365 Reflections

The time of 2 Kings 11 is desperate. Athaliah is queen and the nation languishes awaiting deliverance from her wickedness. On top of this, the promise of God guaranteed a son of David to sit on the throne of Judah forever and it seems Athaliah has killed all the king's sons and there is no heir to the throne. Are God's ways nullified by mankind's wickedness? NO! There was a faithful priest named Jehoida who conspired with the Queen's step-daughter Jehosheba to hide one of the queen's grandsons for 6 years with a nurse in a bedroom until the proper time for him to be revealed. But how would this revelation take place? 2 Kings 11:4 (NLT) In the seventh year of Athaliah’s reign, Jehoiada the priest summoned the commanders, the Carite mercenaries, and the palace guards to come to the Temple of the LORD. He made a solemn pact with them and made them swear an oath of loyalty there in the LORD’s Temple; then he showed them the king’s son. In a covert operation, Jehoiada g...

Athaliah is not your average mom. She's vengeful, wicked, hateful, and evil. And that's putting it lightly. What she does in 2 Kings 11 is shocking. Upon the death of her son, King Ahaziah in Judah, she eliminates the entire royal family. Thankfully, one of Ahaziah's sisters, Jehosheba and her husband, Jehoiada the high priest at the time steal one son away and protect him for 6 years. His name was Joash and he would be the saving grace of Judah.  2 Kings 11:1–3 (ESV) Now when Athaliah the mother of Ahaziah saw that her son was dead, she arose and destroyed all the royal family. 2 But Jehosheba, the daughter of King Joram, sister of Ahaziah, took Joash the son of Ahaziah and stole him away from among the king’s sons who were being put to death, and she put him and his nurse in a bedroom. Thus they hid him from Athaliah, so that he was not put to death. 3 And he remained with her six years, hidden in the house of the LORD, while Athaliah reigned over the land. It's a sto...

Jehu, king of Israel was a man on fire. The Lord appointed him to wipe out the sin of Israel and he acted with intense zeal in accomplishing that task. At one point he boasted to an associate:  “Come with me, and see my zeal for the LORD.”  2 Kings 10:16.  Yet there is a lesson for the modern church in the life of Jehu. Let us first recount his expedition of vengeance.  Once anointed Jehu unleashed a torrent of God's wrath on the unfaithful royal families of both southern and northern Israel. Joram (Ahab's son), Jezebel, and all 70 of Ahab's sons were killed. He piled the heads of Ahab's sons at the gate in a proud display of his accomplishment. Ahaziah, the king of Judah and all his relatives were slaughtered at Jehu's command. Finally, Jehu coordinated a fake Baal worship ceremony in order to bring all the Baal worshippers into one place and he commanded his men to slaughter all of them as well. You could say Jehu was the John Wick of the Bible.  Yet in spite ...

The Lord will always have the final say on truth and justice. And that should give great comfort to all who live in a world filled with lies and injustice. But how will this happen? How did it already happen in one way? 2 Kings shows us a picture. Israel and Judah, the northern and southern kingdoms of Israel are in a terrible place. The bitter root of sin has defiled many as the house of Ahab has infected through unholy marital alliances not only Israel to the North which had long been apostate but now recently in the south where Judah has been far more faithful to the Lord.  It is important that we remember the root of all this immorality. Ahab married Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal, king of the Sidonians.  1 Kings 16:31 (ESV) And as if it had been a light thing for him (Ahab) to walk in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, he took for his wife Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal king of the Sidonians, and went and served Baal and worshiped him. However, the root of this imm...

For the better portion of 1 and 2 Kings, we have looked at the troubles sin and national apostasy has brought on the Northern kingdom of Israel while Judah in the South has remained in the background. We remember that Judah and Benjamin stayed loyal to the house of David while the 10 northern tribes of Israel followed the detestable ways of the nations around them, barely staying in existence at times and being constantly saved by God's prophets.  Now in 2 Kings 9, the southern kingdom will have to be saved from the northern kingdom's evil ways. God does this, not because they deserve it but because He is faithful to His promises. And that matters for you and me. But let's look at what happens first. 2 Kings 8:16–17 (ESV) In the fifth year of Joram the son of Ahab, king of Israel, when Jehoshaphat was king of Judah, Jehoram the son of Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, began to reign. 17 He was thirty-two years old when he became king, and he reigned eight years in Jerusalem. We a...

The narrative grows stranger as 2 Kings rolls on. The king of Syria is sick and he sends his commander to Elisha to ask if he will recover. The exchange between Elisha and Hazael is unique. 2 Kings 8:9–11 (ESV) So Hazael went to meet him, and took a present with him, all kinds of goods of Damascus, forty camels’ loads. When he came and stood before him, he said, “Your son Ben-hadad king of Syria has sent me to you, saying, ‘Shall I recover from this sickness?’ ” 10 And Elisha said to him, “Go, say to him, ‘You shall certainly recover,’ but the LORD has shown me that he shall certainly die.” 11 And he fixed his gaze and stared at him, until he was embarrassed. And the man of God wept. Why the doublespeak here from Elisha? Go tell the king he will recover but the Lord has shown me he will die? Strange. Why would the prophet feel it right to mislead someone? The truth is he is not misleading at all. The prophet Elisha knows what is in Hazael's thoughts. He knows this commander c...

The title of this post comes from the most famous Psalm of the Bible. In it, David delights in God's provision when all around him are scoundrels and opponents. In 2 Kings 8 we literally see what that looks like for someone who was not with the "in" crowd of ancient Israel. The scene in 2 Kings 8 is a look back before the famine of the previous chapter. 2 Kings 8:1–2 (ESV) Now Elisha had said to the woman whose son he had restored to life, “Arise, and depart with your household, and sojourn wherever you can, for the LORD has called for a famine, and it will come upon the land for seven years.” 2 So the woman arose and did according to the word of the man of God. She went with her household and sojourned in the land of the Philistines seven years. We remember this woman from 2 Kings 4. She is the woman who cared for Elisha's needs, received the blessing of a son, and then lost him. She then came to beseech Elisha for intervention and he raised him back to life....

The Lord has all you need for living abundantly. This truth is the linchpin of our battle with idolatry. Let's look at a man who doubted God's ability in 2 Kings 7. First, I take you to his demise: 2 Kings 7:16–17 (ESV) Then the people went out and plundered the camp of the Syrians. So a seah of fine flour was sold for a shekel, and two seahs of barley for a shekel, according to the word of the LORD. 17 Now the king had appointed the captain on whose hand he leaned to have charge of the gate. And the people trampled him in the gate , so that he died, as the man of God had said when the king came down to him. The story of the king's captain in 2 Kings 7 is a warning for all who would question the power of God and the grace of God in the midst of terrible times.  The Lord determined through the mouth of the prophet Elisha that the famine Israel was experiencing was going to be turned into a feast of epic proportions at the end of 2 Kings 6. The king's captain sc...