AHAZIAH SON OF Ahab became king of Israel in Samaria in the seventeenth year of Jehoshaphat king of Judah, and he reigned over Israel two years. 52He did evil in the eyes of the LORD, because he walked in the ways of his father and mother and in the ways of Jeroboam son of Nebat, who caused Israel to sin. 53He served and worshiped Baal and provoked the LORD, the God of Israel, to anger, just as his father had done.
1:1After Ahab’s death, Moab rebelled against Israel. 2Now Ahaziah had fallen through the lattice of his upper room in Samaria and injured himself. So he sent messengers, saying to them, “Go and consult Baal-Zebub, the god of Ekron, to see if I will recover from this injury.”
3But the angel of the LORD said to Elijah the Tishbite, “Go up and meet the messengers of the king of Samaria and ask them, ‘Is it because there is no God in Israel that you are going off to consult Baal-Zebub, the god of Ekron?’ 4Therefore this is what the LORD says: ‘You will not leave the bed you are lying on. You will certainly die!’” So Elijah went.
5When the messengers returned to the king, he asked them, “Why have you come back?”
6“A man came to meet us,” they replied. “And he said to us, ‘Go back to the king who sent you and tell him, “This is what the LORD says: Is it because there is no God in Israel that you are sending men to consult Baal-Zebub, the god of Ekron? Therefore you will not leave the bed you are lying on. You will certainly die!”’”
7The king asked them, “What kind of man was it who came to meet you and told you this?”
8They replied, “He was a man with a garment of hair and with a leather belt around his waist.”
The king said, “That was Elijah the Tishbite.”
9Then he sent to Elijah a captain with his company of fifty men. The captain went up to Elijah, who was sitting on the top of a hill, and said to him, “Man of God, the king says, ‘Come down!’”
10Elijah answered the captain, “If I am a man of God, may fire come down from heaven and consume you and your fifty men!” Then fire fell from heaven and consumed the captain and his men.
11At this the king sent to Elijah another captain with his fifty men. The captain said to him, “Man of God, this is what the king says, ‘Come down at once!’”
12“If I am a man of God,” Elijah replied, “may fire come down from heaven and consume you and your fifty men!” Then the fire of God fell from heaven and consumed him and his fifty men.
13So the king sent a third captain with his fifty men. This third captain went up and fell on his knees before Elijah. “Man of God,” he begged, “please have respect for my life and the lives of these fifty men, your servants! 14See, fire has fallen from heaven and consumed the first two captains and all their men. But now have respect for my life!”
15The angel of the LORD said to Elijah, “Go down with him; do not be afraid of him.” So Elijah got up and went down with him to the king.
16He told the king, “This is what the LORD says: Is it because there is no God in Israel for you to consult that you have sent messengers to consult Baal-Zebub, the god of Ekron? Because you have done this, you will never leave the bed you are lying on. You will certainly die!” 17So he died, according to the word of the LORD that Elijah had spoken.
Because Ahaziah had no son, Joram succeeded him as king in the second year of Jehoram son of Jehoshaphat king of Judah. 18As for all the other events of Ahaziah’s reign, and what he did, are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Israel?
Original Meaning
THE REIGN OF Ahaziah was only somewhat more than a year (cf. 1 Kings 22:51; 2 Kings 3:1). The sins of his mother and father are both mentioned (1 Kings 22:53), since they are so instrumental in the ultimate demise of the kingdom of Israel. They actively pursued the Phoenician cult and resisted the true prophets of the covenant. Jeroboam son of Nebat presumed to worship Yahweh at the calf shrines rather than at the temple. Ahaziah offends Yahweh with his active pursuit of the Phoenician Baal cult, following the practice of his parents.
Reign of Ahaziah (1 Kings 22:51–2 Kings 1:1)
THE INTRODUCTORY SUMMARY of the reign of Ahaziah is regular in providing a synchronism with Jehoshaphat and giving the length of his reign.1 The last year of the reign of Ahab was the battle of Qarqar in 853 B.C., a firm date in ancient Syrian chronology.2 The reference to the rebellion of Moab complements the chronological data and the events of the reign of Ahaziah. A similar notation of the independence of Moab at the death of Ahab is found in the account of Joram allying with Jehoshaphat to restore Moabite subjection (2 Kings 3:5).
