Week 15: 1 Kings 17-22; 2 Kings 1-17-Prophets and Exile

The main focus of the text this week shifts from the kings to the prophets that God sends to admonish and advise the people and their leaders. The message of the prophets is confirmed by the miraculous signs that God works through them. This pattern is also seen in the life of Jesus. The Gospels detail His message and His miracles. His words and His works complement and support one another so that those with “eyes to see and ears to hear” will recognize Him as their Messiah.

The ministry of Elijah and Elisha dominate much of this week’s narrative. Jesus highlighted two of Elijah’s miraculous works – the provision of flour and oil for the widow at Zarephath and the healing of Naaman the Syrian of leprosy. What these two miracles have in common is that they were done for the benefit of gentiles. Jesus points this out in the first sermon He gives in His hometown of Nazareth. In response, the people are enraged and want to throw Him off a hillside. His message is clear – God is not a respecter of persons. Israel was to be a nation of priests – living out God’s law as an example to the other nations and explaining to them how to be in relationship with God. God was never meant to be the God of the Jewish people alone.

The miracles of the prophets also teach many lessons about obedience, humility and the authority of God. Throughout the scriptures we repeated read that God performs acts in order that individual men or nations “will know that I am Yehovah” (1 Kings 20:28). Likewise, we read several times that God empowers the prophets to perform miracles so that men or nations will “know that there is a prophet in Israel (2 Kings 3:13).

The final chapter this week is a summary of all that went wrong with Israel and Judah. 2 Kings 17 details the exile and dispersion of the people of Israel and their replacement with foreigners in Israel by the Assyrians. It also explains the four reasons why they were exiled. First, they were disobedient to Gods laws. Second, they served the false gods of the people they were to have totally driven out of the land. Third, they walked in the customs of the people of the land and finally they walked in the customs established by the evil kings.

God had warned them against all of these behaviors ever since the law was given in Exodus. Finally, we are told that God punished the people that the Assyrians moved into Israel because those people did not honor Him. A priest was sent from among the exiles to teach the people to fear Yehovah. Unfortunately they mixed their native religions with the fear of Yehovah resulting in a mixed religious practice that did not honor Yehovah. We also do this today.

Many believe in evolution and accept the moral customs of our society while claiming to fully believe in God.