2 Kings

Moving on into the history of Israel. Or what's left of it after the break-up of the kingdom and the apostacy of Ahab and Jezebel. We see the end of Elijah's time, and the fun days of his protoge, Elisha. There's a fair number of passages of interest here.

2 Ki 1:9,10 - Then the king sent to him a captain of fifty with his fifty men. He went up to Elijah, who was sitting on the top of a hill, and said to him, "O man of God, the king says, 'come down.'" But Elijah answered the captain of fifty, "If I am a man of God, let fire come down from heaven and consume you and your fifty." Then fire came down from heaven, and consumed him and his fifty.
My, but Elijah must be a man of God! He can call down fire for the strangest things! Like wiping out a messenger sent to deliver an invitation. Bang, fifty-one men are gone. In subsequent verses, Elijah blows away another fifty-one before going along with the third group of ginuea pigs. Apparently, the lives of strangers meant not a lot to this man or his God!

2 Ki 2:19-22 - Now the people of the city said to Elisha, "The location of this city is good, as my lord sees; but the water is bad, and the land is unfruitful." He said, "Bring me a new bowl, and put salt in it." So they brought it to him. Then he went to the spring of water and threw the salt into it, and said, "Thus says the LORD, I have made this water wholesome; from now on neither death nor miscarriage shall come from it." So the water has been wholesome to this day, according to the word that Elisha spoke.
So we start up with Elisha. He appears to be into magical incantations and ceremonies. Notice how the supernatural cleansing of the spring was accompanied by a human action, as though God would not have been able to do the work without Elisha doing something to "help" the process along.

2 Ki 2:23-25 - He [Elisha] went up from there to Bethel; and while he was going up on the way, some small boys came out of the city and jeered at him, saying "Go away, baldhead! Go away, baldhead!" When he turned around and saw them, he cursed them in the name of the LORD. Then two she-bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the boys. From there, he went on to Mount Carmel and then returned to Samaria.
OK, let's look at this. Elisha, the understudy of the great prophet, Elijah, is coming back from the send-off for Elijah (the firey chariot thing, you know), and he comes across a group of little kids who call him "baldy." He loses his temper and curses them. God responds by sending a couple of bears to rip apart 42 kids. Elisha's response? He carries on with no recorded response, and the incident is never mentioned again. Christians look at this with varying responses. Most are shocked to learn about this. Others say, "If God did it, it must have been right!" I find this attitude repugnant (ripping little kids to shreds because they called someone "baldy"?!), but some folks feel the need to define God's actions as "right" under all circumstances. I can't understand how people like this are unable to see how amoral this attitude makes them look. After all, God made the decision to employ bears, when an infinite range of other possible actions were available (being both omniscient and omnipotent, you know). He could have sent another firey chariot to awe the children and spirit Elisha away (in case the kiddies were acting dangerous). He could have sent an angel to speak with the little miscreants, and paddle each one's bottom with magic paddles of fire and brimstone. But noooo! Death was the order of the day.

2 Ki 3:26,27 - When the king of Moab saw that the battle was going against him, he took with him seven hundred swordsmen to break through, opposite the king of Edom; but they could not. Then he took his first born son who was to succeed him, and offered him as a burnt offering on the wall. And great wrath came upon Israel, so they withdrew from him and returned to their own land.
More human sacrifice in Palestine! This one is extremely weird, because it took place during a battle, when the enemy of Israel, the rebelling Moabites, in the process of losing the battle, take their crown prince and roast him (maybe this was a sign of desperation?). Immediately, in response to this event, Israel's army gets kicked off the battle field. How does this work? Was the Moabite sacrifice a good move? Did their war god help them in response to the sacrifice? Would Israel have been able to win if they had torched a prince or two?

