Kings of Israel 3
Last week we looked at the life of the worst kings to rule Israel – Ahab. We learned that much of what Ahab did came under the advisement of false prophets and his wife Jezebel.
We also discovered in a rabbit trail at the end of 1 Kings that Ahab’s counterpart, Jehoshaphat the king of Judah, was trying to amass great wealth and power like Solomon’s.
Continuing our study on the Kings of Israel & Judah…
1 Kings 22:
51 Ahaziah son of Ahab became king of Israel in Samaria in the seventeenth year of Jehoshaphat king of Judah, and he reigned over Israel two years. 52 He did evil in the eyes of the Lord, because he walked in the ways of his father and mother and in the ways of Jeroboam son of Nebat, who caused Israel to sin. 53 He served and worshiped Baal and provoked the Lord, the God of Israel, to anger, just as his father had done.
2 Kings 1 After Ahab’s death, Moab rebelled against Israel. 2
Now Ahaziah had fallen through the lattice of his upper room in Samaria and injured himself. So he sent messengers, saying to them, “Go and consult Baal-Zebub, the god of Ekron, to see if I will recover from this injury.”
How does God communicate with the king? Prophet.
So God sends Elijah to intercept the messenger and tells him because Ahaziah sought Baal for an answer he would die.
When the messenger returns with Elijah’s prophecy, Ahaziah send a company of 50 men to bring him Elijah. When the company approaches Elijah and demands that he come with them, Elijah calls down fire from Heaven and they all die. So Ahaziah sends another company and they die the same way. Then Ahaziah sends a third company. This time the commander intercedes for his men with Elijah and God tells Elijah to go to the king. When Elijah appears before Ahaziah he tells him the same thing he told the messenger.
17 So he died, according to the word of the Lord that Elijah had spoken. Because Ahaziah had no son, Joram succeeded him as king in the second year of Jehoram son of Jehoshaphat king of Judah.
Since the purpose of this study is to examine the kings of Israel & Judah, I’m going to summarize the passages referring to the prophets. In chapter 2 Elijah is taken up to Heaven in a whirlwind. Some interpreters call it a storm, in other places it says a fiery chariot. You know the story. Elisha accompanies him and receives a double portion of his anointing.
3 Joram son of Ahab became king of Israel in Samaria in the eighteenth year of Jehoshaphat king of Judah, and he reigned twelve years. 2 He did evil in the eyes of the Lord, but not as his father and mother had done. He got rid of the sacred stone of Baal that his father had made. 3 Nevertheless he clung to the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, which he had caused Israel to commit; he did not turn away from them.
4 Now Mesha king of Moab raised sheep, and he had to supply the king of Israel with a hundred thousand lambs and with the wool of a hundred thousand rams. 5 But after Ahab died, the king of Moab rebelled against the king of Israel. 6 So at that time King Joram set out from Samaria and mobilized all Israel. 7 He also sent this message to Jehoshaphat king of Judah: “The king of Moab has rebelled against me. Will you go with me to fight against Moab?”
We saw a similar thing happen last week. Ahab asked Jehoshaphat to go to war with him against Aram (Syria).
9 So the king of Israel set out with the king of Judah and the king of Edom. After a roundabout march of seven days, the army had no more water for themselves or for the animals with them.
10 “What!” exclaimed the king of Israel. “Has the Lord called us three kings together only to hand us over to Moab?”
11 But Jehoshaphat asked, “Is there no prophet of the Lord here, that we may inquire of the Lord through him?”
One of Joram’s officials suggests Elisha. Now this time instead of summoning the prophet, the kings go to him. Do you remember what happened last time? The prophet called down fire from Heaven and it burned up 2 companies of soldiers.
13 Elisha said to the king of Israel, “What do we have to do with each other? Go to the prophets of your father and the prophets of your mother.”
“No,” the king of Israel answered, “because it was the Lord who called us three kings together to hand us over to Moab.”
