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Expositor's Bible Commentary 2 Kings 1:1 Then Moab rebelled against Israel after the death of Ahab. AHAZIAH BEN-AHAB OF ISRAEL 2 Kings 1:1-18 B.C. 855-854 "Ye know not of what spirit are ye." - Luke 9:55 "He is the mediator of a better covenant, which hath been enacted upon better promises." - Hebrews 8:6 AHAZIAH, the eldest son and successor of Ahab, has been called "the most shadowy of the Israelitish kings." He seems to have been in all respects one of the most weak, faithless, and deplorably miserable. He did but reign two years-perhaps in reality little more than one; but this brief space was crowded with intolerable disasters. Everything that he touched seemed to be marked out for ruin or failure, and in character he showed himself a true son of Jezebel and Ahab. What results followed the defeat of Ahab and Jehoshaphat at Ramoth-Gilead we are not told. The war must have ended in terms of peace of some kind-perhaps in the cession of Ramoth-Gilead; for Ahaziah does not seem to have been disturbed during this brief reign by any Syrian invasion. Nor were there any troubles on the side of Judah. Ahaziah’s sister was the wife of Jehoshaphat’s heir, and the good understanding between the two kingdoms was so closely cemented, that in both royal houses there was an identity of names-two Ahaziahs and two Jehorams. But even the Judaean alliance was marked with misfortune. Jehoshaphat’s prosperity and ambition, together with his firm dominance over Edom-in which country he had appointed a vassal, who was sometimes allowed the courtesy title of king ( 1 Kings 22:47 2 Kings 3:9 comp. 2 Kings 8:20 )-led him to emulate Solomon by an attempt to revive the old maritime enterprise which had astonished Jerusalem with ivory, and apes, and peacocks imported from India. He therefore built "ships of Tarshish" at Ezion-Geber to sail to Ophir. They were called "Tarshish-ships," because they were of the same build as those which sailed to Tartessus, in Spain, from Joppa. Ahaziah was to some extent associated with him in the enterprise. But it turned out even more disastrously than it had done in former times. So unskilled was the seamanship of those days among all nations except the Phoenicians, that the whole fleet was wrecked and shattered to pieces in the very harbor of Ezion-Geber before it had set sail. Ahaziah, whose affinity with the King of Tyre and possession of some of the western ports had given his subjects more knowledge of ships and voyages, then proposed to Jehoshaphat that the vessels should be manned with sailors from Israel as well as Judah. But Jehoshaphat was tired of a futile and expensive effort. He refused a partnership which might easily lead to complications, and on which the prophets of Jehovah frowned. It was the last attempt made by the Israelites to become merchants by sea as well as by land. Ahaziah’s brief reign was marked by one immense humiliation. David, who extended the dominion of the Hebrews in all directions, had smitten the Moabites, and inflicted on them one of the horrible atrocities against which the ill-instructed conscience of men in those days of ignorance did not revolt. He had made the male warriors lie on the ground, and then, measuring them by lines, he put every two lines to death and kept one alive. After this the Moabites had continued to be tributaries. They had fallen to the share of the Northern Kingdom, and yearly acknowledged the suzerainty of Israel by paying a heavy tribute of the fleeces of a hundred thousand lambs and a hundred thousand rams. But now that the warrior Ahab was dead, and Israel had been crushed by the catastrophe at Ramoth-Gilead, Mesha, the energetic viceroy of Moab, seized his opportunity to revolt and to break from the neck of his people the odious yoke. The revolt was entirely successful. The sacred historian gives us no details, but one of the most priceless of modern archaeological discoveries has confirmed the Scriptural reference by securing and translating a fragment of Mesha’s own account of the annals of his reign. We have, in what is called "The Moabite Stone," the memorial written in glorification of himself and of his god Chemosh, "the abomination of the children of Ammon," by a contemporary of Ahab and Jehoshaphat. It is the oldest specimen which we possess of Hebrew writing; perhaps the only specimen, except the Siloam inscription, which has come down to us from before the date of the Exile. It was discovered in 1878 by the German missionary Klein, amid the ruins of the royal city of Daibon, {Dibon, Num 21:30} and was purchased for the Berlin Museum in 1879. Owing to all kinds of errors and intrigues, it did not remain in the hands of its purchaser, but was broken into fragments by the nomad tribe of Beni Hamide, from whom it was in some way obtained by M. Clermont-Ganneau. There is no ground for questioning its perfect genuineness, though the discovery of its value led to the forgery of a number of spurious and often indecent inscriptions. There can be no reasonable doubt that when we look at it we see before us the identical memorial of triumph which the Moabite emir erected in the days of Ahaziah on the bamah of Chemosh at Dibon, one of his chief towns. This document is supremely interesting, not only for its historical allusions, but also as an illustration of customs and modes of thought which have left their traces in the records of the people of Jehovah, as well as in those of the people of Chemosh. Mesha tells us that his father reigned in Dibon for thirty years, and that he succeeded. He reared this stone to Chemosh in the town of Karcha, as a memorial of gratitude for the assistance which had resulted in the overthrow of all his enemies. Omri, King of Israel, had oppressed Moab many days, because Chemosh was wroth with his people. Ahaziah wished to oppress Moab as his father had done. But Chemosh enabled Mesha to recover Medeba, and afterwards Baal-Meon, Kirjatan, Ataroth, Nebo, and Jahaz, which he reoccupied and rebuilt. Perhaps they had been practically abandoned by all effective Israelite garrisons. In some of these towns he put the inhabitants under a ban, and sacrificed them to Moloch in a great slaughter. In Nebo alone he slew seven thousand men. Having turned many towns into fortresses, he was enabled to defy Israel altogether, to refuse the old burdensome tribute, and to reestablish a strong Moabite kingdom east of the Dead Sea; for Israel was wholly unable to meet his forces in the open field. Month after month of the reign of the miserable son of Ahab must have been marked by tidings of shame, defeat, and massacre. Added to these public calamities, there came to Ahaziah a terrible personal misfortune. As he was coming down from the roof of his palace, he seems to have stopped to lean against the lattice of some window or balcony in his upper chamber in Samaria. It gave way under his weight, and he was hurled down into the courtyard or street below. He was so seriously hurt that he spent the rest of his reign on a sick-bed in pain and weakness, and ultimately died of the injuries he had received. A succession of woes so grievous might well have awakened the wretched king to serious thought. But he had been trained under the idolatrous influences of his mother. As though it were not enough for him