Touché!

The Kingdoms of Israel and Aram were at war. The King of Aram was getting really frustrated, though, because somehow Israel seemed to know their battle plans ahead of time and managed to avoid the places the Arameans tried to attack! They went to the locations where they knew the Israelites would be, and over and over, there was nobody there to attack! So much for the element of surprise.

So the Aramean King decided they must have a traitor. He called his army together and said, “All right, who is warning the Israelites what we’re going to do?”

“Nobody,” they replied, “but their prophet Elisha seems to know an awful lot about our plans! He’s been warning their King.” So their new target became Elisha. They had to get him out of the way so they could go back to defeating their enemy! They found him in the city of Dothan, and they surrounded the city. When Elisha’s servant got up, he discovered a bunch of scary enemy soldiers all around the city walls, and they were after Elisha! The servant went to his master, terrified. “Don’t worry,” Elisha said, “There are a lot more people with us than with them!”

Now the servant was confused. “But it’s just you and me. What are you talking about?”

So Elisha prayed, “Lord, please open his eyes!”

His servant couldn’t believe what he saw! The Aramean army may have been surrounding the city of Dothan, but surrounding them, all over the hills, was a powerful army with horses and fiery chariots!

So Elisha prayed again, “Lord, please blind the Aramean army!” So God did that. Then Elisha went up to the enemy and said, “This isn’t the right road or city, but I’d be happy to help you. Follow me!” So Elisha started leading a confused and blind army away from Dothan, making plenty of noise so they would be sure to hear him, since they couldn’t see him.

When they got to where they were going, Elisha prayed, “OK, Lord, please open their eyes now.” The Aramean army was shocked to find themselves in Samaria, right under the nose of the King of Israel!

When the Israelite King saw that Elisha had led the enemy right to them, he was excited. He asked Elisha, “Should I kill them?”

But the prophet had another surprise up his sleeve. Both the Israelites and the Arameans were shocked to hear Elisha’s next words: “Nope! Don’t kill them! I have a better idea…let’s prepare a feast for them and be kind to them instead!”

It was the last thing anyone had expected. The enemy got a big feast, and they went back home with one less enemy. If they were gonna be nice to them, there wasn’t much point in Aram attacking Israel, so the attacks stopped.

Naaman

He was an important commander in the army of the Kingdom of Aram. He had risen through the ranks, and led the Aramean army to victory after victory. His country loved him because he helped to make them more powerful than ever. But one day, he met an enemy that no army could defeat. It made it hard for him to lead his army as this enemy kept him away from the soldiers he commanded. He had never encountered anything like this before. This wasn’t even a person he was fighting this time. The commander’s name was Naaman, and he was in a battle for his life against the feared enemy called leprosy. It causes the skin to look scaly and awful. It can lead to deformed fingers and toes. Lepers can’t feel pain, so that can lead to some more serious injuries. It’s even a bit contagious. Now there are treatments for the disease, but back then, the only thing people could do was move away from others so they wouldn’t spread it. What was this important commander to do? He wasn’t used to being helpless against a fearsome enemy.

Some time earlier, bands of Aramean raiders had gone into the neighboring Kingdom of Israel and taken captives. One of these captives was a young girl who became the slave of Naaman’s wife. This slave girl cared for her master and mistress, and one day she suggested to her mistress, “Back home, I heard of a man who might be able to help. There’s a prophet in Samaria who can cure him.”

So Naaman went to the King of Aram and told him what his wife’s slave girl had said. The King sent Naaman with a letter to the King of Israel that said, “I’m sending you my servant Naaman so you can cure him of his leprosy.”

When the King of Israel got the note, he said, “Are you kidding? Who does your king think I am, God? I can’t cure leprosy!”

When Elisha found out the King had thrown a fit, he went to him and said, “Whoa, what happened? Have the guy come to my house, and he’ll know there’s a prophet in Israel.”

So Naaman set out to Elisha’s house. When he was almost there, he met a messenger who said, “Elisha says you’re supposed to go to the Jordan River and wash yourself seven times.”

“WHAT?!” Naaman cried. “That’s disgusting! Why does it have to be the Jordan River? Surely the rivers back home would have been better! Here I came all this way to have a prophet call on his God, wave his staff, say the magic words and heal me! Now what? The Jordan River?! Ewww!”

But his servants pointed out, “Wouldn’t you do it if the prophet told you to do some heroic deed to be healed? How hard can it be to have seven baths in the Jordan?”

