2 Kings 2 - 7

Speaker 1 00:00:15 Welcome to the weekly deep dive podcast on the add on education network, the podcast where we take a look at the week to come follow me discussion and try to add a little insight and unique perspective. I am your host here in the studio with my friend of the shows producer, Nate Piper. What's up Nate? It's uh, it's been a little while. I know, sorry for everybody that we're coming in a little late this week. My, my fault. So I, I had a quick trip to North Carolina this last weekend that ended up turning into a business trip that kind of blew out to a longer, quick trip. So I just trying to get it squeezed in there. We couldn't make it happen. So this was coming a little bit late, but it's good to be back. It's good to be recording. Speaker 1 00:01:00 It is good to be back and recording. What are we talking about this week? This week? We're talking about the Ascension of Elijah, Elijah or Elijah, Elijah. Okay. And, and the, I always get the team. Yeah, the, the, the rise, I guess you can say if Ascension means rise, it's also the Ascension of Elijah, but differently, right? He's not ascending into heaven. He's ascending into the role that Elijah vacates for him. And, and if I say this funny, and if I've said this funny in the past, my apologies, uh, I served my mission to Mexico, Spanish speaking, and, and they always say Elis and Elijah and Elijah are so similar. The J versus Shah, almost the same word. And, and somehow with that, that I, in Spanish being an E I picked up saying Alicia, the, the distinguish between the two and, and even now saying that sounds weird, Alicia Elisha, okay. Speaker 1 00:02:01 Anyhow, two very different names. Elijah is Yahoo, which means my God is Jehovah. And Alicia. Eli means my God is salvation. So two, two very different names, but they've come so close. They sound so similar. And we'll be talking about mostly Elijah today. Some very interesting stories and some very interesting questions I think are gonna be brought up here that, that we can answer before we dive in too far into that though. I just wanted, if, if this is appropriate, Nate, give a quick shout out to Emily Creo. She invited me on her podcast and this is gonna be, uh, she, she asked us to cover Isaiah 40 through 49 with her. So it's probably gonna come out a little bit later this year, but, uh, to catch some of her content, she has a podcast to know him CFM or to know him, come follow me. So, so give her a listen. I really appreciated, uh, the opportunity to record with her and work with her. It was a, a pleasure, a fun experience and good recording. Speaker 2 00:03:04 Sweet. Speaker 1 00:03:05 All right. Is there anything else we needed to hit before we Speaker 2 00:03:07 Start? When we corrected date from last podcast, Speaker 1 00:03:09 That was it. So immediately upon recording, as, as we got home, this was something that was just kicking me. I, I said in the podcast that Elijah came to the Gentiles on April 6th, 1830, which is the day the church was restored. Obviously it was not that day. The day he came to the Gentiles. In this case, the Curtland temple to Joseph Smith was after the dedication of the Curtland temple, April 3rd, 1836. So excuse me for, for the date mix up. That's been, that's been grinding on my nerves ever since I said it. My apologies. Speaker 2 00:03:51 We still trust you after that quick edit that you, none of you listening will even know what was said or what I had to edit out. Let's keep moving. Speaker 1 00:04:00 It felt as awkward as it sounded. Speaker 2 00:04:02 Yep. Speaker 1 00:04:03 Okay. Speaker 2 00:04:04 We can say that when the, uh, when, when things aren't recording, mm-hmm <affirmative> okay. Let's keep going. Speaker 1 00:04:09 All right. This is going into Elijah and this story starts off and we're, we're picking up in second Kings chapter two with Elijah going and, and running a couple errands, talking to the sons of the prophets in Jericho and, and Elijah following behind him, like a little lost puppy dog, and Elijah keeps trying to get him to go home and, and telling him to stop following him. And, and I think that's a fair, honest question. Why is Elijah so adamant that Elijah not follow him? And, and why is it still counted righteous to Elijah, to continued following a prophet that can, that, that continually tells him to leave. He's he's disobeying a prophet, right? So why is this a good thing? And, and I think it's fair question. What's going to happen here and what everybody knows. In fact, the, even the sons of the prophets are trying to talk Elijah out of this act, they're saying, do you not know that this is the day Elijah is going to ascend into heaven? There's going to be a storm. Elijah is going to be playing Pacos bill here, riding a twister up into the, the beyond. This is not a very safe activity to be participating in. Speaker 2 00:05:36 Oh, Speaker 1 00:05:36 I think, I think part of Elijah is concerned for Elijah and, and going into a storm, knowing that this is not the safest of places to be, but also Elijah's following him because he asks something important from Elijah. He asks for a double portion. And, and I like that it says that a double portion, because the role of a double portion is what you give to the first born in a family. And we've talked about the first born throughout the podcast. I don't, I don't want to go into too much detail through, through