This story makes me think of “Killing in the Name” by Rage Against the Machine
And it came to pass that there was this one time when Elijah was on the run from the law and set up camp on top of a hill. It might surprise you that such a well-known prophet was at odds with the legal system, so I’ll explain it to you.
I don’t know if you remember Ahab or not. He was the king of Israel who was shot by an arrow and his dogs licked all the blood off his chariot afterward. Well, that doesn’t really matter because we’re here to talk about his son Ahaziah today. Ahaziah was a naughty little boy who liked Baal instead of Jehovah. Therefore it wasn’t surprising to anyone that after he injured himself by falling out of his upper bedroom through the window lattice he sent a messenger to ask the “Lord of the Flies” if he would recover.
Ok, this “Lord of the Flies” thing may have confused you so I’ll explain. The various English translations of the bible call this god: Baal-zebub, Baalzebub, or Beelzebub. No matter how it’s written in English though, it means “Lord of the Flies.” This “Lord of the Flies” character was a God in Ekron. Therefore, not only was Ahaziah choosing to seek advice from some dumb fly god, he went looking for a foreign one, as if Israel had no gods of its own.
Hopefully you’ve been reading my stories for long enough now to know that Jehovah doesn’t like playing second fiddle to anyone, even if that someone has power over flies (which is a serious thing in the Middle East). Well Jehovah went to his buddy Elijah and said, “I need you to intercept Ahaziah’s messengers and tell them it was stupid to go to get advice from a foreign fly god when there is a perfectly good god here in Israel, and that particular Israeli God is named JEHOVAH! Well, Jehovah says Ahaziah is never going to get out of bed. He’s gonna die, so there! Neener neener!”
Elijah obediently delivered his message and then went up to the top of his favourite hill to hang out. After hearing Elijah’s prophecy concerning the King’s death, the messengers turned around and headed back to Ahaziah’s place to deliver the news. Ahaziah was surprised to see them so soon and asked what was going on. The messengers told the King about their little encounter with Elijah, but they hadn’t thought to ask his name so they told the king he was really hairy and was only wearing a leather skirt.
The king immediately recognized this as Elijah the Tishbite. He wanted to have a little chat with Elijah so he asked local law enforcement to bring him in for some questioning. The police captain was a little nervous about bringing in some guy wearing a leather skirt so he took along 50 of his men. When they got to Elijah’s hill the captain said, “Hello man of God. Please come down. The king would like to speak with you.”
Of course I have no clue why Elijah acted like this, but in response to the police captain’s request he said, “Oh yeah? Well if I’m a man of God like you say, then fire is going to come out of heaven now and burn up you and your men.” Then fire did come down from heaven and 51 families were suddenly without what was probably their sole source of income. No matter how you look at it, that’s a whole lot of women who were suddenly forced to turn to prostitution to feed their kids. Way to go Elijah, you stupid jackass!
The King still wanted to talk to Elijah, so he sent another captain and once again, Elijah provided 51 men with a fiery death. The THIRD captain decided to try a different tactic. Instead of asking Elijah to come down off the hill he begged for his life and the lives of his men. Because Jehovah LOVES to see men grovel, he sent an angel to tell Elijah not to kill this group of men, but go with them to meet the king instead. So, Elijah went to see the king and said to him, “Because you sent messengers to ask Baal-zebbub the God of Ekron if you were going to die from injuries you sustained by falling out your window, Jehovah has decided that you are going to die now. The end.”
So Ahaziah died, but only after Jehovah and Elijah were very careful to punish all those police officers and their families.
Ref: 2 Kings Chapter 1
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