MY SHORT REPORT 1 KINGS 10 - 2 KINGS 5
The link that brought you to this page and the page title are a bit of a misnomer, because this short report is not long enough to cover so many chapters of the Bible. What the link and the title do, however, is track where we are in our plan to read through the entire Bible in 1 year. May each report pique your interest and help you to draw near to God. The Bible, James 4:8, tells us if we do so God will draw near to us. Works cited are at the end of the report. Internal links provide additional information.
BIBLE READING—WEEK 16—1 KINGS 10 – 2 KINGS 5: Last week I looked at King Solomon, especially the circumstances surrounding the building of Solomon’s Temple. This week’s Short Report looks at the life of Elijah the Tishbite—the powerful prophet of fire—that God used against the prophets of Baal, a wicked queen that managed her husband’s kingdom and a weak king that allowed and profited from her deeds. Also, this Short Report includes a special appearance by the angel of the LORD.
The first anyone hears of Elijah, who is speaking for God at the time, he is confronting King Ahab and tells the king there will be a drought until God says otherwise. Next, God tells Elijah to hide by the Cherith Brook where He would feed Elijah using ravens that would bring him meat and bread and Elijah would use the brook for his source of water. After some time, and according the God’s word, the brook dried up and there was a drought throughout the land (1Kg 17:1-7).
We can easily understand why the Lord sent Elijah to challenge Ahab from reading chapter 16 where we learn Ahab married King Ethbaal’s daughter, Jezebel, from the Sidonians, a sea faring people that worshiped Baal and Asherah. In addition, Ahab built an altar for Baal in Samaria. And we are told in verse 33, “Ahab did more to provoke the Lord, the God of Israel, to anger than all the kings of Israel who were before him.”
It’s also interesting to note that Jericho was rebuilt during Ahab’s reign over the Northern Kingdom by Hiel of Bethel. About 500 years earlier Joshua pronounced a curse on the sons of the person that set out to rebuild the city (Josh 6:26), and this decree took place, “according to the word of the LORD” (1Kg 16:34), because both Abiram, Hiel’s firstborn, and his youngest son, Segub, died during the construction.
Ethbaal means “Man of Baal” (Tenney, vol. 2, 354). There is no doubt that Jezebel was a daughter of Baal, for she was nothing like her namesake “Chaste” (Tenney, vol. 3, 589). The more we learn about Jezebel the more we can comprehend why God told Elijah to conceal himself for a time, because she was a murderous tyrant that killed the prophets of God (1Kg 18:13) in addition to controlling her husband and plotting against Naboth and so had him stoned and took possession of his land (1Kg 21:1-16). In addition, it was by her authority that “450 prophets of Baal and the 400 prophets of Asherah” were in the land, since, as Elijah put it, they “eat at Jezebel's table” (1Kg 18:19).
Speaking on the subject of Jezebel murdering the prophets of God, the IVP Bible Background Commentary (Olive Tree) tells its readers:
The first anyone hears of Elijah, who is speaking for God at the time, he is confronting King Ahab and tells the king there will be a drought until God says otherwise. Next, God tells Elijah to hide by the Cherith Brook where He would feed Elijah using ravens that would bring him meat and bread and Elijah would use the brook for his source of water. After some time, and according the God’s word, the brook dried up and there was a drought throughout the land (1Kg 17:1-7).
We can easily understand why the Lord sent Elijah to challenge Ahab from reading chapter 16 where we learn Ahab married King Ethbaal’s daughter, Jezebel, from the Sidonians, a sea faring people that worshiped Baal and Asherah. In addition, Ahab built an altar for Baal in Samaria. And we are told in verse 33, “Ahab did more to provoke the Lord, the God of Israel, to anger than all the kings of Israel who were before him.”
It’s also interesting to note that Jericho was rebuilt during Ahab’s reign over the Northern Kingdom by Hiel of Bethel. About 500 years earlier Joshua pronounced a curse on the sons of the person that set out to rebuild the city (Josh 6:26), and this decree took place, “according to the word of the LORD” (1Kg 16:34), because both Abiram, Hiel’s firstborn, and his youngest son, Segub, died during the construction.
