Wednesday Bible Study: All the kings, men part 13

 

 

 

The story of the kings of Israel and Judah is a very convoluted read- even if you don't lose your mind going back and forth between the Books of Kings and Chronicles, can handle the 'who begat who's (which became a problem this week with Athaliah), or get distracted by the stories of Elijah and Elisha that get woven in.  But God gave me a big pointer this week.  It's basically a story of evil and its children, and good and its children.  And you more from good than evil.

But there are some lessons to be learned from the evil ones.  I will touch them briefly, and move on to the good.  And any lesson in evil starts with Ahab, son of the usurper Omri.

1Ki 16:29  In the thirty-eighth year of Asa king of Judah, Ahab the son of Omri began to reign over Israel, and Ahab the son of Omri reigned over Israel in Samaria twenty-two years.
1Ki 16:30  And Ahab the son of Omri did evil in the sight of the LORD, more than all who were before him.
1Ki 16:31  And as if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, he took for his wife Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal king of the Sidonians, and went and served Baal and worshiped him.
1Ki 16:32  He erected an altar for Baal in the house of Baal, which he built in Samaria.
1Ki 16:33  And Ahab made an Asherah. Ahab did more to provoke the LORD, the God of Israel, to anger than all the kings of Israel who were before him.

Now I have no intention to go through all of Ahab's sorry story, except for three things.  First, he was not a strong man, and the above described Jezebel ran his life.  I find it curious that "Jezebel" has become a byword for sexual sin and adultery- but her story is not sexual adultery, but the spiritual adultery of her Baal worship that she forced on Israel.  Hers was a lust for religious power; and we contrast this with her daughter (or perhaps granddaughter), Athaliah.  Jezebel was quite content to be 'queen mother' after Ahab's death; when we get to Athalia here in a minute, we find her quite a different creature.

Second, I want to show you two statements of Ahab's that are symbolic of how evil sees good.  And in them you'll see why Christians are treated as they are in today's world.

1Ki 18:17  When Ahab saw Elijah, Ahab said to him, "Is it you, you troubler of Israel?"
1Ki 18:18  And he answered, "I have not troubled Israel, but you have, and your father's house, because you have abandoned the commandments of the LORD and followed the Baals.

Evil sees Christians as the cause of all the trouble in the world.  Just go to the Freedom From Religion lot and you'll see that.  Or the ACLU and their constant attempts to drive people and ideas of faith from the public square.  The passage above, you might recognize from the story of Elijah and his destruction of the priests of Baal.  This next one you might not; it comes after Jezebel talks Ahab into having a man murdered to gain his property...

1Ki 21:20  Ahab said to Elijah, "Have you found me, O my enemy?" He answered, "I have found you, because you have sold yourself to do what is evil in the sight of the LORD.

Twice, Ahab spoke to Elijah- and this second time, he names him his PERSONAL enemy.  It will always be personal when evil attacks good.  That's why our politics has become so much more than one group of policies against another.

The third thing to see from Ahab himself is that evil drives you to fear.  Instead of the intense hatred for Elijah that Jezebel had, Ahab listened...

1Ki 21:21  Behold, I will bring disaster upon you. I will utterly burn you up, and will cut off from Ahab every male, bond or free, in Israel.
1Ki 21:22  And I will make your house like the house of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, and like the house of Baasha the son of Ahijah, for the anger to which you have provoked me, and because you have made Israel to sin.
1Ki 21:23  And of Jezebel the LORD also said, 'The dogs shall eat Jezebel within the walls of Jezreel.'
1Ki 21:24  Anyone belonging to Ahab who dies in the city the dogs shall eat, and anyone of his who dies in the open country the birds of the heavens shall eat..."

1Ki 21:27  And when Ahab heard those words, he tore his clothes and put sackcloth on his flesh and fasted and lay in sackcloth and went about dejectedly.

And because he humbled himself, God brought the main of the calamities upon his successors; still, because evil is personal, the personal predictions on Ahab and Jezebel came true.

Next thing to learn about evil: it catches up to you.  Here is the story of not one, but two kings named Ahaziah.#1 has Ahab's son, who reigned for one year.  And then...

2Ki 1:2  Now Ahaziah fell through the lattice in his upper chamber in Samaria, and lay sick; so he sent messengers, telling them, "Go, inquire of Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron, whether I shall recover from this sickness."

But Elijah stopped the messenger with this statement:

2Ki 1:15  Then the angel of the LORD said to Elijah, "Go down with him; do not be afraid of him." So he arose and went down with him to the king
2Ki 1:16  and said to him, "Thus says the LORD, 'Because you have sent messengers to inquire of Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron--is it because there is no God in Israel to inquire of his word?--therefore you shall not come down from the bed to which you have gone up, but you shall surely die.'"

