We’re shifting our attention from the southern kingdom of Judah back up to the northern kingdom of Israel. We’re also backtracking in time just a little. There are some details and side-quests we need to pick up that weren’t mentioned in Chronicles.

First… 2 Family Trees…

🌴 Omri > Ahab > Ahaziah, Athaliah & Joram (siblings)

🌳 Asa (great-great-grandson of David) > Jehoshaphat > Jehoram (sometimes spelled Joram) married to Athaliah > Ahaziah > Joash

Ahaziah, the son of Ahab, is the guy we read about in 2 Kings 1. King Ahaziah was rather like Humpty Dumpty. He had a great fall. And all the kings men couldn’t put him together again.

So the king sends his men instead to the temple of Baal-Zebub in Ekron to find out if he will recover or if he needs to start planning his funeral.

Ekron is a Philistine city. Some scholars believe that the name Baal-Zebub may have originally been Baal-Zebul (which means “lord of the high dwelling”), but might’ve been changed by the Israelites to Baal-Zebub (lord of the flies) as a form of mockery; flies 🪰 being associated with death 💀 and dung heaps. 💩

Baal-Zebub would’ve been considered one of the many Baals (lords/masters) of the Canaanite pantheon.

On the way to Ekron, the king’s men meet with Elijah on his way to the king with a message from Yahweh. Elijah gives them the note. It basically says…

📜

Ahaziah,

You gotta borrow another nation’s god?

Really?

Hello… I AM the God of Israel.

Kinda insulting to ask another god when I’m standing right here.

Signed, YHWH

P.S. You ARE going to die. See? Saved your guys a trip.

———————

The elusive, teleporting Elijah has been spotted. And the king sends out 3 squads of 50 – count ‘em – 50 armed soldiers each to arrest a hairy old guy sitting on a hill. And it gets…weird.

💂🏽‍♀️ “You’re under arrest, Man of God.”

👴🏽 “If I am a ‘Man of God’ may fire from heaven destroy you and your men.”

🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

👮🏻‍♂️ “You’re under arrest, Man of God.”

👴🏽 “If I am a ‘Man of God’ may fire from heaven destroy you and your men.”

🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

👨🏻‍🚒 “Please… 🙏 Mr. Man of God… please don’t kill me and my men.” 👩🏼‍🚒👨🏾‍🚒👩🏻‍🚒👨🏼‍🚒🚒🚑

😇 “It’s ok, Elijah. Go with the nice fireman.”

👴🏽 ugh…

🤴🏾 “Finally! It’s about time you got here. Tell me my fortune.” 🔮🥠🎱

👴🏽 “You didn’t read my note? I sent a note.”

👴🏽📜 “Yahweh says: You are going to die.”

🤴🏾 “Darn it.”

---

Why does Elijah call down fire and kill 100 men?

I honestly haven’t the foggiest idea. But let me talk at it for a while and see if we stumble onto anything…

😏 Is that how you do it? Talk at it?

I process verbally. And fidget. It is what it is.

One spot that “100 men” shows up elsewhere in Elijah’s narrative is in 1 Kings 18 when Elijah meets up with Obadiah, Ahab’s butler.

(Looks up passage and re-reads it…)

Jezebel was killing all the prophets of Yahweh. Obadiah had hidden 100 of them in 2 caves in 2 groups of 50. That’s exactly the number and grouping of men killed here. 100 men in 2 groups of 50 each.

Probably not coincidence.

Ahab & Jezebel tried to kill 100 of Yahweh’s men. Yahweh took out 100 of their men.

See? We found something!

🕵🏻‍♂️ Congratulations, Sherlock.

Calling down fire from heaven is kinda Elijah’s specialty. And it’s not random. Every time it happens it is done as heavenly authentication that Yahweh is God and Elijah really is a prophet.

🤔 So… fire from heaven is like Elijah’s captcha. If you are a Man of God…