Bible Commentaries
2 Kings 1

Introduction

2 KINGS CHAPTER 1

Moab rebelleth against Israel, 2 Kings 1:1.

Ahaziah being sick sendeth to Baal-zebub; Elijah foretelleth his death, 2 Kings 1:2-4.

Ahaziah hearing it, sendeth twice captains of fifty, to bring Elijah to him; upon whom he bringeth fire from heaven, 2 Kings 1:5-12.

The third captain entreateth Elijah; who, encouraged by an angel, goeth and telleth the king of his death, 2 Kings 1:13-16.

Jehoram succeedeth him, 2 Kings 1:17,2 Kings 1:18.

Verse 1

Moab; which had been subdued by David, 2 Samuel 8:2, as Edom was; and upon the division of this kingdom into two Moab was adjoined to that of Israel, and Edom to that of Judah, each to that kingdom upon which it bordered. And when the kingdoms of Israel and Judah were weak and forsaken by God, they took that opportunity to revolt from them; Moab here, and Edom a little after it.

Verse 2

In his upper chamber; in which the lattice might be left to convey light into the lower room; which if it now seem to be absurd in a king’s palace, we must not think it was so then, when the world was not arrived to that height of curiosity and art in which now it is. But the words may be, and are by some, rendered, through the battlements (or through the lattice in the battlements) of the roof of the house; where being first walking, after the manner, and then standing and looking through, and leaning upon this lattice, which was grown infirm, it broke, and he fell into the court or garden belonging to the house.

Baal-zebub; properly, the god of flies; an idol so called, because it was falsely supposed to deliver those people from flies, which were both vexatious and hurtful to them; as Jupiter and Hercules were called by a like name among the Grecians for thee same reason. And it is evident, both from sacred and profane histories, that the idol gods, being consulted by the heathens, did sometimes through God’s permission and just judgment give them answers, though they were generally observed, even by the heathens themselves to be dark and doubtful.

Verse 3

Is it not because there is not a God in Israel? Dost thou not by this action cast contempt upon the God of Israel, as if he were either ignorant of the event of thy disease, or un able to give thee any relief, and as if Baal-zebub had more skill and power than he?

Verse 4

Now therefore; for this was a very heinous crime, to deny the perfections of God, and to transfer them to an idol. See Leviticus 19:31; Leviticus 20:6,Leviticus 20:27; Deuteronomy 18:10.

Elijah departed; the messengers not daring to apprehend him, as suspecting him to be more than man, because he knew the secret message which the king delivered to them in his bedchamber.

Verse 5

Before you have been at Ekron; which he easily knew by their quick return.

Verse 8

An hairy man; either,

1. As to his body; the hair of his head and beard being through neglect grown long, and spread over much of his time. Or rather,

2. As to his outward garment, which was rough and hairy, such as were sometimes worn by eminent persons in Greece in ancient times, and were the proper habit of the prophets. See Isaiah 20:2; Zechariah 13:4; Matthew 3:4; Hebrews 11:37.

With a girdle of leather about his loins; as John the Baptist also had, Matthew 3:4, that by his very outward habit he might represent Elias, in whose spirit and power he came.

Verse 9

Thou man of God; so he calls him in way of scorn and contempt: q.d. Thou that vauntest as if thou wast more than a mere man.

The king hath said, Come down; the king commands thee to come to him; which if thou refusest, I am here to carry thee to him by force.

Verse 10

Elijah’s desire did not proceed from a carnal and malicious passion; but from a pure zeal to vindicate God’s name and honour, which was so horribly abused; and from the motion of God’s Spirit, as is evident from God’s miraculous answer to his desire. And therefore Christ doth not condemn this fact of Elias, but only reproves his disciples for their perverse imitation of it from another spirit and principle, and in a more unseasonable time, Luke 9:54,Luke 9:55.

Verse 11

Wherein he discovers more petulancy and impudence than the former, and shows how little he was moved or affrighted by the former example.

Verse 13

Fell on his knees, and besought him; expressing both reverence to his person, and a belief of his power, and a dread of God’s judgments.

Verse 15

Not fearing the rage of the king, nor of Jezebel, nor of all their forces; wherein he gives an eminent example of his faith and obedience; and withal, of his growth in grace since that time that he fled for fear of Jezebel, 1 Kings 19:3.

Verse 16

And he said unto him; to his very face. Nor durst the king lay hands upon him, being daunted with the prophet’s presence, and great courage, and confidence; and affrighted by the late dreadful evidence of his power with God and over men: and withal, struck with a Divine and extraordinary terror.

Verse 17

Jehoram; Ahaziah’s brother, 2 Kings 3:1, for he had no son to succeed him, as it here follows.

In the second year of Jehoram the son of Jehoshaphat: other passages of Scripture seem to clash with this, as that Ahaziah, who reigned but two years, begun his reign in Jehoshaphat’s seventeenth year, 1 Kings 22:51; and therefore this Jehoram must begin his reign in Jehoshaphat’s nineteenth year; and therefore before the reign of Jehoram, Jehoshaphat’s son; and that Jehoram the son of Jehoshaphat began to reign in the fifth year of Joram, Ahab’s son, 2 Kings 8:16.

Answ. These difficulties are easily resolved by this consideration, that it was a usual practice among kings in former ages, to make their sons sometimes their viceroys and deputies in the administration of the kingdom; and sometimes formally kings in conjunction with themselves, and whilst they lived; whereof there are instances, both in profane history, among the Persians, Greeks, and Romans, and in the sacred Scripture, as in David, 1 Chronicles 23:1; 1 Chronicles 29:22, in Uzziah, 2 Chronicles 26:21, and (to come close to the point) in Jehoshaphat, 2 Kings 8:16; who in his seventeenth year, when he went to Ahab, and with him to Ramoth-gilead, appointed his son Jehoram his viceroy, and (in case of his death) his successor. In the second year from that time, when Jehoram was thus made vice-king in his father’s stead and absence, this Jehoram, Ahab’s son, began to reign; and in the fifth year of the reign of this Joram, son of Ahab, which was about the twenty-fourth year of Jehoshaphat’s reign,

Jehoram the son of Jehoshaphat was formally made king of Judah, together with his father; or whilst Jehoshaphat lived, and was king of Judah also. And so all the places agree. To which some add, that this verse, or this part of it, wherein the difficulty consists, is wanting in some ancient copies, and is omitted by the LXX. interpreters; which is far more prudent and pious to grant, than upon such chronological difficulties to question the truth and divinity of the Holy Scriptures.