14 Elisha said, “As surely as the Lord Almighty lives, whom I serve, if I did not have respect for the presence of Jehoshaphat king of Judah, I would not look at you or even notice you.
So Elisha calls for a harpist and begins to prophesy.
17 For this is what the Lord says: You will see neither wind nor rain, yet this valley will be filled with water, and you, your cattle and your other animals will drink. 18 This is an easy thing in the eyes of the Lord; he will also hand Moab over to you. 19 You will overthrow every fortified city and every major town. You will cut down every good tree, stop up all the springs, and ruin every good field with stones.”
20 The next morning, about the time for offering the sacrifice, there it was—water flowing from the direction of Edom! And the land was filled with water.
21 Now all the Moabites had heard that the kings had come to fight against them; so every man, young and old, who could bear arms was called up and stationed on the border. 22 When they got up early in the morning, the sun was shining on the water. To the Moabites across the way, the water looked red—like blood. 23 “That’s blood!” they said. “Those kings must have fought and slaughtered each other. Now to the plunder, Moab!”
24 But when the Moabites came to the camp of Israel, the Israelites rose up and fought them until they fled. And the Israelites invaded the land and slaughtered the Moabites.
26 When the king of Moab saw that the battle had gone against him, he took with him seven hundred swordsmen to break through to the king of Edom, but they failed. 27 Then he took his firstborn son, who was to succeed him as king, and offered him as a sacrifice on the city wall. The fury against Israel was great; they withdrew and returned to their own land.
In chapter 4 we have the accounts of Elisha and the widow. Elisha tells her to borrow empty jars and pots from her neighbors. He then tells her to shut herself in her house with her sons. Miraculously her oil jar pours out enough oil to fill all the vessels. She sell the oil and pays off her debts.
Later in the chapter we meet a Shunammite woman who makes a room for Elisha to stay in when he comes to town. God blesses her with a son for her kindness to the prophet. Some time later the boy gets sick and dies. The woman hides this fact from her husband and goes to the prophet. Now it’s about a 20 mile trip. Elisha sends his servant with his staff and tells him to lay it on the boy. Gehazi returns (remember it’s a 20 mile one way trip) and tells him that nothing happened. So Elisha goes himself. He lies down on top of the boy and the boy came back to life.
In chapter 5 we have the account of Elisha healing a Syrian official of leprosy. Again you know the story. The man is told to wash himself seven times in the Jordan and he will be healed. He gets all indignant because Elisha didn’t come to him and heal him personally. But at the urging of his servant, he dunks in the river and is healed.
Naaman then goes to Elisha and offers him a reward. Elisha refuses but his servant Gehazi secretly chases after the man and walks away with new clothes and some silver. When he returns to Elisha he lies about it and is cursed by Elisha with leprosy.
6: 8 Now the king of Aram was at war with Israel. After conferring with his officers, he said, “I will set up my camp in such and such a place.”
The King of Aram is Ben-Hadad. Last week we read that Ahab’s army had defeated Aram in battle and rather then kill the king, as God had told him to do, Ahab entered an alliance with Ben-Hadad. Here’s Ben-Hadad again making trouble for Israel 2 kings after Ahab.
9 The man of God sent word to [Joram] the king of Israel: “Beware of passing that place, because the Arameans are going down there.” 10 So the king of Israel checked on the place indicated by the man of God. Time and again Elisha warned the king, so that he was on his guard in such places.
11 This enraged the king of Aram. He summoned his officers and demanded of them, “Will you not tell me which of us is on the side of the king of Israel?”
His official tells him it’s Elisha. So the king sends enough horses and soldiers to surround the city to capture Elisha.
15 When the servant of the man of God got up and went out early the next morning, an army with horses and chariots had surrounded the city. “Oh, my lord, what shall we do?” the servant asked.
16 “Don’t be afraid,” the prophet answered. “Those who are with us are more than those who are with them.”
