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

Josiah may be my favorite king of Judah.  He used the power of his office to turn the people of Israel away from idol worship and evil practices and towards God.  He did this not for political power or for wealth, but because it was the right thing to do.  Josiah shows us that just because someone has evil parents, does not mean they will be evil (to be fair, perhaps Josiah’s mother was a good woman and contributed to his dedication to God).  Josiah’s father had been an evil king, perhaps the worst of the kings over any of Israel and Judah.  However, this passage also shows us that having a righteous ruler is not enough to save a people.  While evil rulers led the people to sin, and good rulers led them to serve God, the people still need to choose for themselves who they will serve.  As soon as Josiah had died he was succeeded by his sons and grandsons, none of whom followed in his footsteps.  Josiah knew that his actions would not be enough, but he still did the best that he could and strove to lead people to God.  Let us strive to do likewise.  It is never too late for people to turn to God, even if it is too late for the nation to do so.  I am not saying that it is too late for any nation today to turn to God, but even if it is, we should still make the effort to get people to turn to Him.

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.

Hoshea became the last king of Israel, the Northern Kingdom.   The writer tells us that he did evil in the eyes of the Lord, but not as bad as his predecessors.  Nevertheless, God had the Assyrians take the people of Israel into exile because of their sins.  God had told the Israelites to live holy lives and forbade them from imitating the nations around them.  Yet they did not listen and desired to be like those around them.   There are two different points I want to make here, maybe they will come together into one.  Initially the people of the Northern Kingdom made their own gods to worship, but kept most of the practices which God had commanded them.  But, over time they began to worship the gods of their neighbors.  First, those whose worship was somewhat similar to that which God commanded, but with sexual licentiousness.  Soon, they went on to gods whose worship called for them to kill their own children.   They had been called to live as an example to others, but they didn’t want to be different.  Rather than trust God to care for them, they tried to obtain success by being like the people around them.  This is a mistake that we make again and again, both as individuals and as nations.

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.

I have thought about this from time to time, but I do not think I have ever written about it.  Up through King David, and even early in the reign of King Solomon, the Bible references various people, including David and Solomon, offering sacrifices at various places throughout the land of Israel, and does so in a positive manner.  However, after King Solomon there are numerous kings of Judah about whom the Bible says  some variation of this, “He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord.  The high places, however, were not removed; the people continued to offer sacrifices and burn incense there.”  The context seems to suggest that the writer considered that second sentence to reflect poorly on the king in question.  What changed?  Actually, the real question is, why weren’t the biblical writers as bothered by it in the times before King Solomon as they were after?

In Deuteronomy 12 Moses told the Israelites that they were to destroy all of the high places where the people they were dispossessing worshiped their gods and make their offerings at the place God will choose to put His name, and only there.   So, clearly, failing to get the people to stop worshiping at the high places violated that command.  But why was it not a problem for those leaders who preceded King Solomon?  The answer I think is twofold.  First the passage in Deuteronomy suggests that God would not choose that place until after He had given the Israelites peace.  Following up on that the writer of 2 Samuel clearly suggests when recounting David’s desire to build a Temple that this did not happen until Solomon was king (or, more precisely would not happen until David’s son was king, since that writer does not specify Solomon).  The second piece, which really is related to that first piece, is that while the Israelites worked together under Moses and Joshua, they were very much separate tribes until they started to truly become one nation under David.  The process actually started under King Saul and did not complete until Solomon was king (and then only lasted his lifetime).  The Temple represented the culmination of that unification and, of course, that was why Jeroboam felt it necessary to replace it with golden calves at both ends of the Northern Kingdom when he rebelled against Rehoboam.

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.

