Today, I am reading and commenting on  2 Kings 22-25.

Josiah is probably my favorite of the kings of Judah.  He was eight years old when he was put on the throne after his father was assassinated by some of his officials.  Josiah’s father and grandfather had done great evil as king, but Josiah “did what was right in the eyes of the Lord and followed completely the ways of his father David,…”  When those he had set to renovating the temple found and brought to him the Book of the Law, he tore his clothes and sent an inquiry to a prophetess as to what he should do.  Josiah recognized that the people of Judah, including himself, had violated the covenant which God had made with them.  God responded that disaster would surely come, but not in Josiah’s lifetime.  Josiah then dedicated himself to eradicating the evil in the land.  Josiah’s reforms were extensive, and they extended throughout all of Israel, not just the part we know as Judah.  It is here where the writer lists the various forms of idolatry which Josiah eliminated from the land that we can a true picture of the extent of the evil committed by his predecessors.  Perhaps the biggest lesson we learn from Josiah is that no sooner had he died then the people reverted to the idolatry and sin which had preceded his reign.  That should remind us that each generation must choose for themselves if they will do good or evil.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  2 Kings 19-21.

I usually write about Sennacherib and Hezekiah when I read this passage, but today I want to write about Hezekiah’s son and heir, Manasseh.   The writer tells us that he did detestable things and gives us a summary of those things.  He erected altars to Baal.  He constructed and Asherah pole and placed it in the temple of God.  Further, he built altars to the “starry host” in the temple of God. He worshiped at all of these shrines and even sacrificed his own son in the fire.  Manasseh did all of these things, but even worse, he led the people astray, so that they did more evil than the people whom God had driven out of the land ahead of them.  The writer finally tells us that Manasseh filled Jerusalem with the blood of the innocent.  I have always read that as Manasseh had many innocent people killed for his own pleasure.  While that may be true, I have come to wonder if perhaps it mean that Manasseh allowed crime to run rampant.  Manasseh’s son, Amon, followed in his father’s footsteps.  He committed the same sins that Manasseh had, until things became so bad that some of his officials assassinated him and put his son, Josiah on the throne.  Despite having seen Hezekiah, who held fast to the Lord his entire life, the people of Judah chose to follow Manasseh into doing evil.  They could have chosen to refuse to worship at the altars he built and to join him in sacrificing their children, but they chose otherwise.  They chose to follow their king, rather than their God.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  2 Kings 17-18.

King Hoshea was the last king of Israel, the Northern Kingdom.  The writer tells us that he did evil in the sight of the Lord, but not as bad as the kings who preceded him.  But God did not exile the Israelites of the Northern Kingdom because of the sins of Hoshea, or even because of the sins of the kings which preceded him.  God exiled them because of their own sins.  The writer condemns them for following the practices of the people they had displaced in the land, practices which God had explicitly told them not to follow.  He condemned them for imitating the peoples around them, which God had explicitly told them not to do.  The the writer gets into more specific complaints about their behavior.  He writes that they forsook all of God’s commands, embracing various kinds of idolatry.  They crafted two golden calves to represent God, they built an Asherah pole.  It is worth noting that Asherah was viewed as the wife of and co-creator with the male god of creation in Canaanite mythology (there are today those who want to introduce a female creator alongside God into Christianity).  They bowed down to the starry hosts and worshiped Baal.  I have always understood the worship of the starry hosts to be a form of nature worship which focuses on the splendor of the night sky.  The writer goes on to tell us that they sacrificed their children, their sons and daughters.  And he finishes off their list of sins by saying that they sold themselves to do evil.  I was going to comment on those sins, but I will allow you to think about how the writer’s condemnation of the Israelites may, or may not, apply to our society today.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  2 Kings 15-16.

In today’s passage, we read of two kings of Judah who did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, which makes it four kings in a row who did so.  For the two mentioned today the writer gives a caveat to the fact that they did what was right in the eyes of the Lord.  That caveat was that the high places were not removed and that the people continued to offer sacrifices there.  In the past, I have always read that as a (mild) condemnation of these kings.  I realized today that this was actually a statement on the limits of the government to turn people away from sin.  Despite having a good ruler who led them to worship God, the people, at least, some of them, continued in their idolatry.  The good rulers in Jerusalem are in stark contrast to those in Samaria.  In Samaria, the kings outright encouraged the people to commit idolatry.  The end result being that the ruling house was overthrown by a violent result about every other generation, reflecting an ongoing breakdown of the rule of law.  This stands in stark contrast to the two kings of Judah mentioned in yesterday’s passage who were assassinated, but still succeeded on the throne by their sons.  And while the writer merely says that the kings in Samaria did evil in the eyes of the Lord by not turning away from the sins of Jeroboam I, he clearly implies they did much worse in what he says about King Ahaz of Jerusalem.  The writer tells us that King Ahaz followed the ways of the kings of Israel and even sacrificed his son in the fire.  And while the writer tells us that the people offered sacrifices at the high places under King Ahaz’s father and grandfather, here he tells us that King Ahaz did so as well.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  2 Kings 13-14.

