YINR 929: Tanach Yomi

Chapter 4 compared Elisha and Eliyahu. Chapter 6 compares the Northern Kingdom and the Southern Kingdom. The Northern Kingdom is under siege. There’s a very strong famine in the city. Food is scarce and the people are desperate. Food is at a premium price. Verses 26-30 tell the story of a woman who approaches the king. She explains that she and her friend entered into an agreement one night. On one night they would kill and eat her child, and then on the next day they would kill and eat her friend’s child. The question itself is extremely heartbreaking. The King has no words and simply cries. Two women approaching the king in a disagreement over a dead child and a live child is reminiscent of the story from I Kings 3. There, two prostitutes approach Solomon with the question about the identity of a baby. This story is held up as a high point of the Southern Kingdom and of Solomon’s wisdom. While that story is also heartbreaking, it seems to have a happy ending. The story in the North is the exact opposite. There is no happy ending. The Northern Kingdom is in such disarray that the trial is not about which baby should live, but which baby should die. The story of the siege of Shomron also foreshadows events in the Southern Kingdom. Hundreds of years later, the North is already expelled. The last city of the Southern Kingdom, Jerusalem, will be encircled, and there will also be a strong famine. As the prophet Jeremiah writes in Lamentations 4:10, women needed to boil their children in order to survive. So, while, at first glance, chapter 6 seems to show how great the Southern Kingdom was, it is also a warning for what the Southern Kingdom can, and will, become if it does not follow the right path.

Naaman, the general of Aram is sick with Tzaraat. Lucky for him, he captured a young Israelite maid who tells him to seek out Elisha to cure his Tzaraat. The king of Aram sends gifts to the king of Israel seeking his help. Despite the apparent peaceful request, the king of Israel is terrified knowing that he has now been tasked with the impossible. Word reaches Elisha and he sends for Naaman. Naaman explains his predicament and Elisha tells him to bathe in the river Jordan three times. Naaman is incredulous. The waters of Aram are far cleaner and better than those of the Jordan. Feeling that Elisha is a charlatan, he storms out. On his way back, his servant convinces him to at least try and bathe in the waters. He does and is instantly cured. He returns to Elisha and offers payment. When Elisha refuses, Namaan says that instead he will take two mules carrying sacks of earth from Israel, “for your servant will never again offer up burnt offering or sacrifice to any god, except the LORD” (verse 17) (כִּי לֹא־יַעֲשֶׂה עוֹד עַבְדְּךָ עֹלָה וָזֶבַח לֵאלֹהִים אֲחֵרִים כִּי אִם־לַה׳). Why does Naaman make this request? What do two sacks of earth have to do with sacrificing to God? Rashi explains that Naaman wanted to take the earth from Israel back to Aram in order to build an altar to God. Radak adds that Naaman asked for permission because he did not want to build an altar on stolen land. But if Naaman wanted to build an altar, it would have made more sense for him to request stones. The next verse may provide an alternate answer. Naaman requests that Elisha ask God to forgive Naaman when he attends idol worship services with the king of Aram. Because Naaman is the king’s top general, he was expected to attend such services and assist the king “to bow low in worship there” (verse 18). Perhaps then, Naaman was asking for special soil from Israel that he could place on the ground in front of him. This way, when he would bow down he would be bowing down on the earth of the Israel and not that of Aram.