17 And Elisha prayed, “O Lord, open his eyes so he may see.” Then the Lord opened the servant’s eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.
Elsiha then prayed and the soldiers were struck with blindness. Elisha went out to the leader and told them they were in the wrong place and led them to Samaria. When they got there, he prayed again and their eyes were opened.
21 When the king of Israel saw them, he asked Elisha, “Shall I kill them, my father? Shall I kill them?”
22 “Do not kill them,” he answered. “Would you kill men you have captured with your own sword or bow? Set food and water before them so that they may eat and drink and then go back to their master.”
23 So he prepared a great feast for them, and after they had finished eating and drinking, he sent them away, and they returned to their master. So the bands from Aram stopped raiding Israel’s territory.
24 Some time later, Ben-Hadad king of Aram mobilized his entire army and marched up and laid siege to Samaria. 25 There was a great famine in the city; the siege lasted so long that a donkey’s head sold for eighty shekels [or 2 pounds] of silver, and a quarter of a cab [or about 1 cup] of seed pods for five shekels [ or about 2 oz.]
26 As the king of Israel was passing by on the wall, a woman cried to him, “Help me, my lord the king!”
27 The king replied, “If the Lord does not help you, where can I get help for you? From the threshing floor? From the winepress?” 28 Then he asked her, “What’s the matter?”
She answered, “This woman said to me, ‘Give up your son so we may eat him today, and tomorrow we’ll eat my son.’ 29 So we cooked my son and ate him. The next day I said to her, ‘Give up your son so we may eat him,’ but she had hidden him.”
30 When the king heard the woman’s words, he tore his robes. As he went along the wall, the people looked, and there, underneath, he had sackcloth on his body. 31 He said, “May God deal with me, be it ever so severely, if the head of Elisha son of Shaphat remains on his shoulders today!”
We saw those word before “May God deal with me, be it ever so severely”. Do you remember who said them? Jezebel.
Who spoke them this time? The king of Israel, Joram.
Good king or bad king? Bad
So do we know which god he was making a vow to?
I looked it up. He was swearing an oath to Elohim. God Almighty.
AND he was threatening God’s prophet!
32 Now Elisha was sitting in his house, and the elders were sitting with him. The king sent a messenger ahead, but before he arrived, Elisha said to the elders, “Don’t you see how this murderer is sending someone to cut off my head? Look, when the messenger comes, shut the door and hold it shut against him. Is not the sound of his master’s footsteps behind him?”
33 While he was still talking to them, the messenger came down to him. And the king said, “This disaster is from the Lord. Why should I wait for the Lord any longer?”
7 Elisha said, “Hear the word of the Lord. This is what the Lord says: About this time tomorrow, a seah [@ 7 quarts] of flour will sell for a shekel [@1/2 oz.] and two seahs [@ 13 quarts] of barley for a shekel at the gate of Samaria.”
2 The officer on whose arm the king was leaning said to the man of God, “Look, even if the Lord should open the floodgates of the heavens, could this happen?”
“You will see it with your own eyes,” answered Elisha, “but you will not eat any of it!”
I want you to notice that the king followed the messenger.
3 Now there were four men with leprosy at the entrance of the city gate.
In the O.T. many skin diseases were referred to as leprosy. So these me could have had a rash and had been put out of the city for being unclean.
3b They said to each other, “Why stay here until we die? 4 If we say, ‘We’ll go into the city’—the famine is there, and we will die. And if we stay here, we will die. So let’s go over to the camp of the Arameans and surrender. If they spare us, we live; if they kill us, then we die.”
The 4 men go to the camp and find it empty. Verse 6 tells us that God made them hear the sound of horses and chariots. They thought Israel might have made an alliance with Egypt, so they ran away leaving all their stuff behind.