The writer tells us that Jehu’s son, grandson, and great grandson did evil in God’s sight by following the sins of Jeroboam.  However, we are told that Jehu’s grandson, Jehoash was stricken by grief over Elisha’s death.  In addition, Elisha blessed him by prophesying victory by him over Aram.  Further, God used Jehoash’s son, Jeroboam, to restore the borders of Israel and rescue the people of Israel from their suffering.  On the other hand, while Amaziah, king of Judah, did right in the eyes of God, he became cocky after his defeat of Edom and lost a war he instigated with Israel.  Which should serve to remind us that those who serve God do not have a carte blanche to go up against those who do not serve God.  Or, as Abraham Lincoln is supposed to have said, we should not be seeking to have God on our side, rather we should seek to do that which puts us on God’s side.  King Amaziah chose to go to war with Israel, thinking that God would be on his side, never considering that by doing so he might not be on God’s side.

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.

Some of these stories contain lessons about our relationship with God which I feel led to write about today.  Each contains more lessons than what I am going to focus on, nevertheless I am going to limit myself to just a few points.  In the story of Naaman, Naaman was angry because not only did Elisha not personally come to talk to him about his illness, he told him to do something inconvenient, yet completely pedestrian.  Naaman’s servants pointed out that if Elisha had told him to complete some feat of valor in order to be healed, he would gladly have done so.  Which brings us to the lesson.  Sometimes God calls us to do things which are inconvenient and completely unnoteworthy.   We need to recognize that these things may be more important than any action we could do which might bring us glory.  There is a story about a boy who helped a neighbor boy he barely knew with his books one day in grade school, only to learn years later that the boy he helped was planning to commit suicide and chose not to because of his help.  If things had turned out slightly differently the boy who helped may have never learn the difference his actions made.  Sometimes, the inconvenient little things make a big difference.

In the story where the king of Aram sent soldiers to capture Elisha, Elisha’s servant was terrified when he got up in the morning and discovered their city surrounded by a small army.  Elisha told him not to fear because those with them were more than those against them.  Then Elisha prayed for his servant’s eyes to be opened and his servant saw a much larger host of fiery warriors defending Elisha.  In many ways this parallels God’s answer to Elijah when Elijah complained of being the only one left in Israel faithful to God.  On that occasion God told Elijah that He had reserved seven thousand who had remained faithful.  In the same way here, Elisha’s servant thought they were outnumbered by their enemies, but there were many on their own side who he did not see until Elisha had God open his eyes.  However, this contains another message as well.  In this case, the human army surrounding Elisha was not countered by a human army which had not revealed itself.  Instead, the forces of God surrounded Elisha and his servant, protecting them against those sent against them.  So, even if there are not many on our side of whom we are unaware (or if they are too far away to be of aid), still God has the ability to protect us against those who would do us harm.  Let us not fear to be faithful to God, even when we think we are outnumbered by those who wish us harm for doing so.

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.

When Joram became king of Israel, the writer tells us that while he did evil in the sight of God he was not as evil as his parents.  The writer praises Joram for getting rid of the sacred stone of Baal, but then condemns him for continuing the sins of Jeroboam.  This, combined with the other places where kings of Israel are condemned for following the sins of Jeroboam, suggests to me that the worship of the calves built by Jeroboam was closer to the worship of Yahweh than was the worship of Baal.  Along the same line of thinking, when Joram consulted Elisha during the invasion of Moab, Elisha told him to consult the prophets of his father and the prophets of his mother.  Elisha’s reference suggests that Joram had continued the worship of those gods, although he had reduced their prominence in the kingdom.

As I read the rest of the passage I was struck by how some of the miracles which Elisha performed were reminiscent of miracles recounted elsewhere in the Bible.  The account of providing for the widow with olive oil is reminiscent of Elijah and the widow of Zarephath, and Elisha raising the son of the Shunammite woman is reminiscent of Elijah raising the widow’s son.  Finally, Elisha feeding one hundred with twenty loaves of barley foreshadows Jesus feeding the 4,000 and the 5,000.  The similarities between these accounts does not mean that they were copied from each other.  Rather, it suggests that there are certain themes which accompany the display of God’s power.  One of those themes is that God has the power of life and death.  And He will sometimes restore life to those who have lost it at our request.  Another theme is that God uses our existing resources to accomplish more than seems possible, and provides to the extent that we can handle.  The widow did not stop having more oil to pour out of her jar until she ran out of containers to put it into.  Despite the amount of food provided being inadequate, the one hundred had enough to eat with leftovers.  In the same way, we should trust God to provide, whether what we have on hand is sufficient to the need or not.

