The Bible Recap - Day 185 (2 Kings 9-11) - Year 4

Episode Date: July 4, 2022

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Hey Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble, and I'm your host for the Bible recap. Profits are powerful people in ancient Israel. We've repeatedly seen how they're the ones who annoy kings, especially when a line of errors is interrupted. There's no voting because God is the one who runs their nation state, and he speaks through the prophets. Today, Elisha sends a young prophet to annoy Jahu as Israel's next king, and to give him the wady task of fulfilling God's prophecy to wipe out all of Ahab's descendants, including King Joram, who is currently on the throne. Jahu sets out on his secret campaign, and is even able to convince some of the king's watchmen to follow him instead of oppose him, either because they had no idea what he

was doing or because they respected him enough to do what he said. King Jorm of Israel and King Ahazaya of Judah both go out to meet Jeyu in his crew, and they meet him in the most appropriate of spots, the land of Naboth. His vineyard is the whole reason this trouble started to begin with. Ahab wanted it, Jezebel killed for it, and God pronounced the death penalty on their whole family, which J-Who is here to enact. He kills both kings, then he goes after Jezebel. She gets dressed up for the occasion. It seems like she wants to look lovely when she dies. Maybe this is where she gets the reputation of being a loose woman?

After all, everybody knows you can't trust a woman wearing eye shadow for crying out loud. She yells out the window and compares J-Hoot to Zimri, Israel's seven-day king who killed King Omri. She's basically saying J-Hoot might get away with what he's trying to do, but that his kingdom won't last long. And she's calling him a murderer. That's ironic. But J-Hoot yells out and asks, who's with me? And two or three Unix give him a head nod, then he tells him to throw her out the window. And she dies in exactly the way Elijah prophesied she would. Then J. who goes after the remaining descendants of Ahab.

He sends a letter to tell the people to appoint Ahab's best descendant as King. But the elders of the land are like, no, thank you, sir, we've seen what you do to kings. So he replies, okay, so are you with me then? And he also adds a really tricky line in there that could be interpreted two completely different ways. In 10-6, he says, if you are on my side and if you are ready to obey me, take the heads of your master's sons and come to meet me at Jezreel tomorrow at this time. This could mean, bring your leaders with you when you come, or it could mean, behead your leaders and bring me the proof when you come. He didn't clarify what he meant, but it was a good test of their loyalty. They did the latter. J.H.H. who absorbs any guilt

of this act and reminds the people that this has all been done according to the prophecy of Elijah, the Word of God. Jehu continues this mission until it's complete, and it may seem extreme because it is, but this is all part of God's covenant with these people. Jehu is aiming to destroy all the worshipers of Baal. In order to do this, he uses some cunning techniques. He pretends to worship Baal and calls everyone to join him. He does this so he can weed out and spare any true

servants of Yahweh. He doesn't want to accidentally kill them when he's on his mission. After he kills all the Baal worshippers, he destroys their pagan temple and turns it into an outhouse. Archaeologists uncovered that 3,000-year-old toilet a few years ago. We'll link to a story about it with pictures in today's show notes. Despite all this, he still leaves those two golden calves up in Dan and Bethel. What is going on with those things? God promises to bless J.H.H. who even though he's not as thorough with the idle demolishing as he was with the people demolishing.

And his heart eventually goes astray too. The hardest enemies to defeat are the idols in our own hearts. During his reign, Israel begins to lose wars and land. Jehu reigns for 28 years, which is a lot longer than Jezebel suggested his last. Meanwhile, back in the South, remember seven-year-old Joe Ashash who replaced the so-called Queen of Judah, Atholaya?

We revisited that story today. Jehoieta the priest had raised Joash and anointed him as king. Then Jehoieta established lots of reforms, including tearing down the alters to Baal, and the people rejoiced. What was your God shot today? We didn't see God show up much in the text today, except that it kept pointing out that all this was happening to fulfill the word of the Lord.

He's there in the cunning words of ways in Jahu. He's there in the appropriately located battle in the Balths of Inyard. He's there with the unix in the tower alongside Jezebel. He's there working out his plan through all of these acts. As terrible as they are, they're never less than righteous and just. When we zoom out on him and his plans,

we also see the wickedness and waywardness of a rebellious people. And we're reminded of how he has abundantly, generously, provided for them in the past, but they go their own way. Even when he's not in the foreground, he's always in the background, and he's where the joy is. We don't want to just help you read the Bible. We want to help you study the Bible, and we want to help you engage with others about what you're reading. So we've built out two tools that we hope will help you, and they work together perfectly.

The first tool is a daily study guide. This is designed for you to do on your own. There are roughly five questions a day to help you dig into the text and learn more on your own while you're reading. These questions tend to focus more on research and study, and we've left a space for you to write in the guide itself. The second tool is the weekly discussion guide. It has about ten questions per week, and there are totally different questions from the Daily Study Guide. But again, they work

together perfectly. The weekly discussion questions are more reflective and they'll help guide your group through a conversation that will build relationships as you work through Scripture together. To get your copies of these or see sample pages of each, check out the store link at the BibleRecap.com or click the link in the show notes. at thebibelrecap.com or click the link in the show notes.