powerful enemy of Israel until the time of the judges, when, under the leadership of Ehud, it was subdued (Judges 3:30). It continued under Israel’s subjection until Ahab was defeated at Ramoth Gilead (1 Kings 22). At that time, taking advantage of Israel’s temporary weakness, Moab rebelled. The specifics of this rebellion are further described in 2 Kings chapter 3.

Here in chapter 1 the event is mentioned only briefly in order to place it chronologically within the reign of Ahaziah. 1:1 “After the death of Ahab”: “Second Kings begins on a positive note: Ahab is dead. You may think that is a nasty sentiment, but you must remember that Ahab was a conduit that allowed pagan sewage to engulf Israel (1 Kings 16:29-34), one who tolerated injustice (1 Kings 21), and who hated God’s word (1 Kings 22). But the Ahab’s always die— that is good news. The bad news is that Ahab Jr., follows him. Ahaziah is a chip off the old, dead block. Welcome to Israel, 852 B.C.” (2 Kings, “The Power and the Fury”, Dale Ralph Davis, p. 15).

1:2 “Ahaziah” (a huh ZIE uh), was the son and successor of Ahab and the ninth king over Israel (1 Kings 22:40,49,51). After a reign of only two years (853-852 B.C.), he fell through the lattice of his upper room in Samaria and was seriously injured. The lattice through which he fell may have been a wooden railing around the flat roof of his house, or a wooden screen shielding the window of an upper balcony.

1:3 “Go, inquire of Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron”: He sent messengers to a pagan shrine in the Philistine city of Ekron, which was about 15 miles south of Joppa. “Baal-Zebub”, was a localized version of the popular Baal of Syria. “Why did Ahaziah select this particular shrine? Maybe he had heard popular rumors of a miraculous cure at Ekron that gave that particular altar a reputation for

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success” (Dilday p. 259). Literally, the term “Baal-Zebub” means “lord of the flies”. Some say this would suggest that this idol was a god who warded off plagues that were brought by flies, or was thought to send such plagues against his enemies. Some writers think that the proper name for this idol was actually Baal-zebul (“Baal the prince”), and the writer of Second Kings deliberately changed the spelling to ridicule this deity. The New Testament “Beelzebub” was probably a contemptuous Jewish usage of the term (and was applied to Satan), “god of dung”.

1:3 “Is it because there is no God in Israel..”: In First Kings chapters 17-22, God had demonstrated that He was in charge of all things, including healing and death. Elijah is commanded to confront one last king and rebuke this son of Ahab for his unbelief. God is definitely offended when we ignore Him and seek help in other places! How do you think God feels when people, including some professed Christians, ignore the Bible and try to find the answers to all their questions in the writings of human wisdom? “What do we meet in this section of the story? Above all, an intolerant God. The suave, self-appointed connoisseurs of religious taste in our time will be aghast if ever they happen on to this story.

How can Yahweh in His wild, untamed holiness sentence a man to death simply for exercising his religious preferences in a critical hour of his life? Yahweh here is not the democratic sort of God people crave, according to the polls. Our times would prefer the mythology of the Ancient Near East, where gods and goddesses were permissive and casual and never insisted upon exclusive loyalty. But in the Bible we meet Yahweh and keep bashing ourselves against His first commandment (Exodus 20:3). Nor it is any better in the New Testament, Jesus goes around insisting folks must smash idols if they would follow as disciples (Mark 10:21-22)” (Dale Ralph Davis, pp. 16-17).

1:4 There is no comforting word for the apostate (2 John 9). 1:5-6 Apparently the messengers that had encountered Elijah didn’t even go to Ekron after that encounter. The words from Elijah caused the messengers to return instantly to the king. Yes, this message from God is severe—but is it equally merciful. This is Ahaziah’s last opportunity to repent. “Yahweh did not allow Ahaziah’s idolatry to proceed in peace but invaded his face and rubbed his face in the first commandment again. Again we see our uncomfortable God: Yahweh is furious, not tolerant; holy, not reassuring; loving, not nice. But there is love in His fury.

He won’t let you walk the path to idolatry easily” (Dale Ralph Davis p. 19).

1:7-8 Naturally the king was curious about the identity of this man his messengers had encountered. The king’s messengers described this man: He 2

was a hairy man, which could refer to long hair and a bread (Elijah may have been an Nazarite), or, usually it taken to describe his clothing: a rough, shaggy cloak with a leather belt at the waist. Compare with the clothing worn by John the Baptist (Malachi 4:5; Matthew 3:4). Ahaziah immediately knew that messengers had encountered Elijah! Elijah, who had condemned both his mother and father, was now condemning him. “Growing up as a child in the household of Ahab and Jezebel, Ahaziah must have heard his distressed parents speak often of their dreaded nemesis Elijah. It may be that Ahaziah, as a youth, had actually seen the rugged prophet at the palace in Samaria” (Dilday p. 260).

