Elisha's ministry (2 Kings 4)

Elijah had more political ministry, but Elisha worked more directly with common people.

A widow of one of the prophets owes debts and the creditor threatens to take her children as slaves. According to the Mosiac law, the kids would not have been permanent slaves. That said, there is no indication that Mosiac law was being followed.

She has a flask of oil, so Elisha tells the woman to fill her empty jars with the oil. Further, he tells her to borrow as many jars of oil as possible and fills those with oil. Miraculously, all the jars were filled with oil and when they could not find any more jars, that is when the oil stopped flowing. This was enough to pay off here debts.

Another time, Elisha is treated kindly by a woman. She wants nothing in return, but Elisha's servant says that she has no son and her husband is old. Elisha tells her that a year later, she will be holding a child. This happens. A few years later, the same boy dies while working in the field, perhaps of heatstroke. The woman runs go find Elisha and brings him to the dead child. Elisha puts his mouth on the child and lays on top of the kid and the child comes alive.

During a famine, Elisha's purifies a stew that had been accidentally poisoned by wild mushrooms. He also feeds a hundred people with only a sack of grain and 20 loaves of bread.

He is handy to have around. He also does not seem to be hunted by the regional authorities, nor have the doubts of faith that Elijah had.

Joram's alliance with Jehosophat and Edom (2 Kings 3)

Joram is a better ruler than Ahab, Jezebal, and Ahaziah in that he took down a great statue of Baal, but that's it. He still was a wicked ruler.

He mobilized an army to retake Moab. He garnered up an alliance between Jehosophat and the king of Edomites to go with him. This coalition of 3 armies runs out of water in the desert and they begin to panic.

Joram even blames the impending disaster on God, saying that God let them to attack Moab. This is strange because the text is silent about him asking God if he should, which probably means it did not happen.

Jehosophat asks if there is a prophet from God that they could ask. They find Elisha, who wants nothing to do with them, but helps out of respect for Jehosophat. He prays and prophesies that water will enter the area. Sure enough, the next day, water mysteriously appeared in the camp. The Moabite army woke up and perceived it to be blood and that the 3 armies fought and killed each other. This is a somewhat understandable interpretation because the Moabites were part of the alliance that broke and self-destructed when it went to attack Jehosophat.

The Moabites run into the Israelite camp, but the Israelites are not dead. They wake up, prepare for battle and destroy the Moabites.

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.

The rest of Jehosophat's reign (2 chronicles 20)

Jehosophat faced an invasion from a coalition of the armies of the Ammonites, Edomites, and Moabites.

He responded by pleading to God for deliverance, asking the people to fast, and then leading the people in a group prayer before the temple. The spirit of God fell on one of the people who prophesied that God will destroy the army before they even have to fight it. The next day, the God caused the coalition of armies to start fighting amongst themselves to the point that the entire army died. Jehosophat's troops went out to find a field full of dead bodies and wealth that it took them 3 days to plunder it.

The rest of his reign was peaceful. He had another blemish in that he agreed partner with Ahaziah (Ahab's wicked son) go build a trading fleet. God did not like this partnership with the wicked king so God destroyed the trading fleet before it set sail.

I am not sure why God did not like the trading fleet idea. I would think God would want to encourage southern and northern kingdom partnership and reconciliation. But maybe not if one of the kings is bad.

He also was not able to completely remove the pagan shrines from the land.

He became king when he was 35 and ruled for 25 years.

Ahab and Jehosophat (1 Kings 22; 2 Chronicles 18)

Jehosophat's son married Ahab's daughter. This may have been what God had originally wanted to reunify the two countries as the punishment of Solomon was to be temporary. The marriage did not reunify the countries, but it did result in a military alliance.

There was peace between Israel and Syria for 3 years. We also don't know when the event with Naboth's vineyard occurred. But it sounds like their was peace and calm with Elijah away.

One day, Jehosophat is visiting Ahab when Ahab proposes a joint military strike to retake Ramoth-Gilead. Jehosophat agrees but wants to know what God says before sending the troops.

