2 Kings: New European Christadelphian Commentary

By Duncan Heaster

A verse by verse exposition of the Bible book of 2 Kings, part of the New European Christadelphian Commentary series by Duncan Heaster. This volume includes material on Elisha, Hezekiah, Josiah and the kings of Israel and Judah.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Oct 6, 2018
• ISBN: 9780244722524

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2 Kings: New European Christadelphian Commentary

2 Kings: New European Christadelphian Commentary

Duncan Heaster

Carelinks

PO Bo 152, Menai NSW 2234

AUSTRALIA

www.carelinks.net

Copyright

Copyright © 2018 by Duncan Heaster.

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review or scholarly journal.

First Printing: 2018

ISBN 978-0-244-72252-4

PREFACE

This commentary is based around the New European Version of the Bible, which is generally printed with brief commentary on each chapter. Charities such as Carelinks Ministries and the Christadelphian Advancement Trust endeavour to provide totally free copies worldwide according to resources and donations available to them. But there is a desire by many to go beyond those brief comments on each chapter, and delve deeper into the text. The New European Christadelphian commentary seeks to meet that need. As with all Divine things, beauty becomes the more apparent the closer we analyze. We can zoom in the scale of investigation to literally every letter of the words used by His Spirit. But that would require endless volumes. And academic analysis is no more nor less than that; we are to live by His word. This commentary seeks to achieve a balance between practical teaching on one hand, and a reasonable level of thorough consideration of the original text. On that side of things, you will observe in the commentary a common abbreviation: s.w.. This stands for same word; the same original Greek or Hebrew word translated [A] is used when translated [B]. This helps to slightly remove the mask of translation through which most Bible readers have to relate to the original text.

Are there errors of thought and intellectual process in these volumes? Surely there are. Let me know about them. But finally- don’t fail to see the wood for the trees. Never let the wonder of the simple, basic Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and His Kingdom become obscured by all the angst over correctly interpreting this or that Bible verse. Believe it, respond to it, be baptized into Him, and let the word become flesh in you as it was so supremely in Him.

If you would like to enable the NEV Bible and associated material to remain freely available, do consider making a donation to Carelinks Ministries or The Christadelphian Advancement Trust. And please pray that our sending forth of God’s word will bring back glory to His Name and that of His dear Son whom we serve.

Duncan Heaster

[e-mail]

2 Kings

2 Kings Chapter 1 

2 Kings 1:1 Moab rebelled against Israel after the death of Ahab-

We last heard of Moab when David subdued them (2 Sam. 8:2). The Moabite stone states that Israel and Moab were in conflict in the time of Ahab's father Omri. Tired of paying the heavy tax of 2 Kings 3:4, Moab seized the opportunity when Ahab died suddenly and Israel were defeated by Syria at Ramoth Gilead.

2 Kings 1:2 Ahaziah fell down through the lattice in his upper room that was in Samaria, and was sick-

Elijah had prophesied that all Ahab's sons would be cut off, and here we see the fulfilment.

So he sent messengers and said to them, Go, inquire of Baal Zebub, the god of Ekron, whether I will recover of this sickness-

The Pharisees accused Jesus of doing miracles by the power of a false god called Beelzebub. Jesus said, If I by Beelzebub cast out demons, by whom do your children cast them out? (Mt. 12:27). 2 Kings 1:2 clearly tells us that Beelzebub was a false god of the Philistines. Jesus did not say, ‘Now look, 2 Kings 1:2 says Beelzebub was a false god, so your accusation cannot be true’. No, He spoke as if Beelzebub existed, because He was interested in getting His message through to His audience. So in the same way Jesus talked about casting out demons – He did not keep saying, ‘actually, they do not exist’, He just preached the Gospel in the language of the day.

We note they didn't ask for healing. For only Yahweh heals. They consulted some kind of oracle there to see whether he would recover. It seems the damage from the fall had put him in some kind of condition which appeared to them as a sickness.