to walk in the steps of Ahab, of Jezebel, and of Jeroboam, he had the fatuity to go out of his way to patronize another and yet more odious superstition. Ekron was the nearest town to him of the Philistine Pentapolis, and at Ekron was established the local cult of a particular Baal known as Baal-Zebub ("the lord of flies"). Flies, which in temperate countries are sometimes an intense annoyance, become in tropical climates an intolerable plague. Even the Greeks had their Zeus Apomuios ("Zeus the averter of flies"), and some Greek tribes worshipped Zeus Ipuk-tonos ("Zeus the slayer of vermin"), and Zeus Muiagros and Apomuios , and Apollo Smintheus ("the destroyer of mice"). The Romans, too, among the numberless quaint heroes of their Pantheon, had a certain Myiagrus and Myiodes , whose function it was to keep flies at a distance. This fly-god, Baal-Zebub of Ekron, had an oracle, to whose lying responses the young and superstitious prince attached implicit credence. That a king of Israel professing any sort of allegiance to Jehovah, and having hundreds of prophets in his own kingdom, should send an embassy to the shrine of an abominable local divinity in a town of the Philistines-whose chief object of worship was "That twice-battered god of Palestine, Who mourned in earnest when the captive ark Maimed his brute image on the grunsel edge Where he fell fiat, and shamed his worshippers"- was, it must be admitted, an act of apostasy more outrageously insulting than had ever yet been perpetrated by any Hebrew king. Nothing can more clearly illustrate the callous indifference shown by the race of Jezebel to the lessons which God had so decisively taught them by Elijah and by Micaiah. But " Quem vult Deus perdere, dementat Aerius, " and in this "dementation preceding doom" Ahaziah sent to ask the fly-god’s oracle whether he should recover of his injury. His infatuated perversity became known to Elijah, who was bidden by "the angel," or messenger, "of the Lord"-which may only be the recognized phrase in the prophetic schools, putting in a concrete and vivid form the voice of inward inspiration-to go up apparently on the road towards Samaria, and meet the messengers of Ahaziah on their way to Ekron. Where Elijah was at the time we do not know. Ten years had elapsed since the calling of Elisha, and four since Elijah had confronted Ahab at the door of Naboth’s vineyard. In the interval he has not once been mentioned, nor can we conjecture with the least certainty whether he had been living in congenial solitude or had been helping to train the Sons of the Prophets in the high duties of their calling. Why he had not appeared to support Micaiah we cannot tell. Now, at any rate, the son of Ahab was drawing upon himself an ancient curse by going a-whoring after wizards and familiar spirits, and it was high time for Elijah to interfere. {Lev 20:6} The messengers had not proceeded far on their way when the prophet met them, and sternly bade them go back to their king, with the denunciation, "Is it because there is no God in Israel that ye go to inquire of Baal-Zebub, the god of Ekron? Now, therefore, thus saith Jehovah, ‘Thou shalt not descend from that bed on which thou art gone up, but dying thou shalt die.’" He spoke, and after his manner vanished with no less suddenness. The messengers, overawed by that startling apparition, did not dream of daring to disobey. They at once went back to the king, who, astonished at their reappearance before they could possibly have reached the oracle, asked them why they had returned. They told him of the apparition by which they had been confronted. That it was a prophet who had spoken to them they knew; but the appearances of Elijah bad been so few, and at such long intervals, that they knew not who he was. "What sort of man was he that spoke to you?" asked the king. "He was," they answered, "a lord of hair, and girded about his loins with a girdle of skin." Too well did Ahaziah recognize from this description the enemy of his guilty race! If he had not been present on Carmel, or at Jezreel, on the occasions when that swart and shaggy figure of the awful wanderer had confronted his father, he must have often heard descriptions of this strange Bedawy ascetic who "feared man so little because he feared God so much." "It is Elijah the Tishbite!" he exclaimed, with a bitterness which was succeeded by fierce wrath; and with something of his mother’s indomitable rage he sent a captain with fifty soldiers to arrest him. The captain found Elijah sitting at the top of "the hill," perhaps of Carmel; and what followed is thus described:- "Thou man of God," he cried, "the king hath said, Come down." There was something strangely incongruous in this rude address. The title "man of God" seems first to have been currently given to Elijah, and it recognizes his inspired mission as well as the supernatural power which he was believed to wield. How preposterous, then, was it to bid a man of God to obey a king’s order and to give himself up to imprisonment or death! "If I be a man of God," said Elijah, "then let fire come down from heaven, to consume thee and thy fifty." The fire fell and reduced them all to ashes. Undeterred by so tremendous a consummation, the king sent another captain with his fifty, who repeated the order in terms yet more imperative. Again Elijah called down the fire from heaven, and the second captain with his fifty soldiers was reduced to ashes. For the third time the obstinate king, whose infatuation must indeed have been transcendent, dispatched a captain with his fifty. But he, warned by the fate of his predecessors, went up to Elijah and fell on his knees, and implored him to spare the life of himself and his fifty innocent soldiers. Then "the angel of the Lord" bade Elijah go down to the king with him and not be afraid. What are we to think of this narrative? Of course, if we are to judge it on such moral grounds as we learn from the spirit of the gospel, Christ Himself has taught us to condemn it. There have been men who so hideously misunderstood the true lessons of revelation as to applaud such deeds, and hold them up for modern imitation. The dark persecutors of the Spanish Inquisition, nay, even men like Calvin and Beza, argued from this scene that "fire is the proper instrument for the punishment of heretics." To all who have been thus misled by a false and superstitious theory of inspiration, Christ Himself says, with unmistakable plainness, as He said to the Sons of Thunder at Engannim, "Ye know not what spirit ye are of? I am not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save." In the abstract, and judged by Christian standards, the calling down of lightning to consume more than a hundred soldiers, who were but obeying the orders of a king-the protection of personal safety by the miraculous destruction of a king’s messengers-could only be regarded as a deed of horror. "There are few tracks of Elijah that are ordinary and fit for common feet," says Bishop Hall; and he adds, "Not in his own defense would the prophet have been the death of so many, if God had not, by a peculiar instinct, made him an instrument of His just vengeance." For myself, I more than doubt whether we have any right to appeal to those "peculiar instincts" and unrecorded inspirations; and it is so important that we should