1 Kings 16 – For modern readers, the cast of
characters in Kings can be very challenging. We have Ahijah the prophet from Shiloh – a good man who prophesies against
Jeroboam and his line because of their unfaithfulness to the one God. Then
there is the Ahijah from the tribe of
Issachar – a different man apparently – whose son Baasha takes over the
northern kingdom and has all of Jeroboam’s line killed. It is tempting to think
they might have been related Ahijahs but apparently they are not.
Now we have a prophet named Jehu – son of Hanani who speaks
God’s word to Baasha, telling him that he too has provoked God’s anger and that
he too will be “consume[d]” (16:3). Later there will be another Jehu, a different man, who will become king of Israel for a
while. The prophet Jehu sends a message to King Baasha, telling him he has
also led God’s people into sin and will also die – with his whole family – just
as Jeroboam was eliminated. It is interesting that one
of the sins listed against the house of Baasha is his killing of Jeroboam’s
“house.” So even though this was prophesied, it was not seen as the will of
God.
Baasha manages
to live out his life as king. His son Elah succeeds him. Elah only reigns for
two years in Israel. It is through
Zimri, the commander of Elah’s forces that the prophesy of Jehu s comes to
pass. Zimri kills Elah when he is drunk one day, and then Zimri has all of
Baasha’s family killed. “Because of their idolatry and because they led Israel
into sin, Baasha and his son Elah had aroused the anger of the Lord” (16:13).
Zimri rules for only seven days in Tirzah. Israelite troops fighting
in Philistia, learn of Zimri’s coup and they plot against him. When Zimri
learns of their plot, he “went into the palace’s inner fortress, set the palace
on fire and died in the flames” (16:18). They set their chief commander, Omri, as king. This revolt ends with the people of Israel are divided—half loyal
to one Tibni, and the other half to
Omri. But Tibni dies, so Omri is left in charge.
Omri reigns
for 12 years. It is Omri who builds the city of Samaria on
a hill that he buys. Around 875 BC, Omri’s son Ahab becomes the king of
Israel. Ahab “sinned against the Lord more than any of his predecessors”
(16:30). He takes as his wife Jezebel, daughter
of King Ethbaal of Sidon. “He built a temple to Baal in Samaria, made an altar
for him, and put it in the temple. He also put up an image of the goddess
Asherah” (16:32-33). A Jerusalem Bible note says Ethbaal was a priest of Asherah (Astarte)
who seized power in Tyre at the same time as Omri in Israel. They allied themselves to each other.
The “effects on the religion of Israel of this association with the Philistines
were to be increasingly felt throughout the reign of Ahab.
During Ahab’s
reign a man named Hiel builds (or rebuilds) the city of Jericho—and sacrifices
his eldest son Abiram as part of it.
The gates of the city are consecrated with the sacrifice of his youngest
son Segub.
1 Kings 17 – This first appearance of Elijah the Tishbite (of Tishbe in
Gilead). He goes to Ahab and prophecies drought. He himself goes, at God’s command, to live in the Wadi
Cerith, east of the Jordan. There
the ravens feed him bread and meat every morning and evening; and he drinks
from the wadi. Soon it dries up, so he goes to Zarephath where the Lord tells
him a widow will feed him. He meets the widow at the gate
gathering sticks and asks her for bread.
She has nothing—only a handful of meal in a jar and a little oil. She is gathering sticks to prepare one
last meal for her and her son.
Elijah tells her not to fear, to do as she planned, but to give him a
little something first—that the meal and oil will not fail until the day the
Lord sends rain to the earth again.
It happens.
After, the widow’s son becomes ill. She yells at Elijah for bringing this
problem on them by “bring[ing] [her]sin to remembrance” (17:17). He takes her
dying son to his (Elijah’s) room and lays him on his bed; he asks the Lord why
he has brought this calamity on them.
He lies on the child three times
and begs the Lord to let the child live. The Lord “listened to the voice of
Elijah” (17:22). She acknowledges then that he is a man of God.
Luke 1:39-80 - Mary visits Elizabeth and when Elizabeth hears
Mary coming in to their home, “the baby [John} moved within her” (1:41). Mary’s
“Song of Praise” follows. This “Magnificat” is among a number of hymns that
appear in New Testament writing. Brown notes that the “canticles reflect the
style of contemporary Jewish hymnology” of the time, that “every line echoes
the OT so that the whole is a mosaic of scriptural themes reused for a new
expression of praise” (232). This hymn is patterned on the hymn of Hannah,
Samuel’s mother in 1 Samuel 2:1-10.
She remains with Elizabeth and Zechariah until
the birth of John, then returns to Nazareth. Zechariah, filled with the Holy
Spirit to prophecy, speaks of the “mighty savior” God is sending to save his people
“from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us” (1:71). The savior
expected is one who will rescue his people “from the hands of [their] enemies”
so that they can “serve him without fear” (1:73). The purpose of his own son
John will be to “go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of
salvation to his people by the forgiveness of their sins” (1:77).
So both John and Jesus are introduced here before they are born as
fulfillments of the promises God has given his people over the years.
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