“Oh, all right,” he said. He washed himself in the river once. Twice. Three times. What was happening? Four times. Five times. It was getting better! Six times. Seven times. Naaman’s skin was smooth and normal again! The leprosy had been defeated!

He couldn’t believe it. This seemed too good to be true! He and his servants hurried back to Elisha with the news. He had brought a bunch of treasure and clothes to pay for his treatment, but Elisha wouldn’t take any of it. From then on, Naaman vowed to serve the one true God who had healed him of his leprosy.

Unending Oil and Shunammite Resurrection

Elisha’s world had turned upside-down. He was working in the field one day when some guy named Elijah came along and told him to come be a prophet. After a few years of training, Elisha watched his teacher taken from him in one of the most dramatic ways imaginable. The fiery horses and chariot disappeared into the sky, the waters of the Jordan River parted, and Elisha started a new life as a prophet. As he had requested, God granted him a lot of prophetic power, and with God’s help, he did some amazing things.

One day, another prophet’s time came to go. We don’t know this prophet’s name, but he had a wife and two sons, and they were left very poor when he died. The woman had bills to pay, and no way to pay them! At that time, that only left one option. The people she owed the bills to would be coming any day to take her sons away to be slaves! She loved her sons, and she didn’t want to lose them! So she found Elisha and told him about their problem.

“What do you have in your house?” Elisha said.

“We hardly have anything!” she replied. “Just a small jar of olive oil!”

So Elisha told her what she needed to do. It sounded really weird, but she knew Elisha knew what he was talking about. Following his advice, she went around to all her neighbors and asked for as many empty jars as they could spare. Pretty soon, there were lots and lots of empty jars in their house. Then the woman and her sons shut their door and went to work. They took their tiny jar of oil and started pouring it into an empty jar. When that was full, they started filling another one. That filled up, and they poured oil into a third jar! It just kept coming and coming out of the tiny jar until all the jars in the house were full!

“Bring me another jar!” she said to one of her sons.

“That’s it!” he replied. “They’re all full!” Then the oil stopped flowing.

So she went to Elisha and reported the amazing news. “Great!” he said. “Now go sell the oil. You’ll earn enough from that to pay your debts and to support your family!”

Not all the people Elisha helped were poor. He often visited a rich couple in the town of Shunem. In fact, he came so often that they decided to build a guest room on their roof so that he would have a place to stay when he visited. Elisha and his servant Gehazi really appreciated their hospitality, and Elisha wondered what they could do to help this Shunammite woman and her husband. They even offered to speak to the King on her behalf, but she didn’t think that was necessary. Elisha and Gehazi were brainstorming what they could do to help them when Gehazi pointed out that the woman didn’t have any children, and her husband was old. So Elisha told the woman, “This time next year, you’ll be holding a son.”

“No, don’t get my hopes up!” the woman said. But just as promised, she got pregnant and had a son.

A few years passed. The boy grew, and his parents loved him. One day, he found his dad working in the fields and complained, “My head hurts!” His dad asked a servant to carry the boy home, and the boy’s mom held him. He was very sick, and pretty soon he died. The woman couldn’t believe it. God had done a miracle by giving her this child, and now the boy was dead! She carried his body up to Elisha’s room and hurried to find Elisha. She found him at Mount Carmel, and he saw her and recognized her from a distance. He sent Gehazi ahead to find out what was the matter, and she said, “Everything’s fine.” But as she got closer, he told Gehazi, “She’s very sad, but God hasn’t told me why.”

So the woman said, “Did I ask you for a son? Didn’t I tell you not to get my hopes up?” When he found out the boy was dead, Elisha was alarmed. He told Gehazi, “Take my staff and run. Don’t stop for anything or anyone, and when you get to their home, lay my staff on the boy’s body.” The woman refused to go with Gehazi, though, unless Elisha went with her. So while Gehazi ran on ahead, Elisha and the Shunammite woman hurried back to the house. Before they got there, Gehazi came running back from the house and said, “I did what you said, but the boy is still dead!”

The first thing Elisha tried hadn’t worked. So when he got to the house, he went upstairs and found the boy laying on the bed. Elisha knelt down and prayed. Then he did something really strange. He laid facedown on top of the boy, eyes to eyes, mouth to mouth, hands to hands. Maybe it was something like CPR? The boy’s skin was cold, as it usually is for dead people, but pretty soon, it got warm. Elisha stood up and walked back and forth, then tried again. The boy sneezed and opened his eyes!

