1. The provocation given —
[This was exceeding great. Aliaziah walked in all the steps of his father Ahab: and this alone was abundantly suf- ficient to call forth the displeasure of God against him. But he had now been pouring contempt on God in a more than ordinary degree. He had fallen through a lattice, and the injury he had received was likely to prove fatal. Anxious to know what the event would be, he sent messengers to inquire of Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron. By this conduct he declared, not to Israel only, but even to the heathen themselves, that there was no God in Israel able to solve the question, and that the god of Ekron, a city of the Philistines, was superior to him. Wliat an insult was this to the God of Israel, "whose name is. Jealous!" And what a tendency had this to confirm the heathen in their idolatry, and to justify them in their rejection of the true God !
Besides tliis, when Jehovah sent hi^ servant Elijah to re- prove the messengers, and to give them the information which they were going to seek, Ahaziah, instead of humbling himself for his offence, and preparing for liis latter end, rose up in anger against the God of heaven and earth, and sent a band of soldiers to seize the prophet, in order to wreak his vengeance on him. He knew that Elijah was a most distinguished pro- phet of Jehovah, and yet he determined to slay him, for no other reason than because he had delivered the message which God had sent him to deliver. What was tliis but to contend with God himself?
But further, when the whole band with their commander were consumed by fire from heaven, the enraged king did not at all relent, but sent another, and another band, as though he was determined never to relinquish the unequal contest.
Can we wonder that God should inflict signal vengeance on such a man, and mark the evil of his conduct in the severity of his punishment?]
2. The judgment inflicted —
[Fire was sent from heaven to consume the men. But could Elijah do this? or was he any other than the mere organ of the Deity, to announce the judgment, and assign the reason of it ? When Moses entreated of God to interpose and shew whom he had chosen for his high-priest, fire came forth to consume all the competitors of Aaron ; or when Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, with all their families, were swallowed up alive in the earth according to the prediction of Moses; was Moses the author of the judgments ? The people indeed foolishly complained of him as such ; but it is manifest that it was Jehovah alone, and not Moses, that inflicted these punish- ments on the offending people. So it was with Elijah: he did