Ezekiel 1-12: Ezekiel Makes a Case for Performing Arts?

So now we skip to Ezekiel.  At this point in my reading, I was relieved because Jeremiah was so depressing, and Ezekiel starts on a high note, what with the awesome visions of God and the cherubim and everything.  But it goes downhill from there.

Okay, so the visions.  There are two of them, and they very closely mirror John's vision of the throne of God in Revelation.  I've heard that ancient Jewish boys were not allowed to read Ezekiel until they were 30 because these visions were considered way too transcendent to be grasped by the young mind or something like that, but I'm not sure if that's true.  Most of what Ezekiel describes, interestingly enough, is not the appearance of God but the appearance of the cherubim.  They are weird freaky creatures!  They have four faces and four wings and are covered with eyes and have something like hands under their wings and there are these wheel things with them that move when they do, and somehow their spirits are contained within the wheels.  It kind of makes me want to try drawing a picture of it just so I can get an idea of what he's talking about, because I'm really not sure how the wheel idea works.  Fortunately, though, I don't have to, because a bunch of other people already did.  I did a Google Image Search for "Ezekiel cherubim" and found some interesting stuff.  Most of them forgot to add the eyes though.

Now when God calls Ezekiel to be a prophet, it's pretty interesting what He says.  He tells Ezekiel to speak to the house of Israel whether they will listen or not (2:7 and 3:11).  But then He says that at some point He will tell Ezekiel -not- to speak to anybody.  Apparently, our responsibility to do what God tells us does not depend on the immediate results we get.

The other interesting thing about these chapters, to me, is the stuff God has Ezekiel do to get his message out. First he tells Ezekiel to build a model of Jerusalem and lay siege against it, to show that Jerusalem will be under siege soon.  Then he has him lie down next to it and not get up for 390 days (he makes food ahead of time), and then again not for 40 days, corresponding to the number of years that Israel and Judah (respectively) have been walking in iniquity, as best as I can figure.  And during that time he's supposed to eat his food baked using human, um, excrement.  Ezekiel is really grossed out by this and God says he can use animal dung instead.  But ew! all the same.  Then later, God tells Ezekiel to pack up and dig through a wall and go out into exile to show Jerusalem that's what's going to happen to him.

Can you imagine if you saw a grown man make a Lego model of your town and then start attacking it?  That would be weird.  Or if he lay in the dirt for over a year, eating only what he had brought with him?  That would be disturbing.  That was Ezekiel's job.

The neat thing about this is that God is using something besides just preaching to get a message across.  He's using visual representation and physically acting out the prophecy in a symbolic way.  Hey, that sounds an awful lot like drama!  Ezekiel has become, in a very weird sense, a performing artist prophet.

This probably isn't the number one thing you're supposed to get out of reading Ezekiel 1-12, but for me, as a performing artist, it really stuck out.  There is a growing movement in the Western Church to use creative elements to worship God or to spread the gospel or to teach a biblical lesson.  I think the reaction to it so far has been pretty mixed.  Drama is probably the most accepted art form (next to music, obviously, although there are denominations which don't believe in using musical instruments); visual art and dance, on the other hand, are a little iffy.  Don't believe me?  Go to a Catholic or high-tradition Protestant (like Lutheran or Episcopal) church and look at how much visual material there is (stained glass windows, etc.).  Then go to a lower-tradition Protestant church (such as Baptist or non-denominational) and look at how much visual material is there - I'm guessing that the most you'll see in the sanctuary is a cross somewhere.  This is, of course, because of the 2nd commandment - don't make an image to represent God so that you have something physical to worship.  Ever since the Iconoclast Controversy in the Catholic church, many Christians have been concerned that all that visual material leads to worship of that material.

Dancing, though, is probably the most iffy art there is for Christians.  For so many centuries it was denounced by the Church or important leaders within the Church, although there were always some who objected to demonizing the art as a whole.  A few years ago I read an article that's actually fairly recent arguing that dance, while not inherently evil, probably always leads to bad things - the author claimed that it was the Israelites' dancing that angered Moses and caused him to break the original 10 Commandments, and even blamed Michal's anger at David's behavior on David!  As a dancer, I found this incredibly disturbing.  Fortunately, I think that with the rise of dance ministries (more than even the rise of Christian dance companies), people in the church are beginning to see dance as simply a visual, physical way of expressing an idea or emotion, and that expression can be worship.

Anyway, so back to Ezekiel.  It's just comforting to see that the things we're just now figuring out, Ezekiel was commanded by God to do.  He was using art, as it were, to tell a story or to present a message.  That is the purpose of art - not to be worshiped or even to draw attention to itself, but to tell you something about real life.  Art has a way of breaking down barriers.  A lot of people will not listen to a sermon, or if they hear something that starts to sound like one, they'll just close their ears.  The arts have the ability to reach beyond our defenses and speak straight to our hearts, sometimes without us even knowing it at first.  That's why they're so powerful, and maybe that's why God had Ezekiel do this.

Or, you know, maybe He was saying it's okay to let your kids play in the dirt.

Jeremiah 11-19: Brokenness

I feel really bad about getting so behind on these things.  It's just hard to blog about the prophets, like I said before.  I feel like I'm saying the same thing over and over.  I wonder if God felt that way when saying all this stuff to the prophets?

Chapter 11 is about how Israel has broken their covenant with God.  Covenant were an ancient oath ritual thing, very formal contracts that had specific terms and often very harsh consequences for breaking the covenant.  Israel has broken their terms of covenant, which were to remain faithful to God and worship Him only, basically. Not only this, but the people actually refuse to listen to God or turn back to Him. They don't want to be part of the God of Abraham's people anymore.  For this reason, God tells Jeremiah that he is not even supposed to grieve for the destruction that will come on Israel and Judah.  That would be very hard for me to obey.

Meanwhile, some people think it would be way more fun if Jeremiah weren't around, so there are some plots against his life, but God is protecting him from anything serious so far.

In chapter 12, we see again God's disgust with his chosen people who have rejected Him.  He says He is actually going to abandon them and forsake them - whoa, what?  The Bible actually says that?  Yes, it actually does.  God uses some very harsh language in the prophets, because He is flipping fed up with chasing after people who want nothing to do with Him.  So He's going to uproot them, cut them off, make their land desolate.

But . . .


The story doesn't end there.  After God does all this, He is going to bring them back, restore them, and bless them.  And when He does, then they will follow Him whole-heartedly.  I don't know if this is a reference to the coming of Christ, or to the eventual and ultimate restoration of Israel in the Day of the Lord.  Because Messiah has come, and the people of Israel didn't recognize or accept Him.

I think that we know more about Jeremiah as a person than we do about any other prophet who wrote a book.  Jeremiah (the book) is full of prayers of Jeremiah (the person), either laments over the state of his nation, or pleas with God to remember him and deliver him from his enemies, etc.  We find out about some of the plots against him, and we also find out that God didn't let him get married or have kids.  Bummer.  There are some people in the world that it seems God calls to live a really hard life.  Jeremiah did not have a fun life. Jeremiah did not have a lot of friends.  His only delight was in God.  He says in chapter 15, "Your words were found and I ate them, And Your words became for me a joy and the delight of my heart, For I have been called by Your name."  If we had no joy in life, would we be able to find delight in God?  That is something I wonder about myself.  Do I give praise to God because He makes my life fun and happy and successful, or because He is goodness and joy itself?

God uses some harsh words about Israel and Judah, like I said before.  He says that even if Moses and Samuel (the epitome of obedience to God, right?) were to plead with Him on behalf of the Jews, God would not listen or have compassion on them.  And this is saying a lot because Moses did plead with God on behalf of Israel more than once, and in each of those cases God relented from the punishment He was about to give. So Judah is in a pretty bad state right now if not even Moses can change His mind.


But . . .


There is something that could change God's mind, and that something is repentance.  He says, "If you return, then I will restore you."  No matter how far gone you are - even if you've become so corrupt that Moses himself could't argue a case for you - God will forgive you in a heartbeat if you simply turn away from a life of rebellion and submit to Him.  It's that simple.  Why don't we do that more often?

Chapter 17 has a famous verse about the heart: "The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked; Who can know it?"  My translation, the NASB, says that the heart is "desperately sick."  I think this is a better word image than what the KJV gives for the condition of our hearts.  We have a disease; it is called sin.  No matter what we do, we cannot rid ourselves of this inner illness, and what's worse, it is terminal.  Our sin is going to kill us.

But . . .


There is a cure.  There is one Doctor who knows how to treat this disease, a miracle surgeon who can take out all the nasty cancerous blackness and replace it with something good.  "Heal me, O LORD, and I will be healed; Save me and I will be saved," says Jeremiah.  There is only one way not to die of sin, and that is to die to sin by subjecting ourselves to the rule of God in our lives.  What does that look like?  Well, it kind of looks like clay being shaped into a pot, and God gives Jeremiah a visual of this by sending him down to a potter's house.  The potter is making a pot, and as sometimes happens in pottery, the thing just isn't turning out .  If you've ever tried your hand at pottery, you've experienced this - sometimes for whatever reason, the shape becomes such that you really can't fix it no matter what you do.  So you have to smash the clay back into a ball and star over.  This is what happens with the potter Jeremiah watches - the pot is ruined, so the potter starts over with the clay and makes something new, and that works.  This is what God is going to do to Israel.  They've become spoiled; they can't be repaired or patched or reshaped anymore because it's just patches on patches and sticking your finger in a dike, so to speak.  It's not going to work.  So God has to bring Israel down to the lowest possible point - He has to break her - in order to remake her into something new.