Centuries later, John the Baptist lived as a Nazarite in the desert, eating locusts and wild honey. As he called the people to repentance in preparation for the coming Messiah, he exhibited the same rugged characteristics as Elijah. He even wore camel’s-hair robes and a leather belt (Matthew 3:4). Since the scribes believed that Elijah would return to prepare the way of the Messiah, it is no surprise that the priests and Levites, seeing John’s hairy garments, asked him, “What then? Are you Elijah?” (John 1:21) Ahaziah has been given the opportunity to repent. Unlike his father Ahab who did humble himself, Ahaziah is stubborn and defiant to the end, in fact, he tries to have Elijah arrested. Notice that Ahaziah is so ill that he does not know if he is going to survive (1:2), yet facing a possible death does not necessarily bring with it any good sense. “Staring our end in the face, whether slowly or suddenly, ought to drive us to sobriety and truth. Death is no time to be playing with dead-end religious options. We must have the One who has the words of eternal life (John 6:68). But here is Ahaziah about to step off the edge of life with nothing but Baal, or, I should say, with nothing” (Dale Ralph Davis p. 18).

1:9 The king immediately sends a professional soldier with a detachment of fifty men to arrest Elijah and they find him on the top of a hill. 1:10-12 Elijah didn’t come down, but the fire of God did! In these verses two groups of soldiers are consumed by God’s judgment.

Elijah didn’t cause the fire to fall from heaven, God did that. God is demonstrating how He feels when people show contempt for His message and His messengers! “For this action Elijah has been denounced as a cruel and vindictive person. What his critics fail to realize is that God’s emissary was waging a bitter encounter far beyond the perimeter of the fifty soldiers. He was fighting for the life of his nation, for spiritual values long covered under the rubbish of lasciviousness, and for the souls of men (Ephesians 6:12)” (Winters p.

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176). “Elijah seized on the aptness of the prophetic title ‘man of God’; he was indeed God’s man! Since that was so, such ungodliness (trying to arrest a prophet)—even in the line of duty—would be judged” (Gaebelein p. 171). Jezebel had made Elijah run once, but he refuses to run now. The fire that fell on a sacrifice on Mount Carmel can also fall on people and cities (Genesis 19). “The first two captains come strutting onto the scene each with his own brand of arrogance” (Dale Ralph Davis p. 20).

1:13-14 Yet some people will learn. “He is different in his posture (13), his purpose (13), and in his petition (13)…There is nothing wrong with terror, so long as it is a true terror for that can become as it did for him a saving terror.

Better to be trembling and alive than a puddle of carbon” (Dale Ralph Davis pp.

23,24). This captain, unlike the first two, humbles himself before Elijah. This man understands that the prophet serves an authority other than, and much greater than, the king and that he cannot manipulate the Lord’s messenger.

Carefully observe that our attitude towards God determines His attitude towards us. “Having heard of the fate of the previous units, he acknowledged that this man of God held his life and the lives of his men in his hand…The honor of Elijah and the God he represented had been vindicated” (Smith p. 542). “But the third captain, perhaps casting an anxious glance at the two blackened spots of scorched earth, fell on his knees and pleaded” (Dilday p. 261). In Luke 9:54-56, when Samaritan villagers refused to receive Jesus, James and John suggested that He repeat Elijah’s miracle and call down fire on them.

1:15 See how God is constantly encouraging Elijah, “do not be afraid of him”.

1:16-18 Once in the king’s presence, Elijah delivers his life’s message one last time. Because of his idolatry, Ahaziah will die. “Elijah has demonstrated God’s sovereignty over Baal (1 Kings 17-19). The unnamed prophets showed that the Lord rules hill and valley (1 Kings 20). Elijah and Micaiah claimed that the Lord punishes sin and directs battles (1 Kings 21-22). But the prophet’s messages fall on deaf ears, and truth must be taught all over again in each new situation” (House p. 244). Since Ahaziah died when he had no male heir, his brother “Jehoram” succeeded him as king. Note, Jehoshaphat and Ahab both named their sons “Jehoram”, and this may have been intended as a symbol of the friendship between the two kingdoms. In addition, both men with the name of Jehoram reigned at the same time. 2 Kings 1:17 states that the northern Jehoram came to the throne in the second year of the reign of the southern Jehoram. On the other hand, 2 Kings 3:1 states that the northern Jehoram came to the throne in the eighteenth year of Jehoshaphat. What this means is that Jehoshaphat and his son Jehoram had a coregency which began in 853 B.C. 4

“The charge is sometimes leveled that Elijah’s fight from Jezebel after the victory on Mount Carmel greatly compromised his ministry in Israel and weakened his impact thereafter. But that does not seem to have been the case. After his meeting with God on Mount Horeb, he went back to active service. He met both Ahab and his son Ahaziah and pronounced judgment on both. And especially he attended to the guilds or associations of the prophets (“sons of the prophets”)” (Vos p. 137).