2 Kings 1:3 But the angel of Yahweh 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?-

Elijah had been rejected from his ministry as the lead prophet of Israel at the time of 1 Kings 19; and he had called Elisha to replace him. But he is here given another chance to serve God as a prophet. Perhaps he repented of his arrogance in considering nobody else to be a true prophet, and so God was willing to use him in some measure again. The idea that Yahweh was a God only operative in His land, Israel, was widespread. We see it in some of David's Psalms, and in Jonah's vain attempt to flee Yahweh's presence in the land. And yet that wrong idea is 'gone along with' here, in order to make a point to Ahaziah. Just as the language of demons is likewise used in the New Testament, although demons have no real existence.

2 Kings 1:4 Now therefore thus says Yahweh, You shall not come down from the bed where you have gone up, but shall surely die’. Elijah departed-

Perhaps his bedroom was not on the ground floor; :2 could imply he had fallen from his upper room, and now was confined there again.

2 Kings 1:5 The messengers returned to him, and he said to them, Why is it that you have returned?-

The messengers obviously took Elijah very seriously, because they did not proceed to Ekron but instead returned to Amaziah. Such disobedience to the king was not normal. They had been deeply struck by God's word, just as those sent to arrest the Lord Jesus returned saying that no man spoke like Him.

2 Kings 1:6 They said to him, A man came up to meet us and said to us, ‘Go, return to the king who sent you, and tell him, Thus says Yahweh, Is it because there is no God in Israel that you send to inquire of Baal Zebub, the god of Ekron? Therefore you shall not come down from the bed where you have gone up, but shall surely die’-

This usage of the Thus says Yahweh formula is an improvement upon Elijah's earlier way of speaking. In 1 Kings 21:21 Elijah simply announced to Ahab: "Behold I will bring evil upon you.... We expect this to be prefaced by a Thus says Yahweh"- but Elijah was so close to God he assumed he was speaking directly from Him. And yet Elijah didn’t then repeat exactly what God had told him to say in 1 Kings 21:19. But now he does much better. Was he too familiar with God? Assuming he knew God’s will and words? But now he repeats verbatim what he was told to say. We too know God’s word. We know the Bible text well. But this can lead to an assumption that we speak for God; that we must be right in all our attitudes and positions we adopt on issues.

2 Kings 1:7 He said to them, What kind of man was he who came up to meet you, and told you these words?-

As with Ahab intuitively guessing what Micaiah's message from Yahweh was going to be, so surely Amaziah guessed who this man was. He has the image of Elijah in his mind as he asks this question.

2 Kings 1:8 They answered him, He was a hairy man, and wearing a leather belt around his waist. He said, It is Elijah the Tishbite-

Elijah was characterized by wearing a hairy garment like sackcloth (2 Kings 1:8 RV). The whole incident on Horeb had been to make Elijah see the supremacy of the still small voice; that it is in humble, quiet service rather than fiery judgment of others that the essence of God and spirituality is to be found. But God had prepared Elijah for this earlier. Elijah had to hide by the brook Cherith (1 Kings 17:3) for three and a half years (Lk. 4:25,26). In Rev. 11:3,6 we meet another Elijah figure- also clothed in sackcloth, with the power to bring fire down from Heaven, who for three and a half years… prophesies / preaches. I suggest that this figure is representative of the latter day witnesses to God's truth in the last days. Thereby we are connected with Elijah in his sackcloth. We would expect Elijah to have been preaching during his time hidden by Cherith- but there is not a word of this in the record. We are expected to be how Elijah should have been. Could it not be that the Father wishes to show us what He was then trying to teach Elijah- that the essential prophetic witness is through us being as we are, the still small voice of witness through example…?

2 Kings 1:9 Then the king sent a captain of fifty with his fifty to him. He went up to him; and behold, he was sitting on the top of the hill. He said to him, Man of God, the king has said, ‘Come down!’-

There are several connections between Elijah and Carmel; he may well have had a school of the prophets on that mountain. So that may be the locality in view.