This is confirmed by the Mesha Inscription, in which the king of Moab refers to the occupation of Israel during the time of Omri and half that of his sons, a total of forty years.3 Omri, Ahab, Ahaziah, and Joram rule a total of forty-eight years. The inscription affirms that the rebellion took place during the time of Omri’s sons, approximately forty years from the time of Omri. The ambiguities of the inscription do not intend a precise calculation of time.4 A closer correlation with the biblical chronology of the Omride dynasty is not possible.
The death of Ahab brings about a new era in the Omride dynasty. Moab rebels almost immediately, with both Edom and Libnah gaining independence during the reign of Joram (cf. 1 Kings 22:47; 2 Kings 8:20, 22). The days of the Israelite empire are over. The alliance of Ahab with the Arameans at the battle of Qarqar is the end of a period of international influence for Israel.
Confrontation with Elijah (1:2–18)
AHAZIAH IS AN apostate like his parents, but his particular sin is the act of seeking an oracle from Baal-Zebub, a god of the Philistines (2 Kings 2:2). He seeks a message for restored health after being injured in a fall from the upper level of his palace in Samaria. Baal-Zebub (lit., “lord of the flies”) may have been a god to control disease, much as Zeus the healer was the “averter of the flies.”5 However, Ahaziah is suffering from injury and not disease. It is likely that the name was originally Baal-Zebul (“lord of a lofty or exalted place”), an epithet used for Baal in Ugaritic literature.6 This is the equivalent of the “lord of heaven” and would have been the name of the storm god Baal in Ekron.
The name Baal-Zebub is found repeatedly in the New Testament, with many manuscripts providing the alternate Baal-Zebul (cf. Matt. 10:25; 12:24; Mark 3:22). Baal-Zebub appears to have been a derogatory pun on the original name. Ekron is identified with Khirbat al-Muqanna, the northernmost of the five Philistine cities on the border of the territory settled by Israel (cf. Josh. 13:3). It is a prudent place for Ahaziah to stay when seeking an oracle from a Baal prophet.
The desire to receive an oracle from Baal-Zebub, as if there were no God in Israel (2 Kings 1:3), becomes the occasion for Elijah to confront once again the apostate house of Omri. The messenger of Yahweh commissions Elijah to intercept the messengers of the king with an oracle of doom, telling the king that he will not recover from his injuries (1:3–4). This incites a conflict between Elijah and the messengers of the king, which in reality is a conflict between Ahaziah and Yahweh.
The impact of the struggle in the narrative is achieved through the double meaning of the word “messenger” (malʾāk).7 This Hebrew word refers to both the “angel [of the LORD]” and to the “messengers [of the king]” (v. 3). God exercises his authority through the first messenger, while King Ahaziah can do nothing more than extend his power through military messengers. The divine messenger counters the first messengers of the king, subverting their quest. The king’s messengers in effect return with an oracle from Yahweh rather than Baal-Zebub (1:5–6).
The king recognizes Elijah by his description as a hairy man (1:8)8 and takes up the challenge by immediately sending a military unit to arrest him (vv. 9–14). The military officers are no match for the power of Yahweh through Elijah and are repeatedly consumed by fire. In the end the king’s messengers finally get their way (vv. 15–16), but it has nothing to do with their power. The messenger (angel) of Yahweh comes to Elijah again, instructing him to go down to the king, so that Elijah may personally deliver the same oracle to the king.
Ahaziah is portrayed as someone relentlessly driven to his own destruction. The king intends to solicit the power of foreknowledge and healing from the god of Ekron, but when frustrated in his efforts by the messenger of Yahweh, he turns his focus on Elijah. In treating Elijah as his enemy he inadvertently keeps coming into direct conflict with Yahweh through his military messengers. Obsessively calling down Elijah the Tishbite is in reality to summon the Lord of Israel whom he is seeking to deny. Though the king refuses to acknowledge this reality, it is evident to the reader that he cannot escape the presence and judgment of Israel’s God.
When the king gets his request to meet his nemesis Elijah face to face, the result is nothing more than a repetition of the inevitable oracle of doom. The repeated exchange of the messengers dramatizes the superior and dangerous power of God connected with the prophetic oracle. God emerges from his remote recess and takes control, first delivering his prophecy through the messengers of Ahaziah and then through Elijah. Each of Ahaziah’s actions moves him inexorably toward the judgment reserved for him because of his rejection of the God of the covenant.
