Week 19 2 Kings 1-3
Bam…Bam…Bam. Three chapters and three head-scratcher stories as the book begins.
Story #1: three military units go to arrest Elisha. The first two are destroyed by an explosion of fire-from-heaven.
Story #2: a yowling pack of boys mock Elisha. Elisha curses them and a couple of bears attack and maul the boys.
Story #3: a battle between Israel & Edom. Israel has the upper-hand but the king of Edom sacrifices his son…and so Israel leaves the country.
Story #1 and Story #2 are similar because with both of them I’m wondering whether the punishment was warranted. Did the soldiers have to be incinerated? Did the boys have to be mauled? Why does it seem so excessive?
Story #3 is different from #1 & #2. Israel was winning the war but when they hear about the human sacrifice they turn-tail-and-run. What spooked them? Why did they run?
What it comes down to is that these stories just don’t have enough detail to make sense. And the problem with a story without enough detail is that I’m tempted to fill-in some of those blanks by myself.
But I hold back. I definitely want to fill the information-vacuum – but don’t want to fill it with crazy & nonsensical mumbo-jumbo. Don’t even want to fill it with reasonable-sounding mumbo-jumbo.
So while I’d rather not be perplexed I’ll leave them blank for now. On balance living with some perplexity is better than guessing wrong.
Note: Story #1 2 Kings 1:9-16. Story #2 2 Kings 2:23-25. Story #3 2 Kings 3:26-27