Elisha asked Eliyahu that he bestow on him a double portion of Eliyahu’s prophetic power. Following Eliyahu’s grand exit, Elisha arrives at the Jordan river and prays to God: “Where is the LORD, the God of Elijah?” (אַיֵּה ה׳ אֱלֹהֵי אֵלִיָּהוּ) (2:14). God answers Elisha but splitting the Jordan just as Eliyahu had done. This minor miracle is the first sign for Elisha that Eliyahu’s mantle has passed to him. One of the greatest feats of Eliyahu was when he revived the dead son of the widow in I Kings 17. In chapter 4 of II Kings, Elisha is given the opportunity to repeat this miracle. The two stories have some similarities and some differences. God sent Eliyahu to the widow for sustenance. The Shunamite woman offered Elisha sustenance and a place to stay on his travels. The widow was poor and had no food, so Eliyahu created miraculous food. The Shunamite woman is wealthy and has no need for a food miracle. Instead, Elisha blesses the woman, who was elderly, with a child. Invoking the promise made by the angels to Sarah in Genesis 18:10, he promises that at this very time next year she will be pregnant. The son of the widow falls ill without any apparent reason. The son of the Shunamite falls ill because he was working out in the fields on a hot day. The window accuses Eliyahu of bringing death into her house. The Shunamite does not directly attack Elisha, but she does lament the fact that he gave her a son only for that son to now die. Eliyahu brings the son up to the son’s room and stretches himself over the child. The Shunamite had already placed her dead son in Elisha’s room. Elisha lies directly on top of the child after first attempting to revive him through his servant Gechazi. Both Elisha and Eliyahu pray to God to help, but the text only records Eliyahu’s prayer. “Oh God, I pray, let this child’s soul come back to him” (ה׳ אֱלֹהָי תָּשָׁב נָא נֶפֶשׁ־הַיֶּלֶד הַזֶּה עַל־קִרְבּוֹ) (I Kings 17:21). After her son is revived, the widow proclaims that she believes that Eliyahu is a man of God, but the Shunamite woman simply picks up her son and leaves. The identical stories are a way of showing how Elisha was Eliyahu’s true heir beyond a simple miracle of splitting a river and bringing food again. The varying details though show that the two prophets were separate people. Elisha’s story shows that he was not a loner. The woman set up a special room for him when he traveled and he brought along his assistant to help out. Eliyahu was thrust upon the poor widow all by himself. Eliyahu was also reactive. He did not offer any help to the widow beyond providing food that helped sustain him as well. Elisha grants a blessing on the Shunamite woman as a way of saying thank you and then feel responsible to help fix his mistake. She knows he is a man of God so does not need to say anything when he comes through. 

Chapter 3 follows a similar structure to I Kings 22. The king of Israel, this time Yehoram the son of Achav, calls on the king of Judah, still Yehoshafat, to battle against Moab. For this battle, the king of Edom joins them as well. Yehoram was not as evil as his father and mother, having removed the Baal monument his father had made, but he still followed in the ways of Jeroboam. Mesha was the king of Moab who paid tribute to Achav. When Achav died, he rebelled against Israel. Stories like this throughout Kings suggest a recurring pattern: one nation would subjugate another and make that nation its vassal. Sometime later, for one reason or another, the vassal would rebel and assert its independence. Then the cycle would continue. What makes chapter 3 especially interesting is that the broader background of this conflict also appears on a basalt monument found at Dhiban in modern Jordan, called the Mesha Stele (pictured above). The stele is written in Moabite using Phoenician-type characters. It is an important archaeological source that mentions biblical rulers and places by name. In K. C. Hanson’s translation, Mesha describes Omri’s oppression of Moab and its continuation under his son. Mesha then boasts: “Israel has been defeated; it has been defeated forever!” The inscription also describes Israelite occupation of Medeba and Mesha’s building projects at Baal-meon and Qiryaten. At the end of chapter 3, Mesha sacrifices a firstborn son on the wall of Kir-hareseth. Rashi understands this to be Mesha’s own son, while Radak understands it to be the son of the king of Edom. The text then reports “great wrath” (קֶצֶף־גָּדוֹל) (II Kings 3:27) against Israel and the army’s withdrawal, without clearly explaining whose wrath this was or why it prompted the retreat. In the stele, Mesha describes a different episode, his capture of Ataroth: “I fought against the city and captured it.” He then describes killing its inhabitants as a sacrifice for Chemosh and Moab and bringing a captured object before Chemosh. This is not an account of the royal-son sacrifice at Kir-hareseth. The stele provides independent evidence for the broader struggle between Moab and Israel, rather than direct confirmation of the final scene in chapter 3. While the two accounts approach the conflict from different national and religious perspectives, it is still quite extraordinary to read Mesha’s own account alongside the story in Kings. The Mesha Stele is held in the Louvre’s Department of Near Eastern Antiquities in Paris and is listed as on display in the Sully wing.