it here. Uh, but suffice it to say, when a father leaves an inheritance to his family, you you've got the, the women in the family get married and their husband is going to provide an inheritance for them, their land and, and take care of it. And they're gonna be part of their family. Speaker 1 00:06:30 The sons are gonna receive an inheritance from their parents, but if they have any sisters that are UNW, they are lost in the mix. They, they need to be taken care of. So the father gives a double portion to the first born son, not as like, Hey, here's a bunch of, of wealth and status, but as a responsibility, a burden, a charge to take care of his unwed sisters, to be like the father and continue to, to provide and take care of that family and build that and bring that extra responsibility on. Perfect. And I find that it's fascinating in this case with Israel, because Israel, as we know the story with Elijah and Ahab has gone somewhat apostate. The thing is if Israel is leaving the Lord's care, because they're turning to worship foreign gods. Now here, you have an UNW wife. If you look at a woman in her relationship with Jehovah as a covenant marriage relationship, and they've turned away, it's almost like in this family, you have an UN UNW sisters or wife that he needs to be taken care of. Speaker 1 00:07:38 And as a prophet, you're taking that burden to try to restore Israel or help Israel, or take care of Israel in the absence of, of a husband. So it's kind of interesting that Elijah is asking for this double portion, he knows kind of what he's getting into. And he knows how Ahab has been with the king and how historically Northern Israel has been that these Kings and these prophets that we're focusing on are the Northern kingdom as opposed to Judah in the south. So that's, that was his request. And Elijah is telling him, that's not mine to give you. I'm not the father in this relationship. I'm not the one that hands out the inheritance. That's not up to me. And, and to make it clear up to God, he tells him if at the time I go up, you see me and you see what's going on. Speaker 1 00:08:34 Then we'll know that God has chosen you. And I will cast my garment down to you. And you can receive that mantle, that portion, that responsibility, and, and he becomes that successor, but it's not clear. Even Elijah is hesitant to, as, as he's alive, to make it clear to everybody else that I am passing this mantle on to Elijah, which is going to explain some of the ambiguity is Elijah. Elijah is returning from this incident and as the sons of the prophets and everyone else start to question whether or not he has that responsibility. So they go on their way. Elijah hits the water with this mantle, the water parts, cool story. And we've talked about parting the seas. We don't need to talk about it here. Now they get to where he's gonna be ascended. He goes up and Elijah sees, it's not just a storm, he's in a chariot of fire. Speaker 1 00:09:28 And then Elijah throws the mantle down and he receives it. He goes back and strikes the water and it parts for him. And here we see the succession and the rise of him filling this role. But as he goes back to the sons of the prophets, they're saying, look, maybe Elijah's still alive. You shouldn't be taking this responsibility on. He got carried up in a storm, but maybe he's somewhere in the mountains. We need to send a search party, make sure he's okay. And much to Elijah saying no, no. Finally he relents and they send out 50 men and they can't find him anywhere. And so the Jews kind of get this legend that Elijah, he got carried up, but he will be returning <affirmative>. Speaker 1 00:10:10 Now we get to one of the more curious stories in the Bible. It says in second Kings that there is a group and they call it of little children who start mark mocking, Elijah, as he's returning. And they say, go up th bald head go up. Th bald head Elisha turns looks at them and curses them. And two, she bears come out of the woods and tears 42 of them apart. That seems a little harsh for a bunch of school kids out on the playground, making fun of some prophet as he goes by like, Hey, respect your elders. That seems like a hard way to teach that lesson. <laugh> I, I think it's, oh, kids can be annoying, man. I, I still think it's a valid lesson. We should respect our elders. Particularly the Lord's anointed. Don't speak evil of them, but there's something more going on here. Speaker 1 00:11:05 What you have is not a story of little children. The Hebrew word for little in this case means insignificant, uh, useless, worthless. And, and so you, it could be deme as little children, but more, more likely it's these people were menacing to society. And when they say children, the word R is the same Hebrew word they used to describe the man that raped Dina. It means youthful youthful in the sense that he's looking for a bride. In this case, you have young men and these young men are a menace, useless to society. They are being critical and they're not, they're not supportive. They're not supporting the profit. And when they say go up, this is a reference to how Elijah went up in a chariot of fire. And they're saying, if you went up in a whirlwind, if you're as good as him, why don't you go up too? Speaker 1 00:12:02 Cuz we don't want you here. Go, go, go ride, go play Paco, spill somewhere else. Cuz we don't want you. And the last thing is