2 Kings 4

2 Kings 4:1

Now a certain widow of the wives of the sons of the prophets cried out to Elisha, "Your servant my husband is dead, and you know that your servant feared the LORD; and the creditor has come to take my two children to be his slaves."

Being very finance-conscious, if not finance-savvy, myself, I wonder what had occurred to put the family into such debt.  One would think a prophet of God would not be spending to the point of having to mortgage his own children.  The prophets, by all accounts lived very meager lives.  Even in their day, they were considered to be poor.

I'm not certain from the relation of the woman, however, whether her husband was a prophet, or the son of a prophet.  I suppose it's possible that if it is a son, he did not follow in his father's footsteps.  Perhaps that was the problem, that he was not a prophet, and lived a more "normal" life.  I still wonder what happened to put the family into such poverty, but it does show how important it is to prepare for loss if you are able.

2 Kings 3

2 Kings 3:18

This is but a slight thing in the sight of the LORD; He will also give the Moabites into your hand.

God has just promised them a miracle, water from dry ground, filling all the trenches they were commanded to dig in a valley.  And then God calls this a small thing, because he's also going to give them victory over their enemies.  God even uses those trenches and the water He puts in them as part of the method for their victory.

It's always interesting to see what God considers to be minor, and what He considers major or important.  We would consider giving three armies water in a desert to be miraculous, because without that water they could not fight.  But God then uses that water to trick the Moabites into leaving their defensive positions and exposing themselves to the armies, where they're wiped out.  So the miracle God calls minor directly results in the major miracle, and only by obeying God in the first place was either possible.

2 Kings 2

2 Kings 2:24

When he looked behind him and saw them, he cursed them in the name of the LORD.  Then two female bears came out of the woods and tore up forty-two lads of their number.

It appears Elisha had a temper.  At least, he was the touchy sort.  Here it's only been a few days since Elijah was taken, and as he's walking along some local boys are insulting him.  Apparently, Elisha was bald, and they were making fun of him for it.  What we're taught today is to ignore such insults.  But Elisha didn't get that message.  Instead, he cursed the boys, and God sent bears to fulfill the curse.

Was this Elisha coming to grips with his newly-given power?  Did he not know what the consequences of a curse would be?  Or was this him fulfilling God's laws about disobedient youths, perhaps?  These boys had apparently not been raised right, or had ignored their instruction.  In the Law, God commands that such boys be stoned.  If Israel has not been following the Law, this is a reminder that they are still beholden to it.

2 Kings 1

2 Kings 1:16

Then he said to him, "Thus says the LORD, 'Because you have sent messengers to inquire of Baal-zebub, the god of Ekrom - is it because there is no God in Israel to inquire of His word? - therefore you shall not come down from the bed where you have gone up, but shall surely die.'"

First off, I find the name of the god he was going to inquire of interesting:  Ball-zebub.  I can't see any way that isn't what the New Testament names Beelzebub.  So essentially, he was going to inquire of Satan himself.  That certainly explains why God was angered.

Then there are the consequences of the king's actions.  He is named a dead man, because he did not even try to ask God for his fate.  Would that mean he would have lived if he had called for Elijah or another prophet instead?  Or would God still have condemned him for his past sins?  I realize it's a rhetorical question, because it never would have happened.  But it's interesting to wonder if, had he sought God, he would have survived?

1 Kings 22

1 Kings 22:23

Now, therefore, behold, the LORD has put a deceiving spirit in the mouth of all these your prophets; and the LORD has proclaimed disaster against you."

I'm somewhat confused by this.  If I'm reading this right, God intentionally set out to see Ahab killed in battle.  So he asks for volunteers to get him to go fight, and lose.  An angel (they say spirit, but I'm guessing it's the same thing) volunteers, and says he will go cause Ahab's prophets to lie.  God likes this idea, and sends him off.

Now, I'm not understanding why God would use a lie to push his will.  He is the God of truth.  He's incapable of lying.  Yet one of His spirits does, with His blessing?  How can this be?  How does that work?  I know God has used the lies of man to His advantage before, but how does He go and specifically tell one of His creations to instigate lies, even against someone who's opposed to Him?  I feel like this messes with the character of God, but I know that can't be true.  I'm not certain how to reconcile this.

1 Kings 21

1 Kings 21:14

Then they sent word to Jezebel, saying, "Naboth has been stoned and is dead."

"They" refers to the leaders of Naboth's town.  When Jezebel conspired to kill Naboth, she didn't just hire a couple guys to lie about him.  She contacted the "city council," and told them to arrange everything.  They called for the feast.  They found the men to lie.  They saw to it he was stoned.

Jezebel wasn't the only one responsible for Naboth's murder.  The town leadership had to be just as corrupt to do all this.  If he had been guilty of some crime, she could have just told them so, and they would have seen to the rest.  But in going about it this way, they definitely knew this was underhanded.  They were willing to go along with it all.  This speaks to the importance of paying attention to who your local leaders are, as well as higher levels.  This is something I'm guilty of not being very attentive to.

1 Kings 20

1 Kings 20:28

Then a man of God came near and spoke to the king of Israel and said, "Thus says the LORD, 'Because the Arameans have said, "The LORD is a god of the mountains, but He is not a god of the valleys," therefore I will give all this great multitude into your hand, and you shall know that I am the LORD.'"

The Arameans had been defeated in a very lopsided battle, which they should have won easily.  Like most people, they tried to figure out what went wrong.  Obviously they didn't lose because of bad tactics or any such, so it must have been a spiritual defeat.  Since the fight happened in the mountains, it must be that the Israelites' God is more powerful than theirs in the mountains.