That is the gospel.  Sin has screwed us up beyond the point of repair; you can't slap a bandaid on an amputee and expect it to help.  If we are ever to become whole, we actually first have to become broken.  It's like when you break a bone, and it heals improperly, so then you go to the doctor to get it set and he has to re-break the bone in order to put it where it belongs.  It's a horrible, painful procedure, but it is the only treatment.  Brokenness is the only means to our cure.  That is what God is doing with Israel and Judah here - He's not just saying all this stuff about forsaking and destroying because He's done with them and is going to leave them in a pile of bones somewhere.  All this doom and gloom stuff has a purpose, and the purpose is to break Israel and Judah of their pride so they will return to following God.  And it actually worked; after the exile to Babylon, Israel remained monotheistic.  It was in Babylon that the Old Testament was compiled and copied.  To this day, the Jews have a strong attachment to their religion and the God of their fathers.  Unfortunately, as a whole they missed God's biggest blessing to them, their long-awaited Messiah.

Finally, one more broken thing.  God has Jeremiah take a jar out in the open and break it to foretell that destruction is coming to Jerusalem.  Another nation will come in and conquer the city and the nation, and they will demolish Jerusalem.

What do we learn about this passage?  First of all, there is a punishment for turning your back on God.  God is serious when He lays down consequences; He really means it when He says bad things will happen to you. Think about that before hastily agreeing to follow Him - because He's going to ask a lot of you.

Secondly, though, we learn that God is merciful, and that in spite of all His anger and frustration with these crazy people, He is willing and even eager to forgive them; in fact, everything He is doing to punish Israel is for the purpose of restoration.

I wrote in my journal once that we are like broken pieces of glass, and God can take all those broken pieces and shape them into something new and beautiful.  It's not something we can do ourselves (we're the broken pieces, remember?) - it's something only God can do.  And the amazing thing is, no matter how broken you were when you started, the thing He will make you into will actually be better than what you started as.  And that's a pretty awesome thing.

Jeremiah 1-10: A Book of Bad News, Mostly

I know, I know; I'm so behind.  But I'm in the prophets, and the prophets are so depressing that it's hard to want to write about them.  Jeremiah is no exception.

I like the way Jeremiah starts.  The first thing that God says to Jeremiah when He calls him is "before I formed you in the womb I knew you; And before you were born I consecrated you."  Even though immediately Jeremiah protests that he's only a kid and doesn't know how to speak (sound familiar?), God says that He is going to send him and tell him what to say and put the right words in his mouth.  Do you ever pray for God to put words in your mouth?  I do, because half the time I feel like I have no clue what is the right thing to say.  A lot of the stuff God tells Jeremiah is to encourage him, which I think was really necessary, because 1) like the rest of the prophets, Israel and Judah didn't listen to him at all, and 2) Jeremiah is not only a depressing book, but he was a very sad person.  He is called the "weeping prophet" because he was so heartbroken over what happened to Israel and Judah.  Imagine, on top of that, having to tell all the people why their homeland is being destroyed, and them not listening to you!  I would have been a weeping prophet too, I think.

Here are some of the notes I wrote in my margins:

2:27 - the context of this verse is saying that people will make up an idol that they form with their own hands and believe that it created them, but then when trouble comes they turn to God and ask Him to save them.  At least I think that's what this particular verse means.  What I wrote in my margins was the date 9/11/2001.  When the Twin Towers were attacked on September 11, a lot of people turned to God.  But it didn't seem to me like that lasted very long.  We think about God whenever a disaster strikes - whether we turn to Him in repentance or anger, in genuine faith or in a temporary shift of focus, it seems like bad things can't happen without us acknowledging God in some way.

3:5 says that "you [Israel] have done evil things, and you have had your way."  In my notes I wrote: "God does not force our obedience - he'll let us do what we want - have it 'our way' - if we so choose."  This, to me, is a sobering thought.  Sometimes I think that God won't let me do what's not in His plan for me.  But I think the truth is that if my heart is really focused on doing what I want - which is a state of rebellion toward God - sometimes He will just let me have what I want, even if it's bad for me.  And maybe that is because I am unteachable when I'm like that, and maybe getting what I want and finding out it wasn't right, will put me back on the right path.  But that doesn't sound like a way I want to go.  So right now I am praying that instead of God doing what I want to do, that God will make all my desires and all my will line up with what He wants for me.  It seems like a much better way to go.

Here is a passage of hope.  3:12ff is God's call to Israel to repent.  He says, "I will not look upon you in anger.  For I am gracious . . . I will not be angry forever."  It goes on from there.  The note I wrote was: "God wants us!  Here He's practically begging Israel to return to Him.  History is the story of how God tried time after time to have a relationship with people - finally it was accomplished - through Jesus."  Unfortunately, every appeal God made to Israel fell on deaf ears.  It's just like that parable where the master sent servants to his vineyard to get the profit or whatever, and the people working the vineyard mistreated the prophets, so finally the master sent his own son to do the job.  Of course, it didn't work out so well for that son, but at least Jesus rose from the dead.

I don't have any more margin notes in this passage.  But basically God tells Judah to repent, and tells them what will happen if they don't - destruction and judgment.  Jeremiah is overcome with anguish for the fate of his people.  So God tells Jeremiah to go through the streets of Jerusalem and try to find one person - just one - who "does justice, who seeks truth," and then He will pardon the whole city.  Remember Sodom and Gomorrah?  This is why I think if Abraham had asked God to spare Sodom for the sake of one righteous man, He would have.  But apparently Jeremiah doesn't find anybody.  That's pretty sad.  So yes, destruction is coming, and the people of Jerusalem are warned to flee the city to save their lives.

What is really difficult for me to grasp is that God tells Jeremiah not to pray for the people of Israel because He isn't going to hear.  Sometimes, the things we want are actually against God's will, and sometimes God even tells us not to pray for something or not to pray the way we would want to pray.  That is tough to think about.  Also, I don't think we can change God's mind when He is going to do something.  We can't force or manipulate or bargain God into doing what we want.  And finally, whether or not Israel survived didn't depend on Jeremiah, but on the rest of the people, and they had no intention of listening to God, apparently.

Jeremiah writes a lament for Zion, but then he acknowledges the greatness of God and the wickedness of people.  In spite of his own sorrow, Jeremiah is committed to the will of God and he knows that God does what is right, in the end.  I like this verse here, 10:23 - "I know, O LORD, that a man's way is not in himself, Nor is it in a man who walks to direct his steps."  Like I said above about wanting God to change my will - I really don't think that I have the ability to make the best decisions for myself.  Certainly not at 23.  I can't see ahead the way God can.  A few years ago I had an amazing job opportunity that I didn't take because, after thinking a lot about it, I didn't think I was ready for it and I wasn't sure I could commit to it.  The other day my mom mentioned that part of her wished now that we had gone for it (we, because I would have required my parents' help).  Did I do the right thing in not taking it?  I don't know right now; I'm not really sure I can know from where I'm standing.  I think several years from now I'll look back and see how God has directed my steps, and I'm sure I'll also see where I went astray.  It's hard to tell what straight is when you're up close to it.  That's why I need God to guide me, because only He has the perspective to tell where I need to go.

So apparently there is stuff to be learned from Jeremiah, both the book and the person, in spite of it's being an overwhelmingly sad book most of the time.  I'll try to be more regular about updating this. . . .  In my reading I'm almost to the end of Ezekiel (which is what I read immediately after Jeremiah).

Isaiah 24-31: Present Suffering, Future Glory

I took my advice and found a book to help me understand the stuff I'm reading a little better, and it's been very, well, helpful.  The book is called Eerdman's Handbook to the Bible and it's a 1992 edition so I don't know how accessible it is today, but I really like it because it gives a lot of background historical information and, at least in what I've read so far (just Isaiah), it summarizes the verses without trying to add a slant to them like some commentaries do.

So we left off in chapter 24.  Chapter 24 is about the final judgment of the earth and everything basically being completely destroyed in in.  One of the things it says that I have a question about is in verse 21, where it says "the LORD will punish the host of heaven on high."  That refers to the angels, right?  I don't think it's a reference to heavenly bodies, because of course they're amoral, and because the next line refers to judging the kings on earth.  So maybe this is when Satan and his angels are thrown into the lake of fire.

But then in chapter 25 there is a song of praise to God, which kind of seems weird after a chapter of death and destruction, but it's because the judgment makes way for restoration, healing, and everlasting peace.  I think it's like what Isaiah said about Egypt, that the LORD strikes, "striking but healing."  It's as if the two go hand in hand, like you can't get healed unless you first clean up the mess - like if you break a bone, you have to get it set for it to heal properly.  For some reason, this is the way God likes to work.

One of my favorite passages is in chapter 26, which continues praising God for His preservation, providence, goodness, and majesty.  It goes like this (I memorized it in KJV): "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee, because he trusteth in Thee.  Trust thee in the LORD forever, for in the LORD Jehovah is everlasting strength" (26:3-4).  This is one of those "anchor" type verses for me.  What I mean is, it's one of those things that just reminds me to trust in God and anchors me to Him, so to speak, because not only is He the source of my strength, but He is also the source of my peace.  And that's very important, as I've been discovering lately.

It says in this chapter that God's hand is clearly at work in the world, but some people just don't see it.  It says that our own efforts are futile when we try to do things ourselves, but God can make even the dead live - it's God who makes all our efforts and actions produce something real.

Next it talks about Israel being delivered and restored, that through their suffering they'll turn to God and be forgiven, and they'll return to the land and worship God.

Chapter 28 goes back to the bad news.  After dwelling on the wonderful result, Isaiah focuses for a while on the events that must happen to produce the result - the conquer and captivity of Israel.  This was written just before the fall of Samaria, but not very much before.  And at the time, the people of Judah are continually following the example of Israel, so Isaiah's message is really for them, telling them what's going to happen to Israel and warning them that they're next if they continue on that path.  Judah is acting like a teenager right now - teenagers think they're indestructible.  They can't imagine ever getting in a car accident, or becoming deathly ill, or anything like that.  Judah is thinking that whatever bad stuff comes their way, it won't really hit them, but there's absolutely no reason for them to have that security because they're not hiding in God, and they know it.  The warning continues through chapter 29.  It sounds like the people of Judah are following God on a superficial level - claiming YHWH as their God, following the traditions God established way back in Exodus, etc., but there is nothing behind them.  It says "their reverence for Me consists of tradition learned by rote" (v.13).  It reminds me of a line in Romeo and Juliet, in which Father Lawrence criticizes Romeo's "love" for Rosaline, saying "thou didst read by rote that could not spell" - somebody who pretends to read something that they actually have memorized, because they can't even spell.  In other words, there's no mental process, no comprehension, no analyzing or even thinking about what is being done; it's just a routine, like washing your hands.  That's all God is to them.  But God knows that a day will come when these spiritually blind and deaf people will see and hear and worship God from their hearts.