So Elisha had Gehazi get the Shunammite woman, and when she came in the room, she was overjoyed to find her son alive! God had just brought a boy back from the dead!

Chariot of Fire

Queen Jezebel was furious! The prophet Elijah had called a contest on Mt. Carmel, and not only had her side lost, but her god Baal was humiliated, and she had lost a bunch of Baal’s priests! She only saw one possible solution: Elijah must die! In fact, Jezebel was so angry that she promised that if he wasn’t dead by the next day, she didn’t care how badly her gods punished her!

As soon as Elijah got word, he was outta there! He ran to the desert and collapsed, exhausted and scared, under a bush. He was so upset that he prayed that God would let him die! Then he fell asleep. An angel woke him up and gave him something to eat and drink. When he was done eating, he fell asleep again. Later, the angel came back and said, “Get up and eat. You have a long journey ahead of you.” So he got up and ate. Then he walked 40 days and nights until he got to Mt. Horeb. Once there, Elijah hid in a cave. After listening to Elijah pour out his complaints, God told him to stand at the mouth of the cave and promised to pass by. When Elijah got to the mouth of the cave, there was a fierce wind, then an earthquake, and then a fire. But God wasn’t in any of those. Then Elijah heard a quiet voice ask, “What are you doing here?” So Elijah poured out his complaints again.

In response, God gave Elijah some instructions. “Go to Damascus and anoint Hazael King of Syria. Then anoint Jehu King of Israel. Then find a guy named Elisha and train him to replace you as prophet. Between the three of them, many enemies will be defeated.”

So Elijah obeyed God’s instructions. After anointing Hazael and Jehu, Elijah found Elisha working in a field. Elijah threw his coat around Elisha. That meant he was inviting him to a new life of service to God. Elisha sacrificed his cows, said good bye to his parents, and left.

Elijah trained Elisha, and time passed. Israel’s evil King Ahab died in battle, and his son Ahaziah took his place. He was also evil and pretty soon Ahaziah died and his brother Joram took his place.

Some time had passed by now, and Elijah knew his time had come to go. He told Elisha to stay in Gilgal while he went on to Bethel. But Elisha insisted on going along. Other prophets also tried to convince Elisha to stay, but he insisted on going. So Elisha went with Elijah to Bethel, then to Jericho. Prophets at every stop tried to convince Elisha to stay, but he insisted on going with Elijah. The two of them got to the Jordan River, and Elijah took off his coat and hit the water with it. The water parted just like it had for Joshua many years earlier! Once the two prophets got across the river on dry ground, Elijah said, “What would you like, before I go?”

Elisha replied, “I’d like double the prophetic power that you have!” He didn’t feel worthy to succeed Elijah, and he knew he would need a lot of help from God.

“Wow, that’s a tall order!” Elijah said. “But if you see God taking me away, you’ll get it.”

While they were walking and talking, a fiery chariot pulled by fiery horses swooped out of the sky and took Elijah up in a whirlwind! Elisha cried out, “My father! You’re worth all the horses and horsemen of Israel!” Elisha tore his clothes in grief, and then picked up Elijah’s coat, which Elijah had dropped. He watched his mentor disappear into the sky in a fiery whirlwind of horses, then walked slowly back to the Jordan River. When he got there, he hit the water with Elijah’s coat, and it parted again!

When he got back across, the prophets from Jericho were there waiting. They could tell Elisha had gained a lot of prophetic power, to be able to part the waters of the Jordan with God’s help! That was no small river. They offered to go search for Elijah, but he told them not to bother. When they insisted, he said, “Fine, go ahead!” But of course they couldn’t find him. Elijah had just become one of only two people in the Old Testament to be taken to heaven without dying.

שְׁמוּאֵל

The day Hannah had dreamed about all her life, and prayed for and wept for, finally arrived! For a long time, she had come to the tabernacle to ask God to give her a child. She had even promised that if God gave her a child, she would give him or her to God’s service. The priest Eli had thought Hannah was drunk, but when she explained why she was so upset, he had told her to go in peace. She had thanked him for his kindness and left.