Chapter 2 gives away the ending from the very beginning—Eliyahu is about to be taken away in a whirlwind. The Talmud in Moed Katan 26b explains that Eliyahu never died—he was taken away alive. Eliyahu is given the rare opportunity to pass the mantle of prophecy to his successor. Eliyahu asks Elisha what he wants, and Elisha responds: “let a double portion of your spirit pass on to me” (וִיהִי־נָא פִּי־שְׁנַיִם בְּרוּחֲךָ אֵלָי) (verse 9). What exactly did Elisha ask for? On the one hand, some commentators believe that Elisha was asking for twice Eliyahu’s prophetic acumen. This seems like an odd request. If Eliyahu was such a powerful prophet, then simply matching his acumen would have been more than sufficient. This question leads to the other school of thought: Elisha was making the simple request that he be treated as Eliyahu’s “firstborn.” The firstborn son is entitled to a double portion of his parents’ inheritance. Elisha is requesting that he be treated differently from the other prophetic students who followed Eliyahu. A group of them appears in this chapter and also knows about Eliyahu’s impending ascent, so they are clearly plugged into the same prophetic line. The problem with this interpretation is the next verse: “‘You have asked a difficult thing,’ he said. ‘If you see me as I am being taken from you, this will be granted to you; if not, it will not’” (הִקְשִׁיתָ לִשְׁאוֹל אִם־תִּרְאֶה אֹתִי לֻקָּח מֵאִתָּךְ יְהִי־לְךָ כֵן וְאִם־אַיִן לֹא יִהְיֶה) (verse 10). This response would seem to make more sense after Elisha’s request for twice Eliyahu’s prophetic acumen. Eliyahu would not know how to pass this on to Elisha. However, this verse could also make sense in the context of the second opinion. The text provides no background on Eliyahu. There is no initial calling. He does not appear to belong to one of the schools of prophets. He also seems to talk directly to G-d without any prophetic buildup. Eliyahu could simply be telling Elisha that the task is difficult because Eliyahu himself does not know how he tapped into such a strong prophetic stream. His only response to Elisha is that if Elisha is able to see the great wonder of the coming chariots of fire, then his wish will have been granted. Sure enough, Elisha witnesses what transpires, while the other prophets do not. They send out a search party to try to locate Eliyahu because, unlike Elisha, they are not tapped into this high-level prophecy.

The opening chapter of II Kings continues the Eliyahu story. Ahaziah falls through the roof of the palace and is bedridden. Instead of inquiring of God, he sends messengers to Baal-Zevuv, the god of Ekron. God sends Eliyahu with a message that Ahaziah will die. Ahaziah is suspicious about the message and requests that his messengers describe the prophet. A hairy man with a leather belt is all Ahaziah needs to hear to confirm that it was Eliyahu. Ahaziah sends three groups of soldiers to summon Eliyahu. Eliyahu sends fire down from heaven burning the first two groups and only after the third troop leader begs for mercy does an angel tell Eliyahu he can go with them. There are a few parallels in this story to the story of Balaam. The first is the opening verse of the chapter indicating that Moav rebelled against Israel. Balak is the king of Moav. The next connection is between Baal-Peor the god from the Balaam story and Baal-Zevuv. The worship of Peor involved some sort of scatological act, and the name Baal Zevuv, the Lord of the Flies, could indicate a similar worship practice. In both stories there are repeated attempts to summon the prophet. In Numbers 22, Balak sends two groups of messengers to convince Balaam to come curse the Israelites. Balaam rebuffs the first group, but then acquiesces with the second when God tells him to go. Eliyahu kills the first two groups, while Balaam simply sends the first group away. Eliyahu was hiding from the edict of Jezebel, so when a group of soldiers arrived, he felt he needed to defend himself. Balaam is not under any sort of threat. The contrast here is indicated by the directive from God. Eliyahu: “Go down with him, do not be afraid of him.” (רֵד אוֹתוֹ אַל־תִּירָא מִפָּנָיו) (verse 15). Balaam: “If the agents have come to invite you, you may go with them. But whatever I command you, that you shall do’” (אִם־לִקְרֹא לְךָ בָּאוּ הָאֲנָשִׁים קוּם לֵךְ אִתָּם וְאַךְ אֶת־הַדָּבָר אֲשֶׁר־אֲדַבֵּר אֵלֶיךָ אֹתוֹ תַעֲשֶׂה) (Numbers 22:20). Balaam not only asks God what to do, but he also needs to sleep to connect with God. Eliyahu does not need to ask God, he simply acts on his own. This shows Eliyahu’s intense zeal to act without God. The fact that Eliyahu does not need sleep to speak to God is also an indication of his higher connection to God. Why make the connection between the two stories? The connection may have two purposes- one to praise and one to chastise. The praise comes in the connection between Eliyahu and Balaam showing Eliyahu’s status as a prophet. The chastising may be in the connection between Achaziah and Balak. The king of Israel has fallen so far down (literally and spiritually) that he acts like the old king of Moab.

