08/31/2022 – Day 185 – 2 Kings 1 – 5 / 2 of 2 // The messengers: Elijah and Elisha, up close and personal and the missions of their time. Similar to ours today?
Good morning! I am sharing excerpts from my old Halley’s Bible Handbook – II Kings , pages 200 and 201. Let’s get started!:
“… The book covers the last 12 kings of the Northern Kingdom, and the last 16 kings of the Southern Kingdom (see under 1 Kings 12); a period, in all of about 250 years, approximately 850 – 600 B.C.
The Northern Kingdom called Israel, fell (721 B.C.) at the hands of the Assyrians, whose capital was Ninevah (see under chapter 17). The Southern Kingdom, called Judah, fell, 600 B.C., at the hands of the Babylonians, whose capital was Babylon (see under chapter 25).
Elijah and Elisha were prophets sent of God, in an effort to save the Northern Kingdom. Their ministry together lasted about 75 years in the middle period of the Northern Kingdom, about 875 – 800 B.C., through the reign s of 6 kings, Ahab, Ahaziah, Joram, Jehu, Jehoahaz, Joash.
Chapter 1. Ahaziah, king of Israel. 855 – 854 B.C.
Account of his reign starts back in 1 Kings 22:51. Reigned 2 years. Co-regent with his father Ahab, and wicked like him. We have here another of Elijah’s fire miracles (9 -14). (Jimmy note – See 1 of 2 – including a compare and contrast between Elijah and the disciples, who asked Jesus if they could call down fire upon the Samaritans.)
Chapter 2. Elijah’s Translation.
Elijah was a native of Gilead, the land of Jephthah. A child of the wild loneliness of mountain ravines, he wore a cloak of sheep skis or coarse camel hair, with his own thick long hair handing down his back. (Jimmy note – See New Testatment accounts – a resemblance to John the Baptist almost a millenium later…)
His mission was to drive Baalism out of Israel. His ministry may have lasted about 25 years through the reigns of the wicked Ahab and Ahaziah. He had some hard and rough, and very disagreeable work to do. He thought he had failed. And, though intimate with God, in measure that has been given to few men, yet how utterly human he was, like us; and he asked God to take his life. But God did not think he had failed. His work done, God sent a deputation of Angelic chariots to bear him away in triumph to heaven.
Elijah had recently been in Mt. Horeb, where Moses had given the law. Now, conscious that the time of his departure had come, he headed straight for the land of Moses’ burial, Mt. Nebo (Deuteronomy 34:1), as if he wanted to be with Moses in death. We surmise that he was not long in finding Moses, and that they straightway became heavenly pals, and that they found their greatest joy in looking forward to the coming of their Greater Pal, with whom they made a brief earthly appearance (Matthew 17:3).
Elijah had been a prophet of ‘fire.’ He had called down ‘fire’ from heaven on Mt. Carmel, and he had called down ‘fire’ to destroy the officers of Ahaziah. Now he is borne away to heaven in ‘chariots of fire.’ Only one other, Enoch, was taken to God without havin to pass through the experience of death (Genesis 5:24). Possibly the translation of these two men may have been intended of God to be a sort of dim forecast of the Rapture of the Church., in that glad day when Angel chariots shall sweep in and swing low to gather us up to welcome the Returning Savior. (Jimmy question: Was Halley a believer in the rapture, prior to the 2nd coming? Such a belief was not widely held in his time, seeing he went home to be with the Lord in 1965. Such a belief can be inferred in the Scripture, but I lean “no”.)
Elisha. II Kings 2 to 13
Elijah, under instruction from God, had anointed Elisah to be his successor (1 Kings 19: 16-21); and had taken him in training. As Elijah went away to heaven, his matle fell on Elisha , and Elisha began immediately to work miracles, as Elijah had done.
Waters of the Jordan were divided, for Elisha, as just before they had divided for Elijah (2: 8, 14). The spring at Jericho was healed (2:21) 42 idolatrous lads at Bethel were torn by bears (2:24) God, not Elisha, sent the bears. Bethel was a seat of Baal worship. The lads’ taunt, presumably, was at Elisha’s God.
God had hinted to Elijah that fire and sword methods were not the methods by which God’s real work would be accomplished (1 Kings 19:12). Nevertheless the fire and sword work went on. Baalism could understand no other language. (Question : Has the Baalism of our day reached that point? ) Elisha anointed Jehu to exterminate official Baalism (1 Kings 19:16,17; II Kings 9: 1-10)j. And Jehu did , with a vengeance (chapters 9, 10).”
Thank you Henry Hampton Halley, once again, a more modern day messenger.
Soli Deo Gloria!