when they're saying bald, this is saying without the hair and remember in Elijah chapter one in Elijah chapter one, <laugh> in second Kings chapter one, they describe Elijah as being a hairy man, not to say that he's necessarily got a ton of hair on his head, but maybe what they're doing is referring to the way that he dressed. Think of John, the Baptist who wore a hairy Raymond of, of camel's hair, gir about with leather on his loins. There is some Jewish traditions describing a special garment that they wore as a symbol of their priesthood authority. And they're challenging that priesthood authority and saying, you, you don't have that authority. You don't have the hair. That's what they're meaning by this. If you did just right up into a whirlwind to be gone. Speaker 2 00:13:01 So they're not just being mean to an elderly person or being mean to a prophet, but they're menaces to society directly challenging his authority in a very, um, inappropriate way. Right? Speaker 1 00:13:15 That's it. Speaker 2 00:13:16 So about this bear though, I mean, it's kind of a, it's kind of a brutal ending, but I mean, I don't know is that the lesson it's just like, be very careful. Is this, is this the, uh, is this kind of the curse God and die situation here? Speaker 1 00:13:31 Well, well it's interesting cuz you have a mother bear, right? And if you're at this time of year, maybe it's springtime. Maybe you've got some young Cubs here and the mother bear is being very protective of her Cubs. So here you have this Cub, Elijah is very young. He's a new prophet and God is being very protective of his Cub here. And, and don't how, how is he going to guide Israel? How is he going to, as we talked about that double portion, take care of this and bring her back to the presence of the Lord. If you've got all of these young men who are the same age as him, his peers undermining him and, and rejecting him and challenging his authority. Speaker 2 00:14:16 Love it. Let's keep going. All right Speaker 1 00:14:19 Next, we have the story of the Northern kingdom. Having Moab rebel out from under them, they were paying their tribute a hundred thousand sheep, a hundred thousand goats with their wool. Okay. Pretty good tribute. Right? They don't wanna see that go away. Yeah. And when Moab rebels and says, we're not paying this anymore, they go to the Southern kingdom. Jehovah fat, Speaker 2 00:14:39 Wait Jho fat, Jah fat. Was he holy Speaker 1 00:14:43 Holier than thw? Speaker 2 00:14:44 No. Holy Jho fat. No, you've never heard this saying what? You've never heard the saying. Holy Jehovah Speaker 1 00:14:50 Fat. No. Okay. Speaker 2 00:14:51 Well there you go. I know that other people have, because that's a saying where's the wait, is it jumping? Jehovah fat. Holy Jehovah fat. There's something in there. Keep going. Speaker 1 00:15:00 You you've lost me name. Speaker 2 00:15:01 Nah, dude, I haven't yet. I'm looking it up right now. Keep going. Speaker 1 00:15:04 Holy Jehovah Speaker 2 00:15:05 Fat. I'm telling you that's a saying Speaker 1 00:15:07 All he was holy. Uh, he was extremely righteous. In fact, if it wasn't for him, Elijah would've uh, Elijah, if it wasn't for him, the Northern kingdom would've perished. Speaker 2 00:15:20 Dang it. It's jumping Jehovah fat Speaker 1 00:15:22 Jumping Jho fat. Speaker 2 00:15:24 Okay. Keep going. Speaker 1 00:15:25 Okay. <laugh> Speaker 1 00:15:28 And Hey, uh, this story here. When, when Israel goes to recon Moab and they ask for Josa fat and Southern Israel or Southern kingdom Judah to help them out, they get in a bind where they don't have enough water for their support animals. If their animals die, then they don't have any food to support themselves. They die. The whole army dies. If all of the army dies, then who's gonna protect Israel and Judah. Then the kingdoms die. And if the kingdoms die, I mean that's, that's it no more Israel. So they find themselves in fairly dire circumstances and jehif fat says, do you not? Is there not a prophet of the Lord here? And they say, oh yeah, we've got Elisha. And the King's like anybody, but Elisha please. And, and so they say, let's go visit him. He'll he'll know what to do. And they visit him. Speaker 1 00:16:20 And Elijah is like, if it wasn't for Jeh ho I would ignore you and wouldn't even care. Like I could care less about you. And, and he's he had issues with his father Ahab obviously anyways, he gives them the command to go and dig trenches, which requires a large amount of faith. That's something I hope you notice throughout. All of the stories we talk about today is that the Lord doesn't just deliver them. He always requires them to do something first on a hot day in a desert area. When you have no water digging, hundreds of trenches for all of your animals is not exactly a high priority, but they do it because the prophet told them to. And they believed that they would be saved if they did it. So here they are digging all of these trenches and then the Lord fills the trenches with water, saves them, and then they're able to conquer Moab and Israel is preserved. And, and we're, we're, we're gonna talk about this maybe at the end, as we wrap this all in together, but I'm, I'm looking at how the Lord saves them. Sometimes when we need saving, it comes through a friend or a brother or someone else, even if we don't necessarily want to be saved, look at how, for the sake of Jehovah fat, for