A good king of Israel was an impossibility, for in such a case there would have been two central cities, Jerusalem and Samaria, one in religion and worship; yet opposed to each other, sometimes at war, and Samaria always the rebel city, and without a single vestige of authority, or symbol or type, from God to perform the ordinances of His worship. Had it been possible to have had another divinely-sanctioned temple at Samaria, what confusion would have ensued! Two opposing testimonies would be mutually destructive. There could be but one center of worship, only one hill of Zion, as there is only one Calvary. And if in judgment the ten tribes were to be rent off from David's house, there was a necessity that all the kings of Israel should be wicked. Not that God made the kings wicked, but that He never permitted a good man to be king. The Levites as a body remained with Judah. They were nothing without the temple. Jeroboam's priests were made of the lowest of the people; whosoever would, he consecrated him. “And this thing became sin unto the house of Jeroboam, even to cut it off, and to destroy it from off the face of the earth.” The immediate successors of Jeroboam were conspirators and murderers. The inspired account, from Jeroboam to Omri, and from Zechariah to Hoshea, is like reading a page of Roman history in the last years of the empire. But Ahab, the son of Omri, exceeded all in wickedness.
But while others have such brief notice, little more than how he came to the throne, and that he died, or was slain by another; why so much concerning Ahab? Because in his reign God graciously and wondrously interposed by word and miracle. This king comes out so prominent through his connection with Elijah. Not he, but the prophet, is in the mind of the Spirit; and whether Ahab or his son be king, the detail is that of the prophet; Elijah or his successor is the subject, or rather the patience of God in using two distinct means to lead them to repent, if they had ears to hear. Judgment characterizes Elijah's ministry, mercy that of Elisha. It was to them, as the Lord Jesus said when here: if one mourned, they would not weep; if another piped, they would not dance. Elijah vindicated Jehovah's name, but they heeded not. Elisha proved God's goodness, but they repented not. God called repeatedly, but there was no response. Before Elijah's time an unnamed prophet was sent to Jeroboam, and denounced his altar. No wonder that the king tried to take him, for to return to the true worship would also be returning to allegiance to Rehoboam, and the restoration of Jeroboam's arm was proof that Jehovah, who called them to repentance, was able to restore them. But it was for Elijah to prove that Baal was no god, and to wring from the hearts of the idolatrous people the acknowledgment that “Jehovah, he is God.” The necessary result was, that the priests of Baal are all slain. But there is more. God vindicated, and Baal's priests slain, blessing follows, and there is abundance of rain; another intimation of what God would do for them if they obeyed His call.
But while attempting to trace the path of God's patience in all these moral processes with man, there are also to be noticed the instances of faith in connection with His dealings. Elijah's faith is marked by great power, but not less marked is, in one instance, the absence of it. Ahab grieves over his dead priests, Jezebel swears by her gods to do the same to Elijah. His faith falters on hearing of this and he flees. After the glory of the scene upon mount Carmel, he did not expect to have to flee for his life, and to hide himself from a woman's fury. A murmuring feeling rises, and he asks God to take his life, saying, “I am not better than my fathers.” This is not humility, but saying that he ought to have been better treated; since he was not, better to die: he had had enough of trial. “It is enough, now, O Jehovah, take away my life, for I am not better than my fathers.” A saint in intimate and peaceful communion with God never says, “It is enough,” but, following in the steps of the Perfect One, says, Thy will, not mine, be done. But a merciful God meets him, and satisfies his hunger. Food, miraculously provided, and in the strength of that meat miraculously sustained forty days and forty nights. We think of One who had no meat miraculously given, but endured for forty, days and forty nights; not that He would not be subject to the feeling of hunger, He was a perfect Man, and was willingly subject to its need. “Afterward he hungered.” But He was the mighty God-Elijah a weak servant. This goodness of God to a wearied and persecuted servant does not set aside discipline, and at last the solemn question is put, “What doest thou here, Elijah?” God strengthened him to go to Horeb, but did not send him there. He had run to Jezreel in the power of the Spirit, and no sooner there than he ran away, but not in the power of the Spirit. He left his post: hence the solemn question, What doest thou here? God, who had sent down the fire, and consumed the sacrifice, altar, water-who had strengthened his arm against all the idolatrous prophets-was not He able to curb the fury of an enraged woman? Elijah's faith, which was equal to the great occasion on mount Carmel, was not equal to the quiet, patient dependence upon God for his life. The passive power of faith needs for its sustenance closer communion with God than its active energy. Action, as it were, nerves us to the conflict; but quiet endurance of wrong, or suffering of any kind, which neither friend nor foe sees, but only God, this indeed needs divine power, and without God's support none would bear the strain. Many a saint has shown the courage of faith before his enemies, as Elijah when he faced Ahab, but who, like him, quails and flees, when there is nothing to do, but quietly trust in God.
