In 2 Kings 1 we find Elijah’s encounter with King Ahaziah and his three Captains of Fifty. Ahaziah was crippled by recent injures and sent men to consult a pagan god. Elijah intercepted his messengers and sent them back with a question and a judgement: “Is it because there is no God in Israel that you are going off to consult Baal-Zebub, the god of Ekron? Therefore, this is what the Lord says: ‘You will not leave the bed you are lying on. You will certainly die!” So, Ahaziah sent for Elijah to be brought to him.At the end of this story 103 people are dead. Verse 15 indicates the gravity of the situation – from beginning to end – for Elijah: “The angel of the LORD said to Elijah, “Go down with him; do not be afraid of him.” So he arose and went down with him to the king.” Until the angel of the Lord told him to go, certain death awaited Elijah at the hands of King Ahaziah. The Captains and their men were sent to march a ‘Prophet of God’ to his death. They knew who and what he was. No one concerned was an unsuspecting soldier ‘just carrying out orders.’ When the first Captain told Elijah, “O man of God, the king says, ‘Come down,” it was not a request from a King to a prophet of God, it was an act of disdain for the authority of the God of Israel. Elijah confirms this by calling for God’s judgement: ““If I am a man of God, let fire come down from heaven and consume you and your fifty.” Then fire came down from heaven and consumed him and his fifty.”The second Captain of Fifty ignored the obvious, said the same thing, and suffered the same fate; fire from God consumed them, too.The third Captain had sense enough to believe the obvious. He fell on his knees and begged for his life and those of his men. He had worked out that which King Ahaziah refused to acknowledge: That there was indeed a God in Israel! All they had to do was ask.(johnstaiger1@gmail.com)
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