2 Kings 1 was in the lectionary provision for yesterday and offers food for thought following on from the previous post.
The narrative tells us that twice a captain and his fifty soldiers were destroyed by fire from heaven after Elijah the Tishbite said, "If I am a man of God, let fire come down from heaven and consume you and your fifty." The third company was spared because their captain requests that the man of God would value the life of the soldiers and their captain.
Readers are not commanded here to resort to violence or encouraged to take up their swords. There can only have been a few people in the history of reading this story who seriously contemplated imitating Elijah; those who did would have quickly discovered that their words are not quite as powerful.
The most thunderous of the twelve disciples of Jesus (Mark 3:17), James and John, felt the urge on one occasion and even they recognised that it would be a good idea to ask Jesus' permission first (Luke 9:54) which of course he did not grant. Read as part of the biblical canon, which includes its reception in the Gospels, the passage can hardly be read as an invitation to violence.
So what is the violence doing? Injured king Ahaziah wanted to consult "Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron" about his life expectancy. According to consistent biblical witness trusting in idols is a sure way to death. The angel of Yahweh makes sure that the king's messengers are intercepted by baal-sear ("a hairy man," verse 8) whose proper name is Elijah ("Yahweh is my God").
This man (ish) is responsible for the fire (esh) but so is the king. It is because the king orders Elijah to "come down" that fire "comes down" on his soldiers ("going up" is used seven times in this chapter, "coming down" ten times; see Peter Leithart, 1 & 2 Kings, 169, for more on the significance of this). The hundred men are a casualty of a war the king of Israel started.
The violence has a positive purpose as well. It demonstrates that the "man of God" has greater power than the king of Israel or the Baal-zebub of Ekron. Arguably this serves to encourage all its readers to trust the word of the prophet even when there is a conflict between the word and government authorities. It also points Christian readers to the incarnate Word of God that is stronger than Beelzebub, the prince of demons.
We see that violence is not inevitable. The captain who humbly submits to Elijah, truly recognising him as a man of God rather than blindly following the orders of his totalitarian king, saves not only himself but his whole company. (We are reminded that much of what we experience is corporate whether it be violence or protection from harm.)
Finally, intriguingly, the angel of Yahweh tells Elijah, "Go down with him; do not be afraid of him." This suggests that the earlier violence may have been an expression of fear. Unlike some other story-tellers in antiquity, biblical narrators are often reticent in offering evaluation and comments, except that 1-2 Kings has one-line summaries which offer a broad evaluation of the various kings. We are not told that Elijah was afraid and therefore called for fire from heaven but we are maybe invitd to contemplate the possibility. We also know that God identifies with his messengers even in some cases in which they overstep the mark, most notably in divine use of Nebuchadnezzar; the readiness with which fire comes from heaven in this story is therefore not unequivocally a divine endorsement of Elijah's call.
2 Kings 1 suggests that there may not be a simple answer to the question of violence. The narrative does not spell out but implies that rebellion against God and fear of powerful people may have something to do with it, as well as the need for people to know where true power lies.
All of this should reduce our potential for violence rather than increase it. If violence is ultimately the result of rebellion against God, we have foresworn this in our baptism. If violence is an expression of fear of others, we have repeated encouragement in the Scriptures to fear God rather than powerful people. If we are concerned about where true power is found we know that the power of Christ is manifest in weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9). There is no encouragement for us here to rsort to violence, nor reason to overlook this chapter.