2 Ki 4:29-37 - He said to Gehazi, "Gird up your loins, and take my staff in your hand, and go. If you meet anyone, give no greeting, and if anyone greets you, do not answer; and lay my staff on the face of the child." Then the mother of the child said, "As the LORD lives, and as you yourself live, I will not leave without you." So he rose up and followed her. Gehazi went on ahead and laid the staff on the face of the child, but there was no sound or sign of life. He came back to meet him and told him, "The child has not awakened." When Elisha came into the house, he saw the child lying dead on his bed. So he went in and closed the door on the two of them, and prayed to the LORD. Then he got up on the bed and lay upon the child, putting his mouth upon his mouth, his eyes upon his eyes, and his hands upon his hands; and while he lay bent over him, the flesh of the child became warm. He got down, walked once to and fro in the room, then got up again and bent over him; the child sneezed seven times, and the child opened his eyes.
Talk about magical thinking! Upon hearing that this woman's son was dead, Elisha prescribes a magical solution - lay his staff on the child's face. He gives Gehazi the instructions on what to do, but the idiot apprentice wizard fails. So Elisha tries praying - no dice. Time for more magic. This time, lying on top of the dead little boy (must have looked pretty creepy!), and breathing life into the body. This must have been the limit of this shaman's repertoire, because he couldn't think what else to do, but go back and try it again. Finally, the child is resurrected, adding in a magical seven sneezes.

2 Ki 4:42-44 - A man came from Baal-shalishah, bringing food from the first fruits to the man of God: twenty loaves of barley and fresh ears of grain in his sack. Elisha said, "Give it to the people and let them eat." But his servant said, "How can I set this before a hundred people?" So he repeated, "Give it to the people and let them eat, for thus says the LORD. 'They shall eat and have some left.' " He set it before them, they ate, and had some left, according to the word of the LORD.
Well, it looks like the fish and loaves miracle attributed to Jesus was a copycat miracle. Interesting, but there appears to be no real moral to either this story or the one in the NT. Just a bunch of people eating more food than was given them. Sort of like the pagan cornucopia.

2 Ki 5:9-14 - So Naaman came with his horses and chariots, and halted at the entrance of Elisha's house. Elisha sent a messenger to him, saying, "Go, wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored and you shall be clean." But Naaman became angry and went away, saying, "I thought that for me he would surely come out and stand and call on the name of the LORD his God, and would wave his hand over the spot and cure the leprosy! Are not the Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them, and be clean?" He turned and went away in a rage. But his servants approached and said to him, "Father, if the prophet had commanded you to do something difficult, would you not have done it? How much more, when all he said to you was, 'Wash, and be clean'?" So he went down and immersed himself seven times in the Jordan, according to the word of the man of God; his flesh was restored like the flesh of a young boy, and he was clean.
The moral of this story? Do whatever a man of God tells you to do, no matter how stupid it sounds. What we have here is a good example of how illogical the thinking of magic is. A foreign general with leprosy comes to Elisha, hoping for a supernatural cure. Elisha sends a messenger, telling the poor sap what magical ceremony he needs to perform to solve his problem. The general gets upset because the magic show he was expecting isn't forthcoming. According to this story, Elisha's idea of magic is supported. Once again, human actions are required for the healing to occur. The only issue in this story was which actions were required.

2 Ki 5:20-27 - Gehazi, the servant of Elisha the man of God, thought, "My master has let that Aramean Naaman off too lightly by not accepting from him what he offered. As the LORD lives, I will run after him and get something out of him." So Gehazi went after Naaman. When Naaman saw someone running after him, he jumped down from the chariot to meet him and said, "Is everything all right?" He replied, "Yes, but my master has sent me to say, 'Two members of the company of prophets have just come to me from the hill country of Ephraim; please give them a talent of silver and two changes of clothing.'" Naaman said, "Please accept two talents." He urged him, and tied up two talents of silver in two bags, with two changes of clothing, and gave them to two of his servants, who carried them in front of Gehazi. When he came to the citadel, he took the bags from them, and stored them inside; he dismissed the men, and they left.

He went in and stood before his master; and Elisha said to him, "Where have you been, Gehazi?" He answered, "Your servant has not gone anywhere at all." But he said to him, "Did I not go with you in spirit when someone left his chariot to meet you? Is this a time to accept money and to accept clothing, olive orchards and vinyards, sheep and oxen, and male and female slaves? Therefore, the leprosy of Naaman shall cling to you, and to your descendants forever." So he left his presence leprous, as white as snow.
It looks like there's a lot of interesting material here! After being cured of leprosy, Naaman was so happy he offered Elisha all sorts of riches, which Elisha turned down (a rare event for a priest!). Gehazi decides to engage in a little freelance fleecing, then tries to lie his way out of trouble when he's caught. So far, so good. Now comes the fun. Elisha claims to have performed astral projection, to spy on his underling! I recall a Christian friend some time ago telling me that this sort of thing was a practice of devil-worshippers. So there's some new material he'll enjoy reading here, I'd guess. And yet again, we see a punishment for one person being visited for no reason on all his descendants. I've lost count of how many eternal curses have been handed out so far in the Bible. It's a goodly number of them, anyway.

