2 Kings 1-5

Well, I hate to admit this, but it took a while for me to get through 2 Kings 1 today. It always cracks me up. I mean, really, what was King Ahaziah doing up among the latticework in his palace. I'm sure I am just not educated as to what latticework really is, but I get this picture of a king on the upper floor trying to balance on some kind of woven flooring, completely missing the mark and falling through -- perhaps he was pudgy, I don't know. The idea of a king falling through latticework is just amusing like a cartoon.

So, he sends messengers to the completely wrong god to ask if he will live. But they get intercepted by a man who informs them of the error of their king's ways who sends them back with a message to the king. The king asks the messengers to describe the man, and they simply say "He was a hairy man, and he wore a leather belt around his waist." From that alone, the king knew it was Elijah. I can only imagine that it must have been possible to comb Elijah's back hair or something . . . like other men weren't hairy??? If you said to me, "a hairy guy came in and asked for you", there would be a few that would come to mind! (Not that a hairy guy would come in and ask for me, mind you, but I think you get my point.) :)

Then, imagine the 2 teams of 50 men who were just zapped out of existence. Oh my goodness, the Old Testament is just filled with incidental deaths -- at least they seem incidental. These teams -- had they done something awfully wrong that required their execution? It seems God used them to send another type of message back to the king. Were they in the wrong place at the wrong time? Or would serving a bad king warrant bad things from God? We face these things all the time as we are not always lead by good leaders, but are instructed to pray for them and support them. The incidental feeling is just a horrible one, eh?

Anyway, it always takes me a while to get through that chapter.