the sake of Judah, the Lord steps in and delivers Israel. I don't know if you have a take on that, Nate, Speaker 2 00:17:50 I do have a take on that. Um, jumping Jho fat actually comes from this story. Not because Jehovah fat was jumping around and in fact, Jho fat in this story is, is a very firm, right? And staying put and standing still. But the saying might be coming from the, uh, fact that he was righteous and commanded his people to pray and worship God. And in doing so might have been dancing or jumping around or whatever that worshiping thing would be like. So that's where jump Jho of fat comes from. And I'm shocked that you've never heard that saying before jumping Speaker 1 00:18:28 Jehovah Speaker 2 00:18:28 Fat jumping Jho fat. It's time to move on. Jason. Speaker 1 00:18:31 All right. The next miracle we see from Elijah is there's a, a woman whose husband was a son of the prophet. So he followed the Lord. He was obedient. He was righteous, but he also had a debt that he had incurred and he was working to pay off this debt. It's not like he, he, he, he just went into debt irresponsibly. Maybe he did. But he, he had kind of a payment plan. He was doing work and it was going back to pay the debt. Unfortunately though, before he can finish paying the debt off, he dies because he dies. And the debt is outstanding. As we read earlier in numbers, you, if you are in debt and can't pay that debt, then the consequences slavery, she's got two sons and her two sons are going to go into slavery for their father's sake. And they'll have to serve for six years on the seventh year. Speaker 1 00:19:30 They'll be able to go free. But for any mom losing their sons for six years to slavery, for something that their sons didn't do, that's, that's huge. She's devastated. So she goes to Elijah, she explains the situation to him and she asks for help. And I love Elijah's response here, because again, he doesn't say, I'll deliver you. Um, here here's the money. Let me pay for them. Let me pay your debt. Instead, he asks her, what do you have to pay that debt with? She's coming to him for a solution and he's turning it back on her. Let me help you solve this. What resources do you have available? I'm not gonna go pay that debt. I'm not gonna go put myself in debt. What do you have? Let's work with that. And, and the only thing that she has in her possession of any value is a vessel full of oil. Speaker 1 00:20:25 And then again, we have this call to faith. I want you to go and borrow as many empty vessels as you can, for as little sense as this might make. She doesn't. She goes and borrows as many vessels as she can. And then he instructs her to feel each vessel with oil until it fills up. So here she is filling all of these vessels and the oil never runs out. She's able to fill all of the vessels with oil. Then he says, go sell what you have and pay the price that your husband owed so that your sons can go free. And I see here an image of where we have two stories that are like this, this one, these sons are going into bondage, not for any fault of their own, but something that their parents had done. And the Lord is, is creating a miracle to pay that price and set them free. But he's also doing it by using the resources and magnifying what they have and, and through their own industry multiplying it. So that it'll work. The other instance, or did, did you have something you wanna say? Speaker 2 00:21:37 Yeah, I just wanted to highlight the symbolism too, of the atonement in this story, which is, again, those, the Adam fell that men might be right. The idea that that, because, because the original father fell or, or was in a debt that he couldn't pay that his children or us, right. We there's still that we, we have to pay that debt back or because of sin, we are in bondage or in slavery. But the idea that that Christ atonement for us is eternal and is, is without end, right? There's just, there's just some, you know, obviously the oil and blood references with, you know, the oil press and, and various things. But anyways, just, there's just obviously some, some kind of beautiful, subtle imagery in there of the atonement. Speaker 1 00:22:37 There's a lot here and it's beautiful in a way that sometimes people are in a situation we've talked, you know, nurture versus nature environment versus, you know, some things, the way you are raised, the way that you are well raised by your parents and, and the situation that you come from and the environment you come from, maybe you do things a certain way because you don't know any better or because that's how you were treated or because that's how you went under. And, and you look at it and say, okay, why are they behaving the way they are? They're they're under a, a, a bondage or, or, or a, a difficult situation in life, not from their own choosing, maybe, perhaps, but because of what happened before them, or how they're, or, or the situation that their parents left them. And it's not to say that the Lord's atonement doesn't apply to them to be able to save them. Speaker 1 00:23:41 The other situation that we're gonna see in bondage is a man. Who's a tree. And, and so some of the sons of the prophets say, let's go and, and build this house together and go live in this other city. And Elijah says, he'll follow him and go with him. Then as they're working, one of the laborers is chopping a tree and the acts head flies off the