2 Kings 1:10 Elijah answered to the captain of fifty, If I am a man of God, let fire come down from the sky, and consume you and your fifty! Fire came down from the sky, and consumed him and his fifty-

This incident of calling fire down from Heaven is specifically rebuked by the Lord Jesus as not being of His Spirit (Lk. 9:54,55). And He rebukes His followers for assuming that their natural prejudice against others can be justified by an appeal to Elijah’s example. When Elijah was asked to come down from the hill, he responds by saying that fire would come down (2 Kings 1:9,10); he saw himself as the fire / judgment of God. Yet behind that bold façade was a very insecure man; for the Angel had to assure him not to fear, and to go down with the third captain (2 Kings 1:15). Beneath his apparent zeal for Yahweh, Elijah was basically fearful, of himself, of others, even perhaps of God. So often, fear is the basic reason for our failures and misperceptions and harsh judgments. His motives were mixed; he clearly saw the similarity with how he had called fire down to consume the sacrifice on Carmel, in order to convert Israel back to God. But he clearly failed to see the value of those 100 lives he had now taken by doing the same thing in consuming people. The value and meaning of persons was lost on him. All he could think of was fighting apostasy and judging it. Elijah called the fire down in evident allusion to how fire came down from the Lord to destroy Nadab and Abihu and also Sodom (Lev. 10:2; Gen. 19:24). He did the wrong thing from wrong motives and yet he Biblically justified it- for the prophets themselves saw an apostate Israel as being like Sodom (Is. 1:10). Now this is probably how most Christians sin. We rarely harden ourselves and sin in willful defiance. In the heat of the moment the ‘devil’ of our own self-talk persuades us to find a pseudo-spiritual justification for actions which only later we reflect were wrong. The Lord’s wilderness temptations were all about doing justifiable things for wrong motives, based on a self-justifying recollection of Bible passages. And this in essence is how it is with most of our failures. The Lord’s victory and Elijah’s failure should serve to stop us in our tracks in careful and sustained self-examination.

The idea of fire from Heaven is found in the Lord’s teaching in Lk. 12:49-54, where He associates it with division in the brotherhood. And the Lord went on to say that the Pharisees could interpret a cloud arising in the West as a sign that rain was coming, but they could not forgive their brethren, which was what was essential (Lk. 12:54). This just has to be a reference to Elijah, who saw a cloud arising from the West as a sign of rain. The Lord is, it seems, sadly associating Elijah with the Pharisees. And yet... despite all this,  Jesus likens Himself to Elijah. Jesus sent fire on earth as Elijah did (Lk. 12:49). And the context of the Lk. 9:54 reference to Elijah is that the Lord’s time had come that he should be received up, and he steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem (Lk. 9:51). This is all very much the language of Elijah (2 Kings 2:1). And elsewhere Jesus quotes Elijah’s words Your son lives (1 Kings 17:23 = Jn. 4:50-53). What this shows is that the Lord saw what was good in Elijah, and He didn’t separate Himself from someone who didn’t have His Spirit. He simply wanted His followers to learn better from him.

2 Kings 1:11 Again he sent to him another captain of fifty and his fifty. He answered him, Man of God, the king has said, ‘Come down quickly!’-

Elijah sees himself as the fire sent from God; he associates himself directly with God and His judgments. He hadn’t learnt the lesson that God wasn’t in the fire but in the small voice. The captain wanted Elijah to come down from the high hill (cp. Heaven), so Elijah calls fire to come down from Heaven. He sees himself as the fire, as God coming down. He had the wrong attitude and yet God still heard his prayers; God worked with Elijah as Elijah wanted. And so we perceive the subtleties of a man’s relationship with God. Prayer may be answered, and the extent of Elijah’s faith in ‘commanding’ the fire to come down is indeed awesome, but we may even then still be ‘playing God’ in a wrong way. This playing of God, this over certainty that God was behind him, led Elijah into some arrogance.

