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Discussions Prophets and Writings

2nd Kings 11: Fall of the House of Ahab

Yehu (Jehu) was told by God to kill all of the male’s of Ahab’s family line. He was able to do that in Israel, but he had no control over the land of Yehudah (Judah). Why are there descendants of Ahab in Yehudah? Despite the confusion about God that Ahab had spread in the northern kingdom of Israel, one of his descendants, Yoash (Joash), actually rolled back some of that damage early in his life.

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Discussions Prophets and Writings

2nd Kings 9: Meaning of ‘peace’ shown in death of King Ahab’s line

It was Ahab’s house that was asking for peace, but they were asking for physical peace, not God’s peace. God does not like the world’s definition of peace, which is, “Leave me alone! I enjoy my miserable life.” When someone is at war with God and they are about to see God’s sword coming down on them, they will ask for “peace.” But in this account, they were lying.

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Discussions Prophets and Writings

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

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.

This chapter 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.

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Discussions Prophets and Writings

1st Kings 22: End of Ahab’s life

In 1st Kings 22, we read about the final events that lead up to Ahab’s death. For those of us who are trying to walk a righteous life, the mistake and foibles of the unrighteous can still provide us powerful lessons, including the danger of making promises in haste and only listening to part of God’s instruction rather than all of it, but probably the most important lesson from this final chapter of Ahab’s life is that God does not need 400 voices to teach you His truth. He only needs one.

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Discussions Prophets and Writings

1st Kings 21: Eliyahu’s only goal: Teach Israel who God is

It had been 70 years since Israel had any exposure to the temple in Yerushalayim (Jerusalem) and to God. Eliyahu (Elijah) is starting from scratch with them. Eliyahu’s story is God’s message to Israel. It’s all tied together. Eliyahu’s interactions with Ahab and Yezebel (Jezebel) dominate the story but the purpose of these interactions were to teach the people of Israel about God.

We can see here how Israel has progressed in their knowledge of God and His law since Eliyahu started his ministry.

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Discussions Prophets and Writings

1st Kings 20: Eliyahu has second and third lessons for Ahab and Israel about God

Whether the children of the Northern Tribes had forgotten God on accident or on purpose, the result has been the same: apostasy. Eliyahu (Elijah) had an uphill battle trying to reintroduce God to the children of Israel.

Ahab had a soft-spot for evil, both physical (Ben-Hadad) and spiritual (Yezebel). But as we read later on, Ahab started to learn that God is above him.

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Discussions Prophets and Writings

Eliyahu of YHWH challenges Ahab and Yezebel of Ba’al and Asherah (1st Kings 18)

The clash on Mt. Carmel between Eliyahu (Elijah) and the priests of Ba’al was part of bigger clash between a rebellious king of the northern kingdom, Ahab, and his foreign queen, Yezebel (Jezebel), and her false gods.

Among the prophets of the north who Eliyahu saves from the purge of YHWH’s servants was ObidaYah (Obidaiah), possibly the same one who wrote a short book of the Bible.