Naturally the 4 men helped themselves; took some stuff and hid it, then came back for more. On their third trip, they decided what they were doing wasn’t right since all the people in the city were starving. So they went to the city and told the gatekeeper what happened
12 The king got up in the night and said to his officers, “I will tell you what the Arameans have done to us. They know we are starving; so they have left the camp to hide in the countryside, thinking, ‘They will surely come out, and then we will take them alive and get into the city.’”
13 One of his officers answered, “Have some men take five of the horses that are left in the city. Their plight will be like that of all the Israelites left here—yes, they will only be like all these Israelites who are doomed. So let us send them to find out what happened.”
14 So they selected two chariots with their horses, and the king sent them after the Aramean army. He commanded the drivers, “Go and find out what has happened.”
15 They followed them as far as the Jordan, and they found the whole road strewn with the clothing and equipment the Arameans had thrown away in their headlong flight. So the messengers returned and reported to the king. 16 Then the people went out and plundered the camp of the Arameans. So a seah of flour sold for a shekel, and two seahs of barley sold for a shekel, as the Lord had said.
17 Now the king had put the officer on whose arm he leaned in charge of the gate, and the people trampled him in the gateway, and he died, just as the man of God had foretold when the king came down to his house. 18 It happened as the man of God had said to the king: “About this time tomorrow, a seah of flour will sell for a shekel and two seahs of barley for a shekel at the gate of Samaria.”
19 The officer had said to the man of God, “Look, even if the Lord should open the floodgates of the heavens, could this happen?” The man of God had replied, “You will see it with your own eyes, but you will not eat any of it!” 20 And that is exactly what happened to him, for the people trampled him in the gateway, and he died.
In Chapter 8, Ben-Hadad gets sick. And because of his many years of conflict with Israel, instead of consulting his own prophets, he sends a messenger to Elisha to ask if he’s going to live.
9 Hazael went to meet Elisha, taking with him as a gift forty camel-loads of all the finest wares of Damascus. He went in and stood before him, and said, “Your son Ben-Hadad king of Aram has sent me to ask, ‘Will I recover from this illness?’”
10 Elisha answered, “Go and say to him, ‘You will certainly recover’; but the Lord has revealed to me that he will in fact die.” 11 He stared at him with a fixed gaze until Hazael felt ashamed. Then the man of God began to weep.
12 “Why is my lord weeping?” asked Hazael.
“Because I know the harm you will do to the Israelites,” he answered. “You will set fire to their fortified places, kill their young men with the sword, dash their little children to the ground, and rip open their pregnant women.”
13 Hazael said, “How could your servant, a mere dog, accomplish such a feat?”
“The Lord has shown me that you will become king of Aram,” answered Elisha.
14 Then Hazael left Elisha and returned to his master. When Ben-Hadad asked, “What did Elisha say to you?” Hazael replied, “He told me that you would certainly recover.” 15 But the next day he took a thick cloth, soaked it in water and spread it over the king’s face, so that he died. Then Hazael succeeded him as king.
Over to Judah
16 In the fifth year of Joram son of Ahab king of Israel, when Jehoshaphat was king of Judah, Jehoram son of Jehoshaphat began his reign as king of Judah.
Now in some translations they refer to Jehoram as Joram. If your translation names the king of Judah Joram, you need to know that both Israel & Judah had a king with the same name – different guys.
17 He was thirty-two years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem eight years. 18 He walked in the ways of the kings of Israel, as the house of Ahab had done, for he married a daughter of Ahab. He did evil in the eyes of the Lord.
19 Nevertheless, for the sake of his servant David, the Lord was not willing to destroy Judah. He had promised to maintain a lamp for David and his descendants forever.
20 In the time of Jehoram, Edom rebelled against Judah and set up its own king.
Edom was part of Judah from the time of David until this point. Jehoram goes to battle against Edom and loses. Edom becomes it’s own nation.
24 Jehoram rested with his fathers and was buried with them in the City of David. And Ahaziah his son succeeded him as king.