2 Ki 6:4-6 - So he went with them. When they came to the Jordan, they cut down trees. But as one was felling a log, his ax head fell into the water; he cried out, "Alas, master! It was borrowed!" Then the man of God said, "Where did it fall?" When he showed him the place, he cut off a stick, and threw it in there, and made the iron float.
Ah - the great age of making up stuff! It reminds me of the chapter in Tom Sawyer when the boys were hiding on the island and the townspeople thought they were dead. In searching for the bodies, they fired cannons over the water because they believed it would make submerged bodies float to the surface. Same principle here - thinking in terms of magic.

2 Ki 8:10 - Elisha said to him, "Go say to him, 'You shall certainly recover'; but the LORD has shown me that he shall certainly die."
Certainly, the "man of God" should be a little more honest than to ask someone to lie for him. Then again, he also cursed some children for calling him "baldy!"

2 Ki 9:11-13 - When Jehu came back to his master's officers, they said to him, "Is everything all right? Why did that madman come to you?" He answered them, "You know the sort and how they babble." They said, "Liar! Come on, tell us!" So he said, "This is just what he said to me, 'Thus says the LORD, I anoint you king over Israel.'" Then hurriedly they all took their cloaks and spread them for him on the bare steps; and they blew the trumpet, and proclaimed, "Jehu is king."
Things just kept getting nuttier and nuttier in ancient Israel! Elisha sent some idiot to find this Jehu, and perform a hit-and-run coronation! What I found amusing was that the "officers" were so totally gullible as to accept Jehu's claim without question. What sort of brain-dead morons would accept this story? Did it not occur to them that they might ought to have tried to find this "madman" and verify that he really was Elisha's appretice king-maker? What if Jehu was joking about what he was told? Ancient Israel must have been one wacky place (not unlike the Jerusalem of "Life of Brian")!

2 Ki 14:6 - But he did not put to death the children of the murderers; according to what is written in the book of the law of Moses, where the LORD commanded, "The parents shall not be put to death for the children, or the children be put to death for the parents; but all shall be put to death for their own sins."
How many deaths have we seen ordered or carried out by God, killing the children for the crimes of their parents? Saul's seven sons being impaled leaps to mind. David's first baby by Bathsheba, the children of the Amalekites, the list goes on. I think this qualifies as a major contradiction!

2 Ki 17:25 - When they first settled here, they did not worship the LORD; therefore the LORD sent lions among them, which killed some of them.
Oh yeah. Nothing shows you how to worship God better than having a huge cat tearing out your throat!

2 Ki 20:1-6 - In those days Hezekiah became sick and was at the point of death. The prophet Isaiah son of Amoz came to him, and said to him, "Thus says the LORD: Set your house in order, for you shall die; you will not recover." Then Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the LORD: "Remember now, O LORD, I implore you, how I have walked before you in faithfulness with a whole heart, and have done what is good in your sight." Hezekiah wept bitterly. Before Isaiah had gone out of the middle court, the word of the LORD came to him: "Turn back, and say to Hezekiah prince of my people, Thus says the LORD, the God of your ancestor David: I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears; indeed, I will heal you; on the third day you shall go up to the house of the LORD. I will add fifteen years to your life. I will deliver you and this city out of the hand of the king of Assyria; I will defend this city for my own sake and for my servant David's sake."
Please recall Deuteronomy 18:21,22, where it says that if a prophet says something in God's name and it doesn't come true, he's a false prophet. Here, Isaiah has gotten himself in a logical bind. In one paragraph, he claims in the name of God that Hezekiah will not recover from his illness - he's going to die. Then he turn around and claims God has changed his mind (so much for the verses saying God doesn't change his mind!) and has added a bonus 15 years to H's life! Both predictions can't be true. So why is Isaiah not considered a false prophet? Why is he considered instead to be at the top of the prophetic heap?

2 Ki 20:11 - The prophet Isaiah cried to the LORD; and he brought the shadow back the ten intervals, by which the sun had declined on the dial of Ahaz.
Once more, with feeling! God obeys a human, making the sun go backward, just to convince a person that he's serious about curing a boil! Pretty good evidence that the sun moves around the world, huh?