I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading. I had been using One Year Bible Online, but it was time for a change.

Today, I am reading and commenting on 2 Kings 1-2.

    King Ahaziah sent to the priests and prophets of a foreign god for a prediction about whether or not he would get better rather than to a prophet of God, or even to the shrines in his own country. There is more than one possible explanation, and perhaps more than one of them played a role in that decision. One explanation is the appeal of the exotic over the known. We see that today in people who are researching various religions trying to find one which teaches something like Christianity while rejecting Christianity. Another possibility is that Ahaziah believed that God and the other gods whose worship he promoted were not real, but was not sure about the god of Ekron.

    However, the rest of the story suggests another reason. If King Ahaziah had sent for an answer from a man of God he would have been acknowledging that the man of God answered to an authority higher than that of King Ahaziah. We see this theme followed up in the behavior of the first two captains who were sent to arrest Elijah. They addressed Elijah as a man of God, but assumed that the authority which the king had delegated to them gave them authority over Elijah. The third captain sent understood that the authority given to him by the king did not exceed the authority given to Elijah by God. It is likely that he gained that understanding through the example of the first two captains. Nevertheless, he recognized that God’s authority exceeded the king’s authority.