Elijah boasts of his jealousy for God, but he was equally if not more careful of his own life. He said he was the only one left who cared for God and for His altar, but why did he ignore the hundred prophets that Obadiah spake of Besides those, there were seven thousand known to God who had not bowed the knee to Baal. God, who is as faithful in discipline as in grace, bids him anoint another in his place. Nor is the wickedness of Ahab forgotten in the needed discipline of Elijah. Hazael is to be anointed king of Syria, Jehu, of Israel, both in due time to execute God's judgments upon the house of Ahab. There was another sword to be unsheathed, the most terrible of all. “And it shall come to pass, that him that escapeth the sword of Hazed shall Jehu slay, and him that escapeth from the sword of Jehu shall Elisha slay.” None escaped Elisha's sword, which took a far wider sweep than those of Hazael and of Jehu. Elisha's sword was the word of God, whose judgment overtook the guilty house of Ahab, and the idolatrous nation, after the swords of Hazael and of Jehu were broken. “Therefore have I hewed them by the prophets; I have slain them by the words of my mouth.” (Hos. 6:5.)
What a proof of the infatuation of sin is found in Ahab! At first slavishly submissive to Benhadad, afterward, with unwonted spirit, he says, “Let not him that girdeth on his harness boast himself as be that putteth it off.” Then, after God had asserted His supremacy, as well in the plains as in the hills, and for His own name's sake given Ahab victory over the Syrians, and thus another opportunity for Israel to return to His worship, the wretched blinded Ahab takes Benhadad to his bosom, embraces him, and claims kindred with Israel's foe-God's enemy! Not even the semblance of thanksgiving to God for His wonderful mercy and deliverance. On the contrary, he makes an alliance with one whose purpose was to destroy Israel. What an instance of the heart's inveterate enmity against God, of its sottish insensibility, and that in presence of His great mercy! But though judgment is near, mercy still lingers over the guilty nation.
Ahab sinks deeper in sin, killing Naboth to get his vineyard. He had sold himself to work evil in the sight of Jehovah. The terrible denunciations of the prophet make him humble himself, and mercy, that delights to delay judgment, puts it off during his life. But no temporary repentance, even though unfeigned, could avert the threatened doom. Ahab's humiliation was soon forgotten, it bore no real and lasting fruit. In the next war with Syria we find him with false prophets again: he had not profited by the testimony given on mount Carmel. There were four hundred false prophets, and one true prophet, “but,” says Ahab, “I hate him.” This one prophet told the truth, and Ahab loved not the truth. God sends a lying spirit to him, proof that Ahab was given up. He loved a lie, and the lie led him to destruction. The lying spirit encourages him to fight against Syria, though the true prophet warned him. And this did have some weight with him, his conscience feared the impending doom. He sought to avoid it by disguising himself from the Syrians, and by persuading the king of Judah to wear his royal apparel. But he could not hide himself from God. A certain man drew a bow at a venture, but God directed the arrow.