The account of Ahaziah does not tell about his life but about his death. With the appearance of Elijah before the king, Ahaziah’s death according to the divine oracle is simply reported. The narrative concludes with the summary of his reign and the introduction of the next king. The usual formula appears somewhat disjointed in the Hebrew text. The accession of his successor is given before the typical concluding summary (1:17b–18); the synchronism to the second year of Jehoram is marked as separate in the Hebrew text by a long spacing.9 The intrusive phrase is the only synchronism to introduce the reign of Joram brother of Ahaziah as the next king. Though the origin of this synchronism is in doubt, it is in harmony with the chronology of Joram son of Ahab. Jehoshaphat appoints Jehoram his son as king during the reign of Ahab, before he goes to war against Moab. The sole rule of Jehoram began in the fifth year of Joram son of Ahab (8:16), at the end of the twenty-five year reign of Jehoshaphat.
CHALLENGING GOD’S AUTHORITY. The account of Ahaziah provides no information about political developments; it reports his tragic personal history and his devotion to the religion of his parents. The narrative advances the succession of the Omride kings and demonstrates the incorrigibility of their religion.
The reign of Ahaziah is a time of transition between the prophet Elijah and the prophet Elisha. One of the last acts of Elijah is to declare the judgment of death on Ahaziah because he has denied God in seeking help from Baal-Zebub, god of the Philistines in Ekron. The king inadvertently comes into confrontation with the prophet when his royal messengers are intercepted as a result of divine intervention.
DeVries classifies the encounter of Ahaziah with Elijah as a “prophet-authorization narrative.”10 In these narratives the theme of conflict with institutional authority becomes a constant constitutive factor. The institutional authority under challenge is that of the king. In the Elijah-versus-Baal story, the direct conflict is with the rival cult sponsored by Ahab (1 Kings 18–19). In that story the royal threat comes through Jezebel, and the power of the prophet is reaffirmed at Horeb. In the confrontation with Ahaziah, a regal threat may be implied, but the king’s only demand is that the prophet meet him at his palace. The conflict is with the king directly, but in his capacity as a sponsor of the Baal cult.
The king apparently avoids Elijah in an attempt to avert divine judgment. The prophet is commissioned to intervene, but his identity is not revealed to the king’s messengers. They only know him as “a man” (v. 6); the king is able to identify the prophet through their description. He is determined to intimidate the prophet and thereby destroy the evil oracle spoken against him. But the overwhelming authority of the prophet is more than abundantly demonstrated; the military commander of the third contingent can only plead that his life and the lives of his soldiers be spared. Elijah consents to meet the king, not to be arrested or exiled but to confront him with a word that he can no longer resist. The fulfillment of that prophetic word is merely reported; all the details of the narrative focus on the person and authority of the prophet. Elijah is vindicated as decisively as at the contest at Mount Carmel.
Ahaziah’s rejection of Yahweh in his time of deep distress results in an irrevocable judgment. His fate is stated unequivocally three times: “You will not leave the bed you are lying on. You will certainly die” (2 Kings 1:4, 6, 16). Ahaziah knows well the experiences of his father with this prophet. He has chosen to continue the policies of his father, also under the pressure of his mother, who continues to take royal matters into her own hands as she did in the case of Naboth (cf. 1 Kings 22:53; 2 Kings 9:36–37). Seeking a prophet outside of Israel is necessitated by his allegiance to his mother and his unwillingness to abdicate her religion.
The prophetic authors have a well-focused objective in recording the demise of the Omride kings. Their goal is to teach the truth of the words of the covenant that serve as the charter for the nation:
See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction. For I command you today to love the LORD our God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commands, decrees and laws; then you will live and increase, and the LORD your God will bless you in the land you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess.…
This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live. (Deut. 30:15–16, 19)
The life of Ahaziah calls on the Israelites to make a choice. They can be the people of God and have life, or they can follow the ways of the nations and have death. Will the Israelites choose life in hearing the words of the prophets, or will they be like Ahaziah and seek to escape the divine word of judgment? For the authors of Kings, this power struggle between king and prophet is not a question of political control. Rather, it is a question of the survival of the nation itself. The appeal of the third captain makes this choice clear (1:14); the king is powerless before the messenger of Yahweh. He can do nothing more to save the nation than to save himself.