Ahab brings in his 400 prophets (I guess he has surrounded himself with hundreds of Baal/Ashereth prophets again). These prophets promise him victory. Jehosophat realizes that none of them are prophets for God, so he asks for one. Ahab is aware of one, Micaiah. Where is Elijah? We don't know.

Ahab's problem with Micaiah is that he never has good things to say. We don't know for sure, but Micaiah may have been one of the prophets that interacted with Ahab in the previous chapters (i.e., the prophet who disguised himself as an injured soldier) during Elijah's absence.

Micaiah is instructed to only promise victory, which he does in a sarcastic manor. When pressed further, he then explains that in a vision he saw the people of Israel scattered like sheep without a shepherd. Then, Ahab tells Jesophat, "see, he only has bad things to say.".

Micaiah then gives an interesting account of a heavenly discussion that is reminiscent of Job 1-2. There in the heavens, God asks for suggestions among the spirits to entice Ahab to attack Ramoth-Gilead. One spirit suggested that he could fill the mouths of Ahab's prophets with lies. God agreed to this suggestion and tells the spirit to do it. This story prompts one of the other prophets, perhaps their leader, to strike Micaiah.

Ahab then orders Micaiah arrested and bound until Ahab comes back safely. As if that would help.

Ahab and Jehosophat lead a joint military strike at Ramoth-Gilead. The Syrians go after Jehosophat thinking that he is Ahab. God saves Jehosophat the Syrians realize he is not Ahab. Ahab dresses like a common chariot soldier and is struck by a random arrow. He dies at sunset.

His chariot was washed back in Samaria and dogs came to lick the blood, in fulfillment of Elijah's prophecy.

Ahab's son Ahaziah becomes the next king of Israel. He practiced Baal worship and had a short 2 year reign. If the rest of Elijah's prophecies come true, his reign will end very badly.

Naboth's Vineyard (1 kings 21)

Naboth owns a vineyard near to Ahab's palace in Samaria. Ahab offers to buy it or exchange the land with another vineyard. Naboth declines because it is the vineyard of his ancestors. According to Mosiac law, real estate had to stay within the family. The exception was if the property was in a walled city, which could be bought and sold without restriction. Since it is next to the king's palace, it probably was within a walled city.

Ahab is upset by this and his wife Jezebel comes up with an idea to frame Naboth for cursing God. He is dragged outside the city and stoned to death. After Naboth is dead, Ahab goes to claim the vineyard as his personal property.

God is mad and sends Elijah. Elijah meets Ahab at the vineyard. Ahab has a sarcastic and somewhat humorous greeting: "so my enemy, you have found me.". Ahab knows that he did something bad and now Elijah shows up. He knows he's guilty. But God has let him off the hook before, gave him time to repent after the drought, and saved him from invasion twice.

Not this time.

Elijah proclaims that Ahab will not have a dynasty. In fact, his family will be wiped out and dogs will eat Jezebel's body Uh oh.

Ahab finally gets the message. He responds by fasting, mourning, and wearing a burlap sack. God respects this repentance and tells Elijah that the destruction of Ahab's family will happen after Ahab dies.

Verse 25 says that Ahab did a lot of things under Jezebel's influence. We saw that with the way Ahab interacted with people. He was very susceptible to outside pressure, either from his wife, God, prophets, or other rulers (i.e., his social peers). Sometimes it led to repentance, sometimes criminal activity. He seemed to lack internal initiative.

Verse 26 says that God was most mad about Ahab worshipping idols. So, despite all the other things he did or allowed Jezebel to do (killed Naboth, killing God's prophets) this is what God hated most. It also leaves open the possibility that maybe God was more angry at Jezebel for encouraging Ahab to do some of the things. It also indicates that Ahab did not get the message at Mount Carmel and kept worshipping Baal.

Jehosophat's reign (2 Chronicles 17)

Jehosophat had a peaceful reign and followed in the footsteps of Asa, his father. He did not worship Baal and took down the Ashereth poles. As a result, God blessed him with peace and made the surrounding nations fear him. The neighboring Philistines and Arabs even brought him gifts.