not form utterly false views of what Scripture does and does not teach, that we must once more deal with this narrative quite plainly, and not beat about the bush with the untenable devices and effeminate euphemisms of commentators, who give us the "to-and-fro-conflicting" apologies of a priori theory instead of the clear judgments of inflexible morality. "It is impossible not to feel," says Professor Milligan, "that the events thus presented to us are of a very startling kind, and that it is not easy to reconcile them either with the conception that we form of an honored servant of God, or with our ideas of eternal justice. Elijah rather appears to us at first sight as a proud, arrogant, and merciless wielder of the power committed to him: we wonder that an answer should have been given to his prayer; we are shocked at the destruction of so many men, who listened only to the command of their captain and their king; and we cannot help contrasting Elijah’s conduct, as a whole, with the beneficent and loving tenderness of the New Testament dispensation." Professor Milligan proceeds rightly to set aside the attempts which have been made to represent the first two captains and their fifties as especially guilty-which is a most flimsy hypothesis, and would not in any case touch the heart of the matter. He says that the event stands on exactly the same footing as the slaughter of the 450 prophets of Baal at Kishon, and of the 3000 idolaters by order of Moses at Sinai: the swallowing up of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram; the ban of total extirpation on Jericho and on Canaan: the sweeping massacre of the Amalekites by Saul: and many similar instances of recorded savagery. But the reference to analogous acts furnishes no justification for those acts. What, then, is their justification, if any can be found? Some would defend them on the grounds that the potter may do what he likes with the clay. That analogy, though perfectly admissible when used for the purpose to which it is applied by St. Paul, is grossly inapplicable to such cases as this. St. Paul uses it simply to prove that we cannot judge or understand the purposes of God, in which, as he shows, mercy often lies behind apparent severity. But, when urged to maintain the rectitude of sweeping judgments in which a man arms his own feebleness with the omnipotence of Heaven, they amount to no more than the tyrant’s plea that "might makes right." "Man is a reed," said Pascal, "but he is a thinking reed." He may not therefore be indiscriminately crushed. He was made by God in His image, after His likeness, and therefore his rights have a Divine and indefeasible sanction. All that can be said is that these deeds of wholesale severity were not in disaccord with the conscience even of many of the best Old Testament saints. They did not feel the least compunction in inflicting judgments on whole populations in a way which would argue in us an infamous callousness. Nay, their consciences approved of those deeds; they were but acting up to the standard of their times, and they regarded themselves as righteous instruments of divinely directed vengeance. Take, for instance, the frightful Eastern law which among the Jews no less than among Babylonians and Persians thought nothing of overwhelming the innocent with the guilty in the same catastrophe; which required the stoning, not only of Achan, but of all Achan’s innocent family, as an expiation for his theft; and the stoning, not only of Naboth, but also of Naboth’s sons, in requital for his asserted blasphemy. Two reasons may be assigned for the chasm between their moral sense and ours on such subjects-one was their amazing indifference to the sacredness of human life, and the other their invariable habit of regarding men in their corporate relations rather than in their individual capacity. Our conscience teaches us that to slay the innocent with the guilty is an action of monstrous injustice; {Comp. Eze 18:2-30} but they, regarding each person as indissolubly mixed up with all his family and tribe, magnified the conception of corporate responsibility, and merged the individual in the mass. It is clear that, if we take the narrative literally, Elijah would not have felt the least remorse in calling fire from heaven to consume these scores of soldiers, because the prophetic narrator who recorded the story, perhaps two centuries later, must have understood the spirit of those days, and certainly felt no shame for the prophet’s act of vengeance. On the contrary, he relates it with entire approval for the glorification of his hero. We cannot blame him for not rising above the moral standard of his age. He held that the natural manifestation of an angry Jehovah was, literally or metaphorically, in consuming fire. Considering the slow education of mankind in the most elementary principles of mercy and righteousness, we must not judge the views of prophets who lived so many ages before Christ by those of religious teachers who enjoy the inherited experience of two millenniums of Christianity. Thus much is plainly taught us by Christ Himself, and there perhaps we might be content to leave the question. But we are compelled to ask, Do we not too much form all our judgments of the Scripture narratives on a priori traditions and unreasoned prejudices? Can we with adequate knowledge and honest conviction declare our certainty that this scene of destruction ever occurred as a literal fact? If we turn to any of the great students and critics of Germany, to whom we are indebted for the floods of light which their researches have thrown on the sacred page, they with almost consentient voice regard these details of this story as legendary. There is indeed every reason to believe the account of Ahaziah’s accident, of his sending to consult the oracle of Baal-Zebub, of the turning back of his messengers by Elijah, and of the menace which he heard from the prophet’s lips. But the calling down of lightning to consume his captains and soldiers to ashes belongs to the cycle of Elijah-traditions preserved in the schools of the prophets; and in the case of miracles so startling and to our moral sense so repellent-miracles which assume the most insensate folly on the part of the king, and the most callous ruthlessness on the part of the prophet-the question may be fairly asked, Is there any proof, is there anything beyond dogmatic assertion, to convince us that we were intended to accept them au pied de la lettre ? May they not be the formal vehicle chosen for the illustration of the undoubted powers and righteous mission of Elijah as the upholder of the worship of Jehovah? In a literature which abounds, as all Eastern literature abounds, in vivid and concrete methods of indicating abstract truths, have we any cogent proof that the supernatural details, of which some may have been introduced into these narratives by the scribes in the schools of the prophets were not, in some instances, meant to be regarded as imaginative apologues? The most orthodox divines, both Jewish and Christian, have not hesitated to treat the Book of Jonah as an instance of the use of fiction for purposes of moral and spiritual edification. Were any critic to maintain that the story of the destruction of Ahaziah’s emissaries belongs to the same class of narratives, I do not know how