Chapter 30 describes a current event.  Judah has made an alliance with Egypt during the Assyrian invasion of Samaria, and they think that means they're safe.  This chapter starts off with something I think is very important - it says, "woe to the rebellious children . . . who execute a plan, but not Mine: (v.1).  Sometimes we - and I'm talking about Christians now - make a plan that we think is very sound and reasonable (Egypt was still a major world power, probably a good ally), but just because you are a Christian and you made a plan, doesn't mean it's God's plan.  Just because you're a Christian and you're doing something, doesn't mean you're acting on God's behalf.  Like, all this talk about judgment and vengeance and the wrath of God?  If you act in those ways, and you're a Christian, it doesn't mean you're executing God's justice and vengeance and wrath.  It says that Judah went to Egypt without even consulting God.  Do we really take time to seek God's will before making a decision, or do we simply make a decision based on what we've already decided we believe about what God wants?  This is a very relevant warning, I think, and I mean that for myself too.

So basically, God says the alliance will fail and Judah will be humiliated.  But then there's great news.  Verse 18 says, "Therefore the LORD longs to be gracious to you, And therefore He waits on high to have compassion on you.  For the LORD is a god of justice; How blessed are all those who long for Him."

That verse is like a breath of fresh air to me.  It tells me two things about God: first, that God is patient with us.  I know I've mentioned this before, but one of my favorite parts in the Bible is 2 Peter 4:9, where it says God "is patient with you, not wishing for any to perish, but for all to be brought to salvation."  God is waiting on us.  Just like in My Fair Lady where the dad says "I'm willing to tell you; I'm wanting to tell you; I'm waiting to tell you!"  God is willing, wanting, waiting to lavish His grace and compassion on us.  Why is He waiting?  Because He wants us to want it, I think.

The second thing this verse tells me is that compassion is just.  People make a big deal out of the supposed dichotomy between justice and mercy (or grace, or love).  In God's reality, they are the same thing.  God isn't 1/2 Justice and 1/2 Mercy, or mostly mercy with a little bit of justice, or something like that. This verse says that God is gracious and compassionate because He is a God of justice.  Isn't that amazing?

So once the people wise up and realize this, then things will be just fine.  God Himself will be the teacher of the people and all those idols are going to be thrown away forever, and even the land and the animals will be blessed, and the light - the light!  The moon will be as bright as the sun, and the sun will be seven times brighter than it is right now.  Why?  Because God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all (1 John 1:5).  It sounds glorious to me.

But then Isaiah reminds us of what else is going to happen -  judgment against the wicked and the proud.  Listen to this - "burning is His anger and dense is His smoke" (v.27, I thought it sounded cool) - fire, overflowing torrent, consuming fire, cloudburst, downpour, hailstones.  And God says Assyria will be terrified - they better be!

Finally, God condemns the Jews for trusting in Egypt and not in Him, because Egypt itself is going to fall, and it's God who will be the deliverer in the end.  The chapter (and this passage) ends with a call: "return to Him from whom you have deeply defected," because when the rubber hits the road, every other defense is going to fall.

Isaiah 1-12: Bad News, Good News

All right, so now we move into Isaiah.  I'm going to put up a sidebar that lists the books of the Old Testament in the order they appear in the Tanakh, so you know that I'm really not being arbitrary.

Isaiah was written during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah - who, if you remember, were really good, good, really bad, and really good, respectively.  So this was right around the time of Israel's fall.  The prophecies in Isaiah are mostly about Judah and Israel, but there are some about other nations too.

The beginning prophecies are about Judah and Jerusalem, and they are condemning the sin of the people.  Now this is interesting to me, because this was written mostly during the time of good kings.  But if you remember, the high places were still in place all the way until the reign of Hezekiah.  What it sounds like to me is that the people were basically following the law, sacrificing to God and observing the feasts (with the exception of Passover) and whatnot, but they were also serving other gods and just not doing good.  So God says that he doesn't even like their sacrifices or feasts or any of the things they do "for" him, so that he's not even going to listen to their prayers anymore.

The first several chapters go back and forth between good news and bad news.  The bad news is, God is going to destroy Jerusalem and Judah to judge them for their wickedness and idolatry.  The good news is, he is going to restore Jerusalem and people will worship God from their hearts.  The bad news is, first will come a day of judgment against all the people who are proud, adulterous, who don't take care of the poor and needy, who take bribes and permit sin, and against the leaders and rulers who are corrupt.  The good news is, there will always be a remnant of the faithful.  Even though God is not going to punish Judah, he is not going to leave them alone forever.  He's going to make sure that Judah never entirely forsakes him, and he's not going to forsake them either.

Then Isaiah describes a vision that he has during the year that Uzziah died.  He has a vision of the throne of God, what Paul calls the "third heaven," and he sees these angels called seraphim gathered around God's throne.  These seraphim are so high up on the angel hierarchy that they are actually in the direct presence of God, standing before his throne all day and night, and yet even they must cover their eyes with two of their wings.  And all day long they say to each other, "Holy, Holy, Holy, is the LORD of hosts, The whole earth is full of His glory."

What I understand about the Hebrew language is that they don't have comparative or superlative suffixes like English and other languages do.  That is, we add the "er" and "est" suffixes of words to show degrees of how extreme something is.  Hebrew doesn't have that; instead, the word would be repeated - twice for the comparative, three times for the superlative.  (Another way to state a superlative would be to say "X of Xs," as in "king of kings" and "song of songs.")  So it would be like, instead of saying "better," they would say "good good," or "good good good" for "best."  That is what they are doing here.  As my old Bible teacher said once, "God is not 'holy.'  God is not 'holy, holy.'  He is 'holy, holy, holy.'"

When Isaiah sees God like this, he is completely overwhelmed by the holiness, the perfection, the goodness, the righteousness, the otherness, the un-humanness of God.  God is holy - holy, holy, holy - and Isaiah knows that he is not.  He does what every thinking, feeling person does when they encounter God: he falls flat on his face.  Then he does the second thing every thinking, feeling person does when they encounter God: he acknowledges his sin.  But then, amazingly, one of the seraphim takes a burning coal from the altar and touches it to Isaiah's lips.  Now, it doesn't say so, but I have to imagine that this would hurt, even in a vision.  Don't you think?  But the coal cleanses him.  And then God asks for a messenger to send, to speak on his behalf - as if he really didn't know who he was going to send.  And Isaiah, quite unlike Moses, volunteers to be sent wherever God wishes him to go.  I find it interesting that it's only after Isaiah's been cleansed that he mentions being sent.  I don't think this means we have to overcome our sin and become perfect in order for God to use us, though.  Remember, Isaiah didn't actually do anything to become clean - he just acknowledged his uncleanness, and it was God who declared him clean.  I think this means that in order to receive God's calling on our lives, we have to acknowledge our sin and accept his cleansing forgiveness.  And I think that the process of cleansing may not be painless.  I don't think it was for Isaiah.

One thing I have always wondered is whether this vision took place before Isaiah received the prophecies recorded in chapters 1-5, or if the whole thing is written chronologically.  It seems as if this story is the beginning for Isaiah, but I don't know.

Then it goes back to prophecy, and this time there's a specific context: Ahaz, the bad king, is at war, and God tells Isaiah to tell Ahaz not to be afraid because Judah is going to win.  God invites Ahaz to ask him for a sign to know that this is true, but he says he will not test God.  But God says he will give a sign himself, and guess what it is?  "A virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call his name Immanuel."  Immanuel means "God with us" - this is the first time Isaiah references Messiah, I think.  I wonder if Ahaz knew that this sign was not really related to his little battle.  Because then God goes on to tell about more bad things that are about to happen to Judah, and also, that Israel and Samaria are going to fall.  That happened during the reign of Hezekiah, from what I understand, so it must have been pretty close to the time.

Then there's another Messiah prophecy.  After a bunch of talk about gloom and darkness and destruction, it says that the gloom is going to end, that the people who are walking in the darkness will see a great light, and the light will shine on them.  Deliverance is going to come in the form of a child, who will be given the throne of David, but he's more than just another king.  It says he will be called Mighty God and Eternal Father - somehow, this child is going to be God.  I wonder what the Jews think about these names, what they thought at the time this prophecy was written.  Obviously they are holding on to the part where it talks about him reigning over David's kingdom, but what about the part where it calls him God?

But for now, Israel is not doing so hot.  I think this next prophecy is against the ten tribes that now form the nation of Israel, specifically, because it mentions Ephraim.  Ephraim is only one tribe but its name becomes synonymous with the nation of Israel.  God says they are proud and they do not seek God, that the teachers are leading the people astray.  There's a repeating phrase in the next several paragraphs: "His anger does not turn away, and His hand is still stretched out."  Basically Israel is acting wickedly, even in tribe fighting against tribe.  So God says that Assyria is his instrument for justice and judgment.  But, don't forget, Israel was God's instrument of judgment against Canaan, and now they're getting busted for their own sin.  Well, the same thing is going to happen to Assyria, because they're not good either.  So basically God is saying that after he's done with Israel, Assyria is going to be judged as well.

But then there's more good news: another Messianic reference, and it talks about a time of paradise - the wolf dwelling with the lamb and the leopard with the goat and things like that.  When that happens, the remnant of the Jews will be restored from all the countries where they will be scattered to.