“There’s something haunting then about this record of Ahaziah’s brief tenure. In the supreme need of his life he did not seek the real God—that’s all we know about him” (Dale Ralph Davis p. 25).

Chapter 2 2:1 The reader has known since 1 Kings 19:16 that Elisha will take Elijah’s place, but how that transition would occur has remained a mystery, until now. Elijah, will be taken to heaven in a whirlwind (compare with Genesis 5:24; Hebrews 11:5). After his call at Abel-meholah (1 Kings 19:21), Elisha had become the constant companion and faithful attendant of Elijah. In the course of their travels the two prophets arrived at Gilgal. 2:2-6 As God was about to translate Elijah, He was preparing all parties for that momentous event. Elijah himself had been specifically told (2:3,5) and the members of the prophetic guilds had also learned it (2:3,5). Elisha also knew.

We aren’t told why Elijah wanted Elisha to stay behind. Maybe he wanted to spare Elisha the pain of seeing him leave. “He didn’t want his departure to be a self-aggrandizing spectacle. He knew God was going to perform some kind of miracle to bring his earthly life to an end, and he didn’t want to ‘show off’” (Dilday p. 265). It could be that he wanted to be alone during these final hours.

But Elisha refused these requests and demonstrated his devotion to Elijah by wanting to be with him every moment right up until the end. Notice that even though Elijah knew this was to be his last day on earth, his life was so ordered that he humbly would be about his normal duties when the Lord would take him. “Elijah would have no self-gratifying show of form toward himself.

Whatever glory would occur on that day would be to God, not to his prophet.

Nor would there be tears of sorrow, for it would be a day of joyous triumph for the Lord. Elijah’s wish was for God’s work to go on uninterrupted, with or without his presence” (Gaebelein p. 175). The prophet’s movement began at

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upper Gilgal (not the famous Gilgal of Joshua 4:20 near the bank of the Jordan), and moved steadily eastward and downward through Bethel and Jericho to the Jordan River. The distance from Bethel to Jericho was about 15 miles. Evidently there were two prophetic centers or schools, one in Bethel and one in Jericho.

2:3 “the sons of the prophets”: Evidently during this time of utter apostasy in Israel, there were prophetic schools in the days of Elijah and Elisha (1 Kings 20:35; 2 Kings 2:3,4,6,15; 5:22; 6:1; 9:1). Young men dedicated their lives to God and were trained by men like Elijah and Elisha to proclaim the word of God boldly and without compromise. 2:5 The expression, “from over you” (“from over your head”), implies the lifting of supervision and governance or instruction. 2:6 The polite form of Elijah’s command indicates that the prophet’s words were permissive rather than prohibitive. Compare Elisha’s dedication with the words of Ruth (Ruth 1:16-17).

2:7 Fifty young prophets stood at a distance to witness the events that would unfold. 2:8 Then Elijah took his cloak and rolled it up to use it as a kind of stick to part the waters of the Jordan. 2:9-10 I don’t think that Elisha was asking for twice as much of the prophetic spirit as Elijah had possessed (i.e., let me be twice as good as you were). Rather, his request relates to Deuteronomy 21:17, where the firstborn son was entitled to a double share of the father’s estate. Elisha wanted to be designated as Elijah’s rightful heir. Granting such a request was not directly within the power of Elijah. Only God could designate a man as spiritual leader of the nation. If God should grant Elisha the privilege of actually witnessing the translation of Elijah into heaven, this would be the sign that his request had been granted.

Final Moments 2:11-12 Elijah’s departure was sudden and more spectacular than expected. God sent a heavenly limo to pick up Elijah, a chariot of fire and horses came right between Elijah and Elisha and left one and took the other! Wow, talk about going out in style! The term “father” suggests that Elisha view Elijah as his teacher, perhaps he even felt like he had been Elijah’s adopted son. At this point, in grief Elisha tore his clothes.

