2 Kings

After Ahab died, Moab rebelled against Israel.

1Then Moab rebelled against Israel after the death of Ahab.

NoteMoab was a kingdom east of the Dead Sea that had been subject to Israel and paid it tribute; "rebelled" here means refusing further tribute and throwing off that control, not a riot. "Israel" in these books means the northern kingdom only, after Solomon's death the nation split, with Israel in the north (capital Samaria) and Judah in the south (capital Jerusalem). Ahab had been Israel's king; Ahaziah, in the next verse, is his son.

2Ahaziah fell through the lattice screen of his upstairs room in Samaria and was badly hurt. He sent messengers out with these orders: "Go and ask Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron, whether I will get well from this injury."

2And Ahaziah fell down through a lattice in his upper chamber that was in Samaria, and was sick: and he sent messengers, and said unto them, Go, enquire of Baalzebub the god of Ekron whether I shall recover of this disease.

NoteA lattice was a wooden screen set across an open window to let in air and light while cutting the glare; the "upstairs room" was a chamber on the flat roof, the coolest part of the house. Baal-zebub means "lord of the flies"; many scholars think it is a deliberate insulting twist on the title Baal-zebul, "Baal the prince," the name actually used for the god. Ekron was one of the five main Philistine cities, on the coastal plain west of Israel. To "ask" a god meant sending men to its shrine to get an oracle from its priests, a formal request for a prediction, in this case whether the king would live.

3But the angel of the LORD said to Elijah the Tishbite, "Get up and go meet the messengers of the king of Samaria. Ask them, 'Is it because there is no God in Israel that you are going to ask Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron?'"

3But the angel of the LORD said to Elijah the Tishbite, Arise, go up to meet the messengers of the king of Samaria, and say unto them, Is it not because there is not a God in Israel, that ye go to enquire of Baalzebub the god of Ekron?

Note"LORD" printed this way stands in for the personal name of Israel's God, which Hebrew writes as four consonants (YHWH) and which readers traditionally did not pronounce aloud. The Hebrew word behind "angel" simply means "messenger", the same word used for the king's messengers in this chapter, so the original sets a divine messenger against a royal one, a link English loses. "Tishbite" means Elijah came from a place called Tishbe, in Gilead, the hill country east of the Jordan.

4"So this is what the LORD says: 'You will not get up from the bed you are lying on. You will certainly die.'" Then Elijah left.

4Now therefore thus saith the LORD, Thou shalt not come down from that bed on which thou art gone up, but shalt surely die. And Elijah departed.

NoteLiterally, "you will not come down from the bed you went up on." Going up and coming down runs right through this chapter, the king went up to his bed, Elijah sits up on a hill, officers go up to him and are ordered to bring him down.

5When the messengers came back to the king, he asked them, "Why have you come back already?"

5And when the messengers turned back unto him, he said unto them, Why are ye now turned back?

6They told him, "A man came up to meet us and said, '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 men to ask Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron? Because of this, you will not get up from the bed you are lying on. You will certainly die.'"

6And they said unto him, There came a man up to meet us, and said unto us, Go, turn again unto the king that sent you, and say unto him, Thus saith the LORD, Is it not because there is not a God in Israel, that thou sendest to enquire of Baalzebub the god of Ekron? therefore thou shalt not come down from that bed on which thou art gone up, but shalt surely die.

Note"This is what the LORD says" is a fixed formula, the standard opening a messenger used when reciting word for word the message of the person who sent him, exactly as a royal herald would announce a king's decree.

7The king asked them, "What sort of man was it who came up to meet you and said these things to you?"

7And he said unto them, What manner of man was he which came up to meet you, and told you these words?

8They answered, "He was a hairy man, with a leather belt around his waist." The king said, "That was Elijah the Tishbite."

8And they answered him, He was an hairy man, and girt with a girdle of leather about his loins. And he said, It is Elijah the Tishbite.

NoteThe Hebrew can mean either that he was a hairy man or that he wore a garment of animal hair; both readings are old and the wording does not settle it. Either way the description is a uniform (hair and a plain leather belt, rather than woven cloth) distinctive enough that the king identifies him from it at once.

9Then the king sent an officer with his company of fifty men to Elijah. The officer went up to him, and there was Elijah, sitting on top of a hill. The officer said to him, "Man of God, the king says, 'Come down!'"

