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

The account of what happened after King Ahaziah, Ahab’s son, fell from his upper room has a lot of things to comment on.  One question which I have never thought about before is, “Why did Ahaziah send messengers to consult the Baal of Ekron?”  I am not asking why he sent to consult a Baal, but why Ekron?  Ahaziah’s mother was Jezebel, the daughter of the king of Tyre.  So, I would have expected him to send to Tyre if her was going to send messengers to a foreign city.  The suggestion I have seen to this question is that Ekron was the closest city to Samaria with a thriving priesthood of Baal.  That certainly makes sense, but I had never thought about it before.  The other question I have about today’s passage concerns Elijah’s actions when he knew that he was about to be taken up by God.  Elijah tried three times to leave Elisha behind to go off on his own to be taken up. Why?  Closely related to that question is the fact that several times Elisha was told that God would take Elijah from him that day, and each time Elisha replied that he knew and that they should be quiet.  As I read the passage, it seems that Elisha did not want Elijah to know that he knew that God was going to take Elijah presently.  Again the question is, why?  I don’t have much of a spiritual lesson from today’s passage.  Except, the value of faithfully remaining with our mentor to the end.  Ruth was determined to stay with Naomi and she was rewarded for doing so.  Elisha was determined to stay with Elijah, and he was rewarded for doing so.

As an aside, I picked the picture I used before I looked at what today’s passage was, but it is appropriate since Elijah was taken up into the sky.

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