Bad Theology

Text for today: II Kings ii-xvii

After suffering a fall, King Ahaziah sends messengers to ask the god of Ekron whether he will recover. The angel of God orders Elijah to intercept the messengers and tell them to inform Ahaziah that he will die from his injuries because he has consulted the wrong deity. The king sends two units of fifty soldiers with their captains, who find Elijah on top of a hill, and Elijah calls down fire to consume all the men. A third captain asks for the lives of himself and his men, and Elijah condescends to go with him and deliver his message of doom in person.

Since a sparrow cannot fall to earth without God's approval, presumably Ahaziah harboured a shrewd suspicion as to Who was ultimately responsible for his little accident. Nevertheless,the Father's vanity is outraged by the king's understandable decision to consult someone other than the source of his affliction, and in the eyes of God's worshippers the name of the deity of Ekron remains notoriously demonic to this day. Rather than sending His messenger straight to the king, God has Elijah perch on a hilltop and burns a hundred and two men to death because their captains neglect to grovel when asking him to come down. It was no doubt the memory of such brutal, ostentatious and vindictive displays of power which caused a later generation to see Elijah's reincarnation in Jesus of Nazareth.