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It has been a while (primarily due to the hiatus) since I last checked in on my 2025 Bible reading. I am still keeping up with the readings, and currently find myself in the divided kingdom era of Israel (and Judah)’s history. I’m posting because a recent reading had me actually laugh out loud, likely because this is the first time I read through it where it finally clicked what was happening. Before I jump in, here are a few verses about laughter (good laughter):
A merry heart makes a cheerful countenance,
But by sorrow of the heart the spirit is broken.
A merry heart does good, like medicine,
But a broken spirit dries the bones.
Then our mouth was filled with laughter,
And our tongue with singing.
Then they said among the nations,
“The Lord has done great things for them.”
[Obviously, one disclaimer I would provide about the above verses, especially the ones from Proverbs, is that most of these verses have flip-side truths, in this case a half-verse about laughter followed by a half-verse about sorrow or pain. My focus today is on laughter, not sorrow or pain.]
One of my goals from reading through the Bible this year is to find things in the Word that jump out to me that haven’t really jumped out before. Today’s passage from 2 Kings 1 does that. To set the scene:
1.) After the death of the most evil king of northern Israel, King Ahab, his son, King Ahaziah (who was still quite evil in his own right, er, wrong) assumed the throne.
2.) Because Ahaziah was evil, he did not inquire of the Lord when he had an accident that left him injured:
Now Ahaziah fell through the lattice of his upper room in Samaria, and was injured; so he sent messengers and said to them, “Go, inquire of Baal-Zebub, the god of Ekron, whether I shall recover from this injury.” 2 Kings 1:2, NKJV
3.) God told the prophet Elijah what was happening:
But the angel of the Lord said to Elijah the Tishbite, “Arise, go up to meet the messengers of the king of Samaria, and say to them, ‘Is it because there is no God in Israel that you are going to inquire of Baal-Zebub, the god of Ekron?’ Now therefore, thus says the Lord: ‘You shall not come down from the bed to which you have gone up, but you shall surely die.’ ” So Elijah departed. 2 Kings 1:3-4, NKJV
4.) Somewhere in there, Ahaziah’s messengers, who had been out, had run into Elijah who had told them the above. Immediately thereafter, these messengers returned to the king who was very surprised to see them back so soon:
And when the messengers returned to him, he said to them, “Why have you come back?” 2 Kings 1:5, NKJV
5.) Here, these messengers explain that they ran into Elijah who had given them the message to bring back to the king:
So they said to him, “A man came up to meet us, and said to us, ‘Go, return to the king who sent you, and say to him, “Thus says the Lord: ‘Is it because there is no God in Israel that you are sending to inquire of Baal-Zebub, the god of Ekron? Therefore you shall not come down from the bed to which you have gone up, but you shall surely die.’ ” ’ ”
Then he said to them, “What kind of man was it who came up to meet you and told you these words?”
So they answered him, “A hairy man wearing a leather belt around his waist.”
And he said, “It is Elijah the Tishbite.”
This next section is the part that caused me to laugh out loud:
9 Then the king sent to him a captain of fifty with his fifty men. So he went up to him; and there he was, sitting on the top of a hill. And he spoke to him: “Man of God, the king has said, ‘Come down!’ ”
10 So Elijah answered and said to the captain of fifty, “If I am a man of God, then let fire come down from heaven and consume you and your fifty men.” And fire came down from heaven and consumed him and his fifty. 11 Then he sent to him another captain of fifty with his fifty men.
And he answered and said to him: “Man of God, thus has the king said, ‘Come down quickly!’ ”
12 So Elijah answered and said to them, “If I am a man of God, let fire come down from heaven and consume you and your fifty men.” And the fire of God came down from heaven and consumed him and his fifty.
13 Again, he sent a third captain of fifty with his fifty men. And the third captain of fifty went up, and came and fell on his knees before Elijah, and pleaded with him, and said to him: “Man of God, please let my life and the life of these fifty servants of yours be precious in your sight. 14 Look, fire has come down from heaven and burned up the first two captains of fifties with their fifties. But let my life now be precious in your sight.”
