2 Kings 1:3 - Exposition

The angel of the Lord . It would be better to translate, with the LXX ; an angel ( ἄγγελος , not ὁ ἄγγελος ). An angel had appeared to Elijah on a previous occasion ( 1 Kings 19:5 , 1 Kings 19:7 ). Elijah the Tishbite . Arise, go up. Elijah was, apparently, in the low tract of the Shefelah, or in Sharon, when the messengers started, and was thus commanded to go up and meet them, or intercept them on their journey before they descended into the plain. God would not have the insult to his majesty, carried out. Is it not because there is not a God in Israel? rather, Is it that there is no God at all in Israel ? The double negative is intensitive, and implies that the king's consultation of Baal-zebub, god of Ekron, is a complete and absolute denial of the Divinity of Jehovah. To consult a foreign oracle is equivalent to raying that the voice of God is wholly silent in one's own land. This was going further in apostasy than Ahab had gone (see 1 Kings 22:6-9 ).