The first part of Chapter 22 reads like a well written comedy script (more on the comedy of the funniest chapters in Tanach in II Chronicles 18). In addition to the humor of the chapter there is a surprising twist. Achav and Yehoshaphat sit on their thrones debating whether to go to battle against Aram. Achav’s false prophets repeat the same exact prophecy in unison. Yehoshaphat, according to the commentators, notices the tell here that these are false prophets. True prophets never prophecy the same exact thing. Yehoshphat asks his host is there any true prophets around. Achav answers: “There is one more man through whom we can inquire of the LORD; but I hate him, because he never prophesies anything good for me, but only misfortune…” (עוֹד אִישׁ־אֶחָד לִדְרֹשׁ אֶת־ה׳ מֵאֹתוֹ וַאֲנִי שְׂנֵאתִיו כִּי לֹא־יִתְנַבֵּא עָלַי טוֹב כִּי אִם־רָע…) (verse 8). Even a casual reader of the last few chapters would expect that the next words out of Achav’s mouth would be the name “Elijah the Tishbite.” Instead, he mentions a prophet that has never appeared before in Tanach- Michiyahu ben Yimlah. Who is Michiyahu? Why does Achav call for him and not Elijah? The commentators are not convinced that Michiyahu is first introduced here. If Achav seems to know him, then we should know him. They link Michiyahu to the unnamed prophet in chapter 20. The link is for two reasons. The first is that that unnamed prophet did spell doom for Achav so it would match Achav’s reluctance to call on him. The second is because Achav recognized the unnamed prophet: “Quickly he removed the cloth from his eyes, and the king recognized him as one of the prophets” (וַיְמַהֵר וַיָּסַר אֶת־הָאֲפֵר מֵעֲלֵי עֵינָיו וַיַּכֵּר אֹתוֹ מֶלֶךְ יִשְׂרָאֵל כִּי מֵהַנְּבִאִים הוּא) (20:41). If Acav recognized him back then, it must be because this unnamed prophet had spoken up against Achav before. But the link between Michiyahu and the unnamed prophet makes the failure to call Eliyahu even more puzzling. Eliyahu seems to have a much closer connection to Achav. Even though Eliyahu focuses most of his wrath against the people as a whole, he just denounced Achav at the end of the previous chapter. Also, in chapter 18, Achav calls him “troubler of Israel” (עֹכֵר יִשְׂרָאֵל) (18:17). The answer may be more about what we know about the relationship between Achav and Elijah than what we know about Michiyahu. Over the past few chapters Elijah has popped in and out of the scene; interacting with Achav only when Elijah (or God) wants. Achav never summons Elijah. At this point in their relationship, Achav knows that Elijah will not come when called. Elijah arrives when Elijah wants to arrive. In addition, Elijah does not comment on specific events. He recently promised doom on Achav’s house, but not in a specific battle. Elijah is big picture. Achav knows his tormentor well. When the king of Judah seeks a true prophet to advise them on this battle, Achav knows that Elijah has much bigger fish (or Baal prophets) to fry.

