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Context No. 2659 of 4322 · 2 Kings

Context · Reflection

2 Kings 1:1-5: in context

1Moab rebelled against Israel after the death of Ahab. 2Ahaziah fell down through the lattice in his upper room that was in Samaria, and was sick. So he sent messengers, and said to them, “Go, inquire of Baal Zebub, the god of Ekron, whether I will recover from this sickness.” 3But the LORD’s angel said to Elijah the Tishbite, “Arise, go up to meet the messengers of the king of Samaria, and tell them, ‘Is it because there is no God in Israel that you go to inquire of Baal Zebub, the god of Ekron? 4Now therefore the LORD says, “You will not come down from the bed where you have gone up, but you will surely die.”’” Then Elijah departed. 5The messengers returned to him, and he said to them, “Why is it that you have returned?”

King Ahaziah, injured in a fall, wants to know whether he will recover. So he sends messengers, not to the God of Israel, but to Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron, a foreign idol. God sends Elijah to intercept them with a stinging question: is it because there is no God in Israel that you go to inquire of Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron? And the answer to the king is grim: you will not recover.

Elijah's question exposes the insult buried in the king's choice. Is there no God in Israel? Of course there was; the living God was right there, available to be asked. But Ahaziah bypassed him and sent to a counterfeit, as if the true God were absent or unhelpful. We do a version of this whenever we take our real questions, about the future, about what to do, about whether things will turn out, to sources that are not God: horoscopes, superstitions, the endless oracles of the world, anything but the One who actually knows and cares. Is there no God in Israel? The counterfeit sources cannot answer, and turning to them slights the One who can.

Where do I take my real questions to counterfeit sources, as if there were no God to ask, when the living God is right there to be sought?

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