So this has been kind of a cyclic passage - good news, bad news, and super good news - the news of a coming Savior.  The thing is, Israel has gotten itself really screwed up, screwed up beyond repair.  God wants his people to return to him, but their hearts are so hardened that it's going to take something really drastic to repair the damage that's been done.  For almost the first time, we're getting a glimpse of what God has planned.

2 Kings11-15: Polarization of Judah and Israel

I'm going to tell you in advance, in this passage we have a series of good Judean kings and bad Israelite kings.  Actually, not to spoil the surprise for you or anything, but all Israel's kings are bad.  I think Jeroboam set a precedent.  Jehu apparently was the closest thing they had to a good king.

So remember that witchy Athaliah?  When her son (Ahaziah) dies, she sets herself up as ruler of Judah, and moreover, she goes on a rampage and kills all the possible heirs to the throne - I'm guessing she was planning on living forever? - except one escapes.  Ahaziah's sister takes Ahaziah's son Joash and hides him for six years.  He was about a year old when he was hidden, by the way.  For some reason, God has the priest, Jehoiada, proclaim Joash king when he is seven.  The people probably don't like Athaliah, because when they see that Joash is king they put her to death.  Jehoiada makes a covenant between God and the people and the new baby king, and the people go tear down all the altars of Baal.  So Joash's reign starts off on a good solid foot, and we find out that he follows God for as long as Jehoiada lives.  That's kind of a bad omen to me, because these priest guys tend to be old, and if he's going to stop following God when Jehoiada is gone, it means that, like possibly Solomon, Joash didn't have his own relationship with God.  Instead his relationship with God depended on somebody else, or else he was just content to let another person make his decisions for him.

But for now Jehoiada is alive, and so Joash has the temple repaired.  It takes 23 years for the work to actually get started, and that's when Joash has the bright idea of asking people to provide money to pay for the repairs.  But then Hazael, the king of Aram (remember the guy that Elisha anointed?) comes and threatens Jerusalem, so Joash sends all the valuable stuff that's in the temple to him so he'll leave.  It works, but it sucks.  He just spent 23 years trying to get the temple looking nice again, and now he's emptied it out to ward off an enemy.  You'd think he could ask God for some kind of miraculous deliverance, right?

In his later days, Joash became very unpopular; in fact, he was assassinated by his own servants.  But then his son became king so I don't know what good it did.

Meanwhile, Jehu's son Jehoahaz becomes king of Israel, and like his father before him, he does evil.  As a consequence, Aram is constantly beating them.  So I think that is fulfilling God's word to Elijah that Hazael would kill the people Jehu didn't kill.  Jehoahaz dies, and his son Jehoash becomes king.  Now, Jehoash is synonymous with Joash, and the names are used interchangeably for the kings of both Judah and Israel.  To keep them separate, I'm calling Judah's king Joash and Israel's king Jehoash.  He also does evil and is also succeeded by his son, who is named Jeroboam (my header calls him Jeroboam II).  It doesn't seem like either of these kings does anything really significant, compared to Joash over here who is repairing the temple.

Okay, so here is where we find out about the death of Elisha.  Elisha actually dies of natural causes, remarkably - that is, he dies of an illness rather than by being murdered.  Before he dies, he tells somebody to shoot an arrow out the window and that represents victory over Aram, and then he tells him to hit the ground, and that represents how many times they'll beat Aram, but the guy doesn't know that so he only hits the ground 3 times, which means Israel will prevail over Aram only 3 times.  We don't hear anything about Elisha's actual death except that when he is getting buried, some dead guy gets thrown into his grave, and when he touches Elisha's bones he revives and gets up.  So I think that's a final sign that to the very end - and I mean the very end - the same Spirit of the LORD that resided in Elijah, was present in even greater measure in Elisha. 

Joash's son becomes king of Judah next.  His name is Amaziah, and he s also a good king.  The high places are still around, but nobody else has taken them away either.  He kills the people who killed his father, probably a good idea in case they didn't want him on the throne, but he doesn't put their sons to death because that's against the Law of Moses, which says that people cannot be punished for the sins of their fathers, but only for their own sins.  It's nice to see somebody actually following this law.  That leads me to believe that whenever God does some kind of generational punishment, like when he wiped out all Jeroboam's family, it probably was because they were all just as bad as him.

Amaziah wants to fight against Jehoash for some reason, but Jehoash sends him some flowery message that basically says "no."  But Amaziah goes out against him, so Jehoash fights back, and Israel wins.  Sorry Amaziah.  Just because you're not serving idols doesn't mean God necessarily will give you a military victory, especially since it doesn't appear that God had any desire for this battle to happen, and in fact he was the one who had said Judah and Israel should not fight against each other.  But then Jehoash captures Amaziah and also takes all the gold and silver and stuff that's in the temple, so now all of Joash's work has really been undone I think.

But Jehoash doesn't kill Amaziah; Amaziah actually outlives him, but when he dies (he's actually assassinated like his father was), his son becomes king.  Like both Joash/Jehoashes, Amaziah's son has two names too.  The name my Bible gives right here is Amaziah, but the name he's best known by is Uzziah.  If you know Uzziah's name, you probably know that, like his father and grandfather, he was a good king.  Meanwhile, Jeroboam II has just become king, and no surprise, he's a bad king, just like his namesake.  Interestingly though, God gives Jeroboam II some military victories or something because he's able to restore some of Israel's land that had been lost before.  Why would this happen, you ask?  Fortunately the Bible gives us the answer right here.  It says, "For the LORD saw the affliction of Israel, which was very bitter; for there was neither bond nor free, nor was there any helper for Israel."  Elijah and Elisha, remember, were prophets specifically for Israel; they didn't do much work in Judah.  Even though Israel had crappy kings, God still loved the people of Israel; they were still his chosen people, and it was actually hard for him to see them suffering because of their bad decisions and the bad decisions of their leaders.  This just reinforces the teaching of Peter that God doesn't want anybody to perish but all to come to repentance, and that God is patient with us.

Meanwhile, Azariah/Uzziah is a good king, and guess what happens to him?  He becomes a leper.  He has a super-long reign, but he doesn't have his health.  To me that almost seems backwards - Israel, under a bad king, enlarges its border, while Judah's king serves God and gets leprosy.  Sometimes bad things happen to good people, and God doesn't even always give us an explanation why.  See, the good and bad things that happen to us aren't necessarily the consequence of our actions.  Suffering and grace alike can be completely undeserved.

Meanwhile, Israel gets a bunch more kings.  The first is Zechariah, and he is the fourth of Jehu's descendants to rule, so just like God promised, he is the last of his line.  A guy named Shallum kills him and becomes king, but he only lasts a month before a guy named Menahem kills not only him, but also all the pregnant women in the city!  I already don't like him.  He rules for ten years and is, as you probably guessed, evil.  During his reign Assyria starts creeping in, and Israel begins to pay them tribute.  Amazingly, nobody kills Menahem, and his son Pekahiah becomes king.  A guy named Pekah kills him and becomes king, and during his reign Tiglath-pileser of Assyria captures some of Israel's cities.  Slowly, Israel is beginning to crumble.  Think it has anything to do with the fact that every single one of their kings has not followed God?  Personally I sure do.  God gave them a bunch of chances, and he even showed them grace by restoring their border, and they kept screwing up.  I think God is withdrawing his blessing from Israel now.  I think he is going to let them go their own way and see what life without him really is like.  Sometimes God does that too.  Pekah also gets assassinated by a guy named Hoshea.

Okay, so Uzziah's reign didn't cover quite all that time.  Around the same time Pekah came to the throne, Uzziah's son Jotham became king in Judah.  And guess what?  He was also good!  We've had five whole chapters of good kings in Judah - four in a row!  I think that is a record, and that is why I am stopping at chapter 15, because the one after Jotham will break the trend.  Anyway, Jotham rebuilds some part of the temple, the upper gate.  Still nobody has taken away the high places, but the fact that Israel has managed to stay more or less on track for four generations is really amazing to me.

I think that up till now it's been kind of even between Israel and Judah, as far as who was following God and who wasn't.  Sure, Israel had all the bad kings and Judah had a few good ones, but Israel had some kick-awesome prophets to keep the people on track.  But now things are kind of going  chaotic in Israel, and Judah is on a roll in the right direction, or at least they're trying to be.  So it's not surprising that Israel is the one succumbing to Assyria as the empire begins to move toward the Holy Land.

2 Kings 6-10: The Final Prophesies of Elisha

Okay, so I didn't exactly finish chapter 6 last time. The Arameans beseige Samaria, and the people inside run out of food, to the point that inflation skyrockets and people start cannibalizing their children, and when the king hears about it he blames Elisha (don't ask me why) and wants to kill him.   But then, in chapter 7, Elisha prophesies that food will be plentiful the next day.  What happens is that some lepers go out to the Aramean camp thinking that since they're about to die anyway, they might as well throw themselves at the mercy of the enemy.  They discover that the Arameans have abandoned their camp - God apparently made them hear the sound of an approaching army - and left all their stuff.  At first the lepers take stuff and hide it, but then they feel bad and tell the people of Samaria.  So the people go and find food and riches and stuff, and then Elisha's prophecy comes true - awesome, and totally unexpected.  Good thing the lepers had consciences.

But apparently the famine continues, because Elisha goes to that Shunamite woman and tells her that her family should take a vacation to another country, so she lives with the Philistines, who I assume aren't much of a problem anymore, for seven years.  When she comes back, the land where she lives is now occupied by somebody else, so she appeals to the king and tells him about how Elisha gave her a son and then resurrected him and all that, so the king says she should get her land back. I take it from this story that the woman's husband has now died.