Ethbaal means “Man of Baal” (Tenney, vol. 2, 354). There is no doubt that Jezebel was a daughter of Baal, for she was nothing like her namesake “Chaste” (Tenney, vol. 3, 589). The more we learn about Jezebel the more we can comprehend why God told Elijah to conceal himself for a time, because she was a murderous tyrant that killed the prophets of God (1Kg 18:13) in addition to controlling her husband and plotting against Naboth and so had him stoned and took possession of his land (1Kg 21:1-16). In addition, it was by her authority that “450 prophets of Baal and the 400 prophets of Asherah” were in the land, since, as Elijah put it, they “eat at Jezebel's table” (1Kg 18:19).
Speaking on the subject of Jezebel murdering the prophets of God, the IVP Bible Background Commentary (Olive Tree) tells its readers:
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The agenda of Jezebel was to enthrone Baal as the king and national god of Israel instead of Yahweh. This would have been her act of loyalty to Baal. The prophets of Yahweh would have, of course, contested this move on religious, political, personal and traditional grounds. They would be most capable of mobilizing formal and large-scale opposition among the general population. On political grounds, then, they had to be eliminated.
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In line with God’s plan and timing, however, Elijah defeated Jezebel’s false prophets in a famous showdown on Mount Carmel using fire. It’s worth noting that the Lord God of Israel used fire to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, and appeared to Moses in a burning bush. And in the book of Joshua the Angel of the Lord used fire in ascending into heaven. In a similar way, according to the IVP Bible Background Commentary, Baal is known to his followers as a god with authority over fire because he controls the weather as the storm god that commands thunder and lightning (Olive Tree). Thus, Elijah using fire here (1Kg 18) and twice more in the first chapter of 2 Kings to destroy the enemies of God is an especially penetrating message to Baal’s followers, indeed, to all the earth.
During Elijah’s tenure as the Lord’s instrument God on three occasions used supernatural means to sustain Elijah with bread from heaven, the first is mentioned above by the Cherith Brook. The second time was when the Lord kept the widow’s container of flour and jar of oil full during his stay at Zarephath near Sidon (1Kg 17), which was once Jezebel’s “backyard.”
The third occasion that Elijah received heavenly bread was from the angel of the LORD (1Kg 19:4-8, ESV). I look at many reference sources to better understand the term angel of the LORD as follows:
From this point onward I’m comparing and contrasting 6 Study Bibles and 8 Commentaries, mostly from my Olive Tree Bible Software as they reply to 1 Kings 19:7, specifically to the term angel of the LORD. To simplify the process I will abbreviate their short titles, and omit the in-text citation for Olive Tree. All abbreviations are spelled-out at the end of this report.
As I pointed out in a previous Short Report, the ESV and NIV use the lowercase a in every occurrence of the angel of the LORD. But the HCSB and NKJV use the uppercase A to indicate the Angel of the LORD wherever the pre-incarnate Christ appears in the Old Testament. Here (1Kg 19:7), however, they use the lowercase a like the ESV and NIV.
Of the study Bibles I looked in only the HCSBSB ignored the subject, allowing the lowercase a to speak for itself. The ESVSB and the LSB-NRSV claim this is “an angel.” Both the KJSB and NIVSB refer the reader back to their notes on Genesis 16:7 where both become noncommittal: the KJSB, on the more positive-side says, “The angel of the Lord was likely the preincarnate appearance of the Second Person of the Trinity.” The NIVSB takes a more negative side concluding with, “Whether this ‘angel’ was the second person of the Trinity remains therefore uncertain.”
I must mention that the NIVSB notes, with some modification, are also found in the Concordia Self Study Bible NIV. In both Study Bibles the Genesis 16:7 note concludes with, “Whether this ‘angel’ was the second person of the Trinity remains uncertain” (CSSB, p. 29). As can be seen, the CSSB omits “therefore.”
Turning to the commentaries, the IVP-OT and the MHCC both ignored the focus of my search, while the JFB, K&D, and PCS took the position that the angel of the LORD in 1 Kings 19:7 was just “an angel.”
