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Writer's picturerobrosen17

Kings Ch. 19

In Pesach, God 'pesach's over the houses of the Israelites, not killing their firstborn, like a young lamb jumps, seemingly randomly, as it runs about. This demonstrates the all-powerfulness of God, but really moreso God's specific relationship to Israel. He demonstrates this through distinction, through discriminatory action. In Kings chapter 18, Eliyahu demonstrates that Hashem is the God of Israel, not baal, because God discriminates which offering to take up. Obviously Eliyahu's gets accepted with fire, and not that of the baalese prophets. There is a shared root, the baalese dance, skip "pesach" over the altar in order to bring acceptance of their offering. Little do they know, they altar is the one being pesach'd over. Earlier, Eliyahu reproached the crowd at Mt. Carmel, asking them how long they'll "poschim", or pesach, from bough to bough, as in: from God to baal. Pick a side, he is saying. They are preventing God from discriminating and demonstrating because they are muddying the waters of who is for God and who not. Also, this is similar to Cain and Abel. What what?! Yeaya!! The reject gets killed (Cain and the prophets of baal). It's quite sad, in my opinion. I sympathize with both, though obviously disagree strongly with their ideas. Also, lo tisgodedu, or titgodedu, for those more sephardically inclined, as it says in Deut. 14:1. And the people here absofrutely hisgodedemselves to get baal's attention because they think the true god wants suffering, but this is a misrepresentation of the true God, Who doesn't want suffering. Ky banim l'Hashem your God, as Deuto says. No need to do all this Canaanite stuff, because God is like your father, doesn't want suffering and pain. But if you refuse to heed and believe, what can be done? Lastly: there's some Akeidah stuff with E HaNav and his Na'ar on HarCar towards chapter end.


So you've got a couple words in common, like lo me'uma, and ad koh, and taking a na'ar up to a mountain. What I think is going on is this: earlier, God promised Eliyahu there'd be rain. Earlier, God promised Abe that Yitz would continue the convenant line, have many descendants. Later, Eli promises Achav there'll be rain. Later, Abe promises his na'ar that God will provide the ram for the sacrifice (Yitz can't go--he's the covenant man), he tells his helper na'arayim that they'll shav, they'll return. Then Eli has his na'ar go up and shav seven times, but no me'uma, not a blot on the sky over the sea. Abraham is just waiting for God to step in. He sets up the altar, raises the knife, but nada. Then the angel says stop, don't do a m'euma on the na'ar. Then the na'ar says there's a cloud like a man's hand over the sea. And God reaffirms his promise to make Abe's descendents like the sands of the sea. And God reaffirms his promise to bring rain. I'll leak the man's hand - kaf ish- thing to somebody else. I can't figure it out.

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