Week 14 1 Kings
There’s a one-verse story in Kings: it was during (Ahab’s) reign that Heil, a man from Bethel, rebuilt Jericho. When he laid the foundations, his oldest son, Abiram, died. And when he finally completed it by setting up the gates, his youngest son, Segub, died. All this happened according to the message from the Lord concerning Jericho spoken by Joshua son of Nun.
I checked the cross-reference and reread the message from the Lord that I saw last month where Joshua said: may the curse of the Lord fall on anyone who tries to rebuild the city of Jericho. At the cost of his firstborn son, he will lay its foundation. At the cost of his youngest son, he will set up its gates.
If I’m reading eighty or a hundred verses a day I can’t spend much time on any single one of them. But I do stop and wonder for a bit about Heil. His story is almost nothing but blanks. What’s the author’s point? Why add this one-verse anecdote?
I figure his single point is that a fairly specific forecast that was made maybe four-hundred years before had just came true.
When a specific forecast comes true it gives a reader a reminder that the writer is aware that there’s some intentional shaping of events going on…
…that from ground-level maybe just seems like one of those random things…
…but that isn’t.
Note: quotes from 1 Kings 16:34, Joshua 6:26 (NLT)