Day 183 (2 Kings 1-) - Year 4
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Hey, Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble, and I'm your host for The Bible Recap.

2 Kings opens by recounting Moab's rebellion against God and the people of Judah. And we'll come back to this when we get to chapter 3 in a few minutes. Meanwhile, in the northern kingdom of Israel, their king falls through a roof and is injured. He wants to know if he's going to recover. So he asks his people to seek answers from a false god, Baalzebub. You may recognize that name, but maybe you didn't know this is where it came from. And you may also recognize the name's meaning. It translates to Lord of the Flies.

But the one true God is privy to all that's happening, so he sends the angel of the Lord to give Elijah an assignment. Elijah needs to rebuke the king's servant for seeking out guidance from a false god and let them know their king Ahaziah will die. Ahaziah is not happy with Elijah's message, of course, so he sends 50 people to threaten him. But when they get there, Elijah pulls out his trademark moves of calling down fire from heaven and consumes them.

Ahaziah must think it's a fluke because he sends a second and then a third set of people to confront Elijah. By the third set, the captain is nervous because now 100 people are toast. The first two captains were pretty demanding of Elijah, but the third captain is more cautious and respectful, and he tries to talk reasonably with Elijah. Elijah lets him know that God's word is firm. Ahaziah will die.

After Ahaziah dies, his younger brother Jehoram becomes the new king of Israel. And this is worth noting, the king of Judah at this time is also named Jehoram. Some Bible translations try to help with this confusion by referring to the king of Israel as Joram instead. So you may not have to deal with this confusion at all, depending which translation you're using.

Speaking of potentially confusing names, chapter 2 recounts how Elisha takes over as Elijah's successor. As a refresher, it might help to remember that J comes before S in the alphabet, just like Elijah comes before Elisha. Everybody knows Elijah is about to be taken away. Elijah knows it, Elisha knows it, and all the prophets around them know it. Elisha refuses to leave him alone. He is not looking forward to Elijah's departure, even though that means he'll be getting a promotion.

Elijah basically says, "What do you want me to give you in my will?" And Elisha answers with something that is impossible for Elijah himself to give. Only God could give it. He wants a double portion of the spirit that Elijah has. This is reminiscent of how the firstborn son usually gets twice the inheritance of the other sons. But here, Elijah's apprentice doesn't want twice the livestock or twice the land. He wants twice the God saturation. This is an incredibly wise request.

Elijah says, that one's not up to me, buddy, but we'll ask God and see what he does. And then we do see what God does, and it's wild. He sends a chariot of fire down from heaven, a holy uber, if you will, to pick up Elijah. Fire from heaven has always been Elijah's signature move, but it has always been empowered by God. It's not like some kind of power or skill Elijah can pull out as a party trick whenever he wants.

And what I love about this is that it's not just a sign of Elijah's agency, but it's also a sign of the relationship between God and Elijah. Fire from heaven is their inside joke, so to speak. The fiery chariot takes him up into the heavens. And this is really interesting here because this culture has no notion of bodies going up to the heavens. Bodies go down to Sheol, the grave. So this really throws them off. A bunch of people go to see if they can find him or his body, but he's vanished, taken by God.

And I want to be careful not to say anything that Scripture doesn't say at this point. This particular passage gives us no indication that Elijah dies at this point. Usually when people die, the text will say something like, he slept with his fathers or something like that. But all it tells us about Elijah is that he was taken away. We'll link to a short article about this in today's show notes in case you want to read more.

Elisha sees all this happening, which is the sign that God is answering his request with a yes. Then Elisha's first three miracles signify his position as Elijah's replacement. First, he parts the water, just like Elijah did a few verses earlier and like Moses and Joshua have done in the past. Then he speaks life to the waters of Jericho, and he speaks death to the boys who mocked him.