Remember at the end of 1 Kings, when God told Elijah to anoint 3 people? - Hazael as the new king of Aram, Jehu as the new king of Israel, and Elisha as the new prophet?  The only person he anointed was Elisha.  I don't know if that was okay with God or not that he didn't do it, but God never reprimanded him for it or anything.  But anyway, now Elisha goes and finishes the job.  But he's really upset over anointing Hazael because he foresees all the destruction he's going to bring to Israel.  So then Hazael goes and murders the current king of Aram, who was very sick at the time, and becomes king.  Reminds me of Macbeth.

Jehoshapat's son Jehoram now becomes king in Judah, and since two generations of good kings was apparently too good to be true, Jehoram is pretty much like all the kings of Israel, probably because he marries Ahab's daughter (and I'm sure she was the spitting image of dear mother Jezebel).  Maybe helping out Ahab and Ahaziah wasn't such a good idea, eh Jehoshapat?  Now, if you're confused, yes, you have heard the name Jehoram before - he's the brother of Ahaziah who is now the king of Israel.  Get this - when Jehoram of Judah dies, his son becomes king, and guess what his name is? Ahaziah.  And you thought all the Henrys of England and Louis (Louises?) of France were confusing.  Anyway, he's also bad, but even worse is his mother.  Her name is Athaliah.  That name makes me cringe, because one time a guy told the story of Athalia and Ahaziah and his son, and to make it more interesting he said Athaliah's name in a high-pitched, freaky, cackly voice.  So I always remember her name, and it sounds like fingernails on a chalkboard.

Then Elisha anoints Jehu.  In another stroke of irony, Jehu's father was named Jehoshaphat.  He basically tells him that he's going to destroy Ahab's family.  So Jehu gets right to business: he tells his people what Elisha said, and they proclaim him king right then and there.  Only then do they go about killing the current king.  Jehu makes short work of Jehoram.  Then he has Jezebel thrown out the window, and he basically runs her over with horses.  Then he kills all the males in Ahab's family after tricking them into coming to him under the pretense of peace.

Jehu is a pretty tricksy character.  He pretends to be a devoted Baal-worshiper and gathers all the priests and worshipers of Baal together for a big sacrifice, but he kills them all.  It almost looks like he's going to follow God, right? Wrong.  He still worships other gods, he just has a thing against Baal apparently.  God commends him for destroying the altars of Baal and the house of Ahab, and promises that he'll have four generations of sons on the throne, which I don't totally get because Jehu was still bad.  He even brought out the golden calves that Jeroboam made and worships those.  Do you ever notice yourself making a really big deal about getting rid of one evil in your life, while ignoring others?  God, it seems, is amazingly patient with us, but unless we tear down all the altars in our lives and eradicate all the false gods from our hearts, we will not really accomplish anything good in the end.

So what did we learn in this passage?  I think this passage was mainly about fulfilling God's prophecies through Elisha.  It's sort of tying up loose ends, because I think this is the last we hear about Elisha.  I don't know how he died or anything, although I'm pretty sure he was killed (all the prophets were, except obviously Elijah).  I think we'll have to wait until Chronicles to find out. Anyway, so we find out that God is serious about what he promises, whether it's for good or for bad.  He provided food as he promised to Samaria, and he also executed judgment on Ahab's family as he promised.  And he was pretty gracious with Jehu, and Jehu is the only Israelite king who was promised a legacy (although Jeroboam was offered a lasting legacy in the beginning).  Sometimes God's promises are unconditional, like the food for Samaria in the midst of the famine.  But sometimes they're based on what we do, like how Jehu destroyed the altars to Baal and killed off Ahab's family.  He doesn't always act exactly in the same way, so don't try to predict him, but he does always keep his promises, so you can definitely count on him.

2 Kings 4-6: There Can Be Miracles When You Obey

It's time for more stories about Elisha! One day Elisha meets a widow who is broke, and about to lose her sons to slavery, so Elisha makes her fill up a bunch of pots with oil, and all she has is a tiny little jar, but it fills every pot and jar and jug that she owns or could borrow from her neighbors, so she can pay off her debts and keep her sons. Now, what I find interesting is that when this woman came to Elisha, he didn't make a sack of gold drop from heaven, or the creditor drop dead. He made her do something. And the miracle only happened because she did what she was told. Sometimes when we look for miracles, I think we assume a miracle happens when we sit back and do nothing, when in reality, God is often calling us to do something that he will use in a miraculous way.


Now we meet another woman, and Elisha's always passing through her town of Shunem, so she invites him to dinner whenever he comes through, and then she convinces her husband to prepare a guest room for him so he'll have a place to stay. Elisha is so grateful that he asks her what he can give her as a thank-you, but she says she is perfectly fine. Elisha asks his servant what he should do, and his servant, Gehazi, points out that her husband is old and they don't have any kids. So Elisha tells her she'll have a son, and she does. Then when the son gets older, he gets sick and dies. She runs for Elisha and tells him what happened. First Elisha sends Gehazi off with his staff to see if that will cure the kid, while he follows the woman back. Gehazi is unable to resurrect the child with Elisha's staff, so when Elisha gets there, he goes into the room and prays and lies right on top of the kid, then stands up and walks around, then repeats, and the kid sneezes seven times and is fine. Talk about a funny resurrection story! Maybe he had a posthumous allergic reaction to Elisha's beard.


Next there's a famine, and some people make a stew, but it's poisonous. Elisha happens to be passing by and asks for meal, and he throws that into the stew and tells the people to eat it. Now, I don't know much about cooking, and I'm guessing these people didn't either since they made something poisonous, but I don't think that adding more ingredients typically cancels out a poisonous one, and I'm pretty sure the people knew that. So this was a very counter-intuitive move, and probably took a lot of faith in Elisha to obey. I mean, what if he was wrong? But they ate it, and sure enough, it was fine. Once again, in this case, obedience was required for a miracle to take place.


Another famous story happens in chapter 5. Remember that country Aram, that Israel's been fighting for the last several chapters? Well, there's a guy in the Aramean army who has leprosy, named Naaman. His wife has a little girl slave who's an Israelite, a captive from a raid. Now first of all, the fact that the Bible calls her a "little girl" tells me that she really is a little girl. Girls were women around 13 (and boys were men at the same age). Anyway, this little girl is so beautiful to me. She's been taken away from her mommy and daddy to be a slave to some pagan woman and her husband in a foreign land, and her master has a disease which, in her homeland, people got banished for, and yet she has compassion on him. Is that amazing or what? I love this little girl. She says she wishes that Naaman could be with the prophet in Israel (Elisha) because he could be healed. And Naaman, far from simply patting the girl on the head and saying "isn't that nice," actually goes to the king of Aram and tells him about it.


Now remember, Israel and Aram have been at war for the last several chapters, spanning a few generations at least. Yet for some reason the king says Naaman should go find this prophet guy – not only that, he volunteers to write a letter himself to the king of Israel, who, remember, is his enemy.

Now, the king of Israel isn't quite as cucumber-cool as the king of Aram. He sort of freaks out when he reads the letter because he thinks the king of Aram is demanding that he heal Naaman, or something like that I guess. He thinks it's another incitement to war. But Elisha hears about it – seems like word traveled fast in Israel, even without the Internet – and he sends a message to the king to invite Naaman over.


Anyway, you know the story. Naaman comes and Elisha sends a messenger to tell him to wash in the Jordan River seven times. Apparently the Jordan is really muddy and gross. Naaman gets angry because he wanted to see the real prophet and get a magic show. But one of his servants, who seems to be more sensible than Naaman, points out that if the prophet had asked Naaman to do something really hard, Naaman would have done it. So why can't he do something retardedly easy? So he does, and he gets healed! And a third time, the miracle was a result of obedience. And from what I can tell, Naaman wasn't 1/7 healed after his first dip, then 2/7, and so forth. He had to completely finish, and then he was completely healed – more than that, his skin became baby smooth! Seriously, it says his skin became like the "flesh of a little child."


Okay, so this is my favorite part. Naaman offers to give Elisha a present, but Elisha doesn't want anything. Naaman asks for some dirt, I guess to make an altar? Because from now on he is only going to sacrifice to the LORD and not to the pagan gods of Aram. Can you believe it?! Naaman didn't come here to be converted or to encounter God; he just wanted to get rid of his leprosy and go on with his life. But having been healed, Naaman has also been washed on the inside. He even goes on to explain that he helps the king into their temple to worship and he has to bow down for the king to lean on him, so he asks for God's pardon when that happens. I just can't believe the change in Naaman. He was angry before that Elisha didn't come out himself to see him and wave his hands and pull birds out of his hat. Now he seems really humble and grateful. I can see why he was well respected in Aram though; he's a dedicated guy.


Anyway, remember how I said Elisha doesn't want anything? Well, his servant Gehazi does. He goes out behind Elisha's back and asks for the gifts that Naaman had offered, lying and saying they're for somebody else (the sons of the prophets again, to be exact). Naaman gives him twice what he had offered to Elisha (also a very generous guy), and Gehazi takes it. But Elisha knows he took it, so he fires him, and more than that, he gives him Naaman's leprosy. Greed doesn't pay.


Then there's a short weird story about the sons of the prophets. They are building a new neighborhood, and while they're cutting down trees, somebody's axe head flies off the handle and sinks into the water, and he freaks out because it was borrowed. Have you ever lost something that you borrowed from somebody else? It is the worst feeling in the world. Especially when it was something important or valuable. But Elisha is a really nice guy and he makes the axe head float up to the top of the water so the guy can get it back. I wish that would happen to me when I lost something.

Okay, so now we go back to the Arameans. The king of Aram – Naaman's boss, the guy who sent him to Elisha – is at war with Israel already again. Israel is winning so badly that the king things there's a traitor among his servants. But his servants are like dude, that prophet in Israel, he can hear the things that you whisper in your bedroom and tell them to the king of Israel. Remember when Elisha asked for a double portion of Elijah's spirit? I think this story confirms that he's got it. The king tries to capture Aram, but he can't because Elisha asks God to let them see all the angelic warriors who are surrounding Samaria, and then he makes them go blind and leads them right into the middle of the city so they can get captured. But he doesn't let the Israelites kill them. On the contrary, he feeds them and sends them home, and they never come back – at least, not the "marauding bands" of the Arameans. 