Now, about nine months later, here she was holding a newborn baby in her arms! To thank God for hearing her prayer, she named the boy “God Has Heard”:

שְׁמוּאֵל

In Hebrew, “God has heard” is שְׁמוּאֵל (Shmuel), which sounds something like “Samuel.” He was a healthy baby boy, and Hannah was very thankful for this precious gift God had given her. She remembered her promise she had made to God, but she knew it wouldn’t be a good idea to take him to the tabernacle right away. It’s kinda hard for a priest to nurse a newborn baby. So when he was little, Hannah kept her new son at home and nursed him.

When Samuel was old enough, Hannah and her husband Elkanah took their son to the tabernacle. Hannah found Eli and said, “Remember a few years ago, when you saw me crying in the tabernacle, and you thought I was drunk? I told you I was very sad that God hadn’t given me any children, and I prayed for a son. Guess what! Here he is! I promised that when he was old enough, I would give him to God’s service, and now I’ve come to do what I promised I would do. For as long as he lives, he will be God’s servant.”

Then Hannah prayed. She told God, “You make me happy, and there is no God like you. You keep us safe, and You give things to people who are low and shame the people who brag. You bring down the strong, but you give strength to the weak. You give and take life. You make people rich or poor. You lift the homeless out of the dump and give them places of honor. You protect people who are loyal to You, but evil people will die in darkness. We can only win victories with Your help. Anyone who attacks You will be destroyed. You will judge the earth and give power to Your chosen king.”

After Hannah had prayed and they had said their goodbyes, Elkanah and Hannah went home, and they left Samuel to grow up in the tabernacle, under the able care of Eli. So Eli started to teach this young boy the way of God and had him do chores and lessons in the tabernacle. Eli was getting old, and he wasn’t in very good shape. In fact, he was a bit on the heavy side. So it was nice to have a young child around to help him out.

But Eli had a big problem. His sons Hophni and Phinehas were also priests, and they had a very bad habit. People would bring animals to the tabernacle to sacrifice to God, and they stole some of the meat for themselves! They sometimes didn’t even let people do the sacrifices right. God got very angry with Eli’s sons for the terrible and selfish thing they were doing.

As Samuel was growing up, his mother Hannah visited him regularly, and she would bring him clothes she had made for him. Every year, Eli would tell Hannah and Elkanah, “God gave you Samuel in answer to your prayers. I pray that God will give you more children to take his place.” God answered Eli’s prayer and gave Hannah three more sons and two daughters.

Eli was getting a lot of complaints about his sons’ behavior. Finally he had had enough with their shenanigans, and he went to them and said, “What are you thinking? Stop this horrible behavior! Hurting a person is one thing – you can always make up for it. But when you commit a crime against God, you’re playing with fire.” But they were so rebellious that they didn’t listen to their dad. And he let them keep stealing from God.

So God sent a prophet to Eli, who warned him that God had decided to put an end to Eli’s family. The prophet warned him that nobody in his family would live to an old age, and his family’s life would be sad. Someday soon his sons Hophni and Phinehas would both die on the same day, and God would raise up a new priest who would not be related to them, and who would help God’s chosen king.

By this time, Eli was nearly blind. God hardly ever spoke to people so they could actually hear Him. (That’s the same today. I’ve never heard God’s voice with my ears. I have to listen in other ways.)

One night, Samuel was sleeping on a mat in the tabernacle near the Ark of the Covenant, God's holy chest, when he heard a voice. "!שְׁמוּאֵל" (“Samuel!”)

He ran to Eli and said, “I’m here! What do you want?”

But Eli said, “I didn’t call you. Go back to bed.” So Samuel obeyed.

A little later, he heard it again. “Samuel!”

So he got up and went to Eli again. “Here I am! What do you want?”

Again, Eli said, “I didn’t call you. Go back to sleep.”

Now Samuel was starting to realize that he didn’t recognize this voice. It didn’t quite sound like Eli’s voice, but there was nobody else around that it could be. So when he heard his name again, he went to Eli and asked what he wanted.

Then Eli realized what was happening. So he told Samuel, “If you hear someone call your name again, stay in bed and say, ‘I’m listening, Lord. What do you want me to do?’”

So Samuel went back to bed. Pretty soon, he heard it again. “Samuel! Samuel!”

This time, he stayed in bed. “I’m listening,” he said. “What do You want me to do?”

So God said, “Samuel, something is about to happen that will shock everyone. Eli and his family will be punished for his sons’ behavior. Eli knew his sons were doing some terrible things, and he let them get away with it. I warned him about this, but he didn’t listen to how serious it was. His family has done too many disgusting things.”