Chapter 20 ended with the mystery prophet’s prophecy of doom for Achav and his household: “Thus said the LORD: Because you have set free the man whom I doomed, your life shall be forfeit for his life and your people for his people” (כֹּה אָמַר ה׳ יַעַן שִׁלַּחְתָּ אֶת־אִישׁ־חֶרְמִי מִיָּד וְהָיְתָה נַפְשְׁךָ תַּחַת נַפְשׁוֹ וְעַמְּךָ תַּחַת עַמּוֹ) (20:42). Achav’s reaction makes sense for someone who just found out defeat and death were on the horizon: “Dispirited and sullen, the king of Israel left for home and came to Samaria” (וַיֵּלֶךְ מֶלֶךְ־יִשְׂרָאֵל עַל־בֵּיתוֹ סַר וְזָעֵף וַיָּבֹא שֹׁמְרוֹנָה) (20:43). Pretty standard. After tales of war and battle, chapter 21 turns to a seemingly innocuous story of the vineyard of Navot. The point of the story seems to be about the evil ways of Ezevel, Achav’s wife. She devises a nefarious plot to have Navot executed so that her husband can take over Navot’s vineyard. The story also shows that the people in the Northern Kingdom did not have any respect for the king. Not only did Navot not listen to the king, his reason for not listening was also telling. He did not want his family plot to be associated with the evil king of Israel. The story also parallel’s the story of David and the threshing floor at the end of II Samuel. There, Aravna was more than happy to give his threshing floor to David for free. Eventually it is the site of the Temple. Up in the north things are very very different. Another question remains though. What does the story in chapter 20 have to do with the story in chapter 21? Why go from an epic battle scene to a story about a vineyard? The answer is in verse 4: “Ahab went home dispirited and sullen because of the answer that Naboth the Jezreelite had given him: ‘I will not give up to you what I have inherited from my fathers!’ He lay down on his bed and turned away his face, and he would not eat.” (וַיָּבֹא אַחְאָב אֶל־בֵּיתוֹ סַר וְזָעֵף עַל־הַדָּבָר אֲשֶׁר־דִּבֶּר אֵלָיו נָבוֹת הַיִּזְרְעֵאלִי וַיֹּאמֶר לֹא־אֶתֵּן לְךָ אֶת־נַחֲלַת אֲבוֹתָי וַיִּשְׁכַּב עַל־מִטָּתוֹ וַיַּסֵּב אֶת־פָּנָיו וְלֹא־אָכַל לָחֶם) In chapter 20, Achav is told of his family and Israel’s destruction, and he has the appropriate reaction. However, in chapter 21, he is told he cannot have his neighbor’s vineyard and he has the exact same reaction! Not only that, but he seems to have a worse reaction in chapter 21. He sulks in his room and does not eat or drink. These two stories provide a clear window into Achav’s heart. Achav was more upset that he could not take his next-door neighbor’s vineyard than the fact that his nation and himself were doomed.