Once again, I'm going to stop early because this is just going to be too long. I think I've made the main point of my post clear: miracles are not just the result of believing something good can happen. Sometimes they are the result of doing what God tells you to do. Sometimes they require doing things that are illogical, like the woman with only enough food for her and her son, or downright stupid, like washing in a river that's dirtier than you are. I think the point is, if God asks you to do something, you should do it, because you never know what will happen. Sometimes God does miracles when we don't do anything, like the Shunamite woman who got a son just because she was nice to Elisha. Contrary to the popular belief that "there can be miracles when you believe," I think that there can be miracles regardless of whether you believe or not, because if God wants to do a miracle, I think he's just going to. However, it sure does seem to help if you believe, because belief leads to obedience, and God blesses obedience.


I think we have also learned that it's best not to borrow or lend something valuable to another person, unless you have a prophet handy to recover it when it gets lost.

2 Kings 1-3: The Rise of Elisha

Now we're on to 2 Kings. Ahab has died and his son is on the throne, but he's gotten sick. He wants to know whether he'll recover, so he sends somebody to ask of some random god, Baal-zebub (is this the good later known as Beelzebub or Belzebul in the New Testament, a synonym for the devil?). God tells Elijah to say to King Ahaziah, are you asking Baal-zebub for help because there is no God in Israel? And also, you're going to die. Elijah sends the message, and Ahaziah sends fifty men to go bring Elijah to him. This is really funny. The captain of the fifty says to Elijah, hey man of God, come down right now. And Elijah says, if I'm a man of God, fire will come down and burn you up. And it does. So then Ahaziah sends another fifty men, and the same thing happens. He sends another fifty men (whatever happened to "fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me?), and the captain of the third fifty really doesn't want to die, so he goes to Elijah and bows down and begs for his life and the lives of his men. Smart guy. So Elijah knows this guy is going to show him respect and not kill him, so he goes with them. And he tells the king exactly what he already told him. Ha! I like Elijah. And of course, Ahaziah dies, but he doesn't have a son, so his brother, Ahab's other son, becomes the king.


As far as we know, only two people have ever made it out of this world alive. One was named Enoch. The other was Elijah. I wonder why these two are the ones who never died, and why not anybody else. Ever wonder about that? Well, the Bible doesn't tell us why. But Elijah knows ahead of time that it's about time to go, and so apparently does everybody else. Now, there's this group of guys collectively called "the sons of the prophets." I don't know who they are or why they all hang out together, but they show up from time to time in these books. When Elijah and Elisha pass by them, the sons of the prophets say to Elisha, "do you know that the LORD will take away your master from over you today?" and he says, yes I know; shut up. I like him already. Elijah and Elisha cross the Jordan with a cool river-parting move, and then Elijah asks Elisha if there's anything he wants. Elisha asks for a double portion of Elijah's spirit to be given to him. I don't know if he meant Elijah's supernatural power, or his ability to speak with God, or his courage, or his vitality, or something like that, but apparently he gets it. And a fiery chariot – I'm thinking that Elijah rode in style, like a stretch limo chariot – comes down from heaven and takes Elijah up.


  After Elisha can't see his master anymore, he takes Elijah's coat that he dropped, and he says something funny. He says, "Where is the LORD, the God of Elijah?" Why on earth did he say that? He just saw Elijah get taken up to heaven, so obviously God is pretty close by. What did he mean by asking that? But anyway, he touches the water of the Jordan River with Elijah's mantle, just like Elijah had done to get the water to part on the way over, and the river parts again. Now, to me, when they crossed over the first time, I thought that was a totally pointless stunt. "Hey Elisha, look what I can do!" something like that. But now that Elijah is gone, Elisha needs to know that God really is with him and Elijah wasn't just speaking off the cuff. When he is able to do the same miracle Elijah did, maybe he knows that God truly is with him. And maybe that answers his question.


  So Ahaziah's successor, Jehoram, is just as bad as he and their dad were. But when Moab rebels against Israel, he goes to king Jehoshapat (who is good, remember) for help, and Jehoshapat says he'll help again. Now, we haven't heard a whole lot about Jehoshaphat, mostly just a paragraph saying he was good, and a little anecdote about him and Ahab fighting Aram together, but I'm inclined to like him. He wants peace between Judah and Israel, because remember, God wanted peace between Judah and Israel. Every time a king of Israel asks for his help, this is what he says: "I am as you are, my people as your people, my horses as your horses." In other words, your battle is my battle because we are all God's chosen people. He isn't uppity and elitist like "no, you Israelites seceded from Judah, so we don't want to have anything to do with you. We're the good side and you're the bad side." That's not the way it is, and Jehoshapat knows it. This, I think, is how we should treat other Christians, even the ones who belong to churches we may not fully agree with. I'm not talking about cults or living in sin or anything like that (although that would more accurately describe Israel); I mean other people who are believers, just as the Israelites were just as much God's chosen people as the people of Judah. At least, that's what I take away from this.

 
So they go, and the king of Edom joins them, and they get stuck in a place without water. So they need to call a prophet for help, and somebody suggests Elisha, the former servant of Elijah. So far, Elisha is kind of an unknown – the person has to say that he was Elijah's helper or nobody would know who they were talking about. Anyway, Elisha doesn't want to talk to the kings of Israel or Edom, and only does so because of Jehoshapat, but he won't prophesy to them. Instead he makes a minstrel do it, and the spirit of the LORD comes on the minstrel. Weird! Anyway, so they go into battle, and Moab is losing, and so the king of Moab sacrifices his oldest son as a burnt offering, which is gross and evil, but then a great wrath comes against Israel – super freaky. Maybe because Israel didn't follow God, they were not protected from the dark forces that Moab served. Now, up to this point in the story (meaning the whole Bible), pagan gods have been portrayed as relatively impotent. God made a mockery of Egypt's gods, the gods of Canaan were powerless to save them from destruction, the Philistine idol of Dagon can't even stay upright in the presence of the ark of the covenant, and 6+ hours of screaming and cutting doesn't arouse the attention of Baal. For pretty much the first time, here we see a result, and it comes from what God depicts as one of the most heinous acts a person can do, human sacrifice. These people may just be serving blocks of wood and stone, but there are other powers in this world than good and other supernatural beings besides God and the angels. The darkness is real and so is its power. And that, I believe, is why God wanted Israel to stay far, far away from it. This is a scary part of the story to me.

I was going to go through chapter 8, but this seems like a good place to stop to me.

1 Kings 17-22: Ahab v. Elijah!

Ready to hear about a prophet you've actually heard of?  Well, look no further, because Elijah the Tishbite is here!  Now, I think "Tishbite" is a really funny word.  But even people with funny names can serve God and do awesome things.  Check this out.  The first thing Elijah does ans go to Ahab and tell him that there is not going to be rain or even dew unless he says so, and that it's going to last a few years.  Luckily, God has a secret hiding place for Elijah where he can get food and water.  First God uses ravens to give Elijah food, but later he uses more traditional means, namely, a person.  There's a widow in a place called Zarephath that God wants to provide for him.  But when Elijah finds her, she's getting ready to bake the very last food she has in her house, and there's only enough for her and her son, and after that they're just going to starve to death.  So Elijah says something really inconsiderate considering that: he asks the widow to make food for him first, and then for her and her son, and he tells her that she won't run out of flour or oil.

Now, if I were in this widow's position, I would probably think this was a crazy guy.  Maybe she knew who Elijah was.  But amazingly, she immediately does exactly what Elijah asked, and sure enough, her flour and oil jars don't run out for the entire length of the drought.  You know how I said maybe she knew who Elijah was? I'm not sure, because once the miracle happens, then she says "Now I know that you are a man of God and that the word of the LORD in your mouth is truth."  She didn't know that for certain before, but she still obeyed.  Now, I have a feeling that if she'd made food for herself and her son first, and then for Elijah, the results would not have been the same. What do you think?  Also notice that the miracle allows the widow to continue making bread, but nothing else.  Elijah doesn't promise for a stray deer to wander onto her property, or for a vegetable truck from the future to slip through a wormhole and land on her doorstep.  Sometimes God's miracles are overwhelmingly huge, and sometimes God's miracles are just keeping us alive.

Now three years have passed, and God tells Elijah that he's finally going to send rain, but first he's got a project.  On his way to tell Ahab, Elijah runs into Obadiah.  Obadiah is one of Ahab's people, but he worships the true God and even saved the lives of 100 prophets when Ahab's wife Jezebel (we'll hear more about her; she's a real gem) is killing them all.  Remember that fact, by the way.  So anyway, Elijah has Obadiah tell Ahab that he's on his way, and very reluctantly, he does.  Elijah tells Ahab to assemble all the people of Israel, including the prophets of Baal (all 450 of them) and the prophets of Asherah (all 400 of them) on Mount Carmel.  So he does, except the prophets of Asherah don't show up for some reason.

This is my favorite story in this book.  Elijah calls the people out and says they need to decide whether to follow the LORD or Baal, and they're going to have a test to see which one is the true God.In true Mythbusters fashion, Elijah sets up identical experiments: two altars, two oxen, no fire.  The god who sends fire from heaven to burn the offering, is really God.

The prophets of Baal spend all day long trying to get Baal to answer him.  They take so long, in fact, that Elijah starts making fun of them.  They even cut themselves because they believed that Baal was drawn to the scent of blood (part shark?).  But the Bible tells us "there was no voice, no one answered, and no one paid attention."  Whatever celestial beings may be up in heaven, Baal is not one of them.

Then it's Elijah's turn, and he tips the scales against his favor by dousing the entire altar with several gallons of water.  He prays one time, in two sentences, and immediately fire comes from heaven and not only burns the offering, but also burns the wood, the stones, and the run-off water that Elijah had poured on the altar.  That would have been freaky.  The highly intelligent people of Israel immediately cry, "The LORD, He is God!"  I'm glad they came to that conclusion given the evidence.  So then Elijah takes all 450 prophets of Baal down the hill and kills them, and he tells Ahab that it's going to rain pretty hard soon.

