Transcript
A (0:00)
Foreign. Hey, this is a year in the Bible with daily grace. This is Shelby and Paul. Today we are jumping into the Book of Two Kings. And so if you've been following along with us, you know that One Kings is really just continuing on into this second book, Second Kings. But Paul, we'd still love if you could give us just a little bit of an intro since we're starting a new book.
B (0:28)
Yeah. So like you said, there's a lot of continuity here, and I've mentioned this before, but first and Second Kings were once one book, or they are considered one book in the Hebrew Bible. And so it's usually considered to be one author that wrote the whole thing. But what we're going to see here is in 2 Kings, an increasing deterioration of these two kingdoms. And so that's kind of the big theme from 2 Kings that's not as present in 1st Kings. And then also we're going to see a whole lot more of Elisha, particular narratives of Elisha doing prophetic activity throughout the kingdoms. So.
A (1:03)
Yeah, great. So I know that there's a really peculiar story in this book.
B (1:10)
Yes.
A (1:10)
Can you walk us through that? Because it might have been alarming to read if you haven't read it before. It's definitely difficult to understand, but involves Elisha, a group of young kids and bears.
B (1:23)
Yes. Yeah. So the context for this comes from chapter two. So we have what's basically this narrative of passing the torch from Elijah to Elisha, where the mantle of prophecy passes to Elisha, and Elijah actually ascends into heaven and doesn't really die necessarily. He ascends kind of like Enoch in Genesis. And so that's essential context here. And there's another piece of important context in 2 Kings 1:8 that describes Elijah's appearance as being a hairy man with a leather belt around his waist. So then we get Elijah's mantle passing to Elisha. And so he encounters these youths when he's on his way back from Jericho to Mount Carmel, and he's at Bethel. And if we remember, Bethel was one of the central places in the Northern kingdom of pagan worship. So there's probably not a whole lot of people that are really, like, committed to Yahweh here. And so when the youths come out and call Elijah bald, bald, which is kind of funny to our modern consciences, this wouldn't have been an attack on, like, his manliness or even his appearance. Instead, it's actually saying, you're not in the line of Elijah. It's basically denying that he is actually the true Prophet, because Elijah was hairy, so you're bald, so you're clearly not the next prophet. And the interesting thing is Elijah, Elisha probably would have been wearing some kind of head covering. So it's kind of. It's meant to be more of a direct attack on his prophetic ministry here.