Like two of my study Bibles the TC refers its readers back to its comments on Genesis 16:7. But unlike the study Bibles the TC positively states, “The angel of the Lord is now disclosed to have been the Lord himself” with no ambiguity. That puts a “one” on the Angel of the LORD scoreboard! And I have two more commentaries left. One of the commentaries is from Olive Tree and the other is a hard copy from Concordia Publishing House.
The last commentary I offer from Olive Tree is the TTBC, and I will use the full name here: Thru the Bible Commentary, Volumes 1-5: Genesis through Revelation. In his reply to 1 Kings 19:7, speaking about Elijah and the Angel, J. Vernon McGee writes:
During Elijah’s tenure as the Lord’s instrument God on three occasions used supernatural means to sustain Elijah with bread from heaven, the first is mentioned above by the Cherith Brook. The second time was when the Lord kept the widow’s container of flour and jar of oil full during his stay at Zarephath near Sidon (1Kg 17), which was once Jezebel’s “backyard.”
The third occasion that Elijah received heavenly bread was from the angel of the LORD (1Kg 19:4-8, ESV). I look at many reference sources to better understand the term angel of the LORD as follows:
From this point onward I’m comparing and contrasting 6 Study Bibles and 8 Commentaries, mostly from my Olive Tree Bible Software as they reply to 1 Kings 19:7, specifically to the term angel of the LORD. To simplify the process I will abbreviate their short titles, and omit the in-text citation for Olive Tree. All abbreviations are spelled-out at the end of this report.
As I pointed out in a previous Short Report, the ESV and NIV use the lowercase a in every occurrence of the angel of the LORD. But the HCSB and NKJV use the uppercase A to indicate the Angel of the LORD wherever the pre-incarnate Christ appears in the Old Testament. Here (1Kg 19:7), however, they use the lowercase a like the ESV and NIV.
Of the study Bibles I looked in only the HCSBSB ignored the subject, allowing the lowercase a to speak for itself. The ESVSB and the LSB-NRSV claim this is “an angel.” Both the KJSB and NIVSB refer the reader back to their notes on Genesis 16:7 where both become noncommittal: the KJSB, on the more positive-side says, “The angel of the Lord was likely the preincarnate appearance of the Second Person of the Trinity.” The NIVSB takes a more negative side concluding with, “Whether this ‘angel’ was the second person of the Trinity remains therefore uncertain.”
I must mention that the NIVSB notes, with some modification, are also found in the Concordia Self Study Bible NIV. In both Study Bibles the Genesis 16:7 note concludes with, “Whether this ‘angel’ was the second person of the Trinity remains uncertain” (CSSB, p. 29). As can be seen, the CSSB omits “therefore.”
Turning to the commentaries, the IVP-OT and the MHCC both ignored the focus of my search, while the JFB, K&D, and PCS took the position that the angel of the LORD in 1 Kings 19:7 was just “an angel.”
Like two of my study Bibles the TC refers its readers back to its comments on Genesis 16:7. But unlike the study Bibles the TC positively states, “The angel of the Lord is now disclosed to have been the Lord himself” with no ambiguity. That puts a “one” on the Angel of the LORD scoreboard! And I have two more commentaries left. One of the commentaries is from Olive Tree and the other is a hard copy from Concordia Publishing House.
The last commentary I offer from Olive Tree is the TTBC, and I will use the full name here: Thru the Bible Commentary, Volumes 1-5: Genesis through Revelation. In his reply to 1 Kings 19:7, speaking about Elijah and the Angel, J. Vernon McGee writes:
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He awoke to find some bread being baked. Do you know who I think baked that bread? I believe it was the same One who prepared that breakfast on the shore of Galilee one morning after the Resurrection. It was our Lord who comforted Elijah, fed him, and then put him back to sleep. He fed him, the second time, and told Elijah, “The journey is too great for you.” This was something that Elijah had learned.
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That puts “two” on the Angel of the LORD scoreboard. I believe McGee’s insight (discernment) is spot-on. Our God is a personal God, drawing near to us as we draw close to Him. For the last three and a half years Elijah obeyed God at every turn. He endured so much and was now at the end of his rope. Any angel could have done the job. Sometimes, however, we have to put the phone down and carry the message in person. Jesus once said, “Let the children come to me” (Mt 19:14), and He has a great record of going to the children, His sheep, wherever they are. Why would the Almighty, All Knowing, All Present God of the universe send a substitute at such a time as this?