2 Kings 1:12 Elijah answered them, If I am a man of God, let fire come down from the sky, and consume you and your fifty! The fire of God came down from the sky, and consumed him and his fifty-

Elijah like the disciples thought that he was the judge on God’s behalf, and that he was justified in calling down fire, evocative as that was of the way God Himself judges sinners. But Jesus puts it all another way- our focus, if we have His spirit, should be on saving people by getting them to destroy / lose their own fleshly lives through following Him. Jn. 12:25,26 makes the same point- he who loves his life loses / destroys it, but he who picks up the cross and follows Jesus will save it. Our absolute focus must be on the salvation of others through helping them condemn / destroy / lose themselves for the Lord’s sake; and we achieve this by following Jesus in the life of the cross, not by destroying others ourselves. The Lord came to save not destroy; to save the lost / destroyed (Lk. 6:9; 19:10- the same words are used; note how this theme is developed specifically by Luke). But He did this through getting people to destroy their lives. And He begged- and begs- His followers to have His spirit / attitude in all this. And His point was that Elijah didn’t have His Spirit. Note that God worked with Elijah- He heard his prayers. Elijah like the disciples had the Spirit, the power that God was willing to let them have; and yet the Spirit of Jesus is more than raw power. And so it could be said of us, that we so often know not what manner of spirit we are of. We may be correctly reflecting the judgment of God, we may have Biblical justification for the hard line we adopt; but this doesn’t mean that we fully have the spirit of Christ. Yet as with Elijah, the fact our prayers are heard, that Scripture appears to back us, can make us blind to such major insufficiencies in our spirituality. We have a choice in how we respond to others’ weakness; there are different levels of response. If thy brother sin against thee, the Lord said- we can ultimately take others with us and then treat him as a Gentile or tax collector. But He continues- if our brother sin against us, we should forgive to an unlimited extent. This is the higher level of response to your brother’s weakness. Elijah and the disciples took the first of those options, as many of us do; but in doing so we so easily forget what manner of spirit we are of; for we are to be of the spirit of Christ, not Elijah. And His attitude / spirit was most definitely to save rather than to destroy, to share table fellowship rather than disassociate... The Lord Jesus purposefully inverted the common assumption that the duty of a righteous man was to condemn the sinners. When He said that there is much joy in Heaven over one sinner that repents (Lk. 15:10), the Lord was purposefully inverting the common contemporary Jewish saying that there was much joy in Heaven whenever one sinner is destroyed in judgment. His desire is to seek to save rather than to destroy. And Elijah had not attained to this spirit of Christ when he called fire down from Heaven.

2 Kings 1:13 Again he sent the captain of a third fifty with his fifty. The third captain of fifty went up, and came and fell on his knees before Elijah and begged him and said to him, Man of God, please let my life, and the life of these fifty your servants, be precious in your sight-

Twice Elijah has said that if he is a man of God, a prophet, then fire would come down. His ministry as Israel's lead prophet had been removed in 1 Kings 19 because of his arrogant refusal to accept the other faithful in Israel. So it's as if he really wants to demonstrate that he is still a man of God, a prophet. And the third captain perceives that, and therefore addresses Elijah as Man of God. But he implies that a true man of God would perceive the value and meaning of the human person, and not slaughter people in such a light hearted manner.

We wonder if this slaying of two groups of 50 contrasts with how Obadiah [whom Elijah had despised as insincere] had saved the lives of two groups of 50 prophets of Yahweh- whom Elijah had discounted as insincere, since he had protested that he was the only prophet of Yahweh.

2 Kings 1:14 Behold, fire came down from the sky, and consumed the two former captains of fifty with their fifties. But now let my life be precious in your sight-

The captain chose his phrase carefully, for these were the very words of Saul to David (1 Sam. 26:21). He is asking Elijah to show the spirit of grace which David showed to Saul; and David showed that spirit because he was but reflecting the extreme preciousness of human life in the sight of God. He uses the same phrase of how the Messianic King would likewise consider the life of others to be precious in his sight (Ps. 72:14).

2 Kings 1:15 The angel of Yahweh said to Elijah, Go down with him. Don’t be afraid of him. He arose, and went down with him to the king-

Despite all the bravado of Elijah against these captains and their soldiers, one simple reason he called down fire was because he was afraid of them. The him of whom Elijah was afraid was perhaps the young king Ahaziah.

