Ups and Downs

What’s with all the up-down talk in 2 Kings 1? The Angel of Yahweh sends Elijah to “ascend to call” the messengers/angels of Ahaziah (v. 3), and Elijah’s message is that Ahaziah will never “come down” from the bed where he “ascended” (v. 3). That oracle, including the “come down” and “go up” is repeated in verses 6 and 16, and in between you have two captains with their fifty soldiers “go up” to the hill of Elijah (vv. 9) to command him to “come down” (vv. 9, 11). Instead of Elijah, fire “came down” from above, as ELijah had predicted (vv. 10, 12). The third captain “went up” (v. 13), and because of his humility, Yahweh tells Elijah to “go down” to the king, which he does (vv. 15). And all this is precipitated by Ahaziah’s “fall” from an upper chamber (v. 2).

Let’s start with the obvious. Elijah is high up, exalted like Yahweh on a mountain. He will come down to deliver a message, but only on Yahweh’s terms. The prophet is a man who has “gone up” to the presence of God, and therefore can “come down” to deliver Yahweh’s word. Further, of course, this up-down pattern underscores the parallels between Elijah and the fire of God. As noted in an earlier post, there is a pun on “man of God” and “fire of God” (v. 12). God sends the fire of judgment on the soldier of Ahaziah, and sends the firey man. Finally, with regard to Elijah, he is soon going to “ascend” permanently (2:11) and never descend again. Elisha takes the mantle that Elijah leaves behind; by his “spirit,” of which Elisha receives a double portion, Elijah “comes down” again to carry on the work. Divine power is not merely shown in exaltation, being high, but in the power of descent, in the ministry of “coming down.” Ascension is a demonstration of divine power; but so is, perhaps more, incarnation.

There is also an evident contrast between Elijah and Ahaziah. Ahaziah goes up, and never comes down. He dies in a “high place,” ironcally so since he became ill by falling from a high place. Likewise, as Greyfriar student Peter Roise pointed out to me, the first two contingents of soliders “go up” to Elijah and never come back down because the fire of God comes down and destroys them. This is unusual, it seems: Usually the wicked are pictured as being destroyed by falling, by being lowered into something, by going down to the pit. But here, though Ahaziah falls from a height at the beginning of the story, he dies in a “high place” from which he never comes down. There’s some kind of profound reversal here, but its precise character eludes.