Next morning, Samuel got up and opened the doors to the tabernacle. He was scared to tell Eli what he had heard. How would you feel if you had just heard that the people you love who raised you were in big trouble, and then they asked you about what you had heard?

The first thing Eli said in the morning when he saw Samuel was, “Samuel, my boy, come here!”

“Here I am,” Samuel said.

“What did God say to you?” Eli asked. “Tell me everything.”

So reluctantly, Samuel told Eli everything. Eli replied, “He is God. He will do what’s right.”

Samuel continued to grow up, and God blessed him. Everything Samuel said came true, and he earned a reputation for being God’s prophet.

As for Eli’s family, his sons Hophni and Phinehas were killed in battle by their enemies the Philistines. The Philistines also captured the Ark of the Covenant. When Eli found out that both his sons had been killed and the Ark was gone, the shock was too much for him. He fell backwards in his chair. He broke his neck in the fall and couldn’t get up. If he had lived a little longer, he could have met his new grandson. Phinehas’ wife was so upset about her husband’s death and the capture of the Ark that she named her son “No Glory”, or Ichabod.

What happened to the Ark? The Philistines put it in their temple to their god Dagon. Next morning, they discovered the statue of Dagon had fallen over! So they put it back. The following morning, they discovered the statue had not only fallen over, but had broken into several pieces! The Philistines could tell they had made Israel’s God very angry, and they sent the Ark back.

I wrote "Samuel" (Shmuel) on the whiteboard in Hebrew.

High Noon on the Israelite Front

This morning's Sunday school lesson...


There were evil queens, and then there was Jezebel. She was a special kind of evil. She was born the daughter of the King of the neighboring kingdom of Sidon, and Israel’s King Ahab thought she was so beautiful she was irresistible. He married this Sidonian princess, and she became Queen of Israel. To honor his new bride, Ahab built a temple and statue of her god Baal. Remember him? In addition, Ahab built a pole for Jezebel’s goddess Asherah.

Jezebel

Painted by John Byam Liston Shaw

Oil on canvas, 1896

The one true God was furious.

God sent His prophet Elijah to Ahab and Jezebel to tell them that God was so angry that He would send a severe famine to Israel, and it would last for several years. So Elijah obeyed God and gave that message to the King and Queen. Sure enough, the famine came, and it was a doozy. 

Jezebel was so angry at God that she decided to take her own revenge. Maybe she couldn’t kill God, but she could kill His prophets. There were a lot of prophets at the time, and she hunted them down and murdered them. In fact, if it weren’t for the undercover prophet Obadiah hiding a bunch of them in caves and giving them stuff to eat and drink, many more prophets would have died.

So God sent Elijah with a challenge for Ahab and Jezebel. Elijah stood before the King and Queen and said, “Tell you what. You send 450 prophets of Baal and 400 prophets of Asherah. We’ll meet on Mt. Carmel and see whose god is greater.” So Ahab sent word for the prophets of the false gods to come to the showdown.

Mt. Carmel

(I pointed out that there were no roads or poles in Elijah's time)

The day of the showdown came. Elijah said to the people of Israel and all the prophets of Baal and Asherah, “Come on, guys! Either God is God, or Baal is god! You can’t keep changing your minds! Either serve God or Baal!”

Then he laid down the rules. “We’re gonna have a contest. I get one bull, and the 450 prophets of Baal get another one. Team Baal gets to build an altar, and I’ll build an altar, and we’ll each put our bull on it. But don’t set fire to the wood. Whichever god is real will send fire down from heaven and burn up the offering.”

Team Baal was getting pretty smug. These were great odds! 450 prophets against one man. Elijah didn’t stand a chance!

And so it began. Elijah let Team Baal go first. They built their altar and put their bull on it and cried out, “Baal, listen to us! Send fire to burn up the bull!” They had been dancing, chanting, pleading and doing other stuff for a few hours when Elijah decided to start cheering them on. So around noon he called out some suggestions. “Come on! If Baal is god, he can’t hear you! You gotta yell louder! He could be thinking really hard! Maybe he didn’t get the memo about the contest today and had a conflict! Oh, I know! Maybe he had to go to the bathroom! He could be traveling! Look at that idol of him! Don’t you think he looks tired? Maybe he’s asleep! You should yell louder and wake him up!” So their dances and shouts and other stuff got louder and more intense.

