2 Kings 1 God of the flies [1]

seekeroftruth

Well-Known Member
2 Kings 1:1 After Ahab’s death, Moab rebelled against Israel. 2 Now Ahaziah had fallen through the lattice of his upper room in Samaria and injured himself. So he sent messengers, saying to them, “Go and consult Baal-Zebub, the god of Ekron, to see if I will recover from this injury.”

3 But the angel of the Lord said to Elijah the Tishbite, “Go up and meet the messengers of the king of Samaria and ask them, ‘Is it because there is no God in Israel that you are going off to consult Baal-Zebub, the god of Ekron?’ 4 Therefore this is what the Lord says: ‘You will not leave the bed you are lying on. You will certainly die!’” So Elijah went.

5 When the messengers returned to the king, he asked them, “Why have you come back?”

6 “A man came to meet us,” they replied. “And he said to us, ‘Go back to the king who sent you and tell him, “This is what the Lord says: Is it because there is no God in Israel that you are sending messengers to consult Baal-Zebub, the god of Ekron? Therefore you will not leave the bed you are lying on. You will certainly die!”’”

7 The king asked them, “What kind of man was it who came to meet you and told you this?”

8 They replied, “He had a garment of hair[a] and had a leather belt around his waist.”

The king said, “That was Elijah the Tishbite.”​

Yep Ahaziah fell through some lattice from the upper room. This is from the easy English site.

While Ahab was king of Israel, he also had control over Moab. After Ahab’s death, his son Ahaziah became king. It seems that the people in Moab considered this to be a good opportunity to rebel against Israel.

Soon after this happened, Ahaziah had a serious accident. He fell through a window in his palace.

The god of Ekron was a god of the people called Philistines. Ekron was a city in the region where they lived. Ahaziah asked this god whether he (Ahaziah) would recover. The god’s name, Baalzebub, means ‘ruler of the flies’ or ‘ruler of the dirt’. However, some Bible teachers think that it may mean ‘the great ruler’.

So Ahaziah wanted to contact a false god. Like his parents, Ahab and Jezebel, Ahaziah preferred false gods instead of the real God. This was a terrible sin against the Lord. He is the only real God. And he was especially the God of Israel, because of the promises that he had made to Israel’s people.

God told Elijah what was happening. So Elijah sent back the people who were going to Ekron. He told them to tell the king about his (the king’s) sin. The king had made a clear decision to rebel against the real God. And the king would not avoid his punishment. Elijah explained that the king would die.

Those people went back to the king. The king asked them who sent that message to him. They described what the man was wearing. Their description was of a man who wore simple, rough clothes. Such clothes were the usual choice of a prophet. So the king realised that it was Elijah.

Even Ahab, Ahaziah’s wicked father, had been humble when Elijah prophesied his (Ahab’s) death (1 Kings 21:17-29). But Ahaziah was not humble. He wanted to arrest Elijah.

So.... we've started a new book! This new book starts off with Ahab's son and the "god of the flies".

May I make just a minor point here..... Ruth was a Moabite. The Moabites had been ruled by the Israelites since David was king. They were actually kin now.... but the Moabites worshiped other tiny made up gods... like the god of dirt or the god of flies. They wanted their independence for Israel.

This is from enduringword.com.

The reign of Ahab was a spiritual disaster for the Northern Kingdom, but it was a time of political security and economic prosperity. After his death the kingdom of Moab found a good opportunity to remove their nation from the domination of Israel.

“Their land was immediately east of the Dead Sea and shared an indefinite border with Israel to the north at approximately the point where the Jordan River enters the Dead Sea.” (Dilday)

Moab had been under Israelite domination since the days of David (2 Samuel 8:2 and 8:11-12). This rebellion of Moab in the days of Ahaziah was a sign of the decline of Israel’s power and of the judgment of God.​

So.... Ahab's son has sent for the "god of the flies [or dirt]" to advise him. Ahab was a descendant of Jacob [Israel] and Jezebel was from Sidon [Lebanon area]. They had a son, Ahaziah. He was hurt. Now, the local prophet, Elijah, told them back in 1 Kings 21 that Ahab, Jezebel, and all of their descendants were going to die. Ahaziah didn't want the truth. Like his dad, he wanted a prophet who would tell him what he wanted to hear, regardless of it's validity.

moab.jpg

:coffee:
 
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