Elijah’s role is to intervene in the crisis facing the nation. The destruction of the elite soldiers of the king needs to be understood in this context. Elijah is remembered as the spokesperson for the guarantor of the covenant. As Ben Sirach says, “Never in his lifetime did he tremble before any ruler nor could anyone intimidate him at all” (Sir. 48:12, NRSV). Elijah is the means of hope and life: “Happy are those who saw you and were adorned with your love! For we also shall surely live” (v. 11). Elijah provides yet another opportunity for the nation to enjoy the blessing of life. Failure to follow the appeal of the prophet is to share in the fate of the king.
The questions of authority and life extend into the New Testament and the life of the church. The question of authority is the central issue leading up to the crucifixion. Like Ahaziah with Elijah, the authorities were unable to arrest Jesus except by his permission. When they did get their way in the crucifixion, they did not succeed in establishing their authority but brought judgment on themselves.
The triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem was an explicit declaration of authority and power. Jesus deliberately mounted a donkey and rode into the city, declaring himself to be the king spoken about by Zechariah the prophet. Zechariah prophesied that the king of Zion would come riding on a donkey; without weapons of war he would bring peace to the nations and establish a universal dominion (Mark 11:1–11; cf. Zech. 9:9–10). Jesus proceeded into the temple and tossed out those exchanging money for sacrifices, declaring their business to be fraudulent. This so offended the temple officials that they were prepared to kill Jesus, but they were thwarted by his authority (Mark 11:15–18). His authority was the power of his teaching, which captivated the minds of the crowds (v. 18).
Later Jesus was confronted directly by the officials with the demand that he declare the source of his authority (Mark 11:27–33). Jesus diverted their attempt to trap him by asking whether the baptism of John was of God or human beings. Authority again rested in the opinion of the people; since the people held John to be a prophet, it was impossible to say it was not of God, even though the officials did not accept it as from God.
The parable of the vineyard (Mark 12:1–12) was a particular affront to the power of the officials. The comparison to the leaders of Jerusalem condemned by the prophet Isaiah was unmistakable. Isaiah had compared the leaders of the nation to a treacherous vineyard that yielded rotten fruit in spite of the best provisions for its yield (Isa. 5:1–7). Jesus adapted the parable to make it applicable to himself as the Son of God killed by the caretakers of the vineyard. This enraged the leaders so they sought to kill him immediately, but they feared the people (Mark 12:12).
A series of questions followed in which the authority of Jesus was challenged in the hopes of accusing him of false teaching. These included questions about the duty to pay taxes, always a hot topic (Mark 12:13–17), questions about resurrection (vv. 18–27), and a question about the most important commandment (vv. 28–34). Jesus then finally asked them a question about David’s Son, quoting from Psalm 110 to show that the Son of David was to be greater in authority and position than David himself (vv. 35–37). This delighted the crowds but exasperated the leaders and officials since it vindicated the claims of Jesus against them. He concluded with a warning against authority found in official position, because it all too readily becomes a masquerade for greed and self-interest (vv. 38–40). Such authorities stand under a greater judgment.
IN THE CATACOMBS. The authority of Elijah was grounded in his uncompromising allegiance to God in the teaching of the covenant. The divine purpose was revealed through Elijah in his confrontations with King Ahaziah. The authority of Jesus was established with the people through his use of the Scriptures. Those who purported to represent the truth of the Scriptures backed by official authority were powerless when confronted by a teacher whose use of the Scripture convinced the crowds of his authenticity. Through the power of God his death was a victory. His parting words to his disciples were that “all power in heaven and on earth has been given to me” (Matt. 28:18). He promised that this power would be with his followers always, even to the end of the world.
This power continues to be the authority of the church. The church has often claimed and used temporal powers, but often not to the advancement of its mission in the world. The kingdom of God is not like those of this world. In the kingdom of God the last will be first and the first will be last (Matt. 20:16); those who wish to be great must be those who serve, just as Jesus did not come to be served but to serve (vv. 27–28). Temporal power does not assist the church in the accomplishment of its mission, but neither can temporal power prevent the growth of the church.
It is vital that church leaders always adhere to the genuine source of their authority, which is found in faithfulness to the revelation of God for his world. Their power lies in teaching this truth to the people. Government powers of this world cannot control this power. The Reformation stands as a testimony to this truth. Martin Luther, with the truth of Scripture, was able to confront the power entrenched in the church of his time with all its backing of government authority. In the five hundredth anniversary of the year of his birth, National Geographic featured a major article on Luther, including a reproduction of a painting that depicts the events and people at the Diet of Worms in April 1521.11 At Worms Luther was asked two questions: Were these his books? And was he ready to revoke the heresies they contained? The second question required time to consider.