The latest public act of Elijah is God's judgment upon the idolatrous Ahaziah. This king, enraged because his messengers to Baalzebub were hindered from going, seeks to be revenged upon Elijah. Two captains and their fifties are consumed by fire from heaven. They thought it was an easy matter to take one man. God was not in their thoughts. Ahaziah is as determined to get hold of Elijah as to worship Baalzebub, and, as if in defiance of the power of God, sends a third captain and his fifty, who is only spared because he submits to the prophet, and prays for his life. The proof given at mount Carmel makes the false prophets use the name of Jehovah, and pretend to give counsel from God. (1 Kings 22:6.) But Ahaziah is bold, and sends openly to Baalzebub, to know if he shall recover. The God whom he so publicly insulted steps in, and tells him he shall die. His brother, Jehoram, was not nearly so bad, for he removed Baal. But he did not remove Jeroboam's calves, which were, doubtless, retained from the same motive of policy that induced Jeroboam to set them up. (1 Kings 12:26-30.) In his day the sword of Hazael begins (2 Kings 8:28), and the sword of Jehu fulfills the prediction, and all that remained of the house of Ahab Jehu slew. (Chap. x. 11, 17.) He slew also the priests of Baal, his prophets and servants; but it was by treachery; and Jehu called it zeal for Jehovah. How different this from Elijah's executing God's judgment His was true zeal, though Jehu's craft was no less the vindication of the true God against the false idol. But this Jehu, like his predecessor, retains the calves. It is a remarkable expression in 1 Kings 12:30: “And this thing became a sin"-not, was a sin. Of course it was sin, but this is not the meaning here, but it became a standing hindrance, through each king's policy, to Israel's going back to the worship at the temple.
Elisha's ministry was in keeping with Israel's condition. The same in character as that which God did in Egypt by the hand of Moses-that is, to demonstrate His supremacy. This goes to prove that Israel were then sunk as low as the Egyptians. God was bringing back the knowledge of Himself-His Godhead-which they had lost, by miracles, which were rather judicial than otherwise. Apart from governmental discipline, it was according to the wisdom of God to raise up another servant, when about to prove Himself by merciful interposition, as He has before by judicial dealing. For Elisha's ministry is characterized by sovereign goodness. In the series of miracles, or recorded acts of each, the second one of each appears as an exception to the character of each respectively. (1 Kings 17:9, &c.) This is an example of pure mercy, and, to a Gentile, an instance of mercy to one not of Israel, which the Jew so resented. (Luke 4:26.) On the other hand, 2 Kings 2:23 was only judgment. The mockery of Elisha contained a sneer at what Jehovah had done in translating Elijah. “Go up, thou bald head” was no mere disrespect to Elisha, but derision of the God of Elisha. But these children were but the echo of their parents, they repeated what was said at home, and in the city whence they came. Sad state of Israel! They did not believe that Elijah had gone up. How could they, when they lived at Bethel, which was once the place of God's altar, now the place for Jeroboam's calf? The worshippers of the idol scoffed at the servant of God. Judgment followed quickly, and was felt more by the parents than by the children. But not only the idolatrous inhabitants of Bethel; the sons of the prophets did not believe that Elijah was taken up. They did not doubt the power of God, but assuredly they did His grace and His love. It would appear they had gone to Jericho, to see what might happen. If they did not see Elijah go up, they saw Elisha divide the Jordan, and they were ready to acknowledge that the spirit of Elijah rested upon Elisha; but to urge that the Spirit of Jehovah had taken him up, and cast him upon some mountain, or into some valley, is an awful, but true, index of the darkness into which even the sons of the prophets had fallen. The children of Bethel are scarcely worse than the sons of the prophets.
Elisha begins his mission with blessing. Healing of the waters given even to Jericho, a place laid under a special curse. Now the word of God is that there shall not be from thence any more death or barren land. This is grace indeed, for the curse (Josh. 6:26) was not because it was worse than other cities of Canaan, but because of the aggravated character of Achan's sin, because the first victory in the land had been used as an opportunity for sin. But here, where Israel's sin, as in the land, began in the place where Elisha begins his ministry of goodness and grace.