9Then the king sent unto him a captain of fifty with his fifty. And he went up to him: and, behold, he sat on the top of an hill. And he spake unto him, Thou man of God, the king hath said, Come down.

Note"Officer with his fifty" translates "captain of fifty," a standard unit in Israel's army; this is a squad of soldiers sent to compel Elijah, not an escort. "Man of God" was an ordinary title for a prophet, used the way one might say "prophet", the officer is naming his office, and Elijah's reply turns on whether the title is deserved.

10Elijah answered the officer, "If I am a man of God, then may fire come down from heaven and burn up you and your fifty men." And fire came down from heaven and burned up the officer and his fifty men.

10And Elijah answered and said to the captain of fifty, If I be a man of God, then let fire come down from heaven, and consume thee and thy fifty. And there came down fire from heaven, and consumed him and his fifty.

NoteIn Hebrew there is a play on words here that English cannot carry: "man" (ish) and "fire" (esh) sound almost identical, so the man of God calls down the fire of God.

11So the king sent another officer with his fifty men to Elijah. That officer said to him, "Man of God, this is what the king says: 'Come down at once!'"

11Again also he sent unto him another captain of fifty with his fifty. And he answered and said unto him, O man of God, thus hath the king said, Come down quickly.

12Elijah answered them, "If I am a man of God, may fire come down from heaven and burn up you and your fifty men." And the fire of God came down from heaven and burned up the officer and his fifty men.

12And Elijah answered and said unto them, If I be a man of God, let fire come down from heaven, and consume thee and thy fifty. And the fire of God came down from heaven, and consumed him and his fifty.

13The king sent a third officer with his fifty men. This third officer went up, came to Elijah, and fell on his knees in front of him, begging, "Man of God, please treat my life and the lives of these fifty servants of yours as something precious."

13And he sent again a captain of the third fifty with his fifty. And the third captain of fifty went up, and came and fell on his knees before Elijah, and besought him, and said unto him, O man of God, I pray thee, let my life, and the life of these fifty thy servants, be precious in thy sight.

Note"Let my life be precious in your sight" is a set idiom meaning simply "spare my life", treat it as worth something rather than something to be spent.

14"Look, fire came down from heaven and burned up the first two officers with their fifty men each. But now, please treat my life as something precious."

14Behold, there came fire down from heaven, and burnt up the two captains of the former fifties with their fifties: therefore let my life now be precious in thy sight.

15Then the angel of the LORD said to Elijah, "Go down with him. Do not be afraid of him." So Elijah got up and went down with him to the king.

15And the angel of the LORD said unto Elijah, Go down with him: be not afraid of him. And he arose, and went down with him unto the king.

16Elijah said to the king, "This is what the LORD says: You sent messengers to ask Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron. Was that because there is no God in Israel whose word you could ask for? Because of this, you will not get up from the bed you are lying on. You will certainly die."

16And he said unto him, Thus saith the LORD, Forasmuch as thou hast sent messengers to enquire of Baalzebub the god of Ekron, is it not because there is no God in Israel to enquire of his word? therefore thou shalt not come down off that bed on which thou art gone up, but shalt surely die.

17So Ahaziah died, just as the LORD had said through Elijah. Since Ahaziah had no son, Jehoram became king in his place. This happened in the second year that Jehoram son of Jehoshaphat was king of Judah.

17So he died according to the word of the LORD which Elijah had spoken. And Jehoram reigned in his stead in the second year of Jehoram the son of Jehoshaphat king of Judah; because he had no son.

NoteJehoram (also spelled Joram) was Ahaziah's brother, another son of Ahab; kings were normally succeeded by a son, so a brother takes over only because Ahaziah left none. Confusingly, Israel and Judah each had a king named Jehoram at about this time, and the two are different men. Dating an event by the regnal year of the neighboring kingdom's king was the usual method here; this particular synchronism is hard to square with the dates given in 2 Kings 3:1 and 8:16, a difficulty scholars have never fully resolved.

18The rest of what Ahaziah did is written down in the book of the record of the kings of Israel.

18Now the rest of the acts of Ahaziah which he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel?

NoteThis refers to the official court annals of the northern kingdom, a record now lost. It is not the biblical books of 1–2 Chronicles. The formula ("the rest of what he did is written in…") closes the account of nearly every king in these books.