We tend to think of the kings of Israel, the Northern Kingdom, listed in this passage as evil kings because the passage tells us that each of them “did evil in the eyes of the Lord.”  However, I think that misses much of what the writer intends for us to understand about them.  The writer tells us that Jehoahaz son of Jehu sought the Lord’s favor after Israel had been oppressed by Aram for some extended number of years, and that God provided a deliverer in response to his prayer.  Then it tells us how Jehoahaz’s son, Jehoash, visited Elisha when Elisha was on his deathbed, and mourned the death of Elisha.  Finally, the writer tells us that God used Jeroboam son of Jehoash to save the people of Israel, the Northern Kingdom, from the bitter suffering which they had been experiencing.  We need to keep the way God used these deeply flawed leaders to care for His people.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  2 Kings 10-12.

Once Jehu had killed King Joram and his mother Jezebel, he sent word to the officials acting as guardians for the remaining sons of the house of Ahab (I understand this to be sons and grandsons of Ahab).  It seems likely that at least some, and perhaps all, of them would have been adults.  Jehu had those officials kill them.  I find it interesting that the number of sons of the house of Ahab was seventy, the same number as the sons of Gideon killed by Gideon’s son, Abimelech.  In addition, Jehu killed some relatives of King Ahaziah of Judah, who had come to Israel on what was most likely “idolatry tourism”, and probably also with the intention of doing things which would have ruined their reputations if done in Jerusalem.  I think of those forty-two individuals as being similar to the various prestigious people who regularly visited Jeffrey Epstein’s island.

Having killed off the entire government structure associated with Ahab and his family, Jehu then entered into an alliance with Jehonadab to serve God.  This alliance suggests that Jehu sought to serve God, despite refusing to turn away from the worship of Jeroboam’s golden calves.  Jehonadab’s descendants were praised by Jeremiah during the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem for their dedication to the teachings of Jehonadab and thus to God.  With Jehonadab, Jehu wiped out Baal worship in Israel.  The way that the writer of this passage writes it, I believe that Jehu wished to serve God, but felt that he needed to keep the worship of the golden calves for expediency.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  2 Kings 8-9.

I don’t think that I ever noticed before that King Jehoshaphat’s grandson was named after King Ahab’s eldest son.  I doubt there is much significance to that fact, but it does tell you a bit about the influence of Ahab’s daughter over Judah.  When Ben-Hadad sent a messenger to ask Elisha if he would get better, Elisha tells the messenger to lie to Ben-Hadad.  The messenger’s name was Hazael, and it seems that Elisha’s purpose in travelling to Damascus was to encourage Hazael to launch a coup.  In a similar way, Elisha sends a messenger to Jehu to encourage him to launch a coup against Ahab’s son.  I will note that Hazael becoming king in Damascus set the stage for Jehu to overthrow King Joram.  It took me many readings of this passage to realize that Elisha encouraged Jehu to overthrow Joram because of Jehu’s opposition to the idolatry of the House of Omri (Ahab’s father).  And it was only today that I realized that the support for Jehu among the army was for the same reason.  Which leads me to realize that despite the support of the crown, Baal worship was unpopular among the people of Israel, the Northern Kingdom.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  2 Kings 5-7.

There is a lot to be learned from the story of Naaman, but today I am only going to touch on what we can learn from Elisha’s refusal to accept payment and from his servant, Gehazi.  Elisha does not give Naaman a reason for his refusal to accept Naaman’s donations, but we get a hint later when Elisha tells Gehazi, “Is this the time to take money or to accept clothes…”  To me, this suggests that Elisha did not want Naaman, or others, to think that Naaman had bought healing, that Naaman was cured because he was rich and powerful.  God cured Naaman in order to show that He, YHWH, the God of Israel, was God, Creator of the Universe, and ruler over all.  However, Gehazi, Elisha’s servant, thought that Naaman, this foreigner, should be made to pay something for receiving God’s healing.  Or, to be more precise, Gehazi thought it was unfair that Naaman, who had so much, should be healed without Gehazi, who was so “poor” (poor being a relative term and we have no idea how well off Gehazi was, but certainly less well off than Naaman), getting some reward.  Let’s be clear, what Gehazi did here was embezzlement or fraud.  He had every intention of keeping what he got from Naaman for his own ends.  He had no intention of turning any of it over to Elisha.  Things would have come out differently if Gehazi had openly asked Naaman for the things for himself.