he could be refuted, however much he might be denounced by stereotyped prejudice and ignorance. I do not, however, myself regard the story as a mere parable composed to show how awful was the power of the prophets, and how fearfully it might be exercised. I look upon it rather as possibly the narrative of some event which has been imaginatively embellished, and intermingled with details which we call supernatural. Circumstances which we consider natural would be regarded as directly miraculous by an Eastern enthusiast, who saw in every event the immediate act of Jehovah to the exclusion of all secondary causes, and who attributed every occurrence of life to the intervention of those "millions of spiritual creatures," who "walk the earth unseen both when we wake and when we sleep." If such a supposition be correct and admissible and assuredly it is based on all that we increasingly learn of the methods of Eastern literature, and of the forms in which religious ideas were inculcated in early ages-then all difficulties fire removed. We are not dealing with the mercilessness of a prophet, or the wielding of Divine powers in a manner which higher revelation condemns, but only with the well-known fact that the Elijah-spirit was not the Christ-spirit, and that the scribes of Ramah or Gilgal, and "the men of the tradition" and the "men of letters," who lived at Jabez, when they used the methods of Targum and Haggadah in handing down the stories of the prophets, had not received that full measure of enlightenment which came only when the Light of the World had shone. THE ASCENSION OF ELIJAH 2 Kings 2:1-18 THE date of the assumption of Elijah is wholly uncertain, and it becomes still more so because of the confusion of chronological order which results from the composite character of the records here collected. It appears from various scattered notices that Elijah lived on till the reign of Jehoram of Judah, whereas the narrative in this chapter is placed before the death of Jehoshaphat. When the time came that "Jehovah would take up Elijah by a whirlwind into heaven," the prophet had a prevision of his approaching end, and determined for the last time to visit the hills of his native Gilead. The story of his end, though not written in rhythm, is told in a style of the loftiest poetry, resembling other ancient poems in its simple and solemn repetitions. On his way to Gilead, Elijah desires to visit ancient sanctuaries where schools of the prophets were now established, and accompanied by Elisha, whose faithful ministrations he had enjoyed for ten almost silent years, he went to Gilgal. This was not the Gilgal in the Jordan valley so famous in the days of Joshua, {Jos 4:19; Jos 5:9; Jos 5:10} but in the hills of Ephraim, where many young prophets were in course of training. {2Ki 4:38} Knowing that he was on his way to death, Elijah felt the imperious instinct which leads the soul to seek solitude at the supreme crises of life. He would have preferred that even Elisha should leave him, and he bade him stop at Gilgal, because the Lord had sent him as far as Bethel. But Elisha was determined to see the end, and exclaimed with strong asseveration, "As Jehovah liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee." So they went on to Bethel, where there was another school of prophets, under the immediate shadow of Jeroboam’s golden calf, though we are not told whether they continued the protest of the old nameless seer from Judah, or not. {1Ki 13:1-34} Here the youths of the college came respectfully to Elisha-for they were prevented by a sense of awe from addressing Elijah-and asked him "whether he knew that that day God would take away his master." "Yes, I know it," he answers; but-for this is no subject for idle talk-"hold ye your peace." Once more Elijah tries to shake off the attendance of his friend and disciple. He bids him stay at Bethel, since Jehovah has sent him on to Jericho. Once more Elisha repeats his oath that he will not leave him, and once more the sons of the prophets at Jericho, who warn him of what is coming, are told to say no more. But little of the journey now remains. In vain Elijah urges Elisha to stay at Jericho; they proceed to Jordan. Conscious that some great event is impending, and that Elijah is leaving these scenes forever, fifty of the sons of the prophets watch the two as they descend the valley to the river. Here they saw Elijah take off his mantle of hair, roll it up, and smite the waters with it. The waters part asunder, and the prophets pass over dry-shod. As they cross over Elijah asks Elisha what he should do for him, and Elisha entreats that a double portion of Elijah’s spirit may rest upon him. By this he does not mean to ask for twice Elijah’s power and inspiration, but only for an elder son’s portion, which was twice what was inherited by the younger sons. "Thou hast asked a hard thing," said Elijah; "but if thou seest me when I am taken hence, it shall be so." The sequel can be only told in the words of the text: "And it came to pass, as they still went on, and talked, that, behold, there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, and parted them both asunder; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven. And Elisha saw it, and he cried, ‘My father, my father, the chariots of Israel, and the horsemen thereof!’ And he saw him no more." Respecting the manner in which Elijah ended his earthly career, we know nothing beyond what is conveyed by this splendid narrative. His death, like that of Moses, was surrounded by mystery and miracles, and we can say nothing further about it. The question must still remain unanswered for many minds whether it was intended by the prophetic annalists for literal history, for spiritual allegory, or for actual events bathed in the colorings of an imagination to which the providential assumed the aspect of the supernatural. We are twice told that "Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven," and in that storm-which would have seemed a fit scene for the close of a career of storm-God, in the high poetry of the Psalmist, may have made the winds His angels, and the flames of fire His ministers. For us it must suffice to say of Elijah, as the Book of Genesis says of Enoch, that "he was not, for God took him." Elisha signalized the removal of his master by a burst of natural grief. He seized his garments and rent them in twain. Elijah had dropped his mantle of skin, and his grieving disciple took it with him as a priceless relic. The legendary St. Antony bequeathed to St. Athanasius the only thing which he had, his sheepskin mantle; and in the mantle of Elijah his successor inherited his most characteristic and almost his sole possession. He returned to Jordan, and with this mantle he smote the waters as Elijah had done. At first they did not divide; but when he exclaimed, "Where is the Lord, the God of Elijah, even He?" they parted hither and thither. Seeing the portent, the sons of the prophets came with humble prostrations, and acknowledged him as their new leader. They were not, however, satisfied with what they had seen, or had heard from Elisha, of the departure of the great prophet, and begged leave to send fifty strong men to search whether the wind of the Lord had not swept him away to some mountain or valley. Elisha at first refused, but