Elijah's first message was that there should be no rain; Elisha's first public act was providing abundance of water. The character of each first act was that which marked all that followed. The miraculous supply of water when perishing with thirst (chap. 3.), and the overthrow of the Moabites, tells of grace for them meeting their need, and giving them victory. But chapter 4 (I judge), while historically showing God's goodness and patience towards a rebellions people, gives also symbolically the condition of the whole nation, and the only way in which they could be established in the goodness and favor of God. The only power which could secure the blessing for them was the power that annuls death. The widowed wife of one of the sons of the prophets not inaptly depicts the condition of the once fully-owned nation, but now desolate; her two sons (Israel and Judah) about to be taken for bondmen. She had nothing but one pot of oil. Divine power provides for the paying of the debt, and enough for her sustenance beside. Christ, the Messiah, paid the nation's debt, their iniquity was laid upon Him, by His stripes they are healed. Grace met all their need, all God's claims. The divine supply flowed out till there was no more room to contain: antitypically the perfectness of grace; every vessel filled. The Shunamite gives another feature as to the way and means of making the blessings of grace sure and eternal: fruitfulness and increase, but which is secured by resurrection. The dead child is restored to life. If Gehazi in any way may represent the messengers of God in old time, then the prophet would be a type of Christ, whose coming could alone meet the desperate need of Israel. He alone was able. He could raise from the dead, but it was by Himself submitting to death. He, the true Bread from heaven, was the meal cast into the pot of death. Thus He abolished the power of death. The wild gourds become wholesome. And His death is not only God's remedy for the evil of the world, but blessing immediately follows; yet not without showing the power of faith. A man brings to the man of God twenty loaves of barley and full ears of corn. But there were a hundred men to be fed, and the servitor is astonished when bidden to set before the men that they may eat. So the wondering disciple said to the Lord, “What are they among so many?” (John 6:9.) Elisha's faith is strong, spite of human appearances. “He said again, Give the people, that they may eat: for thus saith the Lord, They shall eat, and shall leave thereof”-abundance, and more than enough. Here Elisha stands forth as foreshadowing what the Lord Jesus did when He fed the multitudes, and this only a little sample of what He will yet do when all Israel, like the dead child, is restored. This grace, so preeminent, and founded upon resurrection, could not be limited to Israel; it necessarily overflows, breaks bounds, and reaches, as the next chapter shows, to the Gentile leper.
That God was now in grace, and by the ministry of Elisha acting for Israel, even the enemy knows. The king of Syria makes his secret plans, and pitches his camp in such and such a place, to catch the king of Israel at a disadvantage; and God warns the king by Elisha of the danger, insomuch that the king of Syria suspects his servants of treachery. “Will ye not show me which of us is for the king of Israel?” “None, my lord, O king: but Elisha, the prophet that is in Israel, telleth the king of Israel the words that thou speakest in thy bedchamber.” So manifest was the intervention of God, that even their enemies acknowledge it; at least, if they saw not God, they knew that there was a superior power in the person of Elisha which baffled all their schemes. The ignorant Syrian king, thinking to set aside this adverse power or to bring it over to his side, sends to take Elisha. But his vain attempt only serves to make more marked the wondrous interposition of God, which, if personally a deliverance for Elisha, had a voice also for Israel. The king of Israel knows not how to estimate the gracious dealings of God. The king of Syria forgot the kindness he had received, and besieged Samaria. The king of Israel forgot the display of almighty power, saw not the true cause of the famine in Israel's idolatry, and sought to visit upon Elisha his revenge for the suffering of his people. It was when Elijah knew of Jezebel's purpose that he failed and fled, and so here (if chap. 6:33 be the words of Elisha), a momentary feeling of despondency passes through the prophet's mind. Elijah's failure was close after the glory of Carmel, and Elisha's lack of trust in God not long after his supernatural deliverance at Dothan. How frequently the test of faith is preceded by a remarkable display of grace! At Dothan the prophet prayed that his servant's eyes might be opened. Now, are not his own dim? Delivered from the king of Syria, why now fear the king of Israel? There was only one perfect Man. But the cloud passes away, and he predicts victory and plenty, not by Israel's prowess; it is in a most emphatic way God alone.
All these testimonies of long-suffering and grace, these loud calls to repentance, met with no response from Israel, and God prepares His instruments of vengeance. Hazael, now the king of Syria, begins to execute the sentence of God. The king of Israel is wounded in battle, and the king of Judah visits him. What is this but the professing world going to comfort the profane world? Judgment delays not, and the text instrument of God is anointed. Jehu is called to the throne, and unsheathe the sword of God. Retributive judgment overtakes Jezebel, and every vestige of the house of Ahab is effaced. Even with these evidences, both of mercy and judgment, Israel's sin is so inveterate, that God: says, “Ephraim is joined to his idols-let him alone.” They were a rebellious and stiff-necked race, and became increasingly so, till the Assyrian carried them all away, and gave their land to others.
(To be Continued)