The same picture as above,

but darkened in Photoshop

to indicate that it was getting dark

It was getting on to evening, and still no response from Baal. Finally, Elijah had had enough of that. He said, “OK, my turn.” By this time, all the hubbub had done some serious damage to Elijah’s altar that he had built. So he put it back together using twelve stones, one for each tribe of Israel. Then he dug a trench around it, and put the wood and his bull on top. He said, “OK, now I need someone to get four big jars of water and pour it over the altar!” When they had done that, he said, “Do it again!” So they did it again. “Do it a third time!” So they did it a third time. By this time, the water had drenched the wood, the bull, and even filled the trench. There was no way this was gonna set on fire, no matter how hard anyone tried setting it.

Then Elijah prayed. He asked God to show His power so that nobody would have any doubt who was God.

And it happened.

Fire fell from heaven and burned up the soaked wood, the bull, and even the stones and the mud around it, and it completely evaporated the water!

PowerPoint slide - I animated the fireball when it came in.

The people of Israel fell down and worshiped God. Now they could see that the Lord was God and Baal wasn’t. At God’s command, Elijah told them to capture the prophets of Baal, and those prophets didn’t live to tell the tale.

And for the first time in three years, it rained. The drought was finally over. In fact, there was a big storm. God gave Elijah strength to run all the way to Jezreel, which was a long way away.

The next day, Jezebel got the news. The jig was up, and her evil minions were dead. She could hardly contain her rage, and she swore to her gods, “I don’t care how badly my gods punish me, but let them do their worst if Elijah isn’t dead by this time tomorrow!”

Elijah had obeyed God, and now he was on Jezebel’s Most Wanted List! When he got the news, he was terrified and ran for his life, way far into the wild. Finally he couldn’t run any more and he collapsed under a bush. He was so desperate and scared and exhausted that he prayed, “God, I can’t take it any more! Just kill me!” And he fell asleep.

Der Prophet Elias

Painted by Daniele da Volterra

Oil on canvas, c. 1550-1560

Pretty soon, an angel touched him and said, “Get up! Eat!” He opened his eyes and saw some bread baked over hot coals and a jar of water, and he ate and fell asleep again. Later, the angel woke him up again and said, “Get up and eat. You have a long journey ahead of you.” So he ate and drank again.  God gave him enough food this time that it was enough to keep him going for forty days of walking. After about a month and a half, he finally reached Mt. Horeb (Sinai). 500 years earlier, God had spoken to Moses on this mountain, and now it was Elijah’s turn. He went into a cave and went to sleep.

When telling about the earthquake, 

I made this shake in the PowerPoint.

When he woke up, God said to him, “What are you doing here?”

So Elijah answered, “I’ve lived my life for You, obeyed You, and all I’ve seen is the people of Israel turning away from You to Baal, tearing down Your altars and killing Your prophets. Now they’re trying to kill me!”

God said, “Go out onto the mountain. I’m gonna pass by.” Suddenly, the wind picked up. Elijah could hardly stand, it was so strong! However, he didn’t hear God passing in the wind. No sooner had it died down, then the earth beneath him started to shake violently! They didn’t have a Richter Scale back then, but it would have been pretty strong, as earthquakes go. It broke rocks and tore mountains apart! But once again, Elijah couldn’t sense God. The earthquake died down, and a wildfire sprang up! Still no sense of God.

Then the fire died down and he heard it in the calm after the wild weather. A whisper.

Man standing in front of a cave entrance

Stock photo

So Elijah came out of the cave and listened to God whisper, “What are you doing here?”

He repeated his lament: “I’ve lived my life for You, obeyed You, and all I’ve seen is the people of Israel turning away from You to Baal, tearing down Your altars and killing Your prophets. Now they’re trying to kill me!”

Then God laid out His instructions. “Go back to Israel. On the way, I want you to anoint Hazael King of the neighboring kingdom of Aram, and find a guy named Jehu, the son of Nimshi. Jehu is my choice for you to anoint king of Israel to replace Ahab. Not only that, but I’m giving you a helper. Go to the farm of Shaphat and get his son Elisha. He will be your apprentice and your heir. Hazael, Jehu and Elisha will do some amazing things. Oh, and you think you’re alone? There are 7000 people in Israel that I’ve been saving for this day. They haven’t worshiped Baal. Don’t worry. You are not alone.”