The chapter begins with Achav actually standing up for his people. Ben Hadad demands a tribute of gold and silver and slaves and women and Achav rebuffs the request. Instead, he follows the words of a prophet and sends out a specialized troop to attack Ben Hadad. The group defeats Ben Hadad just as the prophet promises. But then the prophet warns Achav not to rejoice because Ben Hadad’s army will return. It is possible that the plan was for the army to return and defeat Achav, but Ben Hadad threw a wrench in that plan by claiming that his forces were defeated because God is ruler of the mountains. Ben Hadad most likely assumed this because Shomron was in the mountains as was Jerusalem as well as the other prominent mountains in Israelite history like Mt. Sinai and recently Mt. Carmel. Of course, this proclamation ignores the splitting of the sea and the Jordan. Nevertheless, God delays Achav’s defeat in order to show that God is also victorious in the plains. Ben Hadad then devises a plan to exact mercy from Achav by donning sackcloth and pleading for mercy. Achav grants clemency and Ben Hadad is let go. Furious at his actions, a young prophet sets out to inform the king of the error of his ways. The prophet asks his peer to stab him with a sword. When the fellow prophet refuses, the young prophet curses his friend and a lion comes and attacks and kills the other prophet. The commentators explain that the second prophet should have known that the directive came from God. Failure to follow God’s directive is punishable by death. This is the second time a lion kills a prophet that does not follow the word of God. The first was in chapter 13 when Abijah does not listen to God’s command not to eat or drink in the North. It seems that prophets in the North need to wary of lions. But why didn’t the prophet wound himself? Why did he ask his friend to wound him? Perhaps he wanted to make sure that the wound was believable. If he simply stuck himself Achav would have recognized the farce. Another possibility is that the act of wounding the prophet was part of the prophecy and not merely part of the disguise. Many times, a prophet will include an action with their prophecy. For example, when Abijah rips his cloak to signal the splitting of the kingdom. Here the prophet needs someone else to wound him in order to mimic Ben Hadad’s defeat at the hand of Achav. The prophet then continues with his message by clothing himself in sackcloth to mimic to what Ben Hadad did and then sits at the side of the road waiting for Achav in order to reveal the full message. This disguise then tricks Achav, just as Ben Hadad did. Perhaps that is the point of the prophet’s elaborate performance: Achav responds to what he sees, but he still struggles to recognize the authority of God’s word beneath it. The chapter begins with a king who wins by listening to a prophet and ends with a reminder that victory does not give him permission to stop listening.

Elijah loves bombast. He brought about a famine. He has no qualms threatening the king to his face. He orchestrated an epic showdown with the prophets of Baal. Elijah is confused why things are still going poorly. Jezebel sets her forces out to capture Elijah, and God uses the opportunity to prep Elijah for a long trek to the Sinai Desert to the mountain where the Torah was given. Elijah probably felt vindicated. The giving of the Torah was an epic event as well. Thunder, lighting, earthquakes, fire were all on full display that day. God recreates the scene and each time shows Elijah that God does not appear in this larger than life displays of power. In the end God appears in the soft quiet whisper. God’s message seems clear- following me and being zealous for my name does not require bombast. Instead, God can really truly be found in small quiet moments. But why did God wait this long to send this message to Elijah? Looking back at the past few chapters, it seems like God tried to relay this message. After Elijah confronts Achav and promises a famine, God whisks him away to an isolated cave to be fed by nature. In this isolation, God wanted to show Elijah that God can provide in a quiet way. Relying on the world around for sustenance forces someone to look towards God and to see God’s hand in one’s sustenance. Then, God sends Elijah to the poor widow and her son. This is yet another example of trying to see God in the quiet. This poor widow lived alone with her son and they only hand each other. When her son died, she turned to the man of God to save him, and Elijah did that. Seeing how God took compassion on her, the woman saw that Elijah was a man of God. While the miracle was great, it was also very private. There was no loud bombast here. The fireworks on Mr. Carmel may have excited the people to action that very day, but it clearly did not have the type of everlasting effect that one who acts in a quiet manner can have. But Elijah still does not get it. Before God’s show, Elijah proclaimed that “I am moved by zeal for the LORD, the God of Hosts, for the Israelites have forsaken Your covenant” (קַנֹּא קִנֵּאתִי לַה׳ אֱלֹהֵי צְבָאוֹת כִּי־עָזְבוּ בְרִיתְךָ בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל) (verse 10). After the show, he repeats the same thing: “I am moved by zeal for the LORD, the God of Hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken Your covenant.” (קַנֹּא קִנֵּאתִי לַה׳ אֱלֹהֵי צְבָאוֹת כִּי־עָזְבוּ בְרִיתְךָ בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל) (verse 14). Elijah could not learn his lesson from two subtle hints from God, and he did when God spelled it out directly. It was at that moment that God decided that he needed to make a change and instructed Elijah to prepare for his succession.