Before you think Elisha is being too harsh with the boys, these people are living in a place of idol worship, rebelling against Yahweh. So God's covenant with Israel would put them under the death penalty anyway. And they seem to be telling Elisha, God's prophet, that they want him dead. They're telling Elisha to go up like Elijah had gone up. They're adding insult to injury by pointing out his baldness because the cultural norm for prophets is to leave their hair uncut and the law requires not cutting of their sideburns.

But Elisha might not have had any sideburns to cut. So these guys who are walking in idolatry are harassing God's prophet for breaking either a social standard or for breaking a law he wasn't breaking. That's ironic. Now let's get back to Moab's rebellion, which the author mentioned briefly at the start of today's reading and then tells in further detail in chapter 3. Moab has rebelled against Israel. And this may or may not be a reference to what we read about yesterday in Obadiah's prophecy about Moab.

Israel and Judah team up to go to war with Moab, but they make a poor decision on what route they should take because they used Apple Maps instead of Google Maps, or better yet, Yahweh. They end up in the desert with no water, and they finally decide to consult with Elisha. But Elisha is like, who, me? You want to talk to me? Don't you guys have your own pagan prophets back home? Ask them. But they beg him, and since he has a weak spot for Jehoshaphat, one of the few good kings of Judah, he relents and agrees to talk to them.

He requests a little background music first. This makes me think of the church services where the guitarist is finger-picking through a chorus during the altar call. Then he says, here's the deal. God's going to bring you water, then you'll be refreshed, then you'll go defeat Moab. And when you win, destroy everything on your way out of town.

They follow Elisha's commands, and as they're clearly winning the war, the king of Moab panics and makes an incredibly wicked plea to his god by offering his son up as a burnt sacrifice in hopes that it will bring them victory. Moab makes another strong push against Israel with great wrath, the text says, but Israel had already effectively won the battle, so they retreat back home, probably to avoid unnecessarily losing more men.

Chapter 4 is full of miracles Elisha performs, and I love that they're not all big things like national battles. They're things as seemingly small as helping a widow provide for her family.

God not only provides enough to help her from having to sell her sons into slavery, but also provides enough for them to live on afterward. And not only does God use Elisha to provide for the poor, but he also uses him to provide for the rich. Elisha meets a wealthy family who offers to help him with whatever he needs. The only thing the wife wants is a son. And Elisha prophesies that she'll have one. Awesome. But then the son dies. Not awesome.

She seeks out Elisha's help, and here he performs his most dramatic miracle. Raising the dead. Double portion indeed. This woman responds first with praise before she even goes to pick up her son. Elisha's final miracle in this chapter was purifying some putrid stew and multiplying food during a famine. I love that God used him in such a wide array of situations. What was your God shot today?

Mine was just a little phrase in 317 where Elisha is prophesying to the kings about how they'll defeat Moab. He says, God was going to provide in a way that was invisible to track. They wouldn't be able to see any progress, just results. This kind of thing is always such a trust-building exercise when we can't see how God is working, but we just have to believe that he is.

God does some of his best work in the dark. Just because it's dark, it doesn't mean that he doesn't have victory in store when the lights come on. Who knows what he's up to? But even earthly losses still add up to eternal victories in God's economy, so our hearts can be at peace. Regardless whether your next battle is a victory or a setback, he's where the joy is.

The Trinity is one of the most foundational truths of our faith. It can be really confusing, though, and if we aren't careful, we end up putting the three persons of the Trinity in a blender and mixing them all up together as though they're the same. While God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit are one, and they are unified in their will and purpose...

They're also distinct in their roles. We've built out a PDF that talks more about the roles of the persons of the Trinity using examples and scriptures, and we'd love to share that with you. If you want to get this PDF for free, all you have to do is go to thebiblerecap.com forward slash Trinity and submit your email address. That's thebiblerecap.com forward slash Trinity. The Bible Recap is brought to you by DGroup, discipleship and Bible study groups that meet in homes and churches around the world each week.