But under their system of thinking, gods were like people, having strengths and weaknesses.  Since God was strong in the mountains, he must not be strong in the lowlands.  So if they fight there, their gods should be superior, and they can win.  However, this is not the case.  God is supreme everywhere, He has no weaknesses or faults.  We make the mistake of thinking He is simply a more powerful version of one of us, when that has never been true.

1 Kings 19

1 Kings 19:12

After the earthquake a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of a gentle blowing.

It's interesting how this is translated.  Growing up, I've always heard this termed as a still, small voice.  I'll admit that always bugged me, because of my ADD.  I've never been sure what voices in my head are just me talking to myself, and what could be God.  It's honestly always been one of my private fears, that I will get that wrong, and either ignore something I should pay attention to, or pay attention to myself instead of Him.

But the idea that it was a gentle blowing, that makes more sense to me.  That fits more with God nudging you in the right direction, not just whispering and waiting for you to figure it out.  It's not nearly as passive, not an unseen Jiminy Cricket reminding you what you should do.  There's action involved, something tangible for us to be paying attention for.  It may still just be a tug on the heart, but it's there, and it's not some big production for the world to see.

1 Kings 18

1 Kings 18:43

He said to his servant, "Go up now, look toward the sea."  So he went up and looked and said, "There is nothing."  And he said, "Go back" seven times.

I wonder how long this took.  It doesn't say how far up the mountain Elijah was, but presumably he wasn't quite at the top.  Depending on how long the hike up was, this could have taken hours to go through this seven times.  After all that while, you wonder how sick of this the servant got?

This is a good reminder of how our timing is not always God's.  Even Elijah didn't get the exact time correct.  He had to wait as well, until his prophecy came to pass.  The servant had to wait, except while he was waiting he still had work to do:  checking to see if the prophecy had come true yet, and that didn't mean being passive.  Just because God has said something is going to happen, it doesn't mean we get to just sit around until it does.

1 Kings 17

1 Kings 17:20

He called to the LORD and said, "O LORD my God, have You also brought calamity to the widow with whom I am staying, by causing her son to die?"

I'm not quite sure why this struck a chord with me.  I guess it's because of how Elijah questions God here.  He doesn't understand, and says so to God.  I hesitate to say it, and maybe it's just my own mindset recently, but this comes across to me as doubt.

Whether it's doubt, or just questioning, it does seem very human.  Something bad happened, and he doesn't understand why.  He can't see God's overall plan, to know why she would have to suffer the loss of her son.  I question God all the time, and definitely doubt him in some areas.  I struggle with those doubts, and they cause me to go places I shouldn't.  I pray for the clarity to not understand, not argue, but simply accept God's plan as the best possible, and to allow myself to be directed down it.

1 Kings 16

1 Kings 16:34

In his days Hiel the Bethelite built Jericho; he laid its foundations with the loss of Abiram his firstborn, and set up its gates with the loss of his youngest son Segub, according to the word of the LORD, which He spoke by Joshua the son of Nun.

Joshua spoke that curse, what, two or three centuries before this point?  All that time, and God still held that city to be condemned.  Here was someone who decided to rebuild Jericho, and God kept his promise.  He is always faithful, even when we really, really wish he wouldn't be.

However, one thing I do wonder is whether Hiel even knew about the curse?  Israel has pretty much turned its back on God, so might the curse have been lost?  (I guess I should have looked up first with country Bethel is in, but I assume from the placement in the text that it was Israel, not Judah.)  Could he have lost his sons to a curse he didn't even know existed?  If so, it is his people's fault, as well as his own, but that doesn't make the curse any less valid.

1 Kings 15

1 Kings 15:18

Then Asa took all the silver and the gold which were left in the treasuries of the house of the LORD and the treasuries of the king's house, and delivered them into the hand of his servants.  And King Asa sent them to Ben-Hadad the son of Tabrimmon, the son of Hezion, king of Aram, who lived in Damascus, saying,

Asa was looking so promising.  He was obedient to God.  He had done what was right, removing the idols.  He removed his own mother as queen mother because of her idolatry.  He brought new items to the temple, to replace those his father had lost to Egypt.  He hadn't removed the high places, but he himself was good and following God's commands.

Why then, did he strip the temple of all those items he'd just added, and give them to another king?  He had come so far, why couldn't he have gone the one step further to calling upon God to assist him in this crisis?  Surely God could have spontaneously caused that king to decide to break his treaty, or raised up another for that would divert Israel.

Just as Asa failed to trust God here, how often do I fail to trust God to fix my problems?  I know it happens daily.  I even know what I fail most often on.  So why can't I make that next step, either?

1 Kings 14

1 Kings 14:13

All Israel shall mourn for him and bury him, for he alone of Jeroboam's family will come to the grave, because in him something good was found toward the LORD God of Israel in the house of Jeroboam.

Isn't it sad, that the best member of a family had to pay for the actions of all the others?  Jeroboam led his entire family astray, and God chose to punish him for it.  Yet there was one with at least some good in him, some reverence for God.  He obviously wasn't fully committed to God, but at least he acknowledged Him.  Still, the sins of the rest of the family were so great, that his only reward for at least some good deeds was to be buried, rather than left to rot and be eaten by animals.

I realize Christ's death was very similar, except on a global scale.  He was without any fault, but still had to die for our sins.  But he did it for a specific reason, so that we could be forgiven of those sins and have fellowship with God again.  Here, there is no happy ending, no hope in the end.  All that awaits this son is death itself, and no one was made better for it.