2 Kings 1 (NIV)✞: The LORD‘s Judgement on Ahaziah
Passage
As I get back into Kings1 the action kicks off quick, in a story that feels kind of pointless for all who are involved – other than to show that the LORD reigns, and that people sometimes make bad decisions.
When we left 1 Kings Ahaziah was the king of Israel, but not much more was said about him. As we continue with his story, however, we’re told that he has fallen through the lattice of his upper room and injured himself. It sound like a pretty serious injury, as well, because he sends messengers to inquire of one of the gods as to whether he’ll recover.
Not the God, unfortunately, he sends his people to inquire of Baal-Zebub, “the god of Ekron” (v. 2✞) to find out if he’ll live. Not that “Baal-Zebub” is that god’s real name, as the ESV Study Bible notes point out:
2 Kings 1:2 … Baal-zebub means “lord of the flies” and is probably a deliberate Hebrew corruption of “Baal-zebul” (“Baal the exalted” or “Baal/master of the height” or possibly “Baal/master of the dwelling”; cf. note on Matt. 10:25), intended to express the authors’ scorn of or hostility toward this “deity.” Ahaziah looks for help from this local manifestation of the god Baal (see 1 Kings 16:31–33), perhaps regarding the Ekronite version of the deity as especially powerful.
ESV Study Bible
Regardless, Ahaziah’s messengers head out but the LORD tells Elijah in advance to go and meet them before they can get to Ekron. Elijah is to deliver a rhetorical question, and an answer to Ahaziah’s question:
- “Is it because there is no God in Israel that you are going off to consult Baal-Zebub, the god of Ekron?” (v. 3✞)
- For this reason the LORD has decreed that Ahaziah will not recover, he’ll die in the bed he’s lying in.
So Elijah goes and meets the messengers, who immediately return back to Ahaziah, who wants to know how they got back from Ekron so fast, but they tell him that Elijah met them on the way, along with the message he’d delivered for the LORD. (It turns out the messengers didn’t even know who Elijah was, but when they describe him to Ahaziah the king recognizes him.)
Now the story takes a bit of a turn: Ahaziah is no longer sending anyone to inquire of Baal-Zebub, he is sending a company of 50 men to find Elijah, presumably to drag him back before the king. But when they find him he’s sitting on a hill, and they say, “Man of God, the king says, ‘Come down!’” (v. 9✞). Elijah responds, “If I am a man of God, may fire come down from heaven and consume you and your fifty men!” (v. 10✞) – whereupon it immediately does!
But Ahaziah is not deterred. He sends another 50 men, with the same message: “Man of God, this is what the king says, ‘Come down at once!’” (v. 11✞).
And… I know it’s a small point, but it’s the “at once!” that gets me. Not only are these men not afraid of what just happened to the previous 50 men, apparently they feel they need to be more stern with Elijah! As if the man who just called down fire from heaven to consume 50 men would suddenly be cowed before a second group of 50 men simply because they use a louder voice.
Regardless, he gives them the same response, word for word, and the same thing happens: fire comes down from heaven and consumes the 50 men.
And now Ahaziah sends a third group, but the captain of this group has learned from the previous two:
13 So the king sent a third captain with his fifty men. This third captain went up and fell on his knees before Elijah. “Man of God,” he begged, “please have respect for my life and the lives of these fifty men, your servants! 14 See, fire has fallen from heaven and consumed the first two captains and all their men. But now have respect for my life!”
15 The angel of the LORD said to Elijah, “Go down with him; do not be afraid of him.” So Elijah got up and went down with him to the king.
After all of that death, when Elijah finally stands before Ahaziah he delivers the exact same message he’d given in the first place!
16 He told the king, “This is what the LORD says: Is it because there is no God in Israel for you to consult that you have sent messengers to consult Baal-Zebub, the god of Ekron? Because you have done this, you will never leave the bed you are lying on. You will certainly die!” 17 So he died, according to the word of the LORD that Elijah had spoken.
The chapter ends by telling us that Ahaziah didn’t have a son, so he was succeeded as king by Joram (which the ESV footnote says is actually Jehoram in the Hebrew), who the ESV Study Bible says was Ahaziah’s brother.
Thoughts
I’m struck by the sheer pointlessness of this whole episode!
For sure we can fault Ahaziah for inquiring of another god instead of the LORD, though, honestly, he probably could have recovered from that. I’m sure he could have repented after his first messengers returned to him, turned to the LORD, and this story would have ended differently.
I’m also not sure what he hoped to accomplish by having Elijah appear before him, but that aside, look at the responses each person had to Elijah, and the number of times he was underestimated:
| Person | Response to Elijah |
|---|---|
| Ahaziah | “I’m sure if he comes to see me he’ll be so cowed before a king that he’ll change his prophecy!” (As if the prophecy was coming from Elijah himself, instead of the LORD.) |
| The first captain | “Surely when he sees 50 men standing before him he’ll be scared.” (Of all of the responses I’m calling out here, this is the least stupid, other than the third captain who wasn’t stupid at all. I would have been cowed before 50 soldiers!) |
| The second captain | “The previous captain probably didn’t tell Elijah loudly enough! That’s why Elijah called down fire from heaven!” (Of all the responses I’m calling out here this is the most stupid.) |
| The third captain | Finally, someone has a reasonable response! I’m not even calling out this man as being godly (though he may have been), he was just reasonable! Nobody has ever called down fire from heaven to consume a company of men before – unless you could the time the LORD destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah! |
So let’s look at the sheer pointlessness of this story:
- Ahaziah tries to consult a god who’s not actually a god
- The God tells him he’s going to die
- Ahaziah doesn’t like that answer so he sends a company of men to capture Elijah, who all end up dead
- Ahaziah gets stubborn and sends another company that succumbs to the same fate
- Ahaziah continues to be stubborn and sends another company that happens to be saved by a man who uses his head
- Elijah finally appears before Ahaziah, only to deliver the same message that had already been given, right near the beginning of the story, and Ahaziah dies just like God said he would.
But this is the Bible, and we should remember that the point of a story in the Bible is never for us to say things like, “Wow, that Ahaziah was really dumb, wasn’t he?” We’re supposed to read this and compare it with our own lives.
And I hate to admit it, but as dumb as some of the men in this story are, I’m sometimes just as dumb. I sometimes feel I can sin against God and get away with it. I sometimes—often—do something, suffer the consequences for it, and then go back and do the same thing again. And again.
The difference between myself and Ahaziah is not that I’m smart and he was dumb; the main difference is that I’ve never done anything that cause the death of 50 men, and then done it again to make it 100 men. The scale feels smaller to me, the consequences feel smaller to me, so, frankly, I’m more likely than Ahaziah to keep doing the same thing over and over, much more often than he did.
But actually, there’s another difference between myself and Ahaziah: the Holy Spirit. When I’m reading the Bible, He can guide me. He can help me examine my own life. He can help me to see that yes, the men in this story did some stupid things, but so do I, and I need to learn from their negative example.
Again, the point of this story is not for me to say, “How dumb was that man Ahaziah!” The point is for me to ask myself, “How can I avoid the mistakes that Ahaziah made?” Or maybe to ask the Spirit to show me the areas where I’m being just like Ahaziah, because they might not always be immediately obvious to me.
Footnotes
- The books of 1&2 Kings were originally just one book/scroll, not two, so I’m treating them that way for the purposes of this blog. ↩
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