June 25th, 2022

This Sunday continues our ‘walk’ through a significant portion of the Gospel according to Luke, and the Sunday has an important Old Testament text that relates to that very important account regarding the Savior of the world. And this Sunday is ‘Proper 8’ of the ‘C Series’.

This Sunday the Old Testament text is from 1 Kings 19[:9b-21], and this is the start of the transition between Elijah and Elisha. There are many similarities between these two that could be made with the John and Jesus of the New Testament. Even their names have some similarities.

What is also an important aspect is to look at some of the negative things that have happened to some of these prophets. We often picture those on God’s side as having no problems or difficulties. Jesus certainly had an EXTREMELY negative time when he was on the cross, paying for the sins of all! There was no other more important time. And John the Baptist had some of his disciples come and ask Jesus if he was the long-expected Messiah or should they start looking for someone else—although John may have sent those disciples just to get them used to following Jesus instead of himself. Some of the prophets of the Old Testament basically had a terrible time for a significant amount of time.

At the start of 1 Kings 19, right before the text for this Sunday, Elijah was having a very terrible time and was ready to retire—permanently. There was just a great victory over the prophets of Baal, a false god, but then things turned quite badly rather quickly. Elijah thought he was about to be killed by an extremely powerful person, queen Jezebel—the wife of Ahab, the current king of Israel. And many other extremely negative experiences with other prophets in the Old Testament could be mentioned as well.

Going back to the extremely negative event of Elijah’s depression in 1 Kings 19, it is interesting to follow the progression after that event. Brief summaries of the various sections are given here:

     1 Kings 20:1-12 Ben-Hadad, king of Aram, starts a war against Samaria. [Bad news.]
     1 Kings 20:13-22 Ahab, king of Israel, defeats Ben-Hadad in battle. [Good news.]
     1 Kings 20:23-30 Ahab’s army AGAIN defeats Ben-Hadad’s [More good news.]
     1 Kings 20:31-34 Ahab and Ben-Hadad make a treaty. [Is this good news?]
     1 Kings 20:35-42 Ahab did something wrong; Ben Hadad SHOULD have been killed.
     1 Kings 20:43 Ahab, the king is ‘stubborn and angry’.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
     1 Kings 21:1-2 ‘And it was after these things’, Ahab, the king, wants Naboth’s vineyard.
     1 Kings 21:3 Naboth refuses to give it to him.
     1 Kings 21:4 Ahab is, again, ‘stubborn and angry’.
     1 Kings 21:5-16 Jezebel, Ahab’s wife, gets it for him, and Naboth is killed.
     1 Kings 21:17-26 Elijah’s job is to confront Ahab.
     1 Kings 21:27-29 Ahab repents, and the LORD delays his punishment.

With these two narratives there is both a significant similarity and a significant difference. The similarity is that the king is described as both ‘stubborn’ and ‘angry’. The difference is very significant. In the first narrative, an evil person should have been killed and was not. In the second, a nice person—one who valued his ancestors and his inheritance—is killed.

Now it is interesting that the translation of these two narratives into the Greek language, which happened sometime between the rise of the Greek Empire (and its language) and the rise of the Roman Empire (which was the time of Jesus’ birth), this translation is in their opposite order. The narrative in chapter 21 becomes chapter 20, and vice versa. That is a strange thing and there may have been many reasons for this change.

One change that should NOT be considered is a chronological change. In the Hebrew text, the first event in chapter 20 is before the second in chapter 21. At 1 Kings 21:1-2, the text says, ‘And it was after these things….’ But ultimately a chronological order is only the most important when the scriptures are primarily a history lesson. Other things should be considered to be more important.

Another difference that the Greek translation has is that there have been considered to be two translators of the four books of 1-2 Samuel and 1-2 Kings. It switches after a while to a different translation, a more literal one (and without historical presents), and then it goes back again, and then goes back one more time to the different translation at the end. [For those who are interested in such a thing, this more literal, Hebrew translation is sometimes called KAIGE.] An EXTREMELY approximate pattern is like this [and each letter is very approximately about 5 pages of text]:

      OOOOOOOOOO XXXXX OOOOOOO XXXXXXX

Another proposal has been that the same person or persons who translated these chapters have also turned these chapters around. But there could also be another reason that the switch of the two chapters has been made. There may be a literary structure in the text that fits better with switching the two stories around.

It is obviously difficult to see something within such a structure, but it may be helpful to remember two important things: First of all, it is important to remember that the progression of an ancient book is not found within a separate outline before the text begins. That happens in our modern age since the price of paper is incredibly cheap. A second thing to remember is that the form of an ancient book can imitate the structure of the tabernacle or temple that gave a visual piece of theology, what it means to come into the presence of the LORD—since these words are so important.

 The first set of X’s is a starting point, the point of a sacrifice, a negative experience (especially toward the animal or thing that was sacrificed), and that event allows the progression to continue. The next set of X’s is the point of the building, either the tabernacle or the temple. And that is the special place where the presence of the LORD becomes a significant thing. And, therefore, the point right before that change is important.

This is the approximate point where chapters 20 and 21 change in the Greek translation of these books. A nicer entrance at 2 Kings 22 is made regarding the LORD’s presence. Instead of the Israelite king killing an innocent person, the Israelite king fails to kill an evil, foreign king. When a less-terrible thing is done, that makes it easier to enter and be with the King of the Universe.