At 6:00 p.m. the following day Luther was led into a larger, torchlit room packed to suffocation with the empire’s notables. To disown some of his books would be to condemn simple Christian morality.… Dark eyes flashing, voice clear and strong, he ended with ringing defiance: “Unless proved wrong by Scripture and plain reason … my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and will not recant.… God help me. Amen.” Here he stood. Being Luther, he could do not other.12
The church today can do no other. The spirit of Elijah is no less necessary for the church today, than it was in the times when a king of Israel sought Baal-Zebub for an oracle.
The examples of Jesus and Martin Luther are only partially analogous to Elijah; neither brought fire down from heaven to consume their adversaries. The Gospels make clear that Jesus’ life was not taken from him; he chose to give his life to his aggressors with the words, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they are doing” (Luke 23:34). The triumph of his authority was in the resurrection rather than the death of those who came to arrest him.
Luther staked his authority on the Word of God and prayer, but his actual survival depended on the temporal powers of Frederick the Wise. Frederick obtained a promise from Emperor Charles V that Luther should not be condemned unheard and should appear before the Diet. Luther traveled to the imperial Diet at Worms under the safe custody of a heretic, though the cavalcade of German knights that attended him made it more like a triumphant procession. The Diet did pass an edict that declared Luther to be an outlaw whose writings were proscribed. In order to protect him on his return, high in the Thuringian Forest, Luther’s wagon was set upon by horsemen. In a mock abduction, Luther was spirited off to Wartburg Castle. Disguised as a bearded squire—Junker Georg—Luther lived for ten months alone with God and the devil under the protective custody of Frederick. The edict shadowed Luther and fettered his movements all his days.
In a free and democratic society, temporal power of government ought not to be a threat to any law-abiding citizen. This does not mean absence of discrimination in favor of a separate set of values favored and promoted by the state. Thomas Berg offers the following analogy of the church in America.
This is not a good time for religious freedom in American law. More and more, U.S. courts are explicitly embracing arguments that religious freedom extends only to those religious practices that are confined and compartmentalized. Religious practices are explicitly receiving reduced protection if the practice pervades the believer’s life rather than being limited to one facet, and if the believer applies his or her faith in the broader world rather than limiting it to the person’s religious community. These trends can be captured in the proposition that today one can enjoy religious freedom only in the catacombs, as the first-century Christians did. They lived daily in the broader Roman society. But in the periodic times of persecution, they could not exercise the faith publicly. They could only worship and practice the faith at night and underground.13
Berg immediately makes clear that restricted freedoms simply because of faith must not be compared with the violent persecutions that drove early Christians underground. Nevertheless public policy has a religion of its own that is intolerant of other values. Berg’s first example of restricted freedom is a decision in which the Supreme Court held that a student at an evangelical college could be denied a state scholarship for which he qualified in every stipulation of grades and financial need. The reason was that he chose to major in theology in preparation to be a pastor. The court held that the state was not obligated because it could treat clergy training as a “distinct category of instruction” from all other courses of study. It argued that the procurement of taxpayer’s funds to support church leaders in the past was a source of popular unrest.
In another decision, the California Supreme Court ruled against a program of Catholic Charities seeking to provide prescription-drug insurance coverage for employees that did not include contraceptives. Private employers are not obligated to provide such insurance, but if they do so, they cannot stipulate limitations for such coverage. Catholic Charities believes that social justice and religious conscience requires it to provide such coverage, but their understanding of sexual acts prevents them from including contraceptives. The exemption of contraceptives would have been permissible if the purpose of the entity were the inculcation of religious values, but this did not pertain because the plan offered its service to the needy irrespective of religious values. The mindset is that any social service that reaches out to the community indiscriminately must also lose its religious identity. The church may maintain its values within its insular community—in the catacombs—but outside of that narrow limitation may not retain its own lines of conscience in social support.
The prophet Elijah did not envision a pluralistic society that would seek to equally accommodate all versions of faith and values. In his context it was intolerable that the king should actively adhere to the religious values of a surrounding culture. In this he fearlessly confronted the state authority. The modern ideals of pluralism are good and necessary; coercion in matters of faith is not God’s way. However, justice in such a plurality is an exceedingly difficult matter, and the church increasingly will find the power of the state oppressive. This should not cause fear or despair; Christ will build his church, and government authority will not prevail against it.