afterwards yielded to their persistent importunity. They searched for three days among the hills of Gilead, but found him not, either living or dead, as Elisha had warned them would be the case. From that time forward Elijah has taken his place in all Jewish and Mohammedan legends as the mysterious and deathless wanderer. Malachi spoke of him as destined to appear again to herald the coming of the Messiah, {Mal 4:4-6} and Christ taught His disciples that John the Baptist had come in the spirit and power of Elijah. In Jewish legend he often appears and disappears. A chair is set for him at the circumcision of every Jewish child. At the Paschal feast the door is set open for him to enter. All doubtful questions are left for decision until he comes again. To the Mohammedans he is known as the wonder-working and awful El Khudr . Elisha is mentioned but once in all the later books of Scripture; but Elijah is mentioned many times, and the son of Sirac sums up his greatness when he says: "Then stood up Elias as fire, and his word burned like a torch. O Elias, how wast thou honored in thy wondrous deeds! and who may glory like unto thee-who anointed kings to take revenge, and prophets to succeed after him-who wast ordained for reproof in their times, to pacify the wrath of the Lord’s judgment before it broke forth into fury, and to turn the heart of the father unto the son, and to restore the tribes of Jacob! Blessed are they that saw thee and slept in love; for we shall surely live!" The Expositor's Bible Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com . Used by Permission.

And Ahaziah fell down through a lattice. 2 Kings 1:1-6 Worldly royalty and personal godliness Homilist. I. WORLDLY ROYALTY IN A HUMILIATING CONDITION. 1. A king in mortal suffering. 2. A king in mental distress. 3. A king in superstitious darkness. II. PERSONAL GODLINESS DIVINELY MAJESTIC. Elijah is an example of personal godliness, though, in a worldly sense, he was very poor, and his costume seemed to be almost the meanest of the mean. But see the majesty of this man in two things. 1. In receiving communications from heaven. "But the angel of the Lord said to Elijah the Tishbite." 2. In reproving the king. Which is the better — a throne or a godly character? Fools only prefer the former. ( Homilist. ) Ahaziah T. Cain. I. THAT MEN IN CALAMITY NATURALLY SEEK A REFUGE. Whatever was the character of the accident which befell Ahaziah, it awakened in his mind the greatest concern, so that he was apprehensive of his life, and he wanted to know the issue of his affliction. And, so like Ahaziah, all men seek shelter when the storm gathers around them, that they may be shielded from its violence. II. THAT THE REFUGES OF THE WICKED ARE OFTEN VAIN. Ahaziah sent his messengers to Baal-zebub, as his only hope in distress, but they were not permitted even to reach the shrine of that deity. So that the god of Ekron was of no help to the King of Israel. III. THAT CALAMITY OR AFFLICTION ALONE IS NOT SUFFICIENT TO LEAD MEN TO REPENTANCE. Sometimes it is thought that by means of adverse circumstances men can be brought to God; but it was not so in the ease of Ahaziah. IV. THAT GOD WILL VINDICATE HIS OWN HONOUR AGAINST THE REBELLION OF THE WICKED. Ahaziah, by seeking to consult Baal-zebub, ignored Jehovah, and thus dishonoured Him in the eyes of the people. In whatever way men may refuse to acknowledge God, and rebel against Him, He, in His own time, will bring them to nought, and vindicate His character as a God of honour, majesty, mercy, and love. ( T. Cain. ) False religious appeals J. Parker, D. D. Ahaziah, the man of whom this chapter speaks, was the son of Ahab and of Jezebel. He was badly born. Some allowance must be made for this fact in estimating his character. Ahaziah fell through the lattice, and in his helplessness he became religious. Man must have some God. Even atheism is a kind of religion. When a man recoils openly from what may be termed the public faith of his country, he seeks to apologise for his recoil, and to make up for his church absence by creating high obligations of another class: he plays the patriot; he plays the disciplinarian — in some way he will try to make up for, or defend, the recoil of his soul from the old altar of his country. It is in their helplessness that we really know what men are. The cry for friendship is but a subdued cry for God. Sometimes men will invent gods of their own. It is said of Shakespeare that he first exhausted worlds, and then invented new. That was right. It was but of the liberty of a poet so to do. But it is no part of the liberty of the soul. Necessity forbids it, because the true God cannot be exhausted. Who can exhaust nature? Who can exhaust nature's God? Still, the imagination of man is evil continually. He will invent new ways of enjoying himself. He will degrade religion into a mere form of interrogation. This is what Ahaziah did in this instance: "Go, inquire of Baal-zebub" (ver. 2). All that we sometimes want of God is that He should be the great fortune-teller. If He will tell us how this transaction will turn out, how this speculation will fructify, how this illness will terminate, how this revolution will eventuate — that is all we want with Him; a question-answering God; a God that will specially take care of us and nurse us into strength, that we may spend that strength in reviling against His throne. How true it is that Ahaziah represents us all in making his religion into a mere form of question-asking; in other words, into a form of selfishness! Nothing can be so selfish as religion. ( J. Parker, D. D. ) Elijah and the god of Ekron H. T. Howat. The 5th of February 1685 witnessed a sad scene in the palace of Whitehall. The second Charles lay in the last agony, while, amid the courtly circle around his bed, stood Sancroft, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Ken, the Bishop of Bath and Wells. "The king is really and truly a Catholic," whispers the Duchess of Portsmouth to the French ambassador; "and yet his bed-chamber is full of Protestant clergymen." The fact had been long suspected, and gave additional earnestness to the holy men who desired to prepare the dying monarch for his inevitable and solemn change. "It is time to speak out, sir," exclaims Sancroft; "for you are about to appear before a Judge who is no respecter of persons." "Will you not die in the communion of the Church of England?" anxiously asks Ken; the king gives no response. "Will you receive the sacrament?" continues the bishop.; the king replies, "There is no hurry, and I am too weak." "Do you wish pardon of sin?" rejoins the favourite prelate, whose hymns are still sung in our Christian churches; the dying man carelessly adds, "It can do me no hurt" — on which, says Macaulay, "the bishop put forth all his eloquence, till his pathetic exhortation awed and melted the bystanders to such a degree, that some among them believed him to be filled with the same spirit which in the old time, had, by the mouths of Nathan and Elias, called sinful princes to repentance." To complete the parallel we propose, we must notice another incident in this dying scene. "If it costs me my life," exclaims the Duke of York, afterwards James II., "I will fetch a priest." With some difficulty he is found, He is smuggled into the royal presence, and