I am going to touch on the story of Elisha and the Aramite army only long enough to quote what Elisha told his servant:

“Don’t be afraid,” the prophet answered. “Those who are with us are more than those who are with them.”

Well, perhaps a bit more than that, but only because it fits so well into my thoughts about the siege of Samaria.  During the siege things got really bad, food became outrageously expensive.  The king blamed Elisha, and through him, God, for these troubles, taking no responsibility for them himself.  This despite the fact that Samaria was besieged by the army of Aram, whose king the current king’s father had allowed to escape the consequences of attacking Israel previously.  So, the king was determined to kill Elisha and thus redirect the people’s anger.  However, Elisha was prepared and had barricaded himself with the elders of the city.  Elisha responded to the king’s accusations by telling him that by the following day, food would be unbelievably inexpensive.  There was no humanly conceivable way for things to turn around that fast.  Yet, they did.

So, when we look at where things are today. they are not nearly as bad as they were in Samaria under siege.  Nevertheless, they are bad.  In some ways they do appear as bad as things did for Elisha when the army of Aram surrounded the town in which he lived, looking to capture or kill him.  Those of us who serve God appear to be surrounded and outnumbered by those hostile to our faith.  Yet, I believe even today, what Elisha said to his servant is true…Those who are with us are more than those who are with them.  Just as Elisha was not counting a human army when he said that, I am not counting the living human followers of Christ, or, at least, not just the living human followers of Christ.  Also, just as in the Samaria under siege, it may appear that things can only get worse, but I have faith that God can bring about change such that if you predicted it, everyone would think you crazy.  In fact, despite the fact that I have felt like perhaps Christ’s Return, and God’s Judgement, were almost upon us, reading this today I feel as if God’s Spirit is telling me that God is preparing to show His power in a way which no one would believe if they did not witness it.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  2 Kings 3-4.

Each of the accounts in today’s passage illustrate ways in which God provides for needs.  In the first account, King Joram got himself and others into a bad situation, and even then he only sought God’s aid at the nstigation of Jehoshaphat.  Nevertheless, God delivered him, and those with him, from the mess of his own making.  In the second account, a widow seeks God’s aid to escape debt and provide for her sons and herself.  Through Elisha, God provides her the means to  earn the funds needs to do so.  In the third account, the woman provided Elisha with food and a place to stay and asked nothing in return.  Elisha asked God, and He gave her a son.  The woman had not asked for a son, had even asked Elisha to not raise her hopes.  When the child died, the woman was distraught and blamed Elisha for giving her the son in the first place, but did not ask for anything.  Elisha raised the boy back to life for her.  The final two accounts describe different ways in which God can provide food for the hungry..

In the first account, Joram did not have faith in God, but God rescued him because of his friend, Jehoshaphat.  Let us seek to be Jehoshaphat to our non-believing friends (although, perhaps we could work a little harder to convince them to turn to God than Jehoshaphat appears to have done).  In the second account, God provides the woman with a way to work her way out of her precarious position.  When we seek God’s aid, we need to recognize that He may provide us with a means to work towards solving our problems.  In the third account we learn that serving God may bring us joy we did not seek, and that God can overcome the inevitable sorrow.  The last two accounts show us that we need to be open to God using different solutions at different times for the same problem.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

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

When King Ahaziah was injured, he sent messengers to Ekron to inquire of their god, their Baal as to whether he would recover.  Over the last few years I have mulled over a thought every time I read this passage, but not written down any aspect of it.  So, Ahaziah’s father, King Ahab, had instituted Baal worship as the official religion of Israel, the Northern Kingdom, and everything written suggests that his sons continued this practice.  Yet, not only did Ahaziah not think to consult YHWH* when he was injured, he also did not consult with the prophets of Baal which were in his service.  It reveals that despite Ahab, and his sons, pretending to believe that Baal worship was just another way to worship YHWH* by a different name, none of them actually believed that to be true.  And we know from this passage that if Ahaziah had wished to consult YHWH*, he could have done so by sending his messengers to Elijah.  After all, he knew where to send his army captains to summon Elijah to him.  Ahaziah knew the prophets of Baal that he sponsored were fakes and frauds.  So, when he was desperate, he turned to foreign prophets, but refused to turn to God.  Let us pray for those we know who we suspect may behave likewise.

• I used the transliteration of the Hebrew name for God, YHWH, in today’s blog because I believe that King Ahab, and other advocates for Baal worship in Israel, claimed that Baal was just another term for God, and that Baal worship was an alternative to worshiping YHWH.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.