Don't Know Much About the Bible - Kenneth C. Davis [89]
Unhappy with the decimation of her priests, Jezebel threatened to kill Elijah, who escaped back into the wilderness. Jezebel’s capacity for evil was then illustrated in a story in which she trumped up a false charge against a neighbor who owned a vineyard that Jezebel’s husband, King Ahab, wanted. Using witnesses she had bribed, Jezebel had the neighbor, Naboth, convicted of blasphemy and he was stoned to death. Ahab took Naboth’s vineyard for himself.
Ahab and Jezebel were cursed horribly by Elijah, who told the king that dogs would eat Jezebel and anyone belonging to Ahab. Sure enough, when Ahab died in battle, the biblical account of his life ends with dogs licking the blood from his chariot and “prostitutes washing themselves in it.”
Who was Baal-zebub?
When Ahab’s son and successor, Ahaziah, fell from a balcony, he asked a god named Baal-zebub if he would recover. Baal-zebub (also translated as Beelzebub) is a pun on the Canaanite name meaning “Lord Baal,” “Baal the Prince” or “lord of the divine abode.” In Hebrew, it is mockingly translated as “lord of the flies,” or in Aramaic, “lord of dung.” In later times, Beelzebub (or Beelzebul) became identified with Satan, and in the New Testament Jesus is accused of casting out demons on the authority of Beelzebul, the ruler of demons.
When Elijah the prophet tells Ahaziah that he will die from his injuries, the king sends his guard to kill the prophet, but heavenly fire destroys the soldiers.
Soon after this episode, Elijah is taken up to heaven, only the second biblical figure besides Enoch in Genesis to be taken directly to heaven, and his mantle is taken up by his disciple Elisha:
There appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, and parted them both asunder; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven. (2 Kings 2:11 KJV)
Is mocking a bald man any reason to kill children?
After the death of the prophet Elijah, his mantle was passed—literally—to Elisha, who emerged as the next leader of a “company of prophets,” a powerful force in court politics of the day. Unlike priests, these prophets were itinerants who roamed the countryside, sometimes in bands. While some achieved a high degree of power and influence with the rulers of the time, many of the prophets were viewed as troublemakers. Besides the similarities in the names of Elijah and Elisha, there are numerous parallels of miracles performed by these two prophets in the biblical account. It seems likely that stories of the two men may have been confused and merged by later writers.
Elisha’s first miracle was to purify a spring at Jericho (still called Elisha’s Fountain). But the account of Elisha’s second “miracle” is more troubling. When some boys came out of the town to make fun of his bald head, Elisha cursed them in God’s name. Two she-bears emerged from the woods and mauled forty-two of the boys.
They weren’t the only children to die in this biblical episode. During a battle between the allied forces of Israel, Judah, and Edom against Moab, the king of Moab offered his son as a burnt sacrifice in the midst of the fighting. Impressed by this horrifying act, the forces of Israel withdrew, but would suffer for allowing this human sacrifice to sway them in battle against God’s direct orders.
Unlike Elijah, and later prophets who were often viewed as gadflies and thorns in the royal side, Elisha and his