the chamber of death. "He is welcome," says Charles. The monarch who refused to listen to Sancroft and Ken, had an open ear for Father Huddleston. The monarch who was unwilling to die in the Church of England, is perfectly willing to die in the Church of Rome, For three-quarters of an hour he "confesses," adores the "crucifix," receives the mysterious virtues of "extreme unction," and at length, with an apology to his attendants that he has been "a most unconscionable time dying," he breathes his last, an apostate from the faith inseparable from England's throne, and for his abandonment of which his own successor died an exile on the charity of a foreign land. Let Ahaziah take the place of Charles II.; let his idolatry be represented in the Popery of the British monarch; let the application to the god of Ekron be symbolised in the welcome given to the Romish monk; and, last of all, let Elijah by the bedside of the King of Israel, dealing faithfully with the soul departing there, be the type of good Sancroft and Ken by that other couch, using all their entreaties to make the sufferer think of his approaching end — and the parallel is well-nigh complete. The mention of Ekron and Baal-zebub introduces the subject of the heathen oracles, which played such an important part in all the nations of antiquity. Even among the Jews, it is believed by many, a true oracle existed — namely, the Urim and Thummim ("lights and perfections," as the words denote), on the high priest's breastplate; and that, when the Divine response was to be given, it was manifested either in an audible voice from the twelve precious stones, or in their appearance changing in keeping with the answer — brighter for an affirmative, and duller for a negative reply. What are usually known, however, as the heathen oracula were very different. They were also very numerous: the small province of Boeotia, in Greece, having twenty-five, and the Peloponnesus as many; but the most celebrated were Delphi, Dodona, and Jupiter Ammon in the deserts of Lybia. We get a glimpse of one of the oracular priestesses in the life of Paul, where the reference, we think, abundantly proves that the heathen oracles were under Satanic control. Such being admitted, we need not add they were only a system of imposture and falsehood, a "lying in wait to deceive," "cunningly devised fables," as Peter expresses it, where the allusion is unmistakable. There was more than mere fury about the Pythia; and it may be that the commonplace expression about there being "method in madness" has been literally borrowed from her. Never did ambiguity find itself of such use as on the consecrated tripod, or beneath the decayed oak-tree. Croesus., King of Lydia, asks what will be the issue of a war with Persia, and he receives as reply, "If you war with them, you will destroy a great kingdom." Pyrrhus, King of Epirus, desires to know what will be the result, if he assists the Tarentines against the Romans, and the response may either mean that he is to conquer the Romans, or that the Romans are to conquer him. In both instances, Croesus and Pyrrhus were defeated and ruined, but of course the oracle was right, and its credit maintained. Many lessons might be drawn from that darkened chamber, where lies the son of Ahab, arrayed in the last robe he will ever need. We mention only one — the folly of men when they forsake the ways of God to pay homage to idols of any kind, or in hopeless attempt to unveil the future. As to the former all the Ekrons of earth — whether pride of reason, or personal merit, or the general mercy of God — are only vanity and a snare; there is but one Rock of hope, security, and strength, "and that Rock is Christ." As to the latter — the attempt to unveil the future, we know what Saul made of it in his visit to Endor, and we have seen what Ahaziah made of it in his proposed message to Ekron. "Just men made perfect" have other occupation than to be the tools of the clairvoyant; and lost spirits, we may be sure, are in no mood for such work. Away with your mediums, their bandaged eyes and pencilled messages, hands waving in the air, and all the dark arts of this latest charlatanry, the most wretched and profane of all modern shams. "God is His own interpreter"; and neither to shrines at Ekron nor Boston, neither to Baal-zebub nor Daniel Home, will He give the power of unlocking the destinies of men. ( H. T. Howat. ) Religion only needed in trouble It is the habit of some people only to seek spiritual support in times of trouble and difficulty. When the clouds have passed they think no more of the truths that comforted them in sorrow. Dr. Moule, the Bishop of Durham, in his recently published book, From Sunday to Sunday , relates the following incident: "A friend told me the tale a few years ago as we paced together the deck of a steamship on the Mediterranean, and talked of the things unseen. The chaplain of a prison, intimate with the narrator, had to deal with a man condemned to death. He found the man anxious, as well he might be; nay, he seemed more than anxious — convicted, spiritually alarmed. The chaplain's instructions all bore upon the power of the Redeemer to save to the uttermost; and it seemed as if the message were received and the man were a believer. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, the chaplain had come to think that there was ground for appeal from the death-sentence. He placed the matter before the proper authorities, and with success. On his next visit, very cautiously and by way of mere suggestions and surmises, he led the apparently resigned criminal towards the possibility of a commutation. What would he say, how would his repentance stand, if his life were granted him? The answer soon came. Instantly the prisoner divined the position; asked a few decisive questions, then threw his Bible across the cell, and, civilly thanking the chaplain for his attentions, told him that he had no further need of him nor of his book." The Bible, like prayer, was never meant exclusively for the hours of darkness. It has a message for every time and every occasion of life. Prayer through fear Quiver. When I was at school in France, an English boy who was sleeping in the next bed to mine in a large dormitory said, "There will be thunder and lightning to-night!" When I asked, "How do you know?" he replied, "Because So-and-so," referring to a French boy who seldom prayed, "is saying his prayers." He meant that this boy only said his prayers when he was frightened, or by fits and starts. Ah! that is what we are all liable to do, and that is the very danger I want to guard you against. Beware that you do not pray by fits and starts. ( Quiver. ) Then the king sent unto him a captain of fifty. 2 Kings 1:9-16 The destruction of the two captains with their companies Outlines of Sermons by a London Minister. Consider — I. THE STEPS WHICH LED UP TO THIS MIRACLE. 1. Seeking help where it was not to be found, in direct violation of the law of God. If a member of a family were to break his arm, and instead of applying to the family surgeon who had in the past given full proof of his skill, were to seek the advice of a quack, he would be sinning against himself, and insulting the man who was able and willing to cure him. This was the conduct of Ahaziah towards the God of his nation. 