LEAVE COMMENT ON ARTICLE
While they are still fresh, certain ideas seem salient in my most recent reading of these two books that were originally one in the Hebrew Bible. Solomon, whose divided heart divided a kingdom, had angered God in pursuing the gods of his many foreign women, and the Word reminds us that this is the same Solomon to whom God had appeared twice! To whom so much was given more was expected. There appears in these books a pattern, though not hardfast, of bad kings alternating with good kings. That may have been in part because the work of being a good king carried with it a tendency toward some personal neglect within the royal family bringing dire consequences.
Jehosophat was one of those good kings, yet he built a fleet of ships in 1Kings 22 v48 that, sadly, never sailed, but were instead wrecked at Ezion geber (“backbone of a man or a giant”) . They were to have sailed to Ophir for gold as Solomon’s fleet had. This speaks of broken dreams and unfulfilled potential, or lack of backbone even in the best of God’s servants. Though Ahab humbled himself before God after being denounced by the prophet Elijah, he is not given the dignity of being called by his name but only by “the king of Israel” in that same chapter 22, though his life had been spared because he at least and at last humbled himself.
In 2Kings 3 v25, though Israel is soundly defeating Moab at the word of Elisha, they strangely leave its key city KirHaraseth intact, seemingly because of a favored son being sacrificed to their false god, which arouses the people’s indignation against Israel. Another victory is thus left incomplete, as one was so left later, involving the word of Elisha again in 2Kings 13, when the ground was struck by King Jehoash only three times with the arrows instead of five or six times. And so only three cities were defeated. There repeats the failure to fully close out, put away an enemy, and finalize a victory in combat.
2Kings 13, incidentally, is the chapter which is home to one of the most amazing miracles in Scripture where a man is raised from the dead simply by coming into contact with the bones of Elisha. This posthumous miracle is the fourteenth of his ministry. Remember that Elisha received by request a double portion of the anointing upon Elijah, who performed, you guessed it, seven miracles! Behold the wondrous precision of the Word of GOD!
And then the testimony of the four lepers who stumble upon the heaps of Syrian plunder in 2Kings 7 continues to resound even until this day, “we don’t do right,this is a day of good news and we remain silent. ..let us go and tell the household of the king. ..” This is a classic commentary on our own condition as witnesses to the goodness of God in our own times. The hour is late, but there is a window of opportunity for those with ears to hear us to enter the spiritual ark, which is Jesus the Messiah, while they still can. The floodwaters of judgment are rising. The Holy Spirit will lead us daily. When someone is led, that one is not forced but is always left free to choose, unlike certain other false religions. King Jeroboam did not lead but “drove Israel from following the LORD and made them commit a great sin.” He was driving and enticing them into false worship, the pagan worship of those who had been formerly defeated and removed from the land promised to Israel. In other words, Jeroboam was driving God’s people backward instead of leading them forward!
These books end with a beautiful restoration of King Jehoichin, who had been stripped of his throne, even as Jeremiah had prophesied, and imprisoned in Babylon. A new Babylonian king releases Jehoichin from prison, removes his prison garment, clothes him with a position above other Babylonian royalty, and feeds him from his own royal table for the rest of his life. Beyond that, his offspring Zerubbabel is instrumental in the return of Judah from exile and the reconstruction of the Temple. When all had seemed dismally lost, God’s mighty hand moved in mercy on behalf of a king who had been cursed, to reverse his fortunes and usher in a new day of blessing. God can and will do the same again today among those believers whom Scripture calls New Testament kings and priests !