The Wisdom and the Folly

Double folly

The end of 1 Kings might remind you of a home carpentry project. Imagine having finished. You are collecting your tools and replacing them in their assigned resting places.

You stash left-over materials away for potential future use. Finally, you sweep up the sawdust and shavings and bent nails into the dustpan to flip into the trash. This last passage of 1 Kings may strike you as very much like those sweepings from a workshop floor. Here is no fascinating narrative, no connected story, but only bits and pieces about two kings. A dull way to end a book.

But that's just it. It's not the end of a book. The whole book or document consists of 1 and 2 Kings together and doesn't reach its proper end until 2 Kings 25. However, there's only so much text one can get on one scroll, and so the document has to be divided and that division comes after this somewhat bare-bones passage. And yet, though 22.41-53 is not an intended conclusion, it may be an apt one.

We might see it as an interim report on the fortunes of the kingdom of God. Our title suggests that 1 Kings can be summed up under the rubric of 'The Wisdom and the Folly'. Now 22.41-53 suggests that we may want to revise that; perhaps try 'The Folly and the Folly'. It has come to that. The storm is coming over both kingdoms.

FOLLY OF THE RIGHTEOUS

The Folly of the Righteous is walking in compromise (vv. 41-50).

Judah has nearly become a lost kingdom. Upon reading 'Now Jehoshaphat the son of Asa' (v. 41), we begin flipping back and find that we left Asa at 15.24. The writer has given no direct attention to Judah since then. Nor will he give any more after this slice on Jehoshaphat until 2 Kings 8.16-29; even so, it will be 2 Kings 11 before we settle in Jerusalem a while. One can assume that the writer of Kings does not want to focus just now on Judah or on Jehoshaphat. The dynasty of Omri (1 Kings 16.23 - 2 Kings 10) consumes his attention.

Jehoshaphat and his reign receive much more press in Chronicles. But not here. The writer of Kings indicates his interests when he tells you Jehoshaphat reigned for 25 years (v. 42) and gives him a mere ten verses (22.41-50), whereas Ahaziah, Ahab's son, reigns only two years (v. 51) but receives three verses in this chapter and all 18 in 2 Kings 1. All this does not mean that Jehoshaphat holds no interest for our writer but that he holds a restricted interest.

Jehoshaphat does, however, receive ten verses. What then are we told? Fully half of the ten verses are couched in formulas familiar to us by now, which touch on chronology (vv. 41-42), theology (v. 43), bibliography (v. 45), and necrology (v. 50). Included with these formalised items are notes about statecraft (v. 44), sodo-mites (v. 46), and ships (vv. 47-49).

After spending so much literary time in apostate Israel one finds v. 43 refreshing. There is a kingdom that is not Baal-bent. 'And he walked in all the way of Asa his father (he did not turn away from it) by doing what is upright in Yahweh's eyes' (v. 43a). Even with the appended qualification (v. 43b) this is good news. Purging the land of remaining male cult prostitutes (v. 46; see 14.24 and 15.12) shows Jehoshaphat was no paper reformer.

But why three verses about ships? Verse 47 explains how it was that Jehoshaphat could aspire to shipping entrepreneur: Edom's power was in eclipse just then. Edomite's politics boasted no king, only a deputy acting as such. Edom was subservient, probably to Jehoshaphat and Judah (cf. 2 Kings 3 and 2 Chronicles 20).

Hence Jehoshaphat had unhindered access to ply his maritime pursuits from Ezion-geber on the Gulf of Aqaba. Ship-builders found full employment, and the government, it was hoped, would enjoy lucrative commerce (v. 48a). But the latter was not to be; the ships were smashed up while still in port (v. 48b). Perhaps the writer wants to portray Jehoshaphat as aspiring to Solomon-like success. In this way he could imply that the days of glory have given way to an era of decline. But I doubt it. I think the writer mentions the naval fiasco because Ahaziah of Israel was mixed up in it (v. 49). It may be that when the fleet was bashed to bits Ahaziah had suggested they try again with a greater Israelite contribution. But Jehoshaphat had had enough (v. 49). This understanding would mesh with the parallel in 2 Chronicles 20.35-37.

Sea trade

The co-operative commercial venture was a product of Jehoshaphat's statecraft (v. 44). He had made peace with the king of Israel, certainly with Ahab (22.1-40) but also with Ahaziah his son. I think the writer of Kings views that alliance negatively, as a perilous precedent. Certainly Chronicles does; there prophets read the riot act to Jehoshaphat for teaming up with such apostate kings (2 Chronicles 19.2-3; 20.37). But Kings is critical as well, if not so directly. The previous narrative had already rehearsed Jehoshaphat's insane naivete (22.29-33) when he had locked arms with Ahab.

A few chapters later Kings will inform us that nuptials provided the cement for the alliance: Ahab's daughter became the wife of Jehoram, Jehoshaphat's son (2 Kings 8.18). Hence Jehoram aped Ahab rather than Jehoshaphat, as did Jehoram's son Ahaziah (8.18a, 25-27). In 2 Kings 11 our writer(s) will show that redemptive history almost ended in 841 BC. Why? Because Ahab's daughter remained very much alive after the deaths of Jehoram and Ahaziah, and, as queen mother of Judah, nearly wiped out the whole divinely-chosen Davidic line of kings. How did such a tragedy ever get afoot? Because godly king Jehoshaphat imagined one could practise ecumenism with apostates (1 Kings 22.44). 'And Jehoshaphat made peace with the house of Israel.' It was not astute but asinine. Look how it nearly decimated Yahweh's redemptive plan.

