I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on 2 Kings 1-2.

    There are two elements of the final story about Elijah (the story about Elijah being taken up into heaven is really about Elisha). When King Ahaziah was hurt he sent messengers to consult the priests of Baal in Ekron to know if he would get better. Elijah intercepted the messengers and sent them back to Ahaziah to tell him that because he chose to consult Baal rather than God, he would not get better and would soon die. One thing I have noted in previous years when doing this blog is that Ahab, Ahaziah’s father, behaved as if Baal and God (Yahweh) were the same, until someone called him on it. Ahaziah’s name means “Yah (God) grasps” and would probably have been understood to mean “God holds”. So, his seeking to consult the priests of Baal in Ekron rather than a prophet in Israel was a repudiation of God, while attempting to present himself as God’s anointed ruler over Israel. This serves as a warning to us about using our claims of representing God to direct others away from God.
    The second element of this story comes from those sent by King Ahaziah to bring Elijah to him. The first two officers considered the order from the King sufficient to compel Elijah. Yet, they greeted Elijah as a man of God. Elijah demonstrated that his power, as a man of God, exceeded that of the officer, who was a man of the king. The third officer recognized this lesson and, rather than ordering Elijah, requested that he accompany him to the king. This element of the story reminds us that while we should respect government authorities God has the final say. As servants of God we cannot be compelled to violate God’s commands.

    When Elijah confronted King Ahab and the prophets of Baal he stood alone. Here in the story of him being taken up in a whirlwind, and in several later stories concerning Elisha, there are groups of prophets who serve the Lord and work with Elisha. It seems to me that Elijah was going from town to town to give final instructions to these groups of prophets before he died (similar to the way Paul visited the Churches on his final trip to Jerusalem). After the confrontation with the prophets of Baal, Elijah felt alone and isolated. God told him that he was not alone, that He had reserved a number in Israel who remained faithful. The Bible does not tell us outright, but Elijah clearly made sure that he maintained contact with those who worshiped the Lord after that. Something we should be sure to do.
    I would have stopped after the first segment but I felt it necessary to comment on the story where Elisha cursed the “boys” who bullied him. A lot of atheists and other skeptics use this story and emphasize how Elisha called bears to maul to death “children”. Some of the sources I have read claim that the word translated as “boys” in this translation and as “children” in others refers to teenagers. But even if this was a group of grade school children, there were at least 42 of them. Think about how threatening a group of 42 unsupervised 8-10 year old boys shouting abusively at a lone traveler would be. I think it likely that these boys were older than that, more like in the 13-16 year old range. I think this was a gang who harassed and robbed travelers, think of MS-13 (a gang which has been in the news lately and is largely composed of teenagers).