2 Kings 1:16 He said to him, Thus says Yahweh, ‘Because you have sent messengers to inquire of Baal Zebub, the god of Ekron, is it because there is no God in Israel to inquire of His word? Therefore you shall not come down from the bed where you have gone up, but shall surely die’-

As noted on :6, Elijah's verbatim repetition of God's words, prefaced with a Thus says Yahweh, was an improvement on his previous attitudes. Earlier it seems Elijah had preached Yahweh's word to Ahab and Jezebel with no fear of consequences, ready to die. But now he fears Ahaziah (see on :15), even though the man was sick and incapacitated. His repentance about his pride led him to open himself up as a real person, true to himself. His bravery came largely from his pride. Now he had repented of his pride, he is less brave. It is all so very psychologically credible, as we would expect of a Divinely inspired record; and of a man who really did repent and become humble.

2 Kings 1:17 So he died according to the word of Yahweh which Elijah had spoken. Jehoram began to reign in his place in the second year of Jehoram the son of Jehoshaphat king of Judah; because he had no son-

We note that both Israel and Judah had a king called Jehoram at this time. This was perhaps intentional, because Jehoshaphat's son had married Ahab's daughter. The accession of the Israelite Jehoram (Ahab’s brother) took place, according to 2 Kings 3:1, in the eighteenth year of Jehoshaphat. Jehoram of Judah perhaps received the royal title from his father as early as his father’s sixteenth year, when he was about to join Ahab against the Syrians; the same year might then be called either the eighteenth year of Jehoshaphat or the second year of Jehoram.

2 Kings 1:18 Now the rest of the acts of Ahaziah which he did, aren’t they written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel?-

This is not necessarily the books of Chronicles which we have in our Bibles.

2 Kings Chapter 2

2 Kings 2:1 It happened, when Yahweh would take up Elijah-

The Lord Jesus likens Himself to Elijah at times. Jesus sent fire on earth as Elijah did (Lk. 12:49). He quotes Elijah’s words Your son lives (1 Kings 17:23 = Jn. 4:50-53). What this shows is that the Lord saw what was good in Elijah, and He didn’t separate Himself from someone who didn’t have His Spirit. And here we have another example. The context of the Lk. 9:54 reference to Elijah is that the Lord’s time had come that he should be received up, and he steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem (Lk. 9:51). This is all very much the language of Elijah being received up into the sky / heaven. Elijah set his face to do this; but it was a setting of his face to have the humility to give up his much coveted ministry to Elisha. Elijah set his face, he was determined... to be humble. To not cavil against God's word that Elisha was to replace him. And so the Lord set His face to the humility required for the cross, and the ascension not into the sky [as Elijah did] but into Heaven itself.

By a whirlwind into heaven, that Elijah went with Elisha from Gilgal-

Elijah didn't go to Heaven itself, for no man has ascended to Heaven (Jn. 3:13). He was a sinner and the wages of sin is death. The time for reward and eternal life is not after death, but at the return of the Lord Jesus. We know from 2 Chron. 21:12-15 that Elijah died, and wrote a letter soon before his death. So indeed he was snatched away and taken to another point on earth. Obadiah had implied this was a regular occurrence. Hence the young men later went out looking for Elijah.

Gilgal was where there was a school of the prophets (2 Kings 4:38). Before being snatched away, Elijah was it seems touring the groups of sons of the prophets.

2 Kings 2:2 Elijah said to Elisha, Please wait here, for Yahweh has sent me as far as Bethel. Elisha said, As Yahweh lives, and as your soul lives, I will not leave you. So they went down to Bethel-

Leave is deny. Elijah's ascension into the sky has remarkable similarities with that of the Lord, into Heaven itself- a group of men sent to take him; Elisha cp. Peter saying ‘I will not deny you’ (2 Kings 2:2 Heb.); a cloud of Angels receive him; men stand watching on earth; the Holy Spirit given on his ascension…

2 Kings 2:3 The sons of the prophets who were at Bethel came out to Elisha and said to him, Do you know that Yahweh will take away your master from your head today? He said, Yes, I know it. Hold your peace-

The day for Elijah to be publically removed and Elisha to take his place had been set, and the other prophets knew this. Elisha was to take over as their chief. We can appreciate how hopeless it was for Elijah to be leader of the various schools of the prophets, if he had been persuaded that they were all insincere and he alone was left Yahweh's only true prophet. For this reason he was removed from the office. See on :5,23.

