Tuesday, February 23, 2016
Day 12 – Tuesday -- The Book of Second Kings
Day 12 – Tuesday
The Book of Second Kings
Elijah names his successor—Elisha. Elijah sings “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” and is taken up to heaven without dying. It’s easy to confuse Elijah and Elisha. I don’t know why Elijah didn’t pick someone like Joram or Gehazi; then we wouldn’t be confused. And another thing. How do you pronounce Elisha’s name? I’ve heard it with a short ‘i’ and a long ‘i’ and another kind of ‘i’ that I don’t know the name of. Take your choice.
Anyway, there is a weird story about Elisha in the second chapter. Some teenage boys make fun of him because he is bald. They call him “baldy.” Instead of practicing some active listening skills toward those boys, he curses them in the name of God, and two mother bears come out of the woods and eats the boys. The point being: don’t mess with God’s prophets. But hey! Isn’t that a little extreme?
Second Kings is mainly about kings. The writer paints virtually all the kings of Israel (the North) as evil. The kings of Judah (the South) are alternately good and bad. The author seems to be biased against the North. And the North is the first to go. In 722 BCE Assyria invades and conquers Israel. Never again is there a kingdom of Israel. (There has been much written about the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel. Where did the people of the Northern Kingdom go? Who are they today? Recently DNA studies have been done to prove or disprove who their descendants are. Don’t ask me. If these questions interest you, go google.)
Kings. Lots of kings. A good one is Hezekiah. (Don’t fall for that trick question: Have you read the book of Hezekiah in the Bible?) His son Manasseh is the worst. Later there is another good one—Josiah. He restores the temple, discovers the Law in the temple, and there is a revival.
But in 598 BCE Emperor Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon invades Jerusalem and takes its treasures and many of its leading families back to Babylon. Zedekiah is set up as King. But in 587 he rebels, and after a year-long siege the Babylonians take Jerusalem. They destroy the city and the temple; and virtually all the citizens are taken into exile in Babylon. It is the end of the world.
Remember the Covenant? The writers of these histories say that the tragedies that befell Israel and Judah are the result of the Jewish community’s failure to keep up their end of the Agreement. They have been unfaithful to God, their Partner. Therefore, they have been punished. This part of the Bible is big on rewards and punishments. If you are good, you will be blessed. But if you are bad, you will be cursed. What do you think about that?
Finish this sentence: To be in partnership with God means that I will…
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