Sunday, June 3, 2012

Ahaziah's reign (2 Kings 1)

Back in the northern kingdom....

The Moabites rebelled against Israel during Ahaziah's reign. The text seems to suggest that it was Ahab's death that prompted this. The Moabites had been conquered during the days of David/Solomon and I wonder why it took so long for them to rebel.

One day, Ahaziah fell through the latticework in his palace in Samaria and is injured. He is bedridden and sends messengers to ask the god Baalzebub (Beelzebub) whether he will recover. An angel of God tells Elijah to chastise Ahaziah about giving up on God and that he will not get up from bed and in fact will die in the bed. Elijah intercepts Ahazia's messengers and relays the message to Ahaziah.

Ahaziah figures out that it was Elijah through a physical description of Elijah. Elijah is hairy and wears a leather belt.
Ahaziah sends groups of 50 men to arrest Elijah. Ahab is dead, but not Jezebel. Still, Elijah seems to have his confidence back because he is calmly waiting on a hill. Another possibility is that he might still want to die and hence does not care what Ahaziah's soldiers can do. Anyway, he calls down fire from heaven which kills two groups of the 50 soldiers. The captain of the third group of soldiers asks Elijah to spare his life and come with the soldiers. God, through an angel, tells Elijah to go. Elijah meets with Ahaziah and tells him that the will die in his bed.

Ahaziah dies without a son and his brother Joram becomes the next king of Israel.

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