handle into a water. And as iron head, it sinks down to the bottom. And he says, I am undone because the ax was borrowed. So this is, this, isn't a situation that his parents left on him. This is something that he himself did. He went and put himself in debt by borrowing this. And he put himself in further debt by, by maybe being careless, not maintaining the ax, the, the head was loose and, and it flew off as he was working. Speaker 1 00:24:37 If you break or lose something that you borrowed, you have to pay restitution and restitution in the old Testament, isn't just restoring the acts, but restoring more than the acts. And this guy didn't have enough to pay for an acts in the first place his actions have now cost him a debt that he cannot repay for, for carelessness or whatever the case may be on his deal. He is now going to have to sell himself into servitude and be a slave for six years. Just like these two boys work for six years and be left off on the seventh because he can't pay his own debt. So he turns to Elijah and says, master, what do I do? That acts was borrowed. And the image of Christ stepping in on this one is very significant because Elijah goes and cuts a branch out of a tree. Speaker 1 00:25:37 And the branch, if, if we haven't talked about it, I feel like we have, but the branch is very symbolic. It is used in the old Testament, the branch as a name of Christ, as a title of him, we read on Isaiah, when it's talking about the Lord, Messian it says as a tender root, he grows up as a, a branch and dry ground as a rod and dry earth. He's he pushes out, he is a branch from the house of David. This branch is what's going to save this, this man's from being a servant. And, and the branch, you see it when Christ rides triumphantly into Jerusalem and people are lined up in having the Palm branches and, and showing them that it, and you see the branch with the rod of Aaron and it sprouts and, and shows that it, it buds cuz any branch connected to Christ. Speaker 1 00:26:33 The true branch is going to bring forth fruit and you see it Christ as the tree of life and the symbol of the manure and the garden. So this, that has a lot SIM symbolism tied back to the savior. He is the branch and through the power of the branch, the ax head's able to float and water is a symbol of tribulation, right? Drowning. Uh, when you're called to go through a lot of tribulation, uh, Joseph Smith says he, he had to swim through deep waters was his lot in life. So as you're swimming in deep waters, uh, think about the, the jits who had to cross the sea. You think of the, the knee fights who had to cross the sea. You think of baptism as a journey through life, going through tribulation, passing through these waters to get to the other side. Speaker 2 00:27:21 You've got Jonah, Speaker 1 00:27:23 You've got Speaker 2 00:27:23 Jonah who gets swallowed by the big fish who is a representative of Jesus Speaker 1 00:27:29 Of savior, pulling him out waters Speaker 2 00:27:31 In mobi, Dick. Cause we talked about that last week. Speaker 1 00:27:34 Absolutely. Speaker 2 00:27:35 Remember the, the, the great LA Leviathan is a symbol of Christ who, who saves him from the rough seas in Joan and the whale Speaker 1 00:27:44 And, and Noah who saved from the seas. Speaker 2 00:27:47 You've got Peter walking on the water, you got all of the dudes hanging out in the boat, in the middle Speaker 1 00:27:52 Of the storm on either side that he's, he's focusing in on. Yep. Speaker 2 00:27:58 A lot of water symbolism Speaker 1 00:28:00 And, and maybe it's worth a slight tangent mate. Speaker 2 00:28:04 I love slight tangents. We're doing good on time. Let's go. Let's get there. Speaker 1 00:28:08 I love the dual nature of symbolism. And we've already seen it a couple times here, just in these few passages. Water is used as, uh, the water of life, a fountain that never fells. And, and this idea that a living water, a fountain of living water, but it's also used as a symbol of tribulation, right? This acts sunk through the water and he has to pull it right and death. And, and so how can you use a symbol? So beautiful life giving as also a symbol of death? Speaker 2 00:28:46 Well, look at the look at the branch, this thing that sprouts up and gives life. But also the thing that the branch was hung on crucified, Speaker 1 00:28:56 A tree of death, a tree of knowledge that Adam and Eve per took of, and you have Christ representing life as the branch being affixed to a cross, which was a, a branch of, of a different Speaker 2 00:29:06 Nature, a dead tree, Speaker 1 00:29:07 A dead tree of death. Speaker 2 00:29:09 Yeah. Some amazing stuff in there. Speaker 1 00:29:13 And, and a, and a Hebrew insight on this. When you see a word in Hebrew that ends in, I am it's plural. We've talked about this Europe, meaning lights, thumb him, completions, perfections, um, Elohim gods. If you have it with an I M ending, it means dual Mizraim means two Egypt, the upper Egypt, lower Egypt. That's the Hebrew word for Egypt. Mizraim the Hebrew word for water is maim, which is dual. So you almost have this dual nature, even there through the waters, the, the water, it can be life giving, but also in the creation, the waters of chaos and the spirit of God breathes upon the face of the waters. But even within the creation, you have the waters bringing forth life and the animals coming from the waters and through