The last commentary on this is 1 and 2 Kings – People’s Bible Commentary, which says, in part, “When the Old Testament talks about ‘the angel of the Lord,’ it is not describing one of God’s created angels. It is referring to that messenger of God who is equal with the Father and who deserves our worship, namely, the Lord Jesus” (Wolfgramm, 133).
That is 3 out of 14. I may be with the minority opinion, but I’m in good company, especially when some of the Bible commentary is unresponsive or vague on the subject.
I take the words at face value because the language is not figurative, and I saw no information in the text to suggest the term angel of the LORD applied to any messenger of God other than Christ, His son, our Lord. Thus, because so many other places in Holy Scripture point to Christ when “Angel of the LORD” is translated from the ancient Hebrew or Aramaic it seems appropriate to apply it here, too.
In the end, Jezebel and her prophets are destroyed (1Kg 18:40; 2Kg 9:33), King Ahab repented and humbled himself before the Lord (1Kg 21:27-29) and later died in battle (22:29-38), Elisha was chosen to replace Elijah (1Kg 19:19-20), and Elijah was taken up in “chariots of fire and horses of fire…by a whirlwind into heaven (2Kg 2:11).
The last commentary on this is 1 and 2 Kings – People’s Bible Commentary, which says, in part, “When the Old Testament talks about ‘the angel of the Lord,’ it is not describing one of God’s created angels. It is referring to that messenger of God who is equal with the Father and who deserves our worship, namely, the Lord Jesus” (Wolfgramm, 133).
That is 3 out of 14. I may be with the minority opinion, but I’m in good company, especially when some of the Bible commentary is unresponsive or vague on the subject.
I take the words at face value because the language is not figurative, and I saw no information in the text to suggest the term angel of the LORD applied to any messenger of God other than Christ, His son, our Lord. Thus, because so many other places in Holy Scripture point to Christ when “Angel of the LORD” is translated from the ancient Hebrew or Aramaic it seems appropriate to apply it here, too.
In the end, Jezebel and her prophets are destroyed (1Kg 18:40; 2Kg 9:33), King Ahab repented and humbled himself before the Lord (1Kg 21:27-29) and later died in battle (22:29-38), Elisha was chosen to replace Elijah (1Kg 19:19-20), and Elijah was taken up in “chariots of fire and horses of fire…by a whirlwind into heaven (2Kg 2:11).
~ Abbreviations Used ~
CSSB - Concordia Self Study Bible NIV
ESVSB - The ESV Study Bible
HCSBSB - The HCSB Study Bible
IVP-OT - IVP Bible Background Commentary Old Testament
JFB - Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown Commentary
K&D - C. F. Keil and F. Delitzsch Commentary On The Old Testament
KJSB - The King James Study Bible
LSB-NRSV - Lutheran Study Bible NRSV 2009 Augsburg Fortress
MHCC - Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary on the Bible
NIVSB - The NIV Study Bible
PBC - 1 and 2 Kings – People’s Bible Commentary
PCS - The Preacher's Commentary Series, Volumes 1-35: Genesis - Revelation
TC - Tyndale Commentaries Full Set (49 Vols.)
TTBC - Thru the Bible Commentary, Volumes 1-5: Genesis through Revelation
ESVSB - The ESV Study Bible
HCSBSB - The HCSB Study Bible
IVP-OT - IVP Bible Background Commentary Old Testament
JFB - Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown Commentary
K&D - C. F. Keil and F. Delitzsch Commentary On The Old Testament
KJSB - The King James Study Bible
LSB-NRSV - Lutheran Study Bible NRSV 2009 Augsburg Fortress
MHCC - Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary on the Bible
NIVSB - The NIV Study Bible
PBC - 1 and 2 Kings – People’s Bible Commentary
PCS - The Preacher's Commentary Series, Volumes 1-35: Genesis - Revelation
TC - Tyndale Commentaries Full Set (49 Vols.)
TTBC - Thru the Bible Commentary, Volumes 1-5: Genesis through Revelation