2. A Divine rebuke (ver. 3). God does not leave transgressors to pursue their way without remonstrance. 3. A message to take Elijah prisoner. II. THE MIRACLE ITSELF. 1. The fire, if not miraculous in itself, was miraculous in its manner of executing the will of God. It came from heaven at the call of Elijah. 2. It was in keeping with the recent proof of Elijah's Divine commission given on Mount Carmel ( 1 Kings 18:38 ). 3. The miracle was arrested, and the prophet was arrested by a force not sent by the king (vers. 13-15).LESSONS. 1. Help must be sought where God has appointed that it shall be found ( John 14:6 ; Acts 4:12 ). 2. The responsibility of the individual man. 3. When God has spoken He cannot change His word unless the sinner changes his way. 4. The only strength that can conquer heaven is the strength of supplication. ( Outlines of Sermons by a London Minister. ) Man in three aspects Homilist. I. MAN RUINED THROUGH THE CONDUCT OF OTHERS. This awful judgment came upon them not merely on their own account, but as messengers of the king. Throughout the human race there are found millions groaning under the trials and sufferings brought on them by the conduct of others. II. MAN EMPLOYED AS THE EXECUTOR OF DIVINE JUSTICE. God's plan in this world is to punish as well as to save man by man. III. MAN STEPPING INTO THE PLACE OF THE DEAD. The King Ahaziah dies, Jehoram steps into his place. "One generation cometh, and another passeth away." Places, positions, and the various offices of life are no sooner vacated by death than they are stepped into by others. ( Homilist. ) On tolerance of error F. S. Webster, M. A. Now, it is obvious that, terrible as this judgment seems to us, it was not contrary to God's will. It is easy to say that the captain was only executing the king's orders, and that the fifty soldiers had no responsibility save that of obeying their leader. But we have still more right to say that He, who would have spared Sodom if ten righteous had been found in it, would not have consumed these two bands of fifty men if any God-fearing men had been amongst them. The king's attempt to seize the prophet was an open defiance of God, and, moderate as the wording of the captain's summons seems, the tone may easily have shown utter contempt both for God and for Elijah. We may well believe, therefore, that Elijah on this occasion, as when he destroyed the priests of Baal, knew that he was fulfilling God's purpose of judgment. But now, thank God, all judgment has been committed to Him who died for sinners and prayed for His murderers. The Cross of Christ has completely changed the attitude of Christian people towards the enemies of God. How dare we treat as reprobate those for whom Christ died! While the day of grace lasts there is hope for the very worst. There is little fear, however, of Elijah's example being followed in the present day. Protestants, at any rate, have given up issuing excommunications and hurling anathemas at the heads of notorious offenders. We are all for toleration now, and any attempt to restrain men's liberty of thought and action is hotly resented. Surely the pendulum has swung too far. We need not in our dread of religious intolerance lull into religious indifference, and regard all errors in faith and practice with complacent apathy. Truth must always be intolerant of error. Nine times nine are eighty-one, and you would not tolerate a teacher who said they were eighty. Truth cannot tolerate error without denying itself. Where personal comfort and safety are concerned society is absolutely intolerant. Few would tolerate having a smallpox patient in their house. Is it reasonable to be so intolerant of infection for the body and so careless as to moral infection for the mind and soul! Shall the authorities step in and strip off the very paper from the walls in their zeal for sanitation? and shall we allow men of known impurity of life and those who scoff at prayer to mix freely with our sons and daughters? The zeal of the Crusader who gloried in slaying the infidel is surely more righteous than the indifference of the modern Laodicean, who has not a single truth that he thinks worth fighting for. We want more hatred of evil in these days. The popular novelist delights in confusing the issues, and making sin seem right and beautiful. There is sacred liberty of thought which is the dearest right of Protestants, but it is not to be made a cloak of maliciousness. We have no right to think wrong thoughts. While all the progress in the world is due to freedom of thought, it is the correctness of the thought, not the freedom of it, which has achieved the good. Loose thinking is as bad as loose living. The man who is filled with the Spirit will witness plainly and fearlessly against both. ( F. S. Webster, M. A. ) The captains of Ahazian destroyed by fire J. S. M. Anderson, M. A. 1. See, here, the power of God, revealing His wrath from "heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men." In all, and each, of these cases, the authority was that of God, the power was that of God. Let no man, therefore, wrest this Scripture to his own destruction, nor look upon it as furnishing any precedent, or encouragement to persecute, in our own day, the enemies of the Lord. 2. Our duty is to confess Christ before men, and neither by word, nor deed, to compromise any, the minutest parts, of His gracious counsels. We must rebuke the gainsayers, recall the erring, confirm the wavering, and instruct the ignorant; but, in doing this, we must not take a single step in our own strength, or wisdom, we must look ever unto Him, who in this, as in every other case, hath left us "an example that we should follow His steps"; "not rendering evil for evil, or railing for railing; but contrariwise blessing, knowing that we are thereunto caned, that we should inherit a blessing." 3. Elijah's history furnishes us with fresh motives to prayer and perseverance. If God hath spoken, here, in the accents of terror, He hath spoken, also, in the accents of compassion; if the destruction of two of Ahaziah's captains, with their companies, points out the danger of persecuting the saints of God, and the speedy death of Ahaziah exposes, no less clearly, the wretched presumption of the rebel creature, when he attempts to set at nought God's counsels; yet, the withholding punishment from the third captain, who fell on his knees before Elijah, and entreated that the life of himself and of his followers might be precious in his sight, proves no less clearly that, in His wrath, the Lord remembers mercy! What greater encourage. ment to well-doing can the faithful servant of God receive, than the protection here vouchsafed to the Tishbite? 