destruction creation, you have this dual nature, you see it with the hand of God, because that same hand can be stretched out to smite you or stretched out to save you the, the destructive nature of fire. Speaker 1 00:30:29 And the last days the earth is going to be burned. And, and you think of hell, you think of fire and brimstone. But then when you look at the description of where the Lord resides in his throne, they say, it's a throne of fire. The scriptures we just read today, Elijah was carried up in a chariot of fire. And the gates to heaven are fiery gates that you have to pass through. And it's a refiner's fire. That being said, let's get back into the story of this widow who had lost the son. And who's reaching out to Elijah to save his life. He sends his servant gay HAI to go and lay his staff on the child and raise him from the dead. And, and then she decides to stay with Elijah and come with him afterwards. And when they make their way to the house, the child is still dead. Speaker 1 00:31:24 Even though the servant had put the staff on him, it kind of reminds me of the new Testament when, when the disciples had gone to cast the spirit out and they couldn't do anything. And then when the master shows up, they're like, Hey, how come we couldn't cast the spirit out? And he says, this kind goes out by, but fasting in prayer alone. There's a little bit of a character flaw with gai here. And we don't see it until the very next story. So Elijah completes the miracle, brings him back from the dead. And, and when we get to the story of Naman, Naman is the captain of the Syrian army, but he's also a leper. And, and I, most of us are familiar with the story where Naman comes to Elijah because the, the, actually on the King's recommendation, a servant woman from Israel who the king head of Syria had been conquering parts of Israel and deporting some of them and taking some of them captive. Speaker 1 00:32:20 So he has this Israelite woman who worshiped God, but she's still fairly loyal as they hear about the situation of Naman. And he's such a great guy and they love him. And she tells the king, there's a prophet in Israel that can heal him. So the king sends a, a, a lot of money and a recommendation to the king of Israel saying, I am sending you my captain of the guard, my captain of the armies, with, with all of this money, I need you to receive him and heal him. And the king of Israel's not looking at this, like this is a blessing. Like I would rather not even keep any of the money, because what happens if I can't heal him, then the guy dies and, and I'm serious gonna destroy us, wipe us off the face of the earth. And, and they tell him, look, do we not have a prophet in Israel? Speaker 1 00:33:11 Let's get Elijah. He can do this. And, and they send name into, to Elisha and Elisha sends gai his servant to go talk to him. So, so this is a slight in and of itself, right? If you, if you are an important person, you don't send an ambassador to go meet with the president. You, you send a president to meet with the president, someone in equal footing. So he sends a servant to go meet with this, this powerful man. And then he tells him, go and bathe yourself seven times in the Jordan river. And the Jordan river was disgusting. And he is like, look, I am a powerful man. I'm a mighty man. If this is below me, the servant's below me. The river's below me doing all of this is just, he went away furious. And, and the servant with him makes a very powerful statement in saying, had he commanded you to do something great? Speaker 1 00:34:09 Wouldn't you have done it then how much more would you do something? That's so simple like this. And, and I feel like there's so much of us that can relate to that statement. How, how much of us, if God asks us to go do some mighty thing, go, go, go fight in a war, go do something crazy, or go fight against Goliath. And maybe this is a little bit of a slam on David. Like he's willing to stand up and go fight Goliath. Then go do all of these impressive things as a king. But in his personal life, he, he lets the small things erode. Maybe it's a dirty thing to do some of the small things that seem beneath us. Maybe we look at the, the typical Sunday school answers as something that's below us, like bathing in the Jordan river. And we neglect to do them because there's no honor, there's no glory in that. And we let those small things slide. Speaker 1 00:35:03 So layman's humbled. He bathed seven times in the river. He's healed. We know this part of the story. He goes back to Elijah and he says, thank you. I I've, I've got here. I, he actually says, I will worship your God from here on out. Jehovah is the only God. And I will no longer worship the Baal or the BA or any of the other gods. And he has Laden on his donkey, um, items that he was going to sacrifice to the Baal, the gods, these other gods. And he has no more use for these. So he tells Elijah, why don't you take these as a gift? I'll give these to you. And Elijah says, Elijah says, no, no, thanks. We don't, I'm I'm not interested. I'm not doing miracles for money. And also, if you remember back in early times in the numbers, you're not supposed to take any, anything that was supposed to be consecrated or dedicated to foreign gods, that that was supposed to be an abomination and destroyed. Speaker 1 00:36:04 So he turns him down. And as he's leaving gai, his servant chases