Week 17 II Kings
Whoever wrote Kings can tell a good story. But I’m surprised by the one in chapter one. A captain and fifty soldiers are destroyed by an act of God.
I figure I’m a pretty normal reader and my instinctive reaction is that 51 innocent guys were incinerated by a god who is harsh, unfair, ruthless and brutal. A terrible guy.
So I think a bit while my instinctive reaction settles…
There’s something I’m pretty sure about.
And there’s something I’m not so sure about, but think could be true.
I’m pretty sure the writer’s aim was not to say that 51 pristine guys were eliminated by a horror-show god. I’m pretty sure that when I’m reading the story and drawing my conclusion that god-is-the-worst then I’m getting something out that the writer didn’t put in.
The thing I’m not so sure about – but think might be true – is that the writer decided to take a bigger story and boil it down so completely that almost nothing was left. Just a crust of distillate. Condensed so totally that I’m jammed into a corner. Like the writer is saying: okay, now you figure this one out.
It seems like a kind of test-story to me.
I know this writer can tell an inspiring and understandable story.
But here it’s like he wants to know how I’ll manage something that’s uninspiring and hard to understand.
Note: the story is in II Kings 1:9-15