Ahab goes home to the wife and tells him what the big mean prophet did to him.  Now, Jezebel is a witch.  She's not even Jewish.  Jezebel sends a sweet little note to Elijah that basically says, what you did to the prophets of Baal, may the gods do all that and more to me if I don't kill you by tomorrow.  Now, Elijah has been pretty tough up to this point.  He's faced down 450 prophets of Baal and an evil king without so much as flinching.  He knows God is on his side.  But one telegram from the wicket witch of Israel, and Elijah runs for his life.  He runs to Beersheba, and then he goes into the wilderness, and finally he walks all the way down to Mt. Sinai (also known as Horeb).  So it's no wonder that when he gets there, the first thing God says to him is, "What are you doing here, Elijah?"  Elijah whines that he's done everything for God and Israel has been bad and has killed all the prophets and he's the only one left and they're trying to kill him too.

Now, remember that guy Obadiah?  Thanks to him, there are at least 100 prophets of God alive still.  Maybe Elijah just doesn't know about them.  But the person who wrote this book knew about them, so somebody knows what he did.  Do you ever feel like you're the only one of your kind?  Like you're the only person in the world trying to do the right thing and follow God and you're all by yourself?  I've felt like that.  But the truth is, you're not alone.  Chances are, there are other people in the exact same situation, but you might have to look for them.  This is why I think that it's important for Christians to be part of some kind of church.

God does something interesting next.  He tells Elijah that he's going to pass by.  There's a huge earthquake, but God's not in the earthquake.  Then there's a fire, but God's not in the fire.  And after that there's a tiny, tiny wind - my Bible says "a gentle blowing," and others call it a "still, small voice."  When Elijah hears it, he knows that it is God.  Now, I don't know exactly why God did this, but I think it means that God doesn't always appear with a band, like He did at Mt. Carmel.  Maybe God is telling Elijah that He's going to provide for him the same way He provided for the widow at Zarephath - not with a lot of fanfare and bells and whistles, but by just quietly keeping him going.

So God doesn't even answer Elijah's pity party, except to say that when all is said and done, there will still be 7000 in Israel loyal to Him.  Instead of a "poor baby" and a pat on the back, God tells Elijah to go all the way back to Israel, and stop in Damascus to anoint a new king over Aram (not part of Israel), a new king of Israel, and a new prophet/apprentice for himself.  God says that Hazael (new king of Aram) will kill a bunch of people, and the people Hazael doesn't kill, Jehu (new king of Israel) will kill, and the people Jehu doesn't kill, Elisha (new prophet) will kill, and after all that there will still be 7000 followers of God left.  So Elijah goes back and does those things.

In the next chapter, Israel has a couple wars with the aforementioned country of Aram.  At the time, the king is named Ben-hadad.  Ahab actually wins, and Ben-hadad escapes.  His servants tell him that the Israelite kings are merciful.  Isn't that cool, that even though Israel has turned bad, they still have a good reputation?  Anyway, so Ben-hadad goes groveling to Ahab, and Ahab makes a covenant with him and lets him live.  But then a prophet tells Ahab that he was supposed to kill Ben-hadad and now he and Israel are going to be in trouble because of it.

Next, we have a lovely story about Ahab.  It seems there's this guy named Naboth who has a vineyard near Ahab's palace.  Ahab wants the vineyard, not because it's a good vineyard - he wants to turn it into a vegetable garden - he just wants it because it's close to his house.  Naboth says no, because it's his inheritance.  That might not make a lot of sense to us today - I mean, I were Naboth, and the king offered me money and a better vineyard for it, I would say sure! but inheritance and land were really important to people back in the day.  They were things you just did not give away.

So Ahab goes home to mope, and delightful Jezebel hears the story and says she will get the vineyard.  Unlike Ahab, though, Jezebel is not a fair player.  She just sets up for Naboth to be murdered, and that's what happens.  So then Ahab gets his precious vineyard.  But then Elijah comes back and tells Ahab that, like Jeroboam and Baasha before him, every male in Ahab's family is going to be cut off, and that dogs are going to eat Jezebel's body.  Then the Bible has rare bit of commentary: "Surely there was no one like Ahab who sold himself to do evil in the sight of the LORD, because Jezebel his wife incited him."  How would you like that legacy?  Ahab, it seems, didn't so much set out to do evil, as he let evil happen and didn't say a word.  He married a woman who served false gods, he let her set up 850 false prophets who ate at her table, he let her go after Elijah, and he had to have known what she was going to do to Naboth.  Ahab sold himself to the devil so that he could plant a vegetable garden next to his house.  What a dip.

Fortunately for Ahab, he realizes he's a dip.  When Elijah tells him this, he tears his clothes and puts on sackcloth and fasts.  Beloved Jezebel probably kicked him and told him to get up and be happy, but if she did, he finally didn't listen to her.  Anyway, God is so impressed by Ahab's humility that He decides to be merciful and not to cause this rampant destruction in Ahab's days, just in the days of his son.

Finally, another war with Aram.  Israel and Judah go out together.  The king of Judah at this time is Jehoshaphat, who's a good guy, and he wants to ask one of the LORD's prophets whether they'll win.  All the other prophets in the world are telling them that they're going to win.  But along comes another prophet, named Micaiah, and he says they're going to lose.  What's weird about this story is that the people act like it's Micaiah's decision for Aram to win.  When he comes to the king, the messenger tells him to prophesy favorably because that's what everybody else has been doing.  And when he does otherwise, Ahab tells Jehoshaphat, see, I told you he'd say something negative.  And he has him thrown in prison until his safe return.  But I guess he's going to stay there a while, because just like Micaiah said, Aram wins - I assume the king of Aram is the same one that Ahab let live - and Ahab gets randomly shot  and killed.

Last of all we hear more about this Jehoshaphat guy.  He was the son of Asa, a good king, remember?  Jehoshapat is also a good king.  Finally! Asa has succeeded where so many other leaders of Israel have failed, in raising a godly son.  So Judah is on the mend.  In contrast to that,. Ahab's son becomes king, and he's bad just like his father.  Ahab's humiliation may have been sincere, but the text doesn't say anything about repentance or about Ahab serving only the LORD after this point, so in the end, nothing changes in Israel.

1 Kings 12-16: DIvision of the Kingdom

When Solomon dies, his son Rehoboam becomes king.  The people of Israel tell him that they were pretty heavily taxed during the days of Solomon (probably to pay for the temple and the palace), and if the new king will just lighten the load a little, they'll faithfully serve him forever.  Rehoboam initially responds well to this request; he calls the elders who had been  on Solomon's advisory panel and ask them what they think.  But when they tell him to listen to the people, he doesn't seem too impressed.  So then he calls in his friends, the young spoiled rich kids who grew up with young spoiled Rehoboam.  They tell him, no way man!  You should tax them even harder, and make a wisecrack about your dad to boot!  Oh yeah, that comment about "my little finger is thicker than my father's loins"?  That was probably a lewd comment intended to mock his father's masculinity, if you don't know what I mean (if you don't, know that the word translated "loins" could have been translated to mean what's between the legs).

So Rehoboam turns out to be a jerk, because this is his response to the people.  A word of advice: when you're in a leadership position, try not to do something that will make the people under you quit, because they can.  And they do.  Ten out of Israel's twelve tribes secede and form their own country, and do you know who they make king?  That's right, Jeroboam from last time.  Now remember, God had told Jeroboam that he would become king of Israel, and promised him that if he followed God, he would have basically the same deal that was promised to David: a descendant on the throne forever.

Anyway, so as soon as Israel secedes, the people of Judah and Benjamin prepare to go to war - you know, your typical civil war situation.  But God tells a random prophet (ever hear of Shemaiah?) that the Jews can't fight against their own people.  They've never made a habit of listening to God before, but this time they do.

Let's go see how Jeroboam is doing as king.  Oh look, he's commissioned two golden calves and altars on the high places, and appointed non-Levite priests, and set up holidays to honor his calves.  What happened was, he was afraid that if the people continued to follow the LORD, they would be continually going to Jerusalem to sacrifice, and that would eventually reunite the kingdom - in spite of what the LORD himself promised Jeroboam.  So he created an alternative religion for his people so that they would stay out of Judah, thereby securing his reign - or so he thought.  See, there's a problem whenever we think that we can secure our own future.  God had already offered Jeroboam as good of a deal as anybody can have, and instead of trusting God to keep his word, he sets up his own security system. But God wants to give him a second chance, so an anonymous man of God visits him and warns him that there is impending doom because of his idolatry.  Jeroboam stretches out his hand to order that the man of God be seized, but God strikes his hand so that some weird affliction happens to it (my text says it "dried up" but I don't know what that would have looked like).  So of course, then Jeroboam begs the prophet to pray to God so his hand would be healed.  Now, if I were the man of God, I would say, no way!  You just tried to kill me, and you aren't going to listen to God.  Why should I help you, since I'm about to die anyway?  But this guy is a better guy than me, apparently, so he prays to God and Jeroboam's hand is healed.  Oh joy.  So then Jeroboam invites the prophet to come back to his house and get a "reward."  Now the prophet wises up and says no way man, there is nothing on earth that could make me go with you or eat your food.  Well, it's actually because God had told him not to eat any food or drink any water until he gets home.  So he goes home.

But on the way home something really weird happens.  There's this old prophet in Bethel, and his sons tell him the story above about Jeroboam and the man of God, so the old prophet goes out and meets the first prophet and invites him home to dinner.  The prophet at first says no way, but then the old prophet lies and tells him that God had spoken to him and told him to invite the first prophet to dinner.  So he does, but because he's disobeyed God, God tells him that he won't be buried in his father's grave.  And sure enough, on his way home, he's attacked by wild animals, dies, and gets picked up and buried in Bethel instead of his hometown.  Remember how serious the Jews were about death?  Being buried not in your family's grave, apparently, is kind of a disgraceful thing.