him down and says, wait, we do have need of that stuff. There's two people that showed up and, and they could really use it. So how about I take that off your hands and I'll bring it back. That's what Elijah told me to tell you. Thank you so much. And he said, he said, give me a talent of silver, which is a lot of money. And, and he, he pulls name in here, pulls kind of a Christ on, on this and saying, okay, I'm not gonna give you just one talent. I'm gonna give you two talents of silver and all of the, and two changes of clothes. So it takes, this goes back. And Elijah says, you think you, you think you can hide that from me. The, the leprosy that Naman had is now yours. Speaker 1 00:36:55 And so gai becomes a leper and, and kind of cursed and outside. So again, you have this story of this outsider almost like hoorah the Hittite or, or Ruth when you have the outsider stepping up and, and being the better man, the better person, the better follower of God while Israel is, is sliding or decaying or, or going through this, this bad transition, we get to this, this gets really kind of messed up, okay? Because Syria then tries to kill Elisha, right? And name the captain of the army for Syria. So Syria keeps sending these little rating parties in to ambush. The king. Elisha keeps telling the king, Hey, by the way, Sirius can lay an ambush here and saving the King's life. And the King's armies multiple times. And, and the King's furious and says who who's the spy in my house that keeps telling Israel what my plans are. Speaker 1 00:38:01 And they say, there's no spy. They have a sea prophet, Elijah. He knows exactly what you're thinking. Okay. Then let's take him out. Where is he at? And he's in this, he's in this, uh, small valley. And, and it's the, the host of the Syrians are surrounding him and, and they get intimidated. And this is where Elijah opens the eyes of his servant. And they see that there's more forest than against us powerful story of the chariots and all the armies, the host of the Lord that they see. There's a whole lesson in and of itself on that. But we're just gonna keep rolling. Speaker 1 00:38:34 Elijah strikes them with blindness, and this can't be a physical blindness, but more of maybe of a mental blindness. They're confused. They don't know where they're at. And Elisha says, Hey, let me guide you to where you're gonna find Elisha. And so they're following Elisha to go find Elisha. And he takes them a four hour journey into Samaria where now the king of Israel's got them surrounded. And the King's like, should I kill? 'em all? And he's like, no, no, don't kill. 'em all. This is to let them know that the Lord of Israel is, is God. And maybe some of those people were converted that day. It says that Syria did not attack Israel again, which is not true. <laugh> which, oh, which might, okay. Which might be another question you guys have. Why does it say like in the very next verse, the Israel, the Syria attacked Israel. Speaker 1 00:39:23 What they're saying is Syria did not send any more of these small rating parties out. They kept getting foiled. Every time they got foiled by, uh, all these ambushes didn't work. So now, instead of this tactic, they didn't do that tactic anymore. Syria is sending the entire army out to go destroy Israel. They surround Samaria. And because they're surrounding Samaria, they can't get any supplies in. It gets so bad that they're selling pigeon dunk for food. Oh, come on, bro. Yeah. A donkey's head and pigeon dunk are fetching a high price in the market. And, and as the king is ruined and worried about the safety of his people, and he's walking along the walls, a woman approaches him and says, look, me and this other woman made a deal that we would eat her baby the first night. And then the second night we would eat my baby. Speaker 1 00:40:24 Oh no, no, excuse me. I said that backwards. We would eat my baby the first night, second night we would eat her baby. So last night I boiled up my child and we ate the child. There's no other food to survive. And tonight it's her turn and she's reneging on the deal and won't let me eat her kid. And the king is so distraught that this is what Israel has descended to. He tears his coat and, and he's devastated. And he says, that's it let's kill Elisha. Somehow this is his fault. He sends a messenger to kill Elisha and Elisha's sitting, sitting there and he says, Hey, a Messenger's on his way to go kill me from the king. It's probably a good idea to go lock the door and not let him in. So he goes and bars the door and it gives time cuz the king is on the way following the messenger to make sure this gets carried out. Speaker 1 00:41:14 It gives a chance for the king to catch up. And Elijah says, Hey king, come on in. Let's talk about this. And, and he says, trust the Lord. This time tomorrow, there will be so much food in the markets of Samaria. That that price is, is gonna be super cheap. Like you're not gonna be selling pigeon dun like the price of normal food is going to be cheap because you have so much. And one of his, one of his Lords of the king, not the king himself, but one of his servants says, how is that happening? Is, is this gonna be like cloudy with a chance of meatballs? Is the Lord gonna open up the windows of heaven? And food's gonna rain down upon the earth. And Elijah says, oh, it will happen. The thing is you won't live to see it. Oh, so, so you