2 Kings 6-10

2 Kings 6-10

Man, the authors of the OT are just getting lazy.

Some guy loses his axe head and Elisha uses God to retrieve it.

Then we get to 6:8-6:10 "Then the king of Syria warred against Israel, and took counsel with his servants, saying, In such and such a place shall be my camp."

and "the king of Israel sent to the place which the man of God told him and warned him of, and saved himself there, not once nor twice."

Then, Elisha blinds and spares the soldiers that are ordered to bring him to the king of Syria.  Why does he spare these men when just a few chapters ago, he killed over one hundred men with holy fire because they came to talk to him?

We then get a little story about women eating their kids!  This is straight out of Monty Python and a story worthy of Axe Cop!!!

The book then gives us another one of those condensed histories, with famine and the killing of a king.

Elisha then delivers one of my favorite quotes so far in the OT.

At 9:3 we get  "Then take the box of oil, and pour it on his head, and say, Thus saith the LORD, I have anointed thee king over Israel. Then open the door, and flee, and tarry not."

Tell Jehu that he's the king and then run like hell!!!  Sounds more like a prank from a hidden camera show then the Bible.

The catch is, Jehu has to kill the Family of Ahab.  Jezebel is thrown out a window, trampled by horses and eaten by dogs.  She got off easy if you ask me.

As per God's orders, Jehu kills all seventy (?!?!) of Ahab's sons for the sins of the former king.  That sounds fair.

His bloodlust still in full force, Jehu kills Ahaziah's forty two brothers.

God is very happy with Jehu's slaughter.

Once again I'll point out that these chapters seem to be more a chronicle of politics and war and using "God" as an excuse for murdering your rivals.

What do you think?

1 Kings 15-20 Confusion and then Elijah

1 Kings 15-20

Asa, Baasha, Abijam, Benhadad Nadab, Ahab.
Chapters 15-16 confused the hell out of me.  I could barely keep track of who was king, who was doing evil (basically all of them), and who was smiting who.
I like the part where the LORD likes Asa even though he didn't do everything he could to please the LORD.  It's like he was just emotionally exhausted by the actions of the people and just said "Ah, whatever.  Good enough."

But then we get to Elijah, the prophet, one of the biblical characters that is revered by all three of the Abrahamic religions.
Elijah seems to be a mouth piece for God, almost like God just didn't want to deal with humans anymore.
Can you blame him?

Elijah gets fed by birds, he raises a kid from the dead and kind of just wanders around.
We get a "battle of the gods" competition and Baal fails to show.  the LORD gets a little showy when it's his turn to front.
Elijah then has the competition wiped out but then fears for his own life when he's the last prophet standing.

We finish with Elijah finding Elisha plowing a field with 12 oxen (get the symbolism?) Elisha immediately leaves his job, pausing only to say goodbye to his parents and slaughtering the oxen (a foreshadowing of future events?).

Since we're talking about Elijah, I need to link to this SNL Sketch with Jerry Seinfeld.  One of my favorites.