2nd Kings 3: Moab illustrates that wages of rebellion against God are fear and death

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There are many strange details in 2nd Kings 3, but the backstory is a rebellion of the ancient kingdom of Moab that roped in the northern and southern kingdoms of Israel and Edom to the southeast.

“Now Moab rebelled against Israel after the death of Ahab.” (2nd Kings 1:1)

Ahab, king of the northern kingdom of Israel, and his first-born son were dead, and we meet his younger son Yehoram (Jehoram) who is now the king of Israel. Moab’s rebellion started when Yehoram’s brother was king. Moab’s rebellion is continuing in 2nd Kings 3, two years after Ahaziah’s death. 

This is how Yehoram is introduced to us:

“He did evil in the sight of the LORD, though not like his father and his mother; for he put away the sacred pillar of Baal which his father had made.” (2nd Kings 3:2)

When Ahab died, Yehoram stopped the worship of Ba’al that had been set up as worship for Ahab, this was not because Yehoram repented and started worshiping God. Yehoram’s cessation of Ba’al worship was actually done to acknowledge Ahab’s death and to institute a time of mourning in Israel for Ahab. 

How do we know that Yehoram did not repent? We see it in the next verse:

“Nevertheless, he clung to the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, which he made Israel sin; he did not depart from them.” (2nd Kings 3:3)

The sin of Jeroboam was to put God’s Tetragrammaton (Hebrew four-letter name) on the golden calves — the “god” Yehoram worshiped. Yehoram may have been “better” than Ahab, but barely. 

Moab is still in rebellion against Israel and so Yehoram goes to Jehoshaphat, king of Yehudah (Judah) to ask him to help Israel take down Moab’s rebellion. 

Yehoshaphat said:

“And he said, ‘I will go up; I am as you are, my people as your people, my horses as your horses.'” (2nd Kings 3:7)

Here we see Yehoshaphat (Jehoshaphat) making the same mistake he made when he made the allegiance with Ahab that got Ahab killed a few years earlier. This is Yehoshaphat’s shortcoming: his willingness to make alliances with Israel. 

Why was Jehoshaphat willing to make alliances with the Ahab and Yehoram? In 2nd Chronicles 20, we see why. This incident happened before Moab’s rebellion. The prophet was ready to prophesy when the musicians and singers were worshiping the LORD. We see the same thing happen later in this story when Elisha called for a musician to come to worship God for him to receive God’s prophetic word. The spiritual mindset of the people matters. It is not easy to hear the small voice of God when we are focused on ourselves. We can hear Him easier when we are focused on Him, not on ourselves. 

Their plan to go to war with Moab through Edom was clever because Moab would not have expected a battle from that front. 

So when Yehoram offered  Jehoshaphat the opportunity to pay back Moab for what happened earlier in his reign, as recorded in 2nd Chronicles 20, he readily took it. 

So without consulting the Lord, Jehoshaphat entered this covenant with Israel and Edom and they all set off to war. 

But it didn’t start very well: “… they made a circuit of seven days’ journey, and there was no water for the army or for the cattle that followed them” (2nd Kings 3:9). Yehoram said twice, “Alas! For the LORD has called these three kings to give them into the hand of Moab” (2nd Kings 3:10). Yehoram is scared of an enemy that is not even there because he is in rebellion and iniquity against the Lord.

“The wicked flee when no one is pursuing, but the righteous are bold as a lion.” (Prov. 28:1)

Yehoram was scared and fearful. Jehoshaphat was not scared and fearful because, although he was not perfect, he was righteous. 

The wages of rebellion is death. Ahab died for his rebellion, Ahaziah died for his rebellion and that is the punishment that Yehoram wanted to inflict on Moab. 

Elisha shows up and advises the three kings to make troughs of water and they and their cattle were refreshed. Moab noticed the water and thought it was blood because there had been no rain to fill up those troughs. Moab assumed that since the three kings of  Yehudah, Israel and Edom were not good friends, they would have turned and killed each other so they approached the enemy camp unarmed so they could carry off more spoils, which was a big mistake because Yehudah, Edom and Israel slaughtered them. 

God turned death into life. 

We read that God told them to cut down Moab’s fruit trees because Israel was not to inherit or keep Moab’s land. It was a punishment because the people of Moab were so horrid. 

When the king of Moab realized he was outnumbered, he set out to attack the king of Edom, not Yehudah or Israel, which is odd. Maybe he thought Edom was the weaker link. 

The reason the King of Edom joined the fight is because the King of Moab had his son hostage. 

The English translation of 2nd Kings 3:27 seems to imply that the king of Moab sacrificed his own first-born son as a burnt offering. It also seems on the surface, that this worked. But that is not how 2nd Kings 3:27 reads in the Hebrew.

In Hebrew, this story is far, far worse because the king of Moab does not sacrifices his own son as a burnt sacrifice but the son of the king of Edom. We don’t when or how the Edomite crown prince came to be held hostage by Moab, but this was an act of terrorism, not an act of worship or desperation. 

When the king of Edom saw his son sacrificed on Moab’s wall, it was Edom’s wrath that came upon Israel, not God’s wrath. Israel lost their reason to fight and Edom lost their heir. 

Moab fixed Edom’s rebellion by killing Edom’s crown prince. Edom lost the will to fight Moab after that. 

The Moabites were awful people but that land still belong to them. The Israelites and Yehudahites cut down the fruit trees and put stones on the land to make it inhospitable but they were not to live there themselves. 

If Yehoram had asked God how to fix Moab’s rebellion and not doing it himself, Edom’s crown prince might have not died. It was rebellion for Israel to fix a rebellion that was not theirs to fix. Moab’s rebellion against Ahab was not a bad thing, Ahab was an abhorrent king. 

Amos 2:1 explains 2nd Kings 3:27 quite a bit. Edom’s wrath also came upon Yehudah in the aftermath of this battle because as far as Edom was concerned, Yehoshaphat and Yehoram were the same.

So, 2nd Kings 3 helps illustrate apostle Paul’s teaching that the “wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23). In this case, the wages of Moab’s rebellion was death.

Speaker: Daniel Agee. Summary: Tammy.