have a group of lepers in Samaria that can't be part of the city. Speaker 1 00:42:11 They have to separate themselves out. So they live at the outskirts of the city, near the gate, uh, near the city wall. And, and they, they are at the point where like, we can't stand this anymore. We're just gonna go try to raid the Syrian army and see what we can find. And it's right. As it's getting evening, they decide to do it at dusk. They, they sneak outta the city. They go into the Syrian camp and none of the Syrians are there. So they just start eating all of this food. And then they say, this is, this is wicked of us. We can't just sit here and enjoy it. When all of Israel's starving, we gotta let them know that something's up. The Syrians are gone. So they go back into the, the city and they tell 'em what's going on. And the king says, this is a trap. Speaker 1 00:42:57 We're gonna go out there to get their food. And they're gonna ambush and kill us all. Let's just send five horsemen out. They end up sending five horsemen and two chariots to go see what's going on. And they chase the Syrian army. Come to find out the Syrians, heard a sound as if it was the Egyptian army or another large army coming to deliver Israel. And they were so panicked. They ditched everything they had and just left. And so they're fleeing and dropping supplies all over the place. They report it to the king. The king takes the one servant that he had that was kind of mocking Elijah and puts him in charge of the order of the city to make sure that the people orderly leave to go and get supplies. And, and, and the people are so hungry. They end up trampling him to death and Elijah's prophecy is fulfilled. Mm. Speaker 2 00:43:50 Do we have anything to learn from that? Or is that just Speaker 1 00:43:53 It? Yeah, actually all of these stories and I think this is why we kind of have to hit every one of these a little bit. When we talked about Elijah, his name, Ellie Yahoo, my God is Jehovah. Look at his crowning moments and what he did, right? He, he builds this altar that has all the priests of all come. And his, his whole point was, how long are you gonna limp on both sides? You've got to choose. My God is Jehovah. And it, and it was always showing why Jehovah is God. Now you have the next stage, Ellie, um, Ellie, or she or Elijah. My God is salvation. All of these stories are showing you different ways and how God can save us, whether it's because your, your friend is righteous, who's coming in and helps you make a right decision. In the case of Josa fat, whether it's because something that your parents did that you're not responsible for. Speaker 1 00:44:54 And now you are destined to, to live a life of servitude because of it. And, and he saves us or redeems us from the mistakes of our parents or those who want to turn away from that, or find hope in that, or whether it's your own doing, that's led to you having to sink within the bottom of the waters and God rises us and saves that ax from the waters and pulls us up out, or the staff that's being laid on. All of these are examples that point us to a savior God's saving name. And from, from leprosy, God's saving Israel from the siege God's saving over and over and over again. And the cool thing is that in all these stories, the instance of faith, if you want salvation, he's going to ask you to show that you believe to hold on against hope and, and dig the trenches in the desert when you're hot or, or, or go out and, and lay the staff on them, or, or do whatever it takes to listen to his word and believe because his isn't just a God, he's a God of salvation. And these are all the different ways in which he offers salvation to his children. Speaker 2 00:46:08 Fantastic. Fantastic. All right. Um, do we know what we're talking about next week? Speaker 1 00:46:14 You know, E every time I take a stab and guess Speaker 2 00:46:17 We're always wrong. So how about this? Speaker 1 00:46:18 I'm I'm way Speaker 2 00:46:19 Off. How about this? Thank you everybody for continuing to listen to our podcast, even though we are not exactly sure what is next week every week, but we do appreciate you listening. Um, please send any questions or comments, uh, what a fantastic way to wrap that up, Jason, by the way, that's, we, we kind of talked about this a little bit last week, but I, I did want to just maybe highlight this one more time. That the beautiful part about, um, Elijah was really as a with, with him being, you know, my God is Jehovah. One of, one of, Jesus's not one of like the, the role that Jesus has played is to make us at one again with God, right? Yes. And, and I love that even in the story where his God Jehovah is more powerful than, but all, even during that process, he was still unifying Israel again, under the correct. Speaker 2 00:47:14 God, he, he had the 12 stones representing the 12 tribes and rebuilding the altar kind of like you had mentioned. And I do love that the Eli SHA story is, is following that in, in again, saving or making us at one again with God, no matter the circumstances that we either find ourselves in or put ourselves in. So that's a fantastic way to wrap that up. Beautiful progression first believe, and then act where you believe. Oh, it's great. It's beautiful stuff. Okay. Um, well we will know what we're talking about next week when that comes. So, um, thank you for listening. Please send us any questions and.