2:12 “The Chariots of Israel and its horsemen!”: “Elisha is probably referring to Elijah himself. Chariots and horses were military material. To have Elijah as like

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having the army of God. He was the true defense system of Israel. As someone said, ‘Elijah was worth divisions’” (Dale Ralph Davis p. 28).

2:13-14 “Where is the Lord, the God of Elijah?”: This is not a statement of unbelief, but rather, Elisha wanted to know immediately, if God was going to be with him as God has been with Elijah. Is the all-powerful God who had so blessed the ministry of Elijah, is that God going to continue to fight for His people? This was a prayer that God would show forth His great power to and through his obedient servant. And his prayer was immediately answered!

2:15 The younger prophets immediately perceived that this was their new teacher. They accorded to Elisha the same recognition which they previously had given to Elijah. It appears that these young prophets couldn’t work the miraculous, and it also appears that such men were in training and where basically “on call”. From time to time God would use one of these men to deliver a message.

2:16-18 Apparently these sons of the prophets thought that God had merely whisked Elijah away only to cast him down in some remote place. They wanted to make a thorough search of the rocky ridges and ravines of the Transjordan territory. They could not bear the thought of leaving the old prophet in such a barren spot. Elisha knew the effort would be futile, but finally gave into their request.

2:17 “Until he was ashamed”: That is, until he didn’t have any heart to refuse them. Evidently, Elisha saw the love and devotion for Elijah in their hearts and realized that such a search, while futile, was still a demonstration of devotion to the old prophet. Once they returned, Elisha did rebuke them for not listening to him (2:18). Hopefully this will have taught these young men the valuable lesson of listening to what Elisha says.

2:19-22 Elisha performs a second miracle, at Jericho he purifies the water supply.

Besides helping the people of the city, this miracle demonstrated that Elisha was in fact the successor of Elijah and that God’s work would continue without Elijah. “Here and in other places, history teaches us that when God lays aside one tool He quickly picks up another” (Dilday p. 273).

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“Go up, you baldhead” 2:23-25 This is probably one of the most intriguing sections of Scripture.

Remember, that the word “young lad”, can refer to men in their teens and twenties (1 Kings 3:7). Hence, this group of kids probably isn’t a group of grade school children, but is more probably a gang of teenage (or older) thugs.

Remember, in the city of Bethel was one of the calf-shrines that had been established by Jeroboam--this a center for apostasy. The taunt, “go up, you baldhead”, may have been mocking the ascension of Elijah. Right here we have an official challenge to Elisha’s God-appointed ministry. Apparently they were saying something like, “Yea, go up to heaven, like your former master”, but in a mocking fashion, denying that such had happened to Elijah. It may have been something like, “Why don’t you also leave us—we don’t want you around any more than Elijah”. “The jeering ‘Go on up!’ may be a reference to Elijah’s translation with the sense of ‘Go away like Elijah’, perhaps spoken in contemptuous disbelief’” (House p. 260). These youths were typical of a nation that mocked God, despised His words, and scoffed at His prophets (2 Chron.

36:16). Many feel that this was an organized demonstration against the chief prophet of God as he passed through town. How many college age students have basically done or been encouraged to do the same thing? When proabortion or pro-homosexual protesters march, they might as well be holding signs which read, “Go up, you baldhead”.

Elisha uttered a curse against these thugs and God immediately acted! Note, nothing is said about what Elisha said in the curse. It may have been something like, “May evil and calamity fall upon you”. Under the Law of Moses, God’s ministers were required to curse the disobedient (Deut. 27:14-26). It seems to me that the two bears coming out and killing these thugs, was God’s idea. Here is God’s attitude towards youthful rebellion and defiance towards a man of God and the word of God (Proverbs 30:17). “And then there were the bears. We must size up these bears correctly. They were covenant bears. The covenant curse of Leviticus 26:22 (“I will let loose the wild beasts among you, which shall rob you of your children”) explains the episode. Covenant infidelity (hated of Yahweh’s representative and, perhaps, persisting in Bethel’s perverse worship) has brought the covenant curse” (Dale Ralph Davis p. 39). While this event was shocking, it was actually a very mild warning to the nation of what would soon follow if things didn’t change in Israel. No wild animals could match the savage cruelty that would be heaped upon this hardened people by that specially-prepared rod of God’s anger, the Assyrian army; and that rod would strike within four

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generations. The fact that these bears only tore up these youths was a manifestation of God’s grace! Therefore, in this chapter we see that God can bring healing (Jericho) and judgment (Bethel). He can bring both healing and harm, deliverance or disaster. God not only takes His word seriously, but He equally takes seriously how people treat His representatives. So Elijah has been taken, but God remains, still just as powerful and merciful as ever.

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