And so he did, and that was that for Ahaziah #1.  #2 was the grandson of Jehoshaphat of Judah, and he was the son of Jezebel's daughter.  God determined that #1's evil brother (and successor) Joram was to die in battle with God's avenger, Jehu; #2 blunders into the aftermath of his defeat and execution and Jehu kills him, too.  Now, before I get too far afield, I need to step back, and tie up some loose ends regarding Jehu and the ladies.

Jehu was picked by God to carry out Elijah's curse on the House of Ahab. He was yet another soldier, so after 22 years of basically civilian rule (Ahab is the only non-army commander to rule Israel for any length of time since Jeroboam), another commander was sent by God to take over. After killing Joram and Ahaziah, he came for Jezebel, and her fate was fulfilled... 

2Ki 9:30  When Jehu came to Jezreel, Jezebel heard of it. And she painted her eyes and adorned her head and looked out of the window.
2Ki 9:31  And as Jehu entered the gate, she said, "Is it peace, you Zimri, murderer of your master?"
2Ki 9:32  And he lifted up his face to the window and said, "Who is on my side? Who?" Two or three eunuchs looked out at him.
2Ki 9:33  He said, "Throw her down." So they threw her down. And some of her blood spattered on the wall and on the horses, and they trampled on her.
2Ki 9:34  Then he went in and ate and drank. And he said, "See now to this cursed woman and bury her, for she is a king's daughter."
2Ki 9:35  But when they went to bury her, they found no more of her than the skull and the feet and the palms of her hands. 

 

Because the dogs had indeed ate her.  I wonder how they liked all her makeup she put on to "impress" Jehu.  And now, on to her daughter (or granddaughter- she is described both as the daughter of Ahab in one spot, and Omri in another), Athaliah.  Her gig wasn't religious- she wanted political power.  After she married Jehoshaphat's son Jehoram, she taught him the Sidonian way to secure power:

2Ch 21:1  Jehoshaphat slept with his fathers and was buried with his fathers in the city of David, and Jehoram his son reigned in his place.
2Ch 21:2  He had brothers, the sons of Jehoshaphat: Azariah, Jehiel, Zechariah, Azariah, Michael, and Shephatiah; all these were the sons of Jehoshaphat king of Israel.
2Ch 21:3  Their father gave them great gifts of silver, gold, and valuable possessions, together with fortified cities in Judah, but he gave the kingdom to Jehoram, because he was the firstborn.
2Ch 21:4  When Jehoram had ascended the throne of his father and was established, he killed all his brothers with the sword, and also some of the princes of Israel. 

Another example of evil catching up to you comes with the end of Jehoram: Elijah predicted his downfall, which included a small party of Arabians who broke into Jerusalem and killed all his sons but the youngest (Ahaziah #2) first, and then...

2Ch 21:18  And after all this the LORD struck him in his bowels with an incurable disease.
2Ch 21:19  In the course of time, at the end of two years, his bowels came out because of the disease, and he died in great agony. His people made no fire in his honor, like the fires made for his fathers.

So #2 became king in Judah, and after his short and bumbling reign, Athaliah tried the "Sidonian way" herself:

2Ch 22:10  Now when Athaliah the mother of Ahaziah saw that her son was dead, she arose and destroyed all the royal family of the house of Judah.
2Ch 22:11  But Jehoshabeath, the daughter of the king, took Joash the son of Ahaziah and stole him away from among the king's sons who were about to be put to death, and she put him and his nurse in a bedroom. Thus Jehoshabeath, the daughter of King Jehoram and wife of Jehoiada the priest, because she was a sister of Ahaziah, hid him from Athaliah, so that she did not put him to death.
2Ch 22:12  And he remained with them six years, hidden in the house of God, while Athaliah reigned over the land. 

 

Let me close this week with a couple of points here:  Satan has ALWAYS tried to destroy God's plan in the crib- and always failed.  And here, the line from David survives in the child Joash, just as Jesus survived Herod's murder of the innocents, and Moses survived Pharaoh's slaughter of the Hebrew boys.  Not also that rather than continuing to play "queen mother" as she had with weak-willed (And by the Jehu story, quite possibly stupid) #2, she took the reigns of power herself.  And third, despite her rule, the scribes never named her "queen", only saying "she reigned".  And next time, we'll deal with the good- and what we'll learn from Asa, Jehoshaphat, Jehu, and Joash.