21 February 2010

God killed king Ahaziah (of Israel) for asking the wrong god

In his last killing , God burned 102 men to death (in two shifts of 51 each) for asking Elijah to come down from his hill. The problem, I guess, was not so much in what they asked, but in how they asked it. The first two times, the captain asked directly, and God burned them all to death. The third time the captain groveled first and asked later, and that worked out fine. There’s a lesson there somewhere.

There was a reason, though, that Ahaziah wanted Elijah to come down from his hill. He wanted to ask Elijah to ask God if he was going to recover from his illness. And now that the third group of 51 got Elijah to come down from his hill, Ahaziah could ask Elijah to ask God about it.

[But Elijah had already told Ahaziah (via messengers) back in 2 Kings 1.6 that God was going to kill him for asking the wrong god, so I don't know why he had to send the three sets of 51 to asked Elijah again. I guess he wanted Elijah to come down and give him the message directly.]

In any case, Elijah came down the mountain to talk to the king.
He arose, and went down with him unto the king. 2 Kings 1.15
Here's what Elijah told the king (again).
Thus saith the LORD, Forasmuch as thou hast sent messengers to enquire of Baalzebub the god of Ekron, is it not because there is no God in Israel to enquire of his word? therefore thou shalt not come down off that bed on which thou art gone up, but shalt surely die. 1.16
And in the next verse, king Ahaziah dies "according to the word of the Lord."
So he died according to the word of the LORD which Elijah had spoken. 1.17
God's next killing: two bears rip apart 42 boys for making fun of a prophet’s bald head

4 comments:

Matthew Blanchette said...

So, God commits regicide; why is Elijah not jailed as an accomplice, again?

busterggi said...

I guess an apologise for Baalzebub would explain that king Ahaziah's prayer was answered but the answer was no because Baalzebub works in mysterious ways.

Daniel Clements said...

I wonder how the apologetics deal with obvious passages like this that clearly indicate there are OTHER gods? Even though this is explicit in the first commandment, there's nothing like some actual stories that name names and show their godly rivalry.

skanksta said...

Agreed Daniel, I always thought it was funny even @ 10 years old, that when Moses and Aaron have a 'god-off' with the Pharaoh's priests, they can do quite a tidy bit of magic themselves !

Even Baal worshippers seem able to pull of the odd rain dance.

If only we had Brucker still - he said these were probably done by 'evil spirits'!

The logic of that vs. an (ahem) omnipotent god makes your brain ache, lol.