Honey mushroom

Several months ago I saw a report out of Corvallis, Oregon, in our newspaper. It stated that beneath the soil of the Malheur National Forest in eastern Oregon a fungus that has been gradually wending its way through the roots of trees for centuries has become the largest living organism ever found. The Armillaria ostoyae, a.k.a. honey mushroom, started from a single spore too minute to observe without a microscope and has been spreading its black shoestring filaments through the forest for an estimated 2,400 years, killing trees as it grows. The organism now covers 2,200 acres. Jehoshaphat's alliance was like that. Just matrimony. Perhaps he considered it a slick piece of diplomacy. But he wasn't around a dozen or so years later to see Athaliah turn Jerusalem into a butcher's shop. And all because Jehoshaphat thought light could have a little bit of fellowship with darkness.

Please understand. I am not doubting the sincerity of Jehoshaphat's personal piety, but I am criticising the stupidity of his public policy. The king's personal faith did not in this case affect his political - and covenantal - decisions. Such lapses are not his alone. One may possess personal faith in Yahweh without exercising discerning judgment in decisions. That should scare us to earnest prayer. How often do we see folks with undoubted faith, and yet that faith seems to have no carryover into their family life, their financial matters, or their understanding of social-moral questions? Have we not seen a Christian convincing him/herself that marriage to a pagan could not prove such a giant disaster? The way of compromise is the folly of the righteous. And in 1-2 Kings it bodes ill for the kingdom Jehoshaphat ruled.

FOLLY OF THE WICKED

The Folly of the Wicked is walking in rebellion (vv. 51-53).

There is no compromise in Ahaziah's anatomy; he is given to sheer, undiluted wickedness. Again, this summary of his reign is almost wholly given through familiar formulas. The writer highlights (1) Ahaziah's tenure (v. 51); (2) his commitments (vv. 52-53a); and (3) his danger (v. 53b). According to v. 52, he is committed to a triple tradition: he walked in 'the way of his father and in the way of his mother and in the way of Jeroboam son of Nebat who caused Israel to sin.' In other words, Ahaziah embraced all the perversion and paganism that had accumulated in Israel to date, both the syncretism of Jeroboam and the Baalism of his parents. Lest we pass over the latter the writer specifically underscores it in v. 53a: 'So he served Baal and bowed down to him.' This is sheer rebellion; there can be no doubt about the destiny of such a kingdom.

The writer hints at Ahaziah's end in his very last line: 'so he provoked (traditional translation) Yahweh the God of Israel in line with all his father had done' (v. 53b). 'Provoked' is the verb k'as again. The writer means that Ahaziah's godlessness aggravated, goaded Yahweh to anger in order to destroy Ahaziah. It is almost as if Ahaziah has flaunted his wickedness, defying Yahweh to judge him. Had he any sense of his danger?

Couldn't hit an elephant!

General John Sedgwick and his staff arrived near Spotsylvania Court House (Virginia) on May 8 1864. Sedgwick, known affectionately as 'Uncle John' by his troops, commanded a Federal corps in the Wilderness Campaign about to begin. The next day, Sedgwick and his chief of staff, Martin McMahon, were standing by a battery and ordering some infantry near it to another position. At this point Confederate sharpshooters, located probably a mile away, opened up and Sedgwick's troops ducked, dodged, and cringed under the fire. The general amicably chastised his boys, claiming 'they couldn't hit an elephant at this distance'.

At that very moment one man was walking in front of the general, heard a bullet whistling, and dove to the ground. Sedgwick nudged him with his boot. He was ashamed of the fellow, dodging bullets that way, again assuring that they 'couldn't hit an elephant at this distance'. The man stood, saluted, but, based on his experience, repeated his creed: 'I believe in dodging.' Sedgwick laughed and dismissed him. Another whistling sound. McMahon heard a dull thud. He was about to resume his conversation with Sedgwick when the general turned toward him, a hole under his left eye spurting a stream of blood. Sedgwick fell into McMahon's arms, knocking them both to the ground. The general was dead. Sedgwick had thought that the Confederates used only short-range rifles. He never knew that the sharpshooter who felled him with a hexagonal .45-caliber bullet was caressing a British-made Whitworth sniper rifle equipped with a telescopic sight.

Tremble and be saved

Sedgwick had no idea what he was facing. Do we? Did Ahaziah? If we goad Yahweh to anger by our defiance, by our insistence on our right to select from the cafeteria of deities our tolerant, pluralistic society offers us, by our clutching to that futile way of life handed down from our ancestors (1 Peter 1.18), do we realise what we are facing? Jesus does: we face the One who is 'able to destroy both soul and body in hell' (Matthew 10.28b). Now, really, that is no way to end a commentary. Can't we mix in a bit of sugary drivel to dilute the terror? No, for if you tremble, you may yet be saved.

This article is an edited chapter from 'The Wisdom and the Folly', an exposition of 1 Kings by Dale Ralph Davis, published by Christian Focus and used with permission.

An exposition of 1 Kings