Back to Israel
25 In the twelfth year of Joram son of Ahab king of Israel, Ahaziah son of Jehoram king of Judah began to reign. 26 Ahaziah was twenty-two years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem one year. His mother’s name was Athaliah, a granddaughter of Omri king of Israel. 27 He walked in the ways of the house of Ahab and did evil in the eyes of the Lord, as the house of Ahab had done, for he was related by marriage to Ahab’s family.
28 Ahaziah went with Joram son of Ahab to war against Hazael king of Aram at Ramoth Gilead.
We met Hazael a few verses back when he murdered Ben-Hadad.
The Arameans wounded Joram; 29 so King Joram returned to Jezreel to recover from the wounds the Arameans had inflicted on him at Ramoth in his battle with Hazael king of Aram.
Then Ahaziah son of Jehoram king of Judah went down to Jezreel to see Joram son of Ahab, because he had been wounded.
9 The prophet Elisha summoned a man from the company of the prophets and said to him, “Tuck your cloak into your belt, take this flask of oil with you and go to Ramoth Gilead. 2 When you get there, look for Jehu son of Jehoshaphat, the son of Nimshi. Go to him, get him away from his companions and take him into an inner room. 3 Then take the flask and pour the oil on his head and declare, ‘This is what the Lord says: I anoint you king over Israel.’ Then open the door and run; don’t delay!”
The prophet carries out his instructions and anoints Jehu king.
We need to remember this is God’s choice for king and not someone who killed the king and took over the country.
14 So Jehu son of Jehoshaphat, the son of Nimshi, conspired against Joram.
Here’s the conspiracy:
- You will remember that Joram was wounded in battle and had returned home to recuperate.
- Ahaziah, the king of Judah goes to Jezreel to check up on Joram.
- Jehu, knowing that both kings are together heads there himself.
- When the sentry sees Jehu coming, he tells the king.
- The king sends a messenger to find out if Jehu comes in peace.
- The messenger joins Jehu.
- So the king sends out a second messenger, who also joins Jehu.
21 “Hitch up my chariot,” Joram ordered. And when it was hitched up, Joram king of Israel and Ahaziah king of Judah rode out, each in his own chariot, to meet Jehu. They met him at the plot of ground that had belonged to Naboth the Jezreelite. 22 When Joram saw Jehu he asked, “Have you come in peace, Jehu?”
“How can there be peace,” Jehu replied, “as long as all the idolatry and witchcraft of your mother Jezebel abound?”
23 Joram turned about and fled, calling out to Ahaziah, “ Treachery, Ahaziah!”
He’s warning the other king
24 Then Jehu drew his bow and shot Joram between the shoulders. The arrow pierced his heart and he slumped down in his chariot. 25 Jehu said to Bidkar, his chariot officer, “Pick him up and throw him on the field that belonged to Naboth the Jezreelite. Remember how you and I were riding together in chariots behind Ahab his father when the Lord made this prophecy about him: 26 ‘Yesterday I saw the blood of Naboth and the blood of his sons, declares the Lord, and I will surely make you pay for it on this plot of ground, declares the Lord.’ Now then, pick him up and throw him on that plot, in accordance with the word of the Lord.”
27 When Ahaziah king of Judah saw what had happened, he fled up the road to Beth Haggan. Jehu chased him, shouting, “Kill him too!” They wounded him in his chariot on the way up to Gur near Ibleam, but he escaped to Megiddo and died there. 28 His servants took him by chariot to Jerusalem and buried him with his fathers in his tomb in the City of David.
30 Then Jehu went to Jezreel. When Jezebel heard about it, she painted her eyes, arranged her hair and looked out of a window. 31 As Jehu entered the gate, she asked, “Have you come in peace, Zimri, you murderer of your master?”
32 He looked up at the window and called out, “Who is on my side? Who?” Two or three eunuchs looked down at him. 33 “Throw her down!” Jehu said. So they threw her down, and some of her blood spattered the wall and the horses as they trampled her underfoot.