indeed the most probable view, and it seems implied in the reassuring words which the angel afterwards spoke to Elijah

(v. 15).

The military expedition had no difficulty in finding the prophet. He neither boastfully challenged, nor yet did he

fearfully shrink from the approach of the armed men, but awaited them in his well -known place of abode on Mount

Carmel. There is in one sense an almost ludicrous, and yet in another a most majestic contrast between the fifty soldiers

and their captain, and the one unarmed man whom they had come to capture. Presently this contrast was, so to speak,

reversed when, in answer to the royal command to Elijah, as delivered by the captain, the prophet appealed to his King,

and thus clearly s tated the terms of the challenge between the two, whose commission the captain and he respectively

bore. "And if a man of God I,118 let fire come down from heaven."

Terrible as this answer was, we can perceive its suitableness, nay, its necessity, since it was to decide, and that publicly

and by way of judgment (and no other decision would have been suitable in a contest between man and God), whose

was the power and the kingdom - and this at the great critical epoch of Israel's history. It is not necessary here to

emphasize the difference between the Old and the New Testament ­ although rather in mode of manifestation than in

substance - as we recall the warning words of our LORD, when two of His disciples would have commanded fire from

heaven to consume those Samaritans who would not receive them (Luke 9:54). The two cases are not in any sense

parallel, as our previous remarks must have shown; nor can we suppose the possibility of any parallel case in a

dispensation where "the kingdom of God cometh not with observation" (Luke 17:20), "but in demonstration of the

Spirit and of power" (1 Corinthians 2:4).

At the same time we must not overlook that the "captain and his fifty"119 were not merely unsympathetic instruments

to carry out their master's behest, but, as the language seems to imply, shared his spirit.

Perhaps we may conjecture that if Elijah had come with them, he would, if unyielding, never have reached Samaria

alive (comp. ver. 15). This hostile and at the same time contemptuous spirit appears still more clearly when, after the

destruction of the first captain and his fifty by fire from heaven, not only a second similar expedition was dispatched,

but with language even more imperious: "Quickly come down!" It could not be otherwise than that the same fate would

overtake the second as the first expedition. The significance, we had almost said the inward necessity, of the judgment

consisted in this, that it was a public manifestation of Jehovah as the living and true God, even as the king's had been a

public denial thereof. It seems not easy to understand how Ahaziah dispatched a third - nay, even how he had sent a

second company.120

Some have seen in it the petulance of a sick man, or else of an Eastern despot, who would not brook being thwarted.

Probably in some manner he imputed the failure to the bearing of the captains. And on the third occasion, the tone of

the commander of the expedition was certainly different from that of his predecessors, although not in the direction

which the king would have wished. It would almost seem as if the third captain had gone up alone - without his fifty (v.

13). In contrast to the imperious language of the other two, he approached the representative of God with lowliest

gesture of a suppliant,121 while his words of entreaty that his life and that of his men should be spared122 indicated that,

so far from attempting a conflict, he fully owned the power of Jehovah. Accordingly the prophet was directed to go

with him, as he had nothing to fear from him.  123 Arrived in the pre sence of the king, Elijah neither softened nor

retracted anything in his former message. Ahaziah had appealed to the "fly -god" of Ekron, and he would experience,

and all Israel would learn, the vanity and folly of such trust. "So he died according to the word of Jehovah which Elijah

had spoken."

Ahaziah did not leave a son. He was succeeded by his brother Jehoram,  124 or Joram, as we shall prefer to call him, to

distinguish him from the king of Judah of the same name. Before entering on the history of his reign we must consider,

however briefly, the history of Elijah and of Elisha, which is so closely intertwined with that of Israel.125

The record opens with the narrative of Elijah's translation - and this not merely as introductory to Elisha's ministry, but

as forming, especially at that crisis, an integral part of such a "prophetic" history of Israel as that before us. The

circumstances attending the removal of Elijah are as unique as those connected with the first appearance and mission of

the prophet. We mark in both the same suddenness, the same miraculousness, the same symbolic meaning. Evidently

the event was intended to stand forth in the sky of Israel as a fiery sign not only for that period, but for all that were to

follow. And that this history was so understood of old, appears even from this opening sentence in what we cannot help