CHAPTER 1 Aug. 28 
Ahaziah Condemned by God
Moab 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 of this sickness. 3But 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? 4Now therefore thus says Yahweh, You shall not come down from the bed where you have gone up, but shall surely die’. Elijah departed. 5The messengers returned to him, and he said to them, Why is it that you have returned? 6They 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’. 7He said to them, What kind of man was he who came up to meet you, and told you these words? 8They answered him, He was a hairy man, and wearing a leather belt around his waist. He said, It is Elijah the Tishbite. 
Elijah Calls Fire Down from Heaven
9Then 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!’ 10Elijah 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. 11Again he sent to him another captain of fifty and his fifty. He answered him, Man of God, the king has said, ‘Come down quickly!’ 12Elijah 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. 13Again 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. 14Behold, 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. 15The 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. 16He 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’. 17So 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. 18Now 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?

Commentary

1:2 This clearly tells us that Baal Zebub, or Beelzebub, was a false god of the Philistines. When the Jews of the first century accused Jesus of being in league with this god, Jesus did not say, ‘Now look, 2 Kings 1:2 says Beelzebub was a false god, so your accusation cannot be true’. Rather 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.

1:9,10 When Elijah is ordered by the captain of 50 to “come down”, Elijah responds by saying “let fire come down”.  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. The incident is specifically rebuked by the 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. Elijah failed to see the value of those 100 lives; 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 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). Elijah had the wrong attitude, lacking the spirit of Christ, 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.

1:15 Don’t be afraid of him- Elijah may appear to have been a fearless aggressor, but underneath he was fearful, just as the Canaanites seemed so strong but in fact they were very fearful. Others’ aggression to us is sometimes simply because they fear us on some level.