Day 22

Ahab told Jezebel what Elijah did on their way to Jezreel. She wanted Elijah dead so he fled to Beersheba. Out in the desert, he found shade from a broom bush. Elijah told God he wanted to die, then fell asleep because he was exhausted from traveling. An angel woke him up saying, "Get up and eat!" Elijah saw there was bread and a jug of water. He ate and went back to sleep. The angel came back and told him to eat more because he had a very long journey ahead of him.

Elijah walked 40 days and nights to Horeb. The word of God came to him in a cave and asked him what he was doing there. Elijah responded by explaining that the people of Israel had abandoned the covenant they made, destroyed places of worship, and murdered his prophets. After all of this, they were after him now! God instructed Elijah to stand on the mountain and He would pass by. Wind as strong as a hurricane came through the mountains and shattered rocks. After the wind, came an earthquake. After the earthquake came fire. After the fire a gentle and quiet whisper. Elijah hid his face in his cloak as the gentle voice asked him again why he was in Horeb. He gave the same response as he did before. God told him to go back the way he came to Damascus. He was to appoint Hazel as king over Aram. Jehu was to be king over Israel. Elisha was to succeed Elijah as prophet. Seven thousand soul's were preserved by God who hadn't bowed to false gods. Elijah went on his journey and found Elisha. He bid farewell to his family by butchering 2 oxen for a feast.

Ben-Hadad was the king of Aram and his troops set out for war around Samaria. He told Ahab he wanted all the silver and gold from Israel and all the wives and sons as well. Ahab agreed to giving him silver and gold but he only had his choice of wives and sons, not all of them. In an intoxicated state, Ben-Hadad told his men to attack Israel. A lone prophet approached Ahab and repeated God's word. He said, " Have you taken a good look at this mob? Well, look again-I'm turning it over to you this very day. And you'll know, beyond a shadow of a doubt that I am God." Ahab was skeptical and wanted to know who was going to make this all happen. God responded, "The young commandos of the regional chiefs." Ahab would start the first blow against Ben-Hadad. There were 232 commandos and 7,000 available men to fight. Meanwhile, Ben-Hadad was still drinking away with his buddies and got a report that the Samarian men were on their way. He stated he wanted live hostages if they came in peace. The commandos were equipped with a full army but Ben-Hadad got away on horseback along with his cavalry. Ahab was visited by the prophet again and was told to build up his army and assess their skills because before too long, Ben-Hadad would be back to fight them again.

The king Aram's advisors told him that the god of Israel was the god of the mountains, they didn't stand a chance against them. Their strategy was to remove each of the 32 sheik (official or leader) and replace them with experienced officers. Then, gather a fighting force and fight Israel on the plain. The two sides went to Aphek to start war. A holy man came to Ahab saying, "God is the god of the mountains and not the god of the valleys, "I'll hand over this huge mob of an army to you. Then you'll know that I am God." On the 7th day of the standoff, the Israelites killed 100,000 of the Arameans. The rest of Ben-Hadad's army retreated only to have the city wall fall on all 27,000 of them. Ben-Hadad and his advisors dressed in gunny sacks, carried the white flag of surrender, and approached Ahab. I wonder if he laughed at them. Ben-Hadad begged for his life to be spared. Ahab, amazed, said he must be his brother if he's still alive. The king spared him and told him he would return the cities his father took from Ben-Hadad's father. Ben-Hadad could set up his headquarters in Damascus safely.

One of the prophets told a man next to him to slug him for God's sake. Because the man wouldn't do it, the prophet told him he'd be attacked by a lion. The prophet went to another man and asked him to slug him, which he did in the nose. The bleeding prophet, with a bandage over his eye, waited on the road for Ahab. He cried out, "Your servant was in the thick of the battle when a man showed up and turned over a prisoner to me, saying, 'Guard this man with your life; if he turns up missing you'll pay dearly.' But I got busy doing one thing after another and the next time I looked he was gone." The prophet removed the bandage and Ahab new immediately who he was. He delivered God's word to Ahab saying, "Because you let a man go who is under sentence by God, it's now your life for his, your people for his." This ticked Ahab off and he sulked all the way home to Samaria.

Ahab told Naboth he wanted his vineyard in Jezreel, for it was right next to his palace. He offered a much better one in exchnage for money. Naboth told him passionately he'd never sell his family farm to him. Ahab then threw and hissy fit by going home, stuffing his face in his pillow, and not eating. Jezebel told Ahab to cheer up because she would handle the whole thing. She wrote letters to Jezreel elders and civic leaders suggesting they call for a day of fasting with Naboth at the head of the table. Two scoundrels, 'stool pigeons' as Eugene Peterson referred to them, were to sit across from Naboth and proclaim he blasphemed God and the king. They were to throw him out of the city and stone him to death. The leaders followed Jezebel's instruction and when she received the news from them, she told Ahab to claim the vineyard. God spoke to Elijah and instructed him to confront Ahab again and give him this message: ‘This is what the Lord says: Wasn’t it enough that you killed Naboth? Must you rob him, too? Because you have done this, dogs will lick your blood at the very place where they licked the blood of Naboth!’” Elijah told Ahab his descendants would be killed off and he'd have the same fate as Jeroboam and Baasha. Jezebel's flesh would be fought over by dogs for she had great influence over Ahab and pushed him to indulge in outrageous obscenities in the world of idols, doing what the Ammorites did. Upon hearing this, Ahab ripped his clothes, dressed in burlap, and fasted. God said to Elijah, "...Because of his repentance, I'll not bring doom during his lifetime; Ahab's son, though, will get it."