So basically, I think this story has a valuable lesson to teach us: that is, you can't always trust when somebody else tells you God has spoken to them.  Especially if it contradicts what you know God has told you.  Keep in mind, the guy who lied was also a prophet - he was a guy who spoke the words of the LORD that he heard directly from the Big Guy.  But prophets are not infallible, nor are they above doing something presumptuous and stupid like this guy.  You can't just rely on a person's reputation as a follower of God, a prophet, or a pastor, or on their word that God spoke to them, especially if you don't know the person very well.  You have to listen to God yourself.

Now we go back to Jeroboam.  Jeroboam's son has gotten sick, so he sends his wife in disguise to another prophet, named Ahijah.  Is it just me, or are there an awful lot of prophets in this country?  Anyway, this prophet is blind, so he wouldn't have been able to recognize Jeroboam's wife anyway, but God tells hm that she's coming so it doesn't matter.  Anyway, so Ahijah tells the wife that because Jeroboam rejected God's word and caused Israel to sin by building idols and high places, God is going to cut off all the males in Jeroboam's whole family and put somebody else on the throne in his place.  And moreover, as soon as the wife re-enters the city, her son will die.  Now, if I were a mother, and God told me that, I would stay out of the city for the rest of my life.  But this woman is none too bright; she goes straight home, and of course her son dies right away.

So later Jeroboam himself dies, and his son reigns in his place.  But we don't find out about him yet because now the text switches over to Rehoboam.

Now, as much bad as Jeroboam did to keep Israel away from God, Rehoboam and Judah do just as much and even worse.  They build up the high places and put Asherim on every big hill and under every big tree.  Asherim are a kind of idol, by the way.Moreover, they have male cult prostitutes in the land.  So then the king of Egypt comes against Jerusalem and makes off with all the treasures that were in the temple - remember all the riches of Solomon?  They're all gone now.  Rehoboam replaces Solomon's gold shields with bronze shields.  And finally, we find out that there is war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam continually, in spite of what God had said.  And that's all the significant stuff that happened in Rehoboam's reign.  In other words, he was a flop.

So then his son Abijam becomes king, for only three years, and he's pretty much the same as his dad - idolatry, war with Israel, etc.  But then when he dies, his son Asa becomes king, and Asa is as good as Rehoboam and Abijam were bad.  He got rid of the cult prostitutes and removed all the idols, and he de-throned his mother because she had made an Asherah (female deity) image, and he also destroyed that.  He didn't take down the high places, which I don't understand, but it says that his heart "was wholly devoted to the LORD all his days." He also put silver and gold back into the temple.  Unforutnately, there was war between him and the king of Israel (who by this time is a guy named Baasha - we'll hear about him soon).  Asa forms a treaty with Aram to prevent Israel from attacking him anymore, and it works.

So Jeroboam's son only lasts two years, and he does evil, and then he gets assassinated by Baasha, the guy we just heard of, who then becomes king.  And Baasha not only kills Nadab, but he also kills every male related to Jeroboam, just like God has said.  And Baasha is just as bad as Nadab and Jeroboam, so God sends the same prophecy (by another new prophet named Jehu) to Baasha that he gave to Jeroboam's wife:
every male in Baasha's family is going to be cut off.  And that's what happens. Baasha gets murdered by one of his army commanders named Zimri, who kills everybody in Baasha's family. But he only lasts for seven days - then a guy named Omri is set up as king, and he beseiges Tirzah, which is where Zimri was living, so Zimri actually sets his own house on fire so that he won't be killed by somebody else.  Omri reigns for twelve years, and dies, and his son Ahab becomes king.  Does that name ring a bell? It should.  We're going to hear a lot about him next time.  For now, just know that he is just as bad and even worse than all the kings who have been before him, and it says that "he did more to provoke the LORD God of Israel than all the kings of Israel who were before him."  This guy sets the new record for bad.  So it's time for God to send in the big guns - no more little prophets who speak up once and then disappear forever (well, that's probably not true; it just seems that way).  God's about to raise up the biggest prophet since Moses.  Tune in next time to see how that plays out.

1 Kings 5-11: The Reign of Solomon

King David got a whole book to describe his reign; Solomon reigned just as long and gets seven chapters.  This This is because ancient biographers were not concerned with chronicling every detail of a significant person's life, but only with recording the parts of the person's life that made them significant.  I wish that modern biographers would take this approach; I hate reading biographies.

Anyway.  The most significant event of Solomon's life, as we all know, was the building of the Temple.  This was a huge undertaking, and to accomplish it, Solomon had to get outside help from the king of Tyre, a guy named Hiram.  Solomon bought cedar and cypress timber from Hiram in exchange for lots of food.  Solomon also hires some of Hiram's servants in addition to his own tens of thousands of laborers.  It took this many people, I suppose, because they had to transport the materials, and that could not have been easy.  Solomon, being a smart dude, had 30,000 people divided into 3 rotating shifts - each shift of 10,000 would work 1 month and be home for 2 months, which is a pretty nice deal I think.  I don't know what his other workers' hours were.

Anyway, the book gives general specs on the building - dimensions, materials, rooms, some of the decorations, etc.  But it's not a blueprint, so we don't know exactly what it looked like, although a lot of people have made good educated guesses.  Wikipedia has an article about it.  The point is, this was supposed to be the most beautiful building in Israel - just about everything in it was overlaid with gold, and there were cherubim statues and engravings of palm trees, flowers, and more cherubim.  It took seven years to build and all 38 verses of chapter 6 plus 39 verses of chapter 7 to describe.

In the next chapter Solomon builds himself a house, which is much smaller and much less impressive, and only takes 12 verses to describe.  Clearly, the house of God was more important to Solomon than his house was, and that is as it should be.

Then the ark is brought into the temple, and Solomon addresses the people to tell them why he built the temple, and gives a very long prayer of dedication, asking God to hear the prayers of His people and have mercy on them when they are in distress or when they have turned from Him and then repent.  He finishes with a benediction and then a really huge sacrificing party - 22,000 oxen and 120,000 sheep.  I don't know how long it took to sacrifice each animal, but using a little bit of basic math I figured out that they definitely needed multiple priests sacrificing at once or they'd be there for like a week.

Now God appears to Solomon again, like he did before when Solomon asked for wisdom.  God tells Solomon again that if he lives as David did and follows God all his life, his throne will be established forever and everything will be good; but if he doesn't, the land will be taken away from him and the temple will be destroyed.  That makes me wonder, if Israel had never sinned, and if all the kings had been good, would Jesus have been born in a palace?

Now that all the temple work has been completed, Solomon gives fellow king Hiram twenty cities in Galilee, just to have.  I think that is really generous, because remember he's also been giving him food for the last 7 years.  But Hiram doesn't like the cities he got (maybe he doesn't like Galilee).  This, to me, is kind of like looking a gift horse in the mouth, don't you think?  But we don't know if Solomon did anything to make him more grateful.  We just know that those 20 cities were nicknamed Cabul, meaning "as good as nothing," and that Hiram sent Solomon 120 talents of gold.

Earlier, we heard that kings came from around the world to meet with Solomon because he had a reputation of being so wise.  Now the queen of Sheba comes to visit Solomon.  Sheba is apparently where Ethiopia is today.  The queen and Solomon seem to hit it off, to the point that many people believe the queen returned to her country carrying Solomon's child.  And to this day, I believe the Ethiopians claim to be descendants of the queen of Sheba and Solomon, to some extent.  And maybe that's why they accepted Christianity so readily.  I don't know.


Now we get a description of how rich Solomon was - the armor, the chariots, the armies, the goblets, etc.  Apparently Solomon made Israel so rich that silver because a common metal.  How would you like to live in a land where there was as much silver as gravel!

Unfortunately, the other thing Solomon has a lot of is women.  300 wives and 700 concubines - seriously, that's disgusting.  How is it that the wisest ruler in the world is probably the stupidest husband?  Well, God didn't say he'd give Solomon wisdom for everything in life, just for ruling.  I don't believe that Solmon was the overall wisest person ever to live, because he made really foolish mistakes in his relationships - namely, that he had so many.  And guess what?  Since Israel apparently ran out of single women for Solomon to collect, he started turning to foreign women, including women from countries and religions that God said never to intermarry with.  And wouldn't you know it, all those women eventually turned Solomon's heart away from God.  If your heart is divided among 1000 women, I think it's only natural to suppose that it would become divided from God sooner or later as well.  Really, really stupid idea, wise guy.

So of course, trouble starts to come, and it comes from Israel's cousin, Edom.  Edom rebels against Solomon, and there was strife between the two nations for the rest of Solomon's life.  Now God tells a prophet named Ahijah that he's going to divide the kingdom between David's descendants and another guy named Jeroboam, and he'll even give Jeroboam the majority of the kingdom.  Ahijah tells Jeroboam that if he follows God, things will go well for him and he'll have a descendant on the throne of Israel forever - kind of like what God said to Solomon.  God doesn't want to destroy Israel, but he is going to use it as an illustration of what a heart divided looks like.  But out of love for David, God's decided to wait until after Solomon's death to do this.

Solomon dies, and I don't know what the state of his heart was.  God told Solomon himself that he's going to take the kingdom away from him, and we don't hear whether Solomon repents or not.  That's kind of discouraging, because God had been so important to him before - or maybe it was that he was preoccupied with David's vision, without ever making it his own.  I suppose we'll never know on this side of heaven.  Either way, it's clear that the old saying is true: God doesn't have grandchildren.  Just because David followed God wholeheartedly, doesn't mean that Solomon could do whatever he wanted.  Maybe Solomon was basing his relationship with God off his father's relationship, figuring that being the son of David was good enough to keep him in God's good graces.  And you just can't do that.