4. Assuredly, the records of Elijah's ministry have placed this blessed truth plainly and palpably before us; may they lead us more heartily to obey the will of Him who revealed it! May the lustre which the Gospel pours upon those records, reveal more distinctly the weakness of our own nature, and the glorious hope of redemption, set before us through Christ! May this guide our footsteps in peace along the course of the life that now is! ( J. S. M. Anderson, M. A. ) Destructive forces in the hand of God Dean Farrar. The Bible does occasionally lift the veil, and shows us how the destructive forces of nature have been the servants of the will of a moral God. It was so when the waters of the Red Sea returned violently on the Egyptian pursuers of Israel. It was so when at the prayer of Elijah the messengers of Ahaziah were struck dead by lightning. It was so when Jonah was fleeing to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord: "The Lord sent out a great wind into the sea, and there was a mighty tempest in the sea, so that the ship was like to be broken." It was so when there arose a great storm on the Sea of Galilee, that the disciples might learn to trust the power of their sleeping Master. And it was so when St. Paul, bound on his Romeward voyage, was wrecked on the shore of Malta. In all these cases we see "the wind and the storm fulfilling His word"; because the Bible enables us to see exactly how in each case God's word or will was fulfilled. But there is much in modern history, perhaps in our own lives and experience, which seems to us to illustrate the matter scarcely less vividly. Our ancestors saw God's hand in the storm which scattered the great Armada; and a century later the wind which buried the intruding successor of the saintly Ken beneath the chimneys of his own palace at Wells, seemed to pious Churchmen of the day to be not improbably a mark of the Divine displeasure. There are obvious difficulties which our Lord points to in His allusion to the loss of life at the fall of the Tower of Siloam; there are obvious difficulties in pressing such inferences too confidently or too far. But we may see enough, and we may have reason to suspect more that enables us to be certain of this, that nature is in the hand of the Ruler of the moral world, and that we may be sure of a moral purpose, whether we can exactly make it out or not, in the use which He makes of it. ( Dean Farrar. ) Let my life, and the life of these fifty thy servants be precious in thy sight. 2 Kings 1:13 The preciousness of life J. G. Tanner, M. A. Question naturally arises, Is life precious? How does God value it? And how should His servants regard it? I. THIS QUESTION SEEMS TO BE ANSWERED IN THE NEGATIVE. 1. By the general tenor of the Old Testament. Sinai thundered and lightened. The sight thereof was terrible. The voice was death. The Flood. Destruction of Sodom. Overthrows in the wilderness. Death of the two captains with their fifties. 2. By God's continued judgments on the impenitent. The Galileans in our Lord's day. "Except ye repent" ( Luke 13:1-5 ). Many instances of this in the New Testament: Ananias and Sapphira; Herod Agrippa, in Acts 12 . II. BUT FOR TWO REASONS THE REPLY IS IN THE AFFIRMATIVE. 1. Because many lives were spared in the Old Testament.(1) Through entreaty, as in the case of this captain. So Abraham entreated for Sodom. Moses and Aaron for the children of Israel ( Numbers 14:15-20 ; Numbers 16:22 ).(2) Through God's sovereign mercy. People of Nineveh. 2. Because the greatest life of all has been given for all the children of men. Herein the Mosaic law fulfilled, which said, A life for a life. Nothing so highly esteemed of God as "the precious blood of Christ." It was the full price of our salvation, and its efficacy is eternal ( Psalm 49:8 ; Hebrews 9:12 ). Application. 1. There is no need that you should doubt whether God will receive you. You need not even retreat, "Let my. life be precious in Thy sight." It. is precious. The best proof of this has been given. 2. Do not manifest an un-Christlike spirit. "Vengeance is mine." Our duty is plain, to be like Christ in valuing the lives of our brethren. He came not to destroy life, but to save. ( J. G. Tanner, M. A. ) Go down with him, be not afraid. 2 Kings 1:15, 16 The old courage again F. B. Meyer, B. A. The age of the Mosaic Law, which shed its empire over the times of Elijah, was preeminently the era in which those awful and splendid attributes of the Divine character — God's holiness, justice, righteousness, and severity against sin — stood out in massive prominence; as some of us, from the ancient capital of Switzerland, have seen the long line of Bernese Alps, rising above the plain in distant and majestic splendour; cold in the grey dawn; or flushed with the light of morn and eve. It was only when those lessons had been completely learnt, that man. kind was able to appreciate the love of God which is in Jesus Christ our Lord. That there was no malice in Elijah is clear from his willingness to go with the third captain, who spoke with reverence and humility. "And the angel of the Lord said, Go down with him; be not afraid of him. And Elijab went down with him unto the king." I. THE MEEKNESS AND GENTLENESS OF CHRIST. The only fire He sought was the fire of the Holy Ghost. "I came to cast fire upon the earth; and what will I if it is already kindled." He strove not to avenge Himself, or vindicate the majesty of His nature. "He endured the contradiction of sinners against Himself." II. THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF GOD EVER CONDONING DEFIANT AND BLASPHEMOUS SIN. We have fallen on soft and degenerate days when, under false notions of charity and liberality, men are paring down their conceptions of the evil of sin, and of the holy wrath of God, which is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. III. ELIJAH'S FULL RESTORATION TO THE EXERCISE OF A GLORIOUS FAITH. In a former time the message of Jezebel was enough to make him flee. But in this ease he stood his ground, though an armed band came to capture him. ( F. B. Meyer, B. A. ).

1:1-8 When Ahaziah rebelled against the Lord, Moab revolted from him. Sin weakens and impoverishes us. Man's revolt from God is often punished by the rebellion of those who owe subjection to him. Ahaziah fell through a lattice, or railing. Wherever we go, there is but a step between us and death. A man's house is his castle, but not to secure him against God's judgments. The whole creation, which groans under the burden of man's sin, will, at length, sink and break under the weight like this lattice. He is never safe that has God for his enemy. Those that will not inquire of the word of God for their comfort, shall hear it to their terror, whether they will or no. 1:9-18 Elijah called for fire from heaven, to consume the haughty, daring sinners; not to secure himself, but to prove his mission, and to reveal the wrath of God from heaven, against the ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. Elijah did this by a Divine impulse, yet our Saviour would not allow the disciples to do the like, Lu 9:54. The dispensation of the Spirit and of grace by no means allowed it. Elijah was concerned for God's glory, those for their own reputation. The Lord judges men's practices by their principles, and his judgment is according to truth. The third captain humbled himself, and cast himself upon the mercy of God and Elijah. There is nothing to be got by contending with God; and those are wise for themselves, who learn submission from the fatal end of obstinacy in others. The courage of faith has often struck terror into the heart of the proudest sinner. So thunderstruck is Ahaziah with the prophet's words, that neither he, nor any about him, offer him violence. Who can harm those whom God shelters? Many who think to prosper in sin, are called hence like Ahaziah, when they do not expect it. All warns us to seek the Lord while he may be found.