2 Kings 2:4 Elijah said to him, Elisha, please wait here, for Yahweh has sent me to Jericho. He said, As Yahweh lives, and as your soul lives, I will not leave you. So they came to Jericho-

It seems Elijah was being sent around the various schools of the prophets (all of whom, as noted on :3, he had despised as apostate). They were to see him as their leader for one last time. There is no sense that they were that distressed about losing him, unlike the weeping at Troas when Paul told the disciples they would see his face no more. This is understandable, seeing he had claimed he was the only true prophet and they were all astray on this or that point of doctrine or practice.

2 Kings 2:5 The sons of the prophets who were at Jericho came near to Elisha and said to him, Do you know that Yahweh will take away your master from your head today? He answered, Yes, I know it. Hold your peace-

We note that all the sons of the prophets speak to Elisha of Elijah as "your master rather than our master" (also :3). Perhaps Elijah had formally disfellowshipped them for some apostacy or other, and demanded they never call him their master. No wonder he needed to be replaced. Or perhaps they didn't share Elisha's huge respect for Elijah.

2 Kings 2:6 Elijah said to him, Please wait here, for Yahweh has sent me to the Jordan. He said, As Yahweh lives, and as your soul lives, I will not leave you. They both went on-

It seems Elijah didn't want Elisha to be present when he was snatched away. He keeps asking him not to follow him. Perhaps he knew that his mantle would then drop to the earth and Elisha would have it. And he was resistant, still, to the idea of another man taking his ministry. He knew that if Elisha saw him ascend into the sky, then Elisha would have a double portion of his spirit (:10), making him greater than Elijah. And Elijah apparently didn't want that.

2 Kings 2:7 Fifty men of the sons of the prophets went, and stood opposite them at a distance; and they both stood by the Jordan-

We recall how Obadiah had hidden prophets by groups of 50 in a cave. There had been one cave for the two groups of 50 (1 Kings 18:4). So perhaps a 'group of 50 prophets' was not a literal group of 50 men, but a kind of prophetic division of prophets. Rather like a thousand likewise refers to a family or military subdivision of an army, rather than literally 1000.

2 Kings 2:8 Elijah took his mantle, wrapped it together and struck the waters, and they were divided here and there, so that they two went over on dry ground-

This recalls the great miracles of Joshua and Moses. To ask for a double portion of this Spirit was reflective of quite some spiritual ambition on Elisha's part. We see here Elijah acting as Moses; although when in Moses' cave on Sinai, he had been shown that he was not as Moses because he lacked Moses' humility. Although he had been set up to be as Moses; see on 1 Kings 19:11. Perhaps he was trying still to assert himself as Moses; or maybe he had finally arrived at the required humility, and so was permitted to act as Moses. And that is why he is given a role parallel to Moses  at the transfiguration. See on :21.

2 Kings 2:9 When they had gone over, Elijah said to Elisha, Ask what I shall do for you, before I am taken from you-

Maybe he knew that he would be snatched away east of Jordan, and so now they had crossed the river, he knew the end was near.

Elisha said, Please let a double portion of your spirit be on me-

The allusion may be to the double portion of the firstborn (Dt. 21:17). The sons of the prophets had Elijah as their father; and so Elisha as now the senior prophet is asking to be treated as the firstborn of Elijah amongst the sons of the prophets (:12). That Elijah should have rejected them all, considering himself the only prophet of Yahweh, was as bad as a father disowning his children. No wonder Elijah had to be replaced as the 'father' of the sons of the prophets. But by asking to be treated as the firstborn, Elisha is showing that he considers himself just another son of the prophet Elijah, even if the firstborn. But he is thereby not making any claim to be a new father to them. He therefore considered Elijah an impossible at to follow, even though Elijah had earlier condemned him. He focused on the positive in Elijah rather than being fazed by his arrogant rejection of all his brethren. This is indeed a challenge to us; for self congratulatory brethren who condemn all others are some of the hardest people to be positive about. It is so hard to make ourselves see the good in them, as Elisha clearly did to Elijah.

2 Kings 2:10 He said, You have asked a hard thing. If you see me when I am taken from