15 And 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.
There have been so many times that I have read through parts in the Bible where I’ve simply glossed over it, including times when I thought I was reading it intently but it still was not sticking in my memory. This is the third time I’ve made it this far in a yearlong Bible reading plan, so this may be only the third time I’ve actually read a passage like this.
What got me laughing is how God was able to humble the evil king and vindicate Elijah. (Of course He’s able!) Earlier, when Ahaziah’s father Ahab was king of Northern Israel, God tasked Elijah with confronting him over killing all His prophets and demonstrating how the God of the Bible is the one and only true God. The Lord showed up, big-time, but it resulted in Ahab’s wife Jezebel being utterly possessed to kill Elijah, which had him running for his life. Now older, although God showed up and proved Himself to Israel yet again, I imagine Elijah was beyond frustrated at the persistent utter lack of any repentance whatsoever regarding the northern kingdom turning back to the Lord. I sense there was a sort of fleshly “I'm done with you” attitude toward the northern kingdom, except for the fact that God had not given up on them and as such Elijah couldn’t either. As such, when evil king Ahaziah had sent the first two companies of soldiers and had the gall to call Elijah a “man of God” when there clearly was no reverence, Elijah saw directly through their nonsense, cursed them to death, and God delivered. The fact that this needed to happen two times only shows the depth of the arrogance that not only the king but the people had for the Lord and for His anointed. It was only by the third time that someone finally figured out that they needed to approach Elijah differently.
My wife and I both have our own stories of having to deal with and suffer under arrogant, selfish people. We both share a deep frustration when we have seen the wicked have their way, including with each of us, in the past. We both have asked the question repeatedly, when will justice come? Or even, will justice ever come?
Recently, my wife had a colleague who had been repeatedly berating her and belittling her, only for that colleague to quit without a job lined up upon realizing that the bosses would not cater to their every whim (or really, any whim). [It’s a very small company.] The irony was, this colleague was indeed very good at their job and very likely helped play a role in keeping the company afloat in the early days. As such, they very likely had had the highest favor from the bosses. But as the company began to grow, the colleague's nastiness began to spread to other operations and departments. The bosses noticed but still gave them every chance. It wasn't until right at the very end, when it became clear that no agreement that satisfied the colleague would be reached, that upon leaving they decided to verbally torch everyone and torpedo any chance of getting good references. (Did I mention this colleague left without another job lined up?)
Similarly, last year after my wife and I married and began adjusting to independent life (a life which did not come without its bruises), I got word that both my former housemates and the relative that we are convinced strongly influenced them to kick us out even when our financial future was uncertain, even despite our best planning and other efforts, they all had strange and extracurricular challenging circumstances happen with them in the months that followed. Out of respect for them, I won’t go into what those were, but I will say that these were the types of things that in the years I’ve known them, they had not had to go through at any other time.
I’m not going to say I envy Elijah -- primarily because envy is a sin and I must learn to be grateful and content with what God has given me -- but I will share that, knowing what Ahab and Jezebel put him through, it felt very cathartic for me to read of him (in the midst of his righteous anger at northern Israel's current king and company) calling on the name of the Lord to destroy them -- and then said destruction promptly happening. Twice. And then the third time proved that the message was received: “do not be arrogant with this man or treat him disrespectfully.” (The key, of course being that Elijah was in complete 100% submission to the Lord, and that because of it, any disrespect toward Elijah was really disrespect toward God.)
So for anyone who has been through trials, tribulations, being made fun of, being made low, being disregarded (whether ignored or controlled/manipulated), it is any wonder that 2 Kings 1:9-15 would also make you laugh the kind of laughter that is cathartic?
Laughter is good medicine. The Word of God can be cathartic sometimes.
For I was envious of the boastful,
When I saw the prosperity of the wicked.
When I thought how to understand this,
It was too painful for me—
Until I went into the sanctuary of God;
Then I understood their end.