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 he knew God was about to take him, Elijah attempted to go off by himself away from Elisha, but Elisha would not let him go.   Elisha insisted on staying at Elijah’s side to the very end, despite Elijah’s attempts to spare him.  On two of those occasions, other members of the group of prophets approached Elisha and asked him if he knew that God was going to take Elijah that day.  Elisha’s response was, “Yes, I know, so be quiet.”  There is something very significant in those two exchanges, but I am not sure what it is.  Perhaps those two exchanges were included here to show us how determined Elisha was to remain at Elijah’s side to the very end, but I can’t help but think there is more to it than that.  I have the further thought that it seems to me that those two exchanges are related to Elisha’s attempt to convince the community of prophets that there was no reason to send a search party out to look for Elijah, or his body.  Elisha knew that Elijah was gone, that God had taken him away, and was not happy about it, but was determined to carry on Elijah’s ministry.

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 22-25.

I have always admired King Josiah’s faith.  When he heard what was written in the Book of the Law and realized how badly the people of Israel had failed to follow God’s commands his first response was to tear his clothes in grief and send messengers to inquire of God what he should do.  Then, after learning that nothing he could do would turn aside God’s judgement against Judah, he called the people to rededicate themselves to worshiping God.  He followed that up by systematically destroying the idols, and places of idol worship, throughout both the Kingdom of Judah and the lands which had been part of the Kingdom of Israel.  Finally, he called the people of Israel to celebrate the Passover in full accordance with God’s commands.  The writer tells us that this celebration was unlike any previous Passover celebration in the Land of Israel.  Throughout his life, King Josiah strove to bring the people back to God.  Unfortunately, it was not enough and as soon as he died the people returned to their idolatry.

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.

When Hezekiah received Sennacherib’s letter, he read it then took it to the Temple and laid it before God.  When he did so he made a statement of faith.  Sennacherib had stated that Hezekiah should not rely on God to save Jerusalem because the gods of other nations had failed to save them.  Hezekiah stated that of course the Assyrians were able to throw those gods into the fire because those gods were not actually gods at all.  He then went on to beg God to show the nations that He alone was God by saving Jerusalem.

Which brings me to Isaiah’s prophecy in response to Sennacherib’s letter.  Isaiah reminds us that it was not Hezekiah whom Sennacherib was ridiculing in his message.  Rather it was God.  In the same way, when people today make fun of us, or criticize us, for following God’s commands, let us remember who they are actually deriding.  Sennacherib thought that his successes proved that he was greater than any god.  God responded by telling him that all of his success was just part of the plans which God had laid out long ago.  Sennacherib claimed that he would besiege Jerusalem and make it fall before his armies.  God told him that He would send him back the way that he came and that his armies would never stand before Jerusalem.  Sennacherib’s claim proved false, but God’s proclamation came true.  Let us not fear those with power because whatever power they have comes from God.  Let us fear God, and serve Him.  Then He will protect us from those who seek to direct their power against us.

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.

We are told that Hoshea, the last king of Israel, did evil in the sight of the Lord, but was not as bad as his predecessors.  Nevertheless, the sins of the people of Israel had reached the point where God had had enough and He sent them into exile.  The writer suggests that the sins of the people of Israel were worse than any were aware of until after the fact.  He writes that they secretly against the Lord that were not right.  This suggests to me that the people of Israel were not aware of how prevalent the sins they themselves were committing were among their countrymen.

The writer lists out the reasons that God sent the nation of Israel into exile.  He tells us that they worshiped idols and rejected God’s decrees.  They made idols for themselves and set up an Asherah pole.  They bowed down to the starry host and worshipped Baal.  They sacrificed their sons and daughters.  They imitated the nations around them.  All of this strikes me as a warning we should take to heart today.  I think the line which should be our greatest warning is the one I used to title today’s blog: “They followed worthless idols and themselves became worthless.”  All human beings have value, but that value derives from our being made in the image of God.  If we stop trying to reflect his image and instead reflect the image of an idol, we will become worthless.

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