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Topic: Hangry (01/23/25)
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TITLE: The Wages of Apostasy | Previous Challenge Entry
By Ruby Isaac
01/30/25 -
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A devastating, deadly famine followed with many people starving to death as the inevitable consequence. Scarcity and inflated food prices sky-rocketed, deepening the Samaritans’ suffering and abject misery. They ate mules’ heads and possibly even doves’ droppings just to survive. The citizens of Samaria were so excruciatingly hungry that they said and did desperate, despicable things, even resorting to cannibalism of their own children.
One day while their evil king, Jehoram, was out walking along the top of the city wall, a woman looked up and cried out to him for help. The king snarled sarcastically and hangrily at her in a cynical retort even before asking, “What is troubling you?” [See
II Kings 6:27 KJV]
Callously and sickeningly she told him this unconscionable story of how she and another woman had agreed together to eat their own sons. She said they boiled and ate her son first; but then the other woman hid her son. At that news the king tore his clothes and put on sack cloth under his outer garments as a sign of grief and mourning. But his righteous indignation was not genuine because almost in the same breath he vowed to behead Elisha, the man of God, whom he falsely blamed for Samaria’s ghastly predicament. [II Kings 6:28-30 KJV]
Why did this calamity occur? Why did this curse come upon them?
Their kingdom was apostate. That’s why. Most importantly, this tragedy was an exact fulfillment of prophecy. God had declared in the Mosaic Covenant between God and Israel—His Chosen People—that this very thing would happen if the people forsook His law. Although they had stated unequivocally, “All that the Lord has spoken, we will do” [Exodus 19:8 KJV], they could not and did not obey God’s law. Instead they did exactly what He told them not do. They forsook His law and worshiped foreign gods.
These Children of Israel suffered such dire straits because they had disobeyed the Lord their God. They worshiped the worthless idols of the pagan nations around them—powerless idols of wood and stone—in the land which God had given them. The short answer to those two “why” questions is Leviticus 26:29-30 KJV. The long answer is given in Deuteronomy 28, especially verses 52-57. Deuteronomy 28 lists the blessings and curses of the Mosaic Covenant. It is broken into two sections named: (I) Blessings on Obedience, and (II) Curses on Disobedience. [See the MacArthur Study Bible.] Could this be any more clear-cut?
It is in the context of this backdrop of Israel’s history that the narrative of II Kings, chapter seven occurs. Elisha was the miracle working, courageous Prophet of Israel who spoke God’s words to His wayward people during this period of their history. Towards the end of II Kings 7 an officer of the king hangrily scoffed at Elijah when he prophesied that God would provide food by the end of the day—that the siege was coming to an end!
The official mocked him, saying, “Now look, if the LORD would make windows in heaven [i.e., to provide food for the people], could such a thing be?” Does that sound like a man who was trusting God? As a matter of fact God did miraculously provide food in abundance that day, just as Elijah had said, but this officer did not eat of it because he was trampled to death at the gate during the stampede to buy food.
[II Kings 7:20 KJV]
About 120 years after Jehoram’s evil reign, the Northern Kingdom was carried off into Assyrian captivity and subsequently scattered among the nations. The Samaritans paid a steep price for their disobedience and apostasy.
“I am the Lord your God,
who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.
Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it.
“But my people did not listen to my voice;
Israel would not submit to me.
“So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts,
to follow their own counsels.
“Oh, that my people